The civilized world condemns the recruitment of child soldiers. Yet Canada sits quietly by as one of its citizens, Omar Khadr, is prosecuted by the United States for war crimes he allegedly committed at age 15 as a member of al-Qaeda.
It is impossible to square. Al-Qaeda's recruitment of child soldiers is immoral and abusive; consequently, it is immoral and abusive to prosecute as a war criminal a child recruited by al-Qaeda, and punish him accordingly. We can't have it both ways.
Lately, it has dawned on Canadians that the United States may well have lied about its evidence against Mr. Khadr. Far from having proof that only he could have thrown the grenade that killed their soldier, the U.S. appears to have hidden the truth: that the teenage Canadian was in the company of an adult al-Qaeda fighter and was himself unarmed, on his knees and facing away from battle when a U.S. soldier shot him twice — in the back.
But the falsehoods are only part of the reasons why Canadians let the 15-year-old disappear six years ago into the legal black hole of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in which he had no access to a lawyer for the first 27 months and no way to contest his detention. Canadians accepted that Mr. Khadr be held fully responsible for his actions. As if he were an adult.
Omar Khadr (undated family photo)
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The irony has never really penetrated Canadians' consciousness. Canada, the country of the liberal Youth Criminal Justice Act, is the only Western nation to give the United States carte blanche with one of its nationals at Guantanamo. Britain, Australia, Sweden and Germany fought to repatriate their nationals — adults, all of them. And Canada let a juvenile languish.
The reply from our government is but a single, vapid refrain: "Let the process work." But this is a process that, even apart from its other flaws, aims at punishing Omar Khadr for the accident of his birth in an al-Qaeda family.
A VICTIM OF HIS OWN HOME
When a young person raised in a terrorist family becomes a terrorist at 15, does he join voluntarily? Can he give free and informed consent? To say yes is to let al-Qaeda and Toronto's Khadr family off the hook for grooming children for terrorism. It puts the onus on the children to resist.
Most Canadian children grow up in circles within circles of benign, positive influences — family, school, neighbourhood, the larger culture. Omar's circles of influence were pro-terror. His late father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a senior financier with al-Qaeda who prodded Abdurahman, Omar's elder brother, to become a suicide bomber. Even his mother and sister boasted on national television of the glories of terrorism.
From age 11, Omar was inculcated in terror, according to the U.S. charge sheets. "From 1996 to 2001, the Khadr family travelled throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan, including yearly trips to Usama bin Laden's compound in Jalalabad for the Eid celebration at the end of Ramadan. While travelling with his father, Omar Khadr saw or personally met senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Usama bin Laden, Doctor Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Muhammad Atef (aka Abu Hafs al Masri), and Saif al Adel. Khadr also visited various al Qaeda training camps and guest houses."
Only an extraordinary 15-year-old could have withstood that grooming process. The Khadr son who did resist, Abdurahman, did not do so until he was in his 20s. A younger brother, Abdul Karim, was paralyzed in battle in Pakistan in 2004 at 14. (His father was killed in the same battle.) The oldest brother, Abdullah, faces extradition from Toronto to the United States on terrorism charges from Afghanistan.
Yet many Canadians insist he acted of his free will. "Real child soldiers are forcibly taken from their parents (who are often killed)," one Globe reader wrote in an unpublished letter to the editor. "These children are drugged, brainwashed, and abused so they become killers. Khadr became a soldier/terrorist because his family encouraged it. He was a willing participant. Where was the coercion?"
This is a narrow view of coercion. Could there be a worse form of coercion than that in a father's wish that his son become a suicide bomber? "Blow yourself up or lose your father's esteem." Omar's family culture promoted dying for the cause. That was what it meant to be a good boy in that family.
CHILD SOLDIERS ELSEWHERE
The world is rife with child soldiers. Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., estimates that as many as 300,000 child soldiers are in combat around the world. Yet none of today's international war-crimes tribunals prosecute child soldiers or terrorists.
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