Few recent events have caused more division in Canada than the recent announcement of a $10.5 million settlement reached in a lawsuit against the Canadian government launched by former child soldier and Guantanamo military prisoner Omar Khadr.
Partisan diatribes have decried the payment as despicable and have attempted to lay the “blame” on the doorstep of the current government, even though the foundations of the $20 million lawsuit from which the settlement has come about were secured by a judgement from the highest court in the land. It is firmly laid in legal consensus that from the regime of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, through the short tenure of Paul Martin, through the consecutive governments of Stephen Harper and even onto the sunny ways of the current Prime Minister, Mr. Khadr had his rights as a Canadian citizen and enemy combatant violated. Laws have been broken, both domestic and internationally, in the way Mr. Khadr has been treated and ignored by these consecutive governments. It is in the full light of these latter sunny ways that the piper’s bill for those actions, and inactions, has come home to roost—but no government in power is totally free of taint from this most odious set of affairs.
The history of Mr. Khadr is a litany of horror. Taken as a child and indoctrinated into a jihadist cult, trained as a child soldier and unleashed upon the American forces invading Afghanistan in search of regime change and seeking retribution for the terrorist attacks of 9-11, he was wounded and taken prisoner during a firefight in which people died.
The after action report filed by the soldiers in the field reported that a grenade tossed by a middle-aged terrorist had killed an American medic. There was no mention of Mr. Khadr having thrown that fateful weapon in the original report—that detail was added much later, by a person or persons unknown, after the fact.
Mr. Khadr was refused a trial, unless he pled guilty to the attack. When his military trial took place, no reasonable legal assessment could call the farce that followed “fair.” His treatment during his incarceration included torture and violations that trampled international treaties and made a mockery of justice.
“So what?” asks the angry white men brigade. “He was a terrorist. He was a murderer. He was our enemy.” Perhaps this is true, although the facts seem to indicate that despite his youth he was more properly described as an “enemy combatant” entitled to the rules of warfare to which we, and the US, are signatories, and the most contemporary of reports indicate that he did not kill anyone. Of course it is reasonably safe to assume he would have, given his position in the field.
But we live in a civil society that values the principles of innocence until proven guilty in a fair trial. Which he did not get. We live in a society that proclaims it will adhere to the rules of international treaties to which we are signatories, and that we value our word—that our promise means something on the global stage and are not the mere mouthing of platitudes without substance.
Canadian officials were well aware of the treatment of a Canadian citizen. The torture of a Canadian citizen. The violation of our international obligations to an enemy combatant and a human being. Those officials stood by, hands in pockets while those actions took place and did nothing to fulfill their clear obligations to intervene.
Men and women have died in defence of those principles. Yes, perhaps some have died fighting the compatriots of Mr. Khadr, and continue to die to this day, fighting on the frontlines of this asymmetrical war in which we find ourselves. It hurts to find ourselves paying a massive sum of money to someone who is a declared enemy of our way of life, who rejects the very basis of our civilization that they wish to bring down. It seems wrong. It feels wrong. But, unless we are living as a character in a Die Hard movie, or some other Hollywood rage against the machine production where the rule of law is flouted in the name of feeling good about vengeance, it is the right thing to do.
There is a price to be paid for upholding our values, values which are either priceless or not worth the paper on which they lie written. We depend on our laws as a civil society to maintain who we are as a people. When, in the course of responding to dire consequence, we diverge from those principles, there is a price to be paid. In Mr. Khadr’s case that price has been settled at $10.5 million.
Shall that price be paid in cash or in the sale of our souls? For some, the question can be avoided by simply amplifying the volume of protest and groundless rhetoric, drowning out reason and the rule of law. That is simply an attempt to justify welching on our debts. We are either better than that or we declare ourselves to be hypocrites no better than those against whom we stand upon the barricades of western civilization.
But we don’t have to like it.
As to those attempting to take partisan advantage from this sorry chapter in the annals of our history there is but one word: shame.
