Fri Feb 11/05
And he walked in all the sins of his father

If a 14-year-old Canadian boy got his hands on a grenade and lobbed it into the crowd at, say, the Calgary Stampede, he'd have a very real possibility of being out of custody before his 21st birthday. It's a source of endless debate, but the basic principle is mostly accepted in western societies: children should be, and are, treated differently than adults when they break the law. The capacity for mercy is greater, rehabilitation is given preference over punishment, and "root causes" are examined more closely — an extraordinarily abusive upbringing, for instance, would almost certainly factor into sentencing.

Omar Khadr did not lob his grenade at the Calgary Stampede. Of this I am aware. His upbringing taught him that, if imprisoned by infidels, he should tell stories about being tortured whether or not they're true. Of this I am also aware. But Omar's upbringing is a rather crucial point that's being ignored in all this, I think. "All of those persons who have been in positions of authority over him have abused him and his trust, for their own purposes," wrote a Foreign Affairs official. "In this group can be included his parents and grandparents, his associates in Afghanistan, and fellow detainees in Camp Delta."

This kid has had it world-class bad from day one, basically. It doesn't matter to me as far as his indefinite imprisonment goes whether or not he did in fact throw the grenade that killed Sgt First Class Christopher Speer. I think children deserve mercy before the justice system, and thus his treatment  — even the official version of his treatment — offends me. The fact that Omar's parents are/were world class assholes doesn't lessen my anger. Quite the contrary, they are solely responsible for turning their four sons into terrorists and/or putting them in the line of fire of those fighting terrorists. (What the hell ever happened to that child abuse investigation? You know, the one that was obviously a slam-dunk?)

Yet Omar's last name obviously does matter, hence the deafening silence in response to his mistreatment — and again, I call even the American version of events (or lack thereof) mistreatment. Since his 15th birthday, he has been held, treated and interrogated in just the same way as men 30 years his senior — men who made their own choices, who had chances to turn away from their pathetic terrorist lives and didn't. From the sounds of it, Omar is not someone we want walking around on Canadian streets — the aforementioned Foreign Affairs official described him, not surprisingly, as "thoroughly screwed up" — but surely anti-terrorist sentiments can be combined with a modicum of compassion.

Or do people really think like this?

"One of Canada's children has been tortured by the United States," said Muneer Ahmad, a Washington-based lawyer…

Thankyou [responds blogger Kate McMillan] for the update and confirming our fondest hopes. I guess there's no point in sending those clubs, eh?

Jesus Christ, he was fourteen.