The Legal Lynching of Omar Khadr

I thought I had written all I wanted to say about the latest twist in the tragic story of Omar Khadr.

But then I read this.

His defence team (which has changed a number of times over the years) has long maintained he is innocent. He has had opportunities to accept plea deals in the past, and turned them down. Now he’s willing to agree. Do people plead guilty to murder when they’re not guilty? Do lawyers advise their clients to admit to murders they didn’t commit?

And I realized I hadn't.

So for those who still don't get it, the ONLY possible reason Omar Khadr would agree to plead guilty is because if he doesn't, the kangaroo court he faces could sentence him to THIRTY years in jail, in addition to the seven years he has already spent in one of the worst prisons on earth.

For a young Canadian who has endured what he has, Omar has shown remarkable strength. Although he's still riddled with shrapnel, and blind in one eye, and has been abandoned by just about everyone, he's never given up hope. But a human being can only take so much.  

As for those who have ever wondered why the Bush administration, and their stooges the Harper Cons, chose to make an example out of Khadr, they should really read this (PDF)

Or just this paragraph:

In the case of Khadr, the agenda was clear enough: Khadr would be accused of murdering an American soldier. He would demonstrate a new principle that the Bush Administration sought to establish, namely that it is a war crime for civilians to take up arms against a military force that invades their country.

The fact that this new principle is opposed by most of the world and undermines the very foundations of the laws of war was probably only an added benefit, in their perverse reasoning. And similarly, they seem to have taken a certain perverse pleasure in violating the protections that international law gives to child warriors. They were trying to prove a favorite neoconservative meme: international law is meaningless.

Sound familiar?

Oh yeah. If you want to know what kind of people you attract by standing up for the rule of law and human decency, here's a comment I received tonight:

Julie said...

Wow...I'm almost ashamed to be Canadian when I see such a collections of vile, putrid, sub-troglodytes terrorist-sympathizers (that would be the Khadr family) supporters (that would be you) creatures like yourself.

I hope you and your terrorist sympathizer relatives all get cancer and die you worthless piece of terrorist sympathizer shits.

Regards.

Nice eh?

As I've always said, this case is EVIL. People who think like Julie are Amerikan scum.  

The trial is a travesty.

Harper is a bastard.

And Omar Khadr lives HERE...