“The shaming of one Canadian has shamed all Canadians.”~ Liberal MP Paul Szabo, apologizing in the House of Commons for the RCMP’s treatment of lobbyist and arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. (Schreiber’s pants had fallen down while RCMP officers led him, in handcuffs, to a waiting cruiser after his testimony before the Commons Ethics Committee.)
You’re 15 years old, in the company of hardened militants who are associates of your father. A foreign army has invaded the country and unleashed a massive bombing campaign. Soldiers come knocking one morning and demand entry. The men around you refuse and a firefight ensues, culminating in the occupying air force bombarding the compound you’re in, killing everyone but you and one other person.
What happens next is disputed. As the soldiers enter the bombed-out compound a grenade is thrown and explodes near one of them. He later dies of his wounds. Based on witness reports, the thrower could have been one of three people: you, the man lying beside you, or a U.S. soldier outside the compound wall.
The man beside you is shot by an advancing soldier as he reaches for an AK-47 lying beside him. Cowering in the corner, you, in turn, are shot twice in the back. As shock sets in, you plead with the soldiers to kill you, to finish the job.
You are Omar Khadr. Your ordeal has barely begun.
By Paul Koring
Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Station, Cuba
May 06, 2010
Globe and Mail
Omar Khadr, then a gravely wounded 15-year-old, was routinely trussed up in a cage “in one of the worst places on Earth,” according to a hulking former military interrogator nicknamed Monster who says he felt sorry for the Canadian and brought him books and treats.
Former specialist Damien Corsetti was testifying via video link to a pretrial hearing in the war-crimes trial of Mr. Khadr, now 23, on charges of terrorism and murder in the killing of a U.S. Special Forces soldier during a firefight in eastern Afghanistan in July of 2002.
“We could do basically anything to scare the prisoners,'' Mr. Corsetti said, adding that detainees were often chained in stress positions in cages and that constant screaming and yelling filled the Bagram prison. He also said beating prisoners was banned but they could be threatened with nightmarish scenarios like clandestine transfer to Israel or Egypt where they would disappear.
Mr. Corsetti was the first defense witness called at the hearing.
Corsetti, upon returning to the real world was genuinely remoresful for many of his actions. He said that he and he and his colleagues had drunk the kool-aid. As a witness he was found to be thoughtful, credible, and honest, as well as genuinely remorseful for some of his actions.
In any case, Mr. Corsetti remains convinced that Mr. Khadr is innocent.
He believes Quadr was simply the last person alive, and became a convenient scapegoat after a superior officer prevented his outright murder. That he was tortured in spite of the US (and Canada) being a signatory to a UN Convention guaranteeing the rehabilitation of 'child solders' and preventing punishment (one more dishonorably ignored agreement) is not in dispute.
Cowardly Canada is the only Western nation to have refused to seek repatriation of its nationals, and was complicit in Mr. Khadr's torture.
Decent people everywhere remain appalled at the vile behavior exhibited by the US. and Canada in its weakness and subservience to its Zionist puppeteers. Shame.
“More than anything, he looked beat up,'' Mr. Corsetti said. “He was a 15-year-old kid with three holes in his body, a bunch of shrapnel in his face.'' Bagram guards and interrogators dubbed him Buckshot Bob. Mr. Corsetti said he sometimes took pity on the English-speaking teenager, occasionally chatting with him about fast cars.
He was never one of Mr. Khadr's interrogators.
Mr. Corsetti later faced multiple charges of detainee abuse but was acquitted. He now describes himself as a disabled veteran being treated for post-traumatic-stress disorder.
Defense lawyers are seeking to have Mr. Khadr's confessions at Bagram and Guantanamo kept out of the trial, claiming interrogators coerced them from a tortured and abused child soldier.
The prosecution contends Mr. Khadr was an unlawful combatant who freely and voluntarily confessed to killing Sergeant Christopher Speer with a grenade and boasted of building roadside bombs, being an al-Qaeda fighter and seeking to kill as many Jews and Americans as possible.
Meanwhile, it emerged that information extracted by Canadian spies who interrogated Mr. Khadr in Guantanamo may be used against him, despite Ottawa's belated efforts to have it suppressed.
The Obama administration has rejected Ottawa's request to suppress information that Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents and Foreign Affairs officials elicited from Mr. Khadr during interrogations in 2003 and 2004.
Nathan Whitling, one of Mr. Khadr's Canadian lawyers who argued his case before Canada's Supreme Court, said the “U.S. refusal of Canada's request confirms its status as an outlaw among the community of nations.''
After the Canadian Supreme Court ruling that successive Canadian governments had failed to safeguard Mr. Khadr's rights, the Harper government ~ in a formal diplomatic note ~ pleaded with the Obama administration to block use of the information furnished by the Canadian agents to their U.S. counterparts.
In its written response, the U.S. government declined, saying it was up to the military judge to decide what evidence he allowed.
However, it's not clear from Justice Minister Rob Nicholson's letter whether he believes the Obama administration's changes to the Bush-era military tribunals still operating at Guantanamo makes them legal.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court found the conditions of Mr. Khadr's imprisonment at Guantanamo when he was interrogated by CSIS agents “constituted a clear violation of Canada's international human rights obligations.'
A little overkill with the guards maybe?
"Look we put this child soldier, who may or may not have killed a US soldier while defending his country and his family. We did not kill him as he deserved! We have caught a real threat to our elite group in this young man who we have held for 7 years without trial in horrific conditions."
At this point we all know that
Evil has completely won the war in Heaven
and here on earth.
Grown men torturing a boy!
I sit and look at that statement with unbelieving eyes.
I don't think so.
everything is within the symbol !
ReplyDeleteFrance is under Control !
http://www.20minutes-vos-images.fr/fr/photos/culture/2010-04-21/8689/centre-pompidou-metz.html
Bonjour Mme. Noor, comment allez-vous ? Omar Khadr concernant.
ReplyDeleteThis is truly a crime to treat Omar in this fashion. May he be allowed to go where he will with God's blessing.