By Klaus Rohrich
Sunday, June 10, 2007
An interesting new development in the trial of Omar Khadr has generated renewed calls for Khadr to be brought home to Canada, ostensibly because he is a Canadian citizen and he hasn't been charged or convicted of breaking Canadian law. US forces in Afghanistan, you may recall, captured the 15-year old Khadr, five years ago after he allegedly threw a grenade that killed US Army medic Sgt. Christopher Speer.
I can't say whether or not Khadr really did it, as under Western law he is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a doubt. Having said that one wonders what a Canadian kid from Scarborough, Ontario was doing hanging out with the Taliban in the midst of battle. His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a known al Qaeda financier, so that goes a long way toward explaining the young lad's presence there. Chances are he wasn't there on a school field trip.
It irks me to hear bleeding hearts refer to the young Khadr as a "child soldier", as if he was somehow forced into that role and is not responsible for his actions. The idea that this "child-soldier", now 20 years old, should be repatriated to Canada is disturbing, to say the least. Here's a young man who has spent most of his life steeped in the hatred that is unique to Islamofascism and the last five years in captivity at Guantanamo Bay with some of al Qaeda's hardest cases. I can't imagine that young Omar would move back to Scarborough, get a job at the GM plant in Oshawa and become a productive member of Canadian society.
Chances are good that given Khadr's background we'll be hearing from him again, and it isn't likely that it will be because he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
As Western culture is predicated on the primacy of the Law, it puts us into an awkward position Vis-a-vis those currently being held at Guantanamo. At the end of World War II we did not face the type or moral/legal dilemma that we face today in dealing with purveyors of evil. We put Nazi functionaries on trial and those who were found guilty were sentenced. Today we are much more reticent to pronounce any acts as "evil" as we have managed to convince ourselves that all cultures are morally equivalent, even when the obverse can be empirically demonstrated.
Whether Omar Khadr and his fellow detainees were enemy combatants or "illegal" enemy combatants is now the pressing legal issue. If the Bush administration can prove to the courts that the detainees' were "illegal" combatants and proceed with a trial, then we might be spared having Khadr back in Canada any time soon. But that's wishful thinking, given the recent track record of legal setbacks that's plagued the Bush White House.
It's much more likely that Khadr will ultimately be set free on a legal technicality, return to Canada and continue his career as a terrorist.
Living under the rule of Law is what essentially makes us civilized. But occasionally that rule of Law comes back to bite us in the derrire as we are faced with the dilemma of what to do with rabid dogs.
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