The Real Issues Behind the Omar Khadr Confession

The first and highly controversial conviction of a Guantanamo prison detainee under President Obama's watch occurred today, with Canadian Omar Khadr's confession at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

The strange outcome of this extended ordeal has created a human rights and international law conundrum that is likely to lead to more confusion when it comes to bringing terrorists and militants to justice. Few single events bring together so many of our gravest concerns.

There is much to do, and your actions on this trial matter now because it is setting a precedent for the future.

Here are just four of the many troubling issues the trial has raised.

1. Child Soldier Absolution: Khadr was a 15 year old member of Al Qaeda when he committed the crimes he confessed to (details below). His father, who was killed in Pakistan after his son's arrest and who effectively forced his membership upon him, was a close associate of Osama bin Laden.

It is extremely rare for forced child soldiers to be tried.

Take for example the case of a Sierra Leone rebel leader, tried by an American lawyer in a special US-UK tribunal in which no child soldiers were tried. The rebel leader was convicted of recruiting child soldiers, absolving the deeply misguided youth of their wartime participation. Why this is not the case with Khadr has not been made clear by either the prosecution or the court.

2. War Crimes Made Meaningless: The court in which Khadr's trial is held is designated as a "war crimes" court. But there is a serious problem in determining whether what he has confessed to constitutes war crimes or not, a problem compounded by the fact that he was a child soldier in Afghanistan at the time.

Khadr pleaded guilty to the five counts with which he was charged. These included killing an American soldier (murder), spying, material support for terrorism, conspiracy and attempted murder. These are crimes, to be sure, but other than his age there is a considerable mitigating circumstance.

US soldiers have killed thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and several other countries in the name of terrorist-hunting, natural resource control or national security.  Doing so is called aggression, and is a war crime for which high officials, not low-rank soldiers like Khadr or his American counterparts, are prosecutable.

3. Torture at U.S. Military Prisons: There has been no shortage of exposure and commentary on the prisoner abuse at U.S. military bases worldwide, including at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr, who has been in the prison there for some ten years, has repeatedly claimed harsh treatment (read: torture) by his captors. After years of defiance, his sudden guilty plea is all the more difficult to understand outside of a plea bargain, the details of which have not been released.

The United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994. In 2008, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US Constitution applies to Guantanamo detainees, and its Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments." President Obama reformed Guantanamo on these grounds, but has not been able to close the facility.

4. Jurisdictional Renunciation: As a Canadian citizen, Khadr could have been extradited to his homeland for detention and trial. But the reaction by Canadian officials is not only unconscionable but of questionable constitutionality.

"This matter is between Mr. Khadr and the US government," said Catherine Loubier, a spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, in an e-mail. "We have no further comment."

Unfortunately, Canada has had "no further comment" throughout Kahdr's ten-year detainment. Despite this, Canada plans to accept Khadr back in one year.

If we don’t have strong "further comments" and concerted action about the process and outcome of Khadr's trial, it may not be long before we won't be able to make comments or take action at all.

Photo credit: takomabibelot (flickr)