Canada’s Guantanamo problem

In Afghanistan, on July 27, 2002, U.S. medic Sgt. 1st Class Christopher J. Speer of Alberquerque, N.M., attached to the 3rd Platoon of Bravo Company, 505th Infantry Regiment was killed by a Toronto born Canadian citizen. Today, Omar Khardr sits at the American naval base of Guantanamo awaitng trial.

Gitmo quagmire

Internationally Guantanomo invigorates America haters to protest with clenched fists and shake their collective heads in self-righteousness. Unfortunately, the press has done a horrible job of explaining the Guantanamo detention center and the reason why is probably because too many journalists were busy shaking their heads and clenching their fists.

The Little Prison That Should

Guantanamo is the place no one wants to claim despite the niffty service it provides.  A randy group of suspects, most of whom caught on the battlefield, have been held at "Gitmo", a sliver of freedom on the prison island of Cuba.  In December of 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she wanted the facility closed.  The detainees don't pay rent and the Navy has better things to do than escorting inmates between prayer sessions, excercise hours and the cafeteria.  Of the 775 prisoners brought to "Gitmo," over half, 445 have been released. Of the remaining 270 detainees, about 50 are cleared for immediate release, but the U.S. has had trouble persuading some countries to take back their nationals. Most of the countries refusing are dubious nations with few resources and a shaky legal system; international treaties actually prevent the USA from sendng those prisoners back, especially if they run the risk of torture.  All Western nations, Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, among others have had their Gitmo guys repatriated.  The one exception is Canada who has preferred to pass the golden loonie buck on the subject of habeas corpus. Prisoners of war are supposed to be tried at the end of hostilities and returned to their nations after an agreement, but violence is very real in Afghanistan and the inmates at Guantanamo are unlawful combatants, men with no specific country to eventually be returned to. The dirty little secret is that despite human rights activists pleas for Khadr's release, who, in an open society like Canada, wants to have a former Gitmo detainee commuting to work on the Montreal Metro or selling spicy kebab on Toronto's trendy Yonge Street? The truth is that were Omar Khadr to be released to Canadian custody, the Canadian government may not have any reason to hold him So far, 36 former Gitmo detainees were "confirmed" or "suspected" of having carried out terrorists attacks, according to the Pentagon. One Gitmo grad, a Kuwaiti national, traveled to Mosul, Iraq, to blow himself up, this May of 2008. To be fair, Omar Khadr is not just any run of the mill Guantanamo detainee. Among the rarified few who have been detained at Gitmo, Khadr is practically a celebrity. Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr was a personal friend of Osama bin Laden. Little Omar grew up playing with bin Laden's children. Khadr senior was eventually killed in Pakistan during a raid on a suspected al-Qaida stronghold.  Omar's older brother, Abdullah, was arrested in Pakistan for allegedly running arms to al-Qaida.  Omar grew up learning how to convert old Russian mines into updated roadside bombs.  Little Omar who spoke fluent English was also quite adept at spying for the Taliban, according to the charges against him.  Omar appears to be a terrorist Mozart, a regular child prodigy with an aspirational career in the explosive arts.  He cut his first AK-47 Jihad recording just after puberty and right before his capture on the battlefield.

Media torture

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For all the hype about waterboarding, stress positions and sleep deprivations, the Omar Khadr interrogation videos were anti-climatic. We don't expect torturers to ask prisoners: "Would you like a hamburger?" Omar Khadr was wounded on the day of the firefight near the lovely Afghan city of Khost, not far from the Pakistan border. He owes his life to the American Army medics who tended to his wounds and the Bagram American military hospital, in Afghanistan, where Omar was treated for three months. Sympathetic op-ed writers have often left these facts out. Alain Dubuc, writing for La Presse, called the "sinister camp of Guantanamo" the place of a "severely vice-ridden judicial procedure".  He deemed the image of Canada as "retrograde", which is French for passé.  It's important to note Dubuc also derided the Stephen Harper government with canceling subsidies to "marginal artists" and not attending the Chinese Olympics.    This should reveal how critics like Duboc prioritize: Guantanamo and its prisoners are somewhere between art no one wants to buy, non-progressive politics and offending the sensibilities of a totalitarian nation. If the "international community" would put out a welcome mat for Guantanamo's finest, the US Navy and Marines could have their military base back to carry out the type of training that can really put a dent in what's left of the al-Qaida network. Until nations take terrorism more seriously than anti-Americanism, Gitmo will remain the multi purpose facility for restraining some very bad people, vetting future kebab street vendors, and being the villain of so many predictable opinion pieces. Matt Sanchez is an American war correspondent who has embedded with the American, Iraqi and Afghan military. He resides in New York City and is a frequent political commentator in both American and French media. Matt currently reports from the United Nations. He scandalously lived in Quebec, where he learned a little French and a bit about the independent film industry. His work has appeared in the New York Post, National Review and Human Events. Visit Sanchez’s website.

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