Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Isn't That Exactly Why We're Supposed to Treat Them as "Child Soldiers"?

The prosecution in Omar Khadr's farcical trial has called evidence that stands as a scathing indictment of Guantanamo and America's hypocritical rejection of Khadr's child soldier status.   The giveaway is in the evidence of a forensic psychiatrist who painted Khadr as
an unrepentant, dangerous, Islamic extremist who has been “marinated in the radical jihadism” at Guantanamo.

Marinated in Radical Jihadism at Guantanamo?

That captures the whole essence of the child soldier protocol that even the United States embraced until it chose to turn rank hypocrite.  We know that child soldiers are susceptible to being 'marinated' in radical causes and that's why decent societies have agreed to treat them as victims, not perpetrators.

Worse still, the American forensic psychiatrist's evidence is that Khadr continued to be marinated in radical jihadism while in American captivity.   If the Americans couldn't protect their own young captive from radical jihadism in a place like Guantanamo, what do they think he was subjected to in Pakistan and Afghanistan?  Shouldn't some American honcho be charged with failing to protect Khadr while an inmate in America's toughest prison?  Just who allowed him to be 'marinated' while he was imprisoned in Cuba?

Bad as Khadr may have been, even may still be, this is a case in which the Americans have utterly lost any moral high ground.  To argue that Khadr should be further punished because the Americans allowed him to be 'radicalized' while in their hands is more than laughable, it's pathetic. 

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