Friday, January 15, 2010
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal

On the Day when graves will be opened, all will rush towards God, we are told, and on that day bones will speak and the good Lord will judge each and everyone human being who ever lived on this sad and tortured earth.

On that day, the saga of a 15-year-boy caught in Afghanistan by the American Special Forces, tortured, and then flown to that outpost of humanity called Guantanamo Bay, may not stand out as the worst crime of humanity. But here below, it certainly stands out as the fulfilment of the promise Satan made to his Creator, that he will mislead humanity, beguile them, and make them believe in phantoms of their own making.

A 15-year-old boy named Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was caught in the Great Game started by someone in Afghanistan back in 2001. On the morning of July 27, 2002, a team of American soldiers from the 19th Special Forces Group and the 505th Infantry Regiment, along with a “militia” composed of approximately twenty Afghan fighters loyal to mercenary warlord Pacha Khan Zadran and led by Zadran’s brother Kamal, arrived in a village near the Khost airbase in a tan Toyota Tacoma. They came to search the house of one Abdul Khalil, alleged to be a bomb-maker.

The search turned up no evidence against the occupants of the house. While they were at the house, a report came in that a monitored satellite phone had just been used 300-600 meters from the group’s present location. Seven soldiers were sent to investigate the site of the phone call.

This group of Americans, led by Major Randy Watt, arrived at a series of mud huts and a granary filled with fresh straw surrounded by a 10-foot stone wall. There they found five well-dressed men were sitting around a fire in the main residence. The group called for more support, and 45 minutes later reinforcements arrived, bringing the total number of Americans and Afghan militia to about fifty. Two militiamen were sent into the compound to speak with the inhabitants.

They returned to the Americans and reported that men inside were just local villagers. They were told to return to the huts, and inform the occupants that the Americans wanted to search their house, regardless of their affiliation. Upon hearing this, the occupants of the hut opened fire, shooting both militiamen. A fight broke out. Helicopters were called in and they bombarded the house. More Americans arrived, and ten minutes later a pair of A-10 Warthogs arrived on-scene and began attacking the houses, along with the Apaches already bombing.

Eventually, when the Americans thought all were dead in the house, they sstormed the house through a hole in the south side of the wall, while at least two other American troops continued throwing grenades into the compound. The team began picking their way over the bodies of dead animals and three fighters. As they went toward the house, hand grenades were thrown at them and they were fired at. Two Americans died and five were wounded.

When the dust cleared, one American soldier, who had just killed an Afghan, saw the 15-year-old Khadr crouched, facing away from the action and wounded by shrapnel that had just blinded his left eye. Khadr was shot twice in the back after being pulled out from under rubble. Later, Khadr was given on-site medical attention, during which time he repeatedly asked the medics to kill him, surprising them with his English.

An officer present later recorded in his diary that he was about to tell his Private Second Class to kill the wounded Khadr, when Delta Force soldiers ordered them not to harm the prisoner. He was then loaded aboard a CH-47 helicopter and flown to Bagram Airbase, losing consciousness aboard the flight.

The rest of the story of Omar Khadr can be read at his family’s website or at other websites dealing with his captivity and trial. In short, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay under horrible conditions; the Canadian government has remained utterly unresponsive to the numerous human-rights violations of one its citizens, and since Khadr was underage at the time of his capture, Americans have violated a number of international laws in keeping him at Guantanamo Bay and torturing him.

Omar Khadr is now about to be transferred to the mainland, where a military trial is scheduled to begin in July. But military courts are kangaroo courts, and what this court will do is a foregone conclusion. What is most important in this saga of a 15-year-old boy is the extraordinary resilience and strength he has shown during the last seven years. Those who have met him, such as the two Canadian lawyers, who are probably the only two human beings Khadr trusts, describe him as a beautiful human being who has kept his humanity despite all odds. The way he has been tortured by the Americans reminds one of what is said of Nazi torture camps, but the moral of the story, if you can draw one at such a late hour of humanity’s decent into inhumanity, is a question: where does his resilience come from?

The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com