A child soldier or just a child?

[kpete]

Source: Los Angeles Times

A child soldier or just a child?
Mark Wilson / AFP/Getty Images
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES: The chief prosecutor of the tribunal dismisses critics’ contentions that juveniles are prohibited from being held accountable for war crimes.
Omar Khadr was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan in 2002. His Guantanamo trial raises ethical questions.

By Carol J. Williams
December 27, 2008

Reporting from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- Two days after he was pulled unconscious from the rubble of a bombed Al Qaeda compound in southern Afghanistan, 15-year-old Omar Khadr lay strapped to a gurney, his left eye blinded by shrapnel, gunshot wounds to his back still raw.

U.S. agents who conducted the first interrogation of the Canadian teen at Bagram air base near Kabul on July 29, 2002, gauged the effects of their questioning by the blood pressure meter attached to their inert subject. The injured teen could do little more than grunt.

The latest, and possibly last, sessions of the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal have revealed disturbing details about how Khadr was treated during three months at Bagram in the custody of U.S. forces who were convinced he had thrown a grenade that killed an American soldier.

Subsequent interrogations during more than six years in U.S. custody have involved snarling dogs, "stress positions" and being upended by guards and used as a human mop to clean the floor.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-guantanamo-kids27-2008dec27,0,2276583.story

[seemslikeadream]

1. THE CROW ON THE CRADLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Py5I8Z-aM0

[polly7]

2. "being upended by guards and used as a human mop to clean the floor"

I feel sick. I guess he was lucky, he could have been harnessed up and ridden like a donkey on the cement like the older woman in Iraq. I dunno ....... some of us don't deserve to be called human.

[Hydra]

3. Look, it's a "Dangerous Terrorist!"

:puke:

They must think we're scared out of our minds by the "ragheads" to be excusing this sort of thing "for our protection"

And to think- some people think this is a nation of brave people. It's a nation of fools.

[B o d i]

5. If he didn't hate America to the depths of his soul 6+ years ago...

I bet he does now.

Even if he were completely innocent when arrested, how could we release him now after what we've turned him into?

[Mnemosyne]

9. We release him because it is the right thing to do. Guaranteed, he

despises us, wouldn't you?

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[B o d i]

11. Release him where? Afghanistan? Canada?

South Side L.A.? :shrug:

[Mnemosyne]

12. I can't really answer that,

I just know we have grievously harmed him and he should not be forced to continue to suffer for our 'mistake'.

[lolly]

14. We're responsible for him now

I think the earlier poster's point was that he's now probably a non-functioning human being. What can he do? How can he take care of himself?

If we just "release" him without some kind of rehabilitation, what chance does he have?

[Mnemosyne]

16. We owe him rehab, if even mentally possible now, and much more. I never meant to just throw him

out to fend for himself.

Full-time nurses, etc., etc.

But to continue to hold him in prison?

NO FUCKING WAY!

[Gwendolyn]

13. He has a mother and sister who live(d) in Pakistan.

Although I believe they went back to Canada to get medical treatment.

However, he does have a brother residing in Canada who left the family, and would hopefully take him in. This boy has been severely damaged, but at least some semblance of a life might be salvaged.

[kdmorris]

4. I hope Obama's first act is to stop this insanity

And that's saying a lot, because there's been a huge amount of insanity for the last 8 years.

Now 22, Khadr has spent almost a third of his life in U.S. custody. He was raised in a militant Muslim family and was surrounded in his teen years by holy warriors. His lawyers describe him as confused, immature and emotionally damaged.

We will never know what this young man was going to become. What we do know is that he was "arrested" on completely made up charges after a building he was in was bombed. We know he has been treated abominably for the last 6 years and that it is possible he will never be able to recover from the treatment he suffered...in our name.

[gratuitous]

6. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Hard to sing those words when you consider how scared our entire nation is of a 15-year-old, one-eyed kid with gunshot wounds in his back. And to think that there are some people who were all bent out of shape when Rev. Wright said, "God damn America." Yes, God damn any country that can do this to a 15-year-old. Particularly one that imagines itself as powerful and moral as the United States does.

[sandyd921]

7. Makes me feel ashamed to be an American. n/t

[Shardik]

8. K&R and see this to reinforce your story here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x253504

[Gwendolyn]

10. There are a couple of really in-depth stories out there about this boy.

It seems that once he was captured it was realized what a "gold mine" of intel he might have. His fanatical father was a personal friend of Osama and the boy had met him several times. He was also supposedly sent out on minor "missions." So naturally, they salivated with glee once they realized who they had.

This kid's life could have been that of any normal, slightly nerdy, eager-to-learn Canadian kid. Instead, his father uprooted the family, put the children in harm's way (two other sons are dead martyrs) the US government captured and tortured him, the Canadian government washed their hands of the whole thing. What a terrible, awful fate.

[lolly]

15. Then it's a double tragedy

If we had had people with sense doing the interrogating, we might have gleaned some useful information.

Befriending the boy gradually, offering him a chance at a normal teenage life would probably have been more effective than torturing and humiliating him.

[Gwendolyn]

17. But even then, he was just a kid.

I would have to dig up the story but believe he was maybe 10 at the time. I don't know what useful info he would've had other than "they had cool toys in the house" or something along those lines.

The Canadians didn't want him back since the family is pretty much a pariah, so he's just lingered in the hell pit.