Dallaire accuses Canada of hypocrisy on Khadr case

[Praxius]

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Romeo Dallaire, speaks on Canada AM on Tuesday, April 1, 2008.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNe...401/romeo_dallaire_080401/20080401?hub=Canada

Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire is accusing Canada of hypocrisy for "abandoning" Omar Khadr after his capture by U.S. forces in 2002.

..... Dallaire, a UN peacekeeper in Rwanda in the 1990s, says Canada is trying to help rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers around the world, but has done nothing to help one of its own citizens.

"In the case of (Khadr), a Canadian child soldier in an American illegal prison ... we've backed off from taking that role and responsibility," the retired general told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.

...... Dallaire says the fact that Canada has not stepped in to help one of its own citizens may be due to the fact that Khadr's late father had alleged terrorist ties.

"(But) that is totally irrelevant of the situation. If your father is a criminal, that does not implicate you of being necessarily part of the crime. On the contrary, if you are a child who has been brought into that process, then we treat you as a juvenile and act accordingly," Dallaire said.

Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. military lawyer, has said Canada should "follow the lead of every other western country" and demand Khadr's repatriation to face justice here. Australian, French, and British citizens who were held at Guantanamo have been sent back to their home countries.

Khadr remains the sole Westerner still held at the prison, where his lawyers have alleged he has been tortured.

Human rights officials, opposition parties, and the Canadian Bar Association have called on the Conservative government to take steps to make sure Khadr is treated fairly. Since his capture, he has been in a legal limbo.

The U.S. government has had various attempts to try Khadr within its military system thwarted by the courts, which have questioned the legality of military tribunals.

Dallaire says Canada needs to step up and help one of its citizens. He says the world is watching to see if Ottawa has dropped its commitment to human rights.

"They are watching us because they don't know where Canada is going in the whole realm of human rights ... generally, this government is making it appear that human rights is not within its parameters," Dallaire said.

BURN!

 

[EagleSmack]

Who got burned? I think he is implicating Canada as much as he is the US.

 

[Praxius]

Exactly, I have always admitted that our Government hasn't done enough, if not, they had a very dirty hand in putting him in the position he is currently in now.

The burn was toward my own government and their idiotic ways.

 

[EagleSmack]

Exactly, I have always admitted that our Government hasn't done enough, if not, they had a very dirty hand in putting him in the position he is currently in now.

The burn was toward my own government and their idiotic ways.

You cannot blame the Canadian Govt. for putting little Omar in the situation he is in. His parents have a lot more to do with it. You also can't blame Canada for him getting captured as he was caught by US Troops. You can complain about them not doing enough to get out. It surprises me that all of the Westerners have been released save for the Canadian... t*t for tat perhaps.

 

[Praxius]

You cannot blame the Canadian Govt. for putting little Omar in the situation he is in. His parents have a lot more to do with it. You also can't blame Canada for him getting captured as he was caught by US Troops. You can complain about them not doing enough to get out. It surprises me that all of the Westerners have been released save for the Canadian... t*t for tat perhaps.

^ Bolded is where I am leaning their blame towards. The rest I agree is not the government's fault.... but in equality and citizen's protection, etc and blah blah.... the government has done squat.

They could have come out of this as the hero or something if they tried to step in and complain about human rights to the US, but instead they got bitch slapped by the US and currently hiding in the corner sobbing.

 

[gerryh]

Something Chretien would never have taken.

 

[Praxius]

Something Chretien would never have taken.

He didn't send us off to Iraq did he?

 

[lone wolf]

.... the government has done squat.

They could have come out of this as the hero or something if they tried to step in and complain about human rights to the US, but instead they got bitch slapped by the US and currently hiding in the corner sobbing.

My guess is any family who has to hire a stage manager so they look respectable for the TV news cameras (as reported by CTV News) aren't exactly the sort of folk I'm going to give a lot of credibility. I mean, what responsible parent lets a fifteen-year-old kid go wandering about in an overseas war zone. Canada is a front for them.

Woof!

 

[dancing-loon]

Praxius,... thank you for posting the article on Omar Khadr. I was just going to do it myself. Instead I went on the web to find a parallel case, that of Murat Kurnaz, a young boy from Germany. I found a treasure trove, called [FONT=Verdana,serif]Bush Scandals List[/FONT]!!

I will only post the section about Murat, but leave the link for all to read.

[FONT=Times,Georgia,Courier,serif]10. The Military Commissions Act: torture, indefinite detention, the end of habeas corpus, and kangaroo courts.

One of the last acts of the Congress before the November 2006 elections, it passed the Senate on September 28 and the House the next day and was signed into law by Bush on October 17. The short story on this is that, pre-election, the Republicans pushed it and the Democrats caved on it. As bad as the military commissions envisioned in the act are, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) which designate who is to be tried are even worse. They were complete shams. Decisions were made on the flimsiest and most general information without challenge or taking into account the methods (torture) used to obtain it.

Detainees lacked effective legal representation, and the CSRTs did not come close to meeting minimal standards of judicial process, even a preliminary one. To top it off, as later military judges have found, the CSRTs designated detainees "enemy combatants" which does not meet the Military Commissions Act standard of "unlawful enemy combatants" vitiating their findings to date. Even when they make up the rules they can't get it right.[/FONT]...[FONT=Times,Georgia,Courier,serif].[/FONT][FONT=Times,Georgia,Courier,serif]

The case of Murat Kurnaz shows how flawed the CSRTs are. He was a Turkish citizen who had lived his entire life in Germany. On October 3, 2001, at the point of getting his German citizenship, he traveled to Pakistan to visit religious sites. In December 2001, he was removed from the group he was traveling with, arrested by Pakistani police, and flown to Guantanamo 4 weeks later.

In September 2002, he was interrogated by American and German intelligence officers who concluded that he had no links to terrorism and should be freed. This view was repeated in a memo dated May 19, 2003 from the commanding general of the Criminal Investigation Task Force, the Pentagon unit responsible for interrogating detainees. Against this was a memo dated June 25, 2004 by Brigadier General David Lacquement, then head of the US Southern Command's intelligence unit, who said Kurnaz was a danger because he had among other things prayed during the national anthem, asked how high the basketball rim was in the prison yard (which in Lacquement-speak indicated a desire to escape), and enquired about guard schedules and detainee transfers.

There was also the accusation that Kurnaz knew someone who knew a suicide bomber (except this was later shown to be untrue) and had stayed at a hostel in Pakistan run by a religious group linked to terrorism (the group's link was also untrue). Kurnaz's CSRT was held on October 4, 2004 where he was determined to be an enemy combatant.
His lawyers challenged this in a DC District Court. (This was before the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.) In a January 2005 opinion, Judge Joyce Green found that the CSRT process had been biased and was contrary to US and international law. This opinion became public on March 25, 2005 when it was inadvertently released by court officials. Nevertheless, Kurnaz continued to be held.

In January 2006, a yearly Review Board hearing reconfirmed.that Kurnaz was an enemy combatant.

Meanwhile Kurnaz's detention and German participation in his interrogation was giving the story legs in Germany. Also in January 2006, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel brought up the case with Bush. On May 31, 2006, the FBI weighed in indicating that it had no interest in Kurnaz. In July 2006, a special Review Board met and determined that he was no longer an enemy combatant. The reasons for this change of status remain classified. Kurnaz was flown back to Germany goggled and shackled where he was released on August 24, 2006.

Despite repeated findings by the intelligence community that Kurnaz was innocent of any links to terrorism, flimsy, false, and easily refutable evidence allowed by the CSRTs resulted in his detention without any formal charge for more than 4 1/2 years, a detention that would have continued if it had not been for the accidental leak of details of his case by a DC court and the personal intervention of the head of the German government.

[/FONT]

http://www.netrootsmass.net/Hugh/Bush_list.html
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Enjoy the rest of the article!!

 

[EagleSmack]

My guess is any family who has to hire a stage manager so they look respectable for the TV news cameras (as reported by CTV News) aren't exactly the sort of folk I'm going to give a lot of credibility. I mean, what responsible parent lets a fifteen-year-old kid go wandering about in an overseas war zone. Canada is a front for them.

Woof!

Refreshing...for real.

I still say let him go. I just wonder if he will stay in Canada.

 

[EagleSmack]

Praxius,... thank you for posting the article on Omar Khadr. I was just going to do it myself. Instead I went on the web to find a parallel case, that of Murat Kurnaz, a young boy from Germany. I found a treasure trove, called [FONT=Verdana,serif]Bush Scandals List[/FONT]!!

I will only post the section about Murat, but leave the link for all to read.http://www.netrootsmass.net/Hugh/Bush_list.html
------------------------------------
Enjoy the rest of the article!!

He was 19 when he was caught. Does that qualify for a child soldier now? So I guess I was a "Child Marine".

 

[QuadK]

Well if everybody else left send him home. THAT'S JUST MY OPINION.