Omar Khadr and the Crimes and Deceptions of the ‘War on Terror’
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1 [Do not post] Omar Khadr and the Crimes and Deceptions of the `War on Terror' Michael Keefer Not a single thing that we commonly believe about wars that helps keep them around is true. [¼.] The reasons given for wars, before, during, and after them (often three very different sets of reasons for the same war) are all false.1 1. A Triple Victim In whatever manner Canadians choose to interpret the so-called War on Terror, Omar Khadr must be one of the key figures whose involvement in it comes to mind. This child warrior, now a young man but still imprisoned, is best understood as a multiple victimÐbut one whose plight can move us toward an awareness of the ways in which the multiple deceptions of this war-without-end-or-limits threaten to victimize us all, by stripping away what remains of a system of democratic jurisprudence and international law. 1 David Swanson, War Is a Lie (Charlottesville, VA: DavidSwanson.org, 2010), p. 7. 2 Omar Khadr was a victim, first, of his father's political extremism. Even prior to making any judgment of the causes to which Ahmed Said Khadr devoted himselfÐ bringing humanitarian aid to Afghans suffering under the Soviet occupation and the fierce infighting that followed it, then joining the most ruthless wing of an Islamist campaign against the powers crushing Iraq and oppressing PalestineÐone can condemn the fanaticism that led him in 1994, when Afghanistan was still riven by civil war, to send Omar's older brothers Abdullah and Abdurahman, aged thirteen and twelve, to a military training camp there.2 In July 2002, after the Khadr family had taken refuge in the South Waziristan border region of Pakistan following the fall of the Taliban regime, he allowed Omar, aged fifteen, to accompany a group of men moving into the Khost region of Afghanistan on a guerilla mission that ended on July 27th with their deaths and Omar's near-death and capture. This was equally an act of fanaticism. International law recognizes child soldiers as victims, and their recruitment as a crime: Omar Khadr was a child soldier by the decision of his own father.3 But however wretched the consequences of this parental abuse, Omar Khadr's public significance stems from other more impersonal, but also more far-reaching forms of victimization. He has been a victim of the American imperial state, which in the Manichaean theatrics of its global war of good against evil imprisoned, tortured and demonized him; and he has been victimized as well by Canadian political leaders who, at first cravenly and then in a deliberate scorn of legality, have violated his rights as a Canadian citizen and refused their responsibilities to him under Canadian and international law. The grotesque injustice of Omar Khadr's treatment by the United States is widely recognized. Even were he guilty, as charged, of having killed an American soldier, his imprisonment and the pressing of charges against him remain a violation of Articles 37, 2 One adult militant in the camp (a spy, actually) appears to have been shocked by the noisy sibling quarrels of two ungoverned boys armed with automatic weapons. See Michelle Shephard, Guantanamo's Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr (Mississauga: Wiley, 2008), pp. 44-46. 3 Shephard (p. 82) indicates that the group's Libyan leader wanted Omar as a translator, because of his fluency in Pashto; but whatever the precise nature of his activities, he was still clearly part of a military expedition. 3 39, and 40 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,4 and the torture to which he has been subjected is a criminal matter for which senior US officials, including all of those responsible for the prisons at Bagram and at Guantánamo, deserve indictment. Let us remember some of the details of this treatment. During the July 27th, 2002 firefight in Khost in which all of the other members of the group he was with were killed, Omar Khadr received numerous splinter wounds, partially blinding him, from the initial aerial bombardment by Apache helicopters and A10 Warthog ground attack aircraft; he was then shot twice in the back, apparently by the first US soldier who entered the shattered compound, leaving gaping exit wounds in his chest. But despite his grievous injuries and his age, a confession that he had thrown the grenade that killed a US Delta Force soldier was extracted from him, by threats and by violence, while he was chained to his bed in the Bagram prison hospital.5 During his time in Bagram Khadr was subjected to stress-position torture, and according to another Bagram prisoner, British citizen Moazzam Begg, he was singled out by the guards there ªfor the worst treatment, payback for allegedly killing one of their own.º6 4 Article 37 provides that ªThe arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort for the shortest appropriate period of time. Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance¼.º Article 39, on Rehabilitative Care, provides that ªStates Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of: any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child.º Article 40 recognizes the right of a child accused of a crime ªto be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child's sense of dignity and worth,º and provides for ªhav[ing] the matter determined without delay by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body in a fair hearing according to law.º For the full text, see CRIN: Child Rights Information Network, http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/uncrc.asp. The US has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but professes to respect it. 5 ªCanada's role in the persecution of child soldier Omar Khadr,º World Socialist Web Site (30 October 2010), http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o30.shtml; see also ªAffidavit of Omar Ahmed Khadr, 22 February 2008,º Wikisource, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Affidavit_of_Omar_Ahmed_Khadr. 6 Shephard, Guantanamo's Child, p. 90; see also Khadr's ªAffidavit.º 4 But as senior US officers were aware from the beginning, the claims against Khadr were fraudulent. On February 4, 2008, a document inadvertently given to reporters during Khadr's pre-trial hearing showed that one of the men with him had also survived the aerial attack and could have thrown the grenade: a US soldier who entered the shattered compound reported killing this other man with a head shot, and then, seeing Khadr ªsitting up facing away from him leaning against the [pile of?] brush,º shooting him twice in the back.7 The diary of an officer that was made public on March 19, 2008 confirmed that one of the adults was still alive when American troops entered the compound: by this account, after the fighting was over the officer saw a US soldier execute the other still-living fighter with ª`controlled pairs,' or rapid execution-style firing,º and was about to order him to execute Khadr as well when special forces soldiers intervened and insisted Khadr should be given first aid.8 One might guess that Khadr's eye injuries and the posture in which he was first seen make it unlikely that he could have thrown a grenadeÐbut it turns out that speculation is unnecessary. In March 2008, Khadr's military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, revealed that the US commander's report written the day after the Khost firefight had ruled out Khadr by identifying the grenade-thrower as having been killedÐbut was then revised, months later (though falsely still given the same date), to say that the grenade-thrower was merely ªengagedº by US troops.9 At the Guantánamo Bay prison, where he arrived in October, 2002, Khadr was subjected to physical abuse, threats of rape, sleep-deprivation torture, very extended solitary confinement, and long periods of being ªshort-shackledº in stress positions to a concrete floor. When on one such occasion, after hours chained to the floor, he wet himself, the guards drenched him with floor cleanser, used him as a human mop to wipe up his own urine, and left him in his soiled and chemical-stained clothing for the next two 7 Shephard, pp. 224-25. 8 ªCaptured Khadr nearly executed: documents,º The Canadian Press, available in The Toronto Star (19 March 2008), http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/347974. 9 Michael Melia, ªUS accused of altering Gitmo evidence: Lawyers for Canadian Terror Suspect Say US Military Commander Altered Evidence,º Associated Press, available at Psyche, Science, and Society (13 March 2008), http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2008/03/13/fake-evidence-used-in-gitmo-trials/. 5 days.10 Khadr was also denied medical treatment for shrapnel injuries to his eyes and his legs. In April 2008, his lawyer Dennis Edney declared that he had by that time been locked in solitary confinement for a total of ªmore than two years with no relief from the overhead fluorescent lights,º and had been given ªno education, no psychological assessment and no Canadian consular representative.º11 Alfred W.