Omar Khadr

The Canadian Government is towing a fine line at the moment. On the one hand allegedly Khadr committed a crime against another country's citizen. This usually means facing that country's justice system. On the other hand, it's a lot more complicated than that.

But it's far more complex than that. The crime Omar Khadr allegedly committed was murder- he murdered an US army medic in Afghanistan when he was 15. That was 6 years ago, and in the meantime he was declared an enemy combatant and taken to Gunatanmo Bay where he is awaiting trial. Authorities have resorted to tactics that if not called torture, are in fact very close to being so. A judge has in fact declared his treatment has gone against international human rights law, including the Geneva conventions.

Other countries have all taken their prisoners back, and evenn put them on trial accept us. And yet Canada continues to drag her feet. Why??

Because of yet another complication: the rest of Khadr's family is to put it nicely, and in one word or less: despicable. They are hated, called uncanadian and considered traitors by many people. How else would you describe someone that supported the Toronto 18- a group of suspects on trial for their ideas to blow up targets in the G.T.A. and behead various politicans?

Despite his family, and despite whatever crime he may have committed, he deserves to face a trial of his peers. And that might mean bringing him home to face a Canadian jury in a Canadian courtroom. I'd be okay with that, and I think so would many of my countrymen because essentially I believe Canadians are a fair-minded people.

Omar Khadr has been mistreated, and no matter what his family is like, or what he believes he deserves some kind of redress for that. Like it or not, this guy is Canadian, and our government needs to stand up for its citizens.