Holy fuck, this AGAIN!
Omar Khadr's lawyer says his client is being unfairly punished by the Conservative government, which has steadfastly refused to request his repatriation from Guantanamo Bay despite court rulings ordering it to do so.
I have addressed this schiesskopf (and to a lesser extent his whole family) here, but it just won’t die. As for me I’ve not a lot new to say, but opinions/observations follow.
1. Khadr was shot twice by American soldiers. This suggests (and there is a lot of other evidence as well) that the 5.56x45mm NATO assault rifle round has insufficient killing power and should be replaced. Obviously you have to shoot people three times at least to make sure they don’t come back to bite you.
2. His lawyer says that the “Harper Government” picks and chooses which Canadians it’s going to help. Of bloody course they do. The “Canadian” in question was an enemy combatant fighting an allied army in a country replete with terrorist training camps, one or more of which Khadr and his dad were attending. This is no mere passport problem, and it CERTAINLY has nothing to do with him being “a person of colour”.
3. The comments section of the CTV article I linked to is revealing. Roughly 2/3 of posters are quite happy to keep Khadr out of the country, probably permanently, but for sure long enough for the Americans to try him. These same people (and I’m one of them, go figure) forecast Khadr suing the government (hence you and me) for some massive amount whenever he arrives back.
I don’t want him back, but I’ll look at it as impassively as possible: as long as it costs us less to keep him out than to bring him back, we should. He’ll get to Canada eventually, and let’s face it, he’s a lot less dangerous than any number of other people who are already here. No reason to hurry that along though; Guantanamo is as much jail time as this bad apple will see and a bit more will be good for him.
