Last Western Prisoner Leaves Guantanamo

http://www.thestar.com/specialsections/omarkhadr/article/1264339--omar-k...

Omar Khadr was 15 when he was wounded in a battle in Afghanistan in 2002. Since that time, he has been held in U.S. custody, primarily, in Guantanamo Prison. Not only was Khadr himself wounded during the battle, but U.S. Army Delta Forces Sergeant Christopher Speer was killed. In 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty before a military tribunal to five war crimes, including murder in the violation of war for the death of Sergeant Speer. {NOTE:: In researching this article I discovered that there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the charges made by the U.S. against Khadr. Four of the five charges are not violations of the accepted‘international rules of war’; those charges are: murder in violation of the law of war, attempted murder in violation of the law of war, conspiracy, and material support for terrorism. Those crimes are more correctly classified as violations of U.S. domestic law. However, that discussion is outside the scope of this article. For those interested, additional reading can be found here: http://opiniojuris.org/2010/05/26/the-non-existent-murder-in-violation-o...
http://www.crimesofwar.org/a-z-guide/war-crimes-categories-of/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/02/omar-khad...}

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Omar Khadr was born in Toronto, Canada in 1988. His father, Ahmed Khadr, is an enigmatic individual who was killed in Pakistan in 2003 in a shootout between al-Qaeda and Taliban forces and the Pakistani army. There is a great deal of dispute as to whether or not Ahmed Khadr was a humanitarian simply trying to help the impoverished peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan, or if he was a terrorist. What is not in dispute is that Ahmed Khadr shuttled his family back and forth between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Canada. One can only imagine how these moves shaped the young Omar’s view of the world as he moved between those two wildly different worlds.

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Omar was 15 years old in 2002 when he was captured on a battlefield in Afghanistan. By any country’s definition, that means he was a child soldier. However, the U.S. military did not classify Omar as a child soldier; instead, he was classified as an enemy combatant. Omar was held in prison without trial until October 2010. Whether he was subjected to torture is in dispute. He was allowed to be treated by a U.S. military psychiatrist, and he was allowed U.S. military counsel. Yet, for 10 years he was kept in prison, before he was finally tried before a U.S. military tribunal. Omar pleaded guilty and was given an 8 year sentence, which also included an agreement with the Canadian government that after serving one more year in Guantanamo prison, Omar would be transferred to a Canadian prison to complete his sentence. That transfer, more than a year over due, finally took place this month. Omar is now back in his native Canada. Based on Canadian law, he will be eligible for parole next year.

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There is no dispute that Omar Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured on a battlefield in Afghanistan. There is no dispute that the U.S. government allowed him to be held for 8 years without trial. A child soldier is captured in the midst of war by the most powerful country on the planet. A child soldier is held for 8 years in prison without trial by a country that considers itself a nation of laws. Omar Khadr made a mistake when he was 15 years old, he was a young man who made a mistake that can only be understood when one considers his age. The United States made a mistake when it imprisoned a child solder and held him without trial for 8 years. That mistake can only be understood when one considers the fact that our hysteria is greater than our laws.