Insomnia ([info]insomnia) wrote,
@ 2008-07-15 10:09:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Guantanamo gets ugly.


Around ten minutes of video have been released by the Canadian lawyers of Omar Khadr, a sixteen-year-old Canadian prisoner at Guantanamo, during his interrogation in 2003. The interrogators are Canadian intelligence agents, who heard from Khadr that he was abused and mistreated inside Guantanamo.  Additional video from the interrogation is available here.   

So, basically it shows a kid who initially says to the Canadian, in what I read as a rather fake tone, "well, actually, I'm very happy inside....", but completely changes his tone on the next day, claiming to have been abused and mistreated by his captors, before falling into complete despair with cries of "help me"... and, if I heard it right, "kill me".

So, what's to be thought of this?  I don't trust the kid, and I get the gut feeling that he isn't "innocent", but at the same time, he made a claim of abuse and mistreatment which the Canadian interrogator -- and government -- has largely ignored... and the situation that he is in currently is one where there is no real transparency or accountability.

Under the circumstances, can anyone give any good reasons why he shouldn't be tried and held in Canada?   

(Post a new comment)


[info]kallisti
2008-07-15 09:24 pm UTC (link)
Don't forget, the video you see is edited down from 7.5 hours of video.

And it doesn't matter if the kid did the deed or not...under the UN convention on Child Soldiers, he can be rehabilitated, just like the child soldiers from all other points of the globe, where innocent child are turned into murders through the use of torture, rape, abuse and blackmail.

He is the only Western citizen still held at Guantanamo, and every other western country has repatriated their prisoners...and Canada should have done it years ago.

But PM Harper will never do it...we have a joke we tell up here:

Q: What's long and blue and hangs between George Bush's legs?

A: Stephen Harper's tie!

ttyl

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]insomnia
2008-07-15 11:42 pm UTC (link)
I think you're right that this kid can probably be rehabilitated, though I have to wonder whether his long imprisonment would've made this considerably harder. It sounds as if his father really had a lot to do with his problems, frankly.

Harper is a disgrace, and yet so many Canadians -- especially in Western Canada -- seem so aggressively supportive of him and his ideology. This is surprising, considering how much credit most people in the world give to Canada for its liberalism, and also how discredited Bush has become in the U.S.

Bush and Harper work for the same team, and there are strong ties between neoconservative orgs / circles in the US and Canada. It's amazing, frankly, that Harper has been able to pretend otherwise.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]kallisti
2008-07-16 02:56 pm UTC (link)
I constantly tell people that Bush and Harper are cut from the same cloth. It is amazing that he has managed to keep it relatively quite about his Neo-Conservative connections...but that is mostly because Canadians are not as rabidly fascinated by politics, and think that the current Conservative party is just the old Progressive Conservative party...but it isn't, it is mostly the old Reform Party, the people who made Canadians nervous. But hopefully Stephen Dion, the head of the Liberal Party, will take off the gloves, and call Harper for what he is.

ttyl

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]kaifoxx
2008-07-15 10:41 pm UTC (link)
Nope.

(Reply to this)


[info]swingland
2008-07-16 01:40 am UTC (link)
watching this video, knowing it's been cut down to fit inside constraints, i feel so alien watching it. like i'm watching a different species.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]insomnia
2008-07-16 02:31 am UTC (link)
I agree... there's something very distorted about not just the video appearance of those involved, but also, I believe, in their behavior.

As if you could almost find yourself in the same situation, if only you were far less human.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]insomnia
2008-07-16 02:34 am UTC (link)
"...if only you were far less human."

But maybe not far enough.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]lianneb
2008-07-17 02:17 am UTC (link)
I'm another person (Canadian) who has some issues with the attitudes of the family, but as a result, I think that Omar cannot being wholly held responsible. He was 15 at the time, and the way he was raised made it impossible to react any other way. All his role-models had died in the attack, and he'd no doubt been told years of horror stories about what the American soldiers would do to him.

The problem is, at the time, he could have been rehabilitated (and multiple reports from various sources agreed), but now? Gitmo is breeding bitterness in a lot of detainees. Plus, I don't think that the US government will let him go, being desperate for trials/convictions to justify their actions. And Harper is too.... well, whatever, to demand his return.

And from what I understand, the film of the two questionings came after days of being 'softened up' by a think called 'frequent flyer', where they don't let him sleep, and move him from cell to cell, block to block, every few hours. After that, I'd be an emotional wreck too.

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…