Retrospective on Omar Khadr, Previous Wars, the Ukraine Situation, and the hypocrisy of the West (essay)
Retrospective on Omar Khadr, Previous Wars, the Ukraine Situation, and the hypocrisy of the West (essay)
An entire country continues to harass a child for a war crime he didn't commit. And the West treats Ukrainians and Russians completely different to that child because they're white.
[Originally written March 2nd, 2022, updated Jun 14th, 2024]
The West: Omar Khadr is an evil terrorist. Never mind that he was a literal child soldier who was brought there by his extremist father, that there was no evidence he killed anyone, and he was tortured for years under illegal detainment by the US government, whilst Canada did jack shit and was rightly sued for it. Never mind that, cause he’s brown and therefore bad.
Also The West: Those poor Russian 18 year old soldiers are just children. They are being lied to by Putin and have no business being in this war. I hope the Ukrainians show them mercy.
It’s painful, to think about how much my fellow Canadian have suffered as a young child. While I was going to school and having fun, he was being illegally detained and tortured for a crime proven time and time again he never committed.
“The children involved are victims, acting under coercion…The prosecution of Omar Khadr may set a dangerous international precedent for other children who are victims of recruitment in armed conflicts…Omar Khadr should not be prosecuted by a tribunal that is neither equipped nor required to provide these protections and meet these [international Juvenile Justice] standards.”
— Anthony Lake, Executive Director of the UNICEF
Interestingly, Vokey, a Marine attorney and Morris Davis, Guantanamo's chief prosecutor; both resigned in protest over Khadr’s military sham trials and torture. To say nothing of the seizure of Khadr’s private correspondence with lawyers, and other interference. Those men of conscience who stepped down were replaced by military Yes-Man thirsty for blood.
"Omar Khadr is very sick in our block. He is throwing [up] blood. They gave him cyrum [serum] when they found him on the floor in his cell."
— Guantánamo detainee Omar Deghayes (yet another innocent man who was never charged for any crimes, but was illegally detained, tortured and had one eye gouged out by a US guard)
The amount of vitriol people can have for Omar Khadr is shocking. Even as a teen in high school I knew it was plainly obvious to anyone who was Canadian that what happened to him was a grave injustice.
Nowadays, the Islamaphobes have possessed too much of the Canadian people and created a mob of racist lunatics. We have rapists and murderers who are let off the hook because "mental health" and being "underage"; but if someone has darker skin and is Muslim, then somehow he deserves hell?
"Since World War II, no child has been prosecuted for a war crime.”
— Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Secretary-General's special representative for children and armed conflict
We can't even PROVE he did anything wrong.
In fact, there’s multiple photo evidence taken by US Soldiers that proves Khadr was buried under a wall at the time of his alleged attack, and this was all the Prosecution’s own evidence to boot! The US government have actual evidence he was innocent the entire time, and chose to ignore it so they can torture a teenager in an illegal prison facility.
Khadr deserve every cent of that $10 million lawsuit. But it’s not enough. How can it ever be enough?
The Americans continue to harass him to this day, with false allegations and frivolous lawsuits. While we do sympathize with a grieving family, the fact is, they’re being lied to by the US government. The US government is unwilling to admit to their wrongdoing, and they allow a grieving family and a heavily biased Imperial justice system to take their hate out on an innocent man.
THE SHIT LIB BIAS ON UKRAINE
It’s not an exaggeration at all to say that all I have seen in our media this past week is the massive hypocrisy of the West. Our view of the world has been so propagandized, it's depressing.
The kind of support given to Ukraine should have been given to every single country that was invaded over the past twenty years. The compassion and understanding shown to the Russian soldiers and to Ukrainian defenders should have been extended to every single child soldier, freedom fighter, or terrorist (the labels of which change depending on which country supports whom), and the innumerable more innocent civilians whom the West is happy to write off as acceptable casualties or enemies.
A fellow Canadian I know actually claimed that the world is protesting the invasion of Ukraine because humanity has realized that tyranny is bad. That we have evolved to become more spiritual now (lmao). This kind of shit take tells me that he has no actual ability to comprehend politics or world events. And unfortunately, that seems to be normal for this society at large.