Omar Khadr 'happy to be home,' says lawyer

[magedragonfire]

After years of detention at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Omar Khadr has returned to Canada to serve the rest of his sentence at a maximum security facility in eastern Ontario and is reported by his lawyers to be ‘happy to be home.’Khadr landed at CFB Trenton Saturday morning where he was transferred, in shackles, to the Millhaven

Comments

[kagehikario]

Wait, why is Vic Toews the one in charge of this? Does this fall under his portfolio?

Well, baby steps in the right direction I guess? :\

[magedragonfire]

I have no idea if it's a usual thing, but it seems to be implied by the article that they're making sure the big bad Khadr can't harm the rest of us. 'Specially this quote from Toews: "ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration". *eyeroll*

[poetic_pixie_13]

Dear _p

[tabaqui]

Everything you just said here.

[magedragonfire]

Hear, hear.

[maynardsong]

That, and his actions/circumstances make him a former child soldier. Anywhere else in the world, we'd fucking understand that the protocol for child soldiers is to rehabilitate them. With the endgame of them joining the community at large again, as contributing citizens.
This case here, and others dealing with really young prisoners, seems to be a combination of a unique bigotry we hold against the Middle East and this idealization of children, being ONLY able to see them as victims who are incapable of doing wrong. Like, we're supposed to rehabilitate child soldiers and undo the damage that was done to them, but that doesn't somehow mean that the child soldiers themselves haven't done horrific things. Somehow, people don't get that.

[redstar826]

why was Canada so reluctant to take him?

[tallycola]

Because Harper loves America and hates brown people.

[tabaqui]

I'm confused. How is killing someone in a firefight and throwing a grenade during a war something you go to prison for? Most of our military should be in prison if these are 'illegal actions'.

Doing that on a civilian street or in a school or something, yes, but - while two opposing forces are trading gunfire?

I am baffled.

Gitmo is a blight, a stain, a revolting and shameful blot on humanity and every day it holds prisoners is a bad day. Of all the things the President has done and not done, this is the one that I am most angry about. I know that it's not 100 percent on his head, but i really feel he could have tried harder on this.

I hope he does in his second term.

[redstar826]

I'm confused. How is killing someone in a firefight and throwing a grenade during a war something you go to prison for?

That's what I don't get. I think it's pretty normal for both sides in a war to try to take prisoners if they have the chance to do so, but this idea of charging prisoners of war with a crime and then sentencing them for a set amount of time is confusing to me. Plus all the added issues of him being a child soldier as opposed to an adult who was not forced to fight.

[tabaqui]

Yeah, all this. Especially the child-soldier bit. No child willingly goes to war, and no child willingly kills. He should *never* have been charged with anything to begin with.

It's as obscene as if they were charging those boys in Africa who were kidnapped into the Army.

[maynardsong]

It's as obscene as if they were charging those boys in Africa who were kidnapped into the Army.

Exactly. That's exactly what came to my mind.

But no child willingly kills? Child soldiers are brainwashed into doing horrific things that they DO learn to take pleasure in though. It is one of the challenges to reintegration, dealing with the fact that they're both victims and perpetrators.

[radname]

This would explain why that ~secret tape~ was leaked to MacLeans. Trying to set the agenda and sway parole board maybe?