Obama Frets Over Omar Khadr

The stench emitting from the military kangaroo court convened to try Omar Khadr has reached the White House and, according to The New York Times, has Obama & Company deeply troubled about the way the world sees America.

Mr. Khadr’s trial at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay started earlier in August but was put on a monthlong hiatus because a lawyer got sick and collapsed in court. The pause has allowed the administration to consider the negative images the trial has already generated.



Chief among them are persistent questions about the propriety of prosecuting a child soldier. Moreover, in a blow to establishing an image of openness, the Pentagon sought to ban journalists who wrote about publicly known information that it decreed should be treated as secret.


The judge declined to suppress statements Mr. Khadr made after an Army interrogator sought to frighten him with a fabricated story about an Afghan youth who disappointed interrogators and was sent to an American prison where he died after a gang rape. In a pretrial hearing, the interrogator confirmed making that implicit threat, but the judge ruled it did not taint Mr. Khadr’s later confessions.


And prosecutors disqualified an officer from the jury because he said he agreed with President Obama that Guantánamo had compromised America’s values and international reputation.

No matter how you feel about Omar Khadr, there's no justice for him to be had from this rigged, military tribunal that brings the United States the distinction of being the first Western nation to try a child soldier since America and most other nations signed a protocol expressly prohibiting child soldier prosecutions.

So, yes, Obama should be worried about the consequences to America from this travesty.  The world will not judge America kindly.