Canada Puts US On Torture Watch List

CTV.ca:

Omar Khadr's lawyers say they can't understand why Canada is not doing more to help their client in light of new evidence that Ottawa has put the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture.

Khadr -- a Canadian citizen who was just 15-years-old when he was captured in Afghanistan more than five years ago and taken to Guantanamo -- has claimed that he has been tortured at the prison. Now, CTV News has obtained documents that put Guantanamo Bay on a torture watch list.

Khadr's U.S. military lawyer says the new documents contradict Harper's assurances that his client is receiving fair treatment.

Read the whole story: CTV.ca

Comments

[TheMiddleman]

I never though I would see the day that this country was put on a torture watch list by any rational society. I'm not sure we will ever heal from what Bush, Cheney, and Company has done to us.

[lungfish]

Why shouldn't they put us on notice? We support Israel and they torture. We have secret prisons and CIA goon squads that snatch people, including innocent people, and torture them and render them to other countries that torture and we refuse to acknowledge or make amends to those we have wronged...
Why shouldn't we be on a watch list? I look forward to the day when folks like Midsection below actually learn something about image and actions....

We aren't great because we say so. We are great because we behave as leaders with ideals and actions that reflect the finer qualities of humanity rather than base acts of despotism.

America isn't Great. It isn't even good and I look forward to the day when we can reclaim our place as leaders. It will happen when we hold our administration and its minions accountable for their abuse of our good name for their own profit.

[MidSection]

Who cares what Canada thinks? Please what are they going to do about it? And as for those of you stupid enough to suggest that senior government officials be tried in the hague....got news for you idiots. We don't recognize the court, we have never signed the charter and we never will. The hague has no authority over us.....just as it should be.

[TekBoss]

Canadians are pretty smart.

[S1m0n]

There's nothing TO try him on in Canada; what he is accused of isn't a crime.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

During World War 2, children as young as 13 were indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth and they were pretty dangerous with the Panzer Faust, an ante tank weapon which is considered the grand father of the current RPG. US solders who had no other choice but to shoot them were devastated by the experience, but they did what had to do. I can’t recall a single case were a member of the Hitler Youth were tried or held in captivity for years for bearing arms against allied solders, I can’t speak for the Soviets since they marched more than 10,000 German troops out of Berlin after the fall of the city and held them prisoner for up to 10 years after the war.

Now what have we become as a nation when we imprison children for years, again without trial. All we are doing is creating more terrorist. I’ve heard the argument that there countries don’t want them back, I’m not sure that this is the case with Canada, whom recently took back another Canadian citizen, who while on a business trip, was abducted and rendered to Syria, (aren’t they one the bad guys), where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year.

I not sure any you would be too happy if this happened to an American citizen or did you forget the Iranian Hostage Crises. The Canadian we rendered to Syria could have been legally investigated or given up to Canadian authorities, who would have investigated him, as they did and he was cleared, yet to this day he cannot enter the US or fly over it because we fucked up and can’t admit it.

Imprisonment, rendering and torturing citizens of our allies for years without any kind of legal hearing ties the hands of the State Department, and builds so much resentment with a nation that we share a common border with that finding real terrorist gets that more difficult. I think Canada has been very patient with administration’s tactics but we need their help and support and that of Europe to win this thing.

[gcallaghan]

By whatever process is necessary, the Canadian government or this kid, as an individual, should petition the world court for a war crimes indictment against the US naming Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet and Ashcroft as those who authorized and/or condoned the crimes against him.

[Macready]

Canada should not have second thoughts on this . . they should try him in Canada . . . most of the British detainees in Guantanamo were released without charge when they finally returned home . . .suspect this case will be the same .. . every country should put the US on a watch list for torture . . . and they should enforce it.

[Pdubya]

We can all write here and complain or muse.

Please write and call your representatives and get this bill passed:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-3835

The American Freedom Agenda Act

[BPCentrisAmerican]

I'm not sure why Canadian citizens are not just handed over to Canadian authorities to let them sort it out? We have been holding these people for more than 5 years without any kind of trial. I have a friend in the Canadian military that has served in the Middle East for 16 years attached to the UN as a communications officer. He mentioned to me this past fall that US troops are in a real mess in Iraq; he's got that right.

To the wing-nut who made the Canadian crack involving the 15 year kid we are holding in GITMO, the bigger issue is, why are we are holding a child in the first place without some kind of trial and did we torture him? I know there are bozos in this country who like to make sport of the Canadians, but the reality is they are a lot like us and have been faithful allies for very long time, my dad fought along side Canadian troops in the Italian Campagin against one the most formidable Generals in the German military Albrecht Kesselring and he held them in higher regard than the British. Not returning a 15-year-old kid to such an ally does not speak well of the intelligence and morality of this administration. As well as you, eh.

[Ramirez]

Wiki stuff on our HuffPo Hero:


Early Life
Omar Khadr, like most of the children in the Khadr family, was born in Canada, and both parents were Canadian citizens. In 1988 the Khadr family moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, where Khadr's father Ahmed Said Khadr, took a job with a Canadian charity, Human Concern International.[4]

In 1992, Khadr's father stepped on a land-mine and nearly died; the Khadr family was evacuated to Toronto so that Ahmed Said may recuperate.[5]


Life in bin Laden's compound
Khadr's father moved his family to Afghanistan in 1997,... They later moved to bin Laden's compound...after it had been evacuated. During their stay in their office the family visited Shaheed Osama Bin Laden compound occasionaly and the children played with his children amongst others.[6] Khadr's father has been described as one of Bin Laden's senior lieutenants.

-snip

Capture
On 2002-07-22, 15-year-old Khadr was in a compound near Khost that was surrounded by US special forces. According to Master Sgt Scotty Hansen of Utah, "we [sent] a couple of Afghan interpreters to go in and talk to them because we didn't want to be storm troopers unless we had to." The two interpreters were shot "point blank in the face," however, according to Sergeant Layne Morris, after which "all heck broke out," according to Hansen[7]. Sergeant Layne Morris was injured early in the skirmish. The Americans called in a devasting air strike, such that no survivors were expected. Khadr, however, survived and allegedly threw a grenade, which injured Sgt. Christopher Speer and led to his death, and injured three other members of the squad.[8] Omar was shot and injured, He received medical treatment for the gunshot wounds upon being captured.


Accusations against Khadr
In addition to being charged with the murder of Sgt. Christopher Speer, Khadr is also being accused of attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and "providing material support for terrorism".[9]

On 2007-11-18, 60 Minutes aired a video of Khadr assembling bombs while wearing civilian clothes.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khadr

[DoninJoisey]

I cannot begin to describe the disgust I feel that Canada is warranted in what they did.
What happened to America? How did we come to even debate torture, much less practice it, outsource it? Disgusting.
We switched sides of the table since Nuremberg - Waging aggressive war, torture...

Not only is torture against what we USED to stand for, it doesn't arrive at the truth - look at the confessions to being witches under torture in the Middle Ages. Of course, if your objective is to get confessions of alleged plots so you can crow about how you're protecting us without concern about truth, then you advocate torture.

[misterbone]

Three cheers for Dudley Doright!

[Bendersky]

Hey, LastDaysCafe--You're a poet! Who would have though someone could pack so much sodomizing metaphor into a comment and then ram it home in such a forcibly, unconsensual way.

Way to go, Canada. We have and we do torture people with the express consent of our executive branch and the tacit blessing of congress. Good to call a spade a spade.

[LastDaysCafe]

Well when Uncle Sam has his penis inserted so far up Canada's rectum thats its coming out of Canada's mouth - theres really no room left for Canada to say anything much different than what it's being stiffly prodded to say!