Did you guys know we’re holding children – juviniles under 18 – as war criminals at Guantanamo? I didn’t. That’s … not just unAmerican, it’s freaking uncivilized.
Imprisoned by the United States since the age of 15 Omar Khadr has been held under strict security conditions, often in solitary confinement, and subject to interrogation and torture despite his status as a juvenile.
When the military commission commences on January 11, Omar will become the first individual in the modern history of any international tribunal in the world, to be tried for war crimes for conduct allegedly committed as a juvenile. This ignoble precedent of prosecuting children for war crimes – something that was not done at Nuremburg after World War II, in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, or Sierra Leone, Kosovo or East Timor – will be established through American prosecution of a Canadian child. Remarkably, Canada has not uttered a word of public criticism in response.
Metaphor 