Omar Khadr: Growing Up In Gitmo

Omar Khadr at age 14 (in 2000)


Omar Khadr (born 9/19/86) is a Canadian who has been imprisoned in Guantanamo in connection with the alleged killing of a US soldier during a battle in Afghanistan in 2002. At the time of his capture by US forces, Khadr had been shot three times and was near death. Khadr was 15 at the time, a child soldier. He will be 22 in September. He has been detained in Gitmo for more than 6 years in essentially solitary confinement. Today some video of his interrogation was released in Canada.

The video is here via BBC. It is not of good quality, but the audio works. It is revolting.

Please join me in Gitmo.

The NY Times reports:

Video recordings released Tuesday showing interrogations of the only Canadian held at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba provided an unprecedented glimpse inside the compound.

The mood of the detainee, Omar Khadr, just 16 years old at the time of the interrogations, in February 2003, swings between calm and indifference to rage and grief in the recordings, which were released by his lawyers.

The video footage,... snip... shows Mr. Khadr pleading with a Canadian intelligence agent for help and, at one point, shows him displaying chest and back wounds that had still not healed months after his capture in Afghanistan. ...snip...

They show Mr. Khadr, who is accused of killing a United States soldier in Afghanistan during a battle in July 2002, being questioned by an unidentified member of the Canadian intelligence agency.

In all, about seven hours of recordings were given to Mr. Khadr’s lawyers, but the lawyers released a selection of only about 10 minutes of video recording on Tuesday.

Khadr has said he was abused by American interrogators both at Guantánamo Bay and in Afghanistan. With regard to the videos released today, Khadr apparently thought that the Canadian agent had come to help him. Later, he realized that the agent was only there to extract information from him:

Much of the material released shows Mr. Khadr — who is wearing an orange uniform — sobbing and repeatedly saying, in a moan, “Help me, help me.”

In the interrogation, Mr. Khadr says he wants to return to Canada, but the agent suggests that the situation is so good in Cuba he might want to stay there himself.

“The weather’s nice,” the interrogator, whose face was electronically obscured, said. “No snow.” ...snip...

At one point, [Khadr] lifts his shirt to show the agent the wounds on his back and stomach that were still not healed.

The agent, however, is unmoved. “I’m not a doctor, but I think you’re getting good medical care,” he responded.

Later, a sobbing Mr. Khadr said: “You don’t care about me.”

That's quite an understatement.

Many details sure to provoke outrage and shock about what has happened to Khadr are here in a Wiki, which notes his factual innocence of the killing, a Rolling Stone feature story, and Lisa Lockwood's excellent essay yesterday.

The capture, detention, yes, torture, and long term, solitary confinement of a child soldier, Omar Khadr, is the face the United States has put on display for all the world to see. This is the face of the Global War On Terror. This was an utterly mortifying display of barbarism before the video was released. And now, a small part of a very long detention can be viewed across the world in all of its inhumanity and obvious brutality. If there were any justice at all, Omar Khadr would be released.

According to the Times:

Amnesty International and several Canadian groups have been pressuring the Canadian government to ask the United States to return Mr. Khadr to Canada from Guantánamo Bay. Last week, however, Prime Minister Stephen Harper again rejected those calls.

Nathan Whitling, one of Mr. Khadr’s Canadian lawyers, said that he hoped the airing of the videos, which were prominently featured on the morning new programs of Canadian television networks, would change the government’s mind.

“The only way to get him released is through a political process,” Mr. Whitling said from his office in Edmonton, Alberta. “So we are pleading in the court of public opinion.”

I'm disgusted by Khadr's further confinement at Gitmo and want it to be viewed and weighed across the world in the court of public opinion.

Maybe that's where we can be of help to Omar Khadr. Maybe by spreading the word and writing and sending emails we can do something to galvanize public opinion about this case and ultimately free Omar Khadr.

Where In The World Is Diego Garcia?

A Map

Today UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband apologized to parliament. He admitted that US "special rendition" illegal extradition flights had landed on British soil despite earlier assurances that they hadn't.

Miliband said that on two occasions in 2002 US flights carrying "terrorist suspects" stopped to refuel at the airbase on the British Indian Ocean territory of Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia? You've got to be kidding. Look at the map. Why in heaven's name would a flight between any two points ever stop in Diego Garcia? Were the people being transported from or to Indonesia? Unfortunately, you cannot be told that, even though the flights were 6 years ago, if you were told, you'd have to be silenced.

The balance of the story from The Independent:

He said his concern about the case was shared by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

"We both agree that the mistakes made in these two cases are not acceptable and she shares my deep regret that this information has only just come to light," he said.

Mr Miliband told MPs that he was "very sorry indeed" to have to correct previous statements made by then prime minister Tony Blair and foreign secretary Jack Straw that rendition flights had not used British bases.

In other words, the previous statements by Blair and Straw and Rice and heaven knows who else were false. Regardless, the details about the two admitted flights are extremely limited:

Mr Miliband said that in each of the two cases, the aircraft involved had been carrying a single detainee - neither of them British - who did not leave the plane while it was on the ground at Diego Garcia.

One of those detainees has since been released but the other is still being held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Miliband said the Americans had given an assurance that no detainees had been held on Diego Garcia and that US records showed no record of any other rendition through Diego Garcia or any other UK territory.

Oh thank heavens that the two souls being illegally extradcited or kidnapped weren't British. That makes this so much more palatable. Not.

Of course, the US version of the story is more detailed. It seems that CIA Director Michael Hayden told agency employees that information previously provided to the British "turned out to be wrong." Hayden told AP AP:

One of the two prisoners is now jailed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and the other was released to his home country, where he has since been freed by that government, the U.S. intelligence official said.

The CIA didn't interrogate or imprison either man, according to the official. In this case, the CIA only moved the two men from one country to another.

The CIA has held and interrogated fewer than 100 prisoners in its detention program, using "enhanced" or harsh interrogation techniques on about a third of them, Hayden has told Congress.

The rendition program secretly transfers alleged terrorists from one country to another without formal extradition proceedings. It can involve moving prisoners to the custody of governments where harsh interrogation techniques, including torture, are known to be used. The U.S. government insists it does not move prisoners to third countries without assurances that torture will not be used.

Does this make sense to anyone? In fact, it raises more questions than it answers.

* The CIA allegedly didn't imprison either of the two people who were flown through Diego Garcia. They obviously were not free to leave the plane. Is keeping someone on a plane traveling between two countries who wish to or have imprisoned the person being transported something other than "imprisonment?"

* Is the CIA now some kind of secure, worldwide prison taxi service carrying prisoners from one country to another? How is it that the CIA has that particular job? And between what countries does the US ferry prisoners? Does the CIA direct or participate in deciding where prisoners should be imprisoned?

* What are the admitted "harsh interrogation techniques" in the sending and/or recipient countries and what standard is being used, if any, to determine that they do not amount to "torture?" Or put another way, when the US receives an assurance that "torture will not be used" what is the definition of torture?

* Why are third party countries and not the US imprisoning and using "harsh interrogation techniques" on these prisoners?

May we have answers to these questions? Of course not. If we were told the answers we'd imperil the safety of the free world. We'd give the terrists information we don't want them to have. We'd be aiding the enemy. We'd be thwarting the GWOT^TM. How very silly of you to ask. Did you think this was the US and that the Government would answer these questions? How very silly of you.