Personally, I'm a little torn on what I think. On one hand, he comes from a known terrorist sympathizing family and he was taking part in a battle when he was captured. He now stands accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed a US medic.
However, the kid was born here, and was born into that kind of family. Did he ever have a chance to not believe that the West is the great Satan, and that he was defending the Holy land? He’s a kid, and apparently been manipulated his whole life. It’s a war on Terror, and he was in a middle of a battle. There is a whole legal quagmire set now because the US refuses to classify the Taliban fighters as soldiers (in which they have all the rights to the Geneva Convention and can’t be charged for murder and such for taking part in a battle). Instead, they are deemed “Enemy Combatants” and thus, they can be tried and they really don’t have any rights.
My issue is that he has been held for the last 5 years with out due course, he was a kid at the time of the incident, and in any other case, this would be a prisoner of war/child soldier that was defending the land of his origins against foreign invaders. We’re the only Allied country left to have anyone in Guantanamo. In my opinion, he is still a Canadian born into the wrong family, and even though we hate his family, our Countries ideals should have him treated fairly. I rather have followed Australia’s and Britain example and pulled him out and put into our system where he’ll be treated to due process. At 16, he was still salvageable; to maybe make something of himself. As Canadians, we’re better than that and we often like to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Instead, we’re abandoning him to a US military tribunal where I don’t believe he’s going to get a fair hearing.
I’m not saying to pull him out and set him free, but we shouldn’t do nothing either. No matter what, there won’t be any winners. The family of the dead Medic won’t get there son back. Khadr will never have a normal life. But we could hang on to the beliefs and ideals of a person’s rights and justice that we all have as Canadians.
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