Why I Believe Omar Khadr was Detained in Guantanmo

Omar Khadr is about the same age as my oldest son. I am very disheartened to read about his story, and I have to admit, it is for the first time. I'm not usually one to write news articles, but this one I feel I have to compose. There are aspects to politics in American government that I feel have played into this situation, but I have not found those elsewhere online.

These aspects include the United States' relations with the United Nations, Child Protection regulations, and American culture. These may not seem related, especially to Omar Khadr, but they are. The UN has a document entitled "Rights of the Child". The United States government has refused for decades to sign it. It would do away with the federal government's regulations pertaining to child protection agencies nationwide. The States don't want this to be changed, and this includes those politicians in Washington, not just the States' Governors. Each Senator or Representative is from a State, and even might have loyalty towards another State. Anybody for some logrolling? If Child Protective Services becomes obsolete, the States suffer. They don't want that money to go away, so they keep the "Adoption and Safe Families" Act intact, instead of heeding Walter Mondale's warning that his original Act, the "Child Abuse and Prevention" Act could be turned into a business in which the States deal in children. Mondale's fears seem to have come true.

If the United States were to sign the UN's "Rights of the Child" Agreement, they would have to forfeit the protective regulations (Articles14.1, 16.1, and 37 of the UN's "Rights of the Child"). The current United States' regulations protect children, but not families. They can also be used to say that a child cannot be trusted to make his or her own decisions in their best interests. Hence, the State needs to step in and declare that a parent is unfit, the State will be a better parent, and the Federal government hands out a check. It's become a business.

Now, if the United States had signed the "Rights of the Child" and had agreed to uphold its tenets, we would not have this Child Protection fiasco. We are the only country with a government who has not ratified it. Almost two hundred other countries have signed it and then ratified it. Clinton did sign it, but several Congressmen were blatantly against it, and Clinton failed to follow through with ratification. There is one country who has not ratified it, and that is because they have no government to ratify through. This would be Somalia.

But if this situation were rectified, we would arrest parents who were accused of mistreating a child, we'd have more time to pursue valid child abuse and neglect cases, instead of wasting valuable resources on what many people call 'witch hunts', and we wouldn't have the grudge call. Parents who had mistreated their children wouldn't be able to have more children, because they'd be in prison. And why does Child Protective agencies, at least in some States, only threaten the parents with removal of their additional children, even while newborns in the hospital, if the parents had fought for their older children's return, instead of signing off their rights like good little citizens? If the parents had signed off their rights, enabling Child Protective services to adopt their children away from them easily, they have a second chance at having a family, without risking losing their children at birth. It's one way the government punishes those who fight back. But thanks to greed and apathy, we have the system that we have allowed our Congress to reinstate again.

Let me phrase it this way. If I tell you, 'hey, if you go get me some of your neighbor's grass clippings, I'll give you $20,' you're very likely to go get those grass clippings. Besides, their grass will keep growing. That is what some people say that the government looks at the common people as doing, continuing to have children. Farm animals do that, also, by the way.

Back to Omar Khadr, however, and how he plays into all this. If the United States had signed the "Rights of the Child" at the Hague, particularly Articles 38 through 40, Omar Khadr would not be in the situation he is in. He would not have been detained at all. He would have never been found with a hood over his head. He was a child, maybe a child soldier, but he was still a child. That word, 'child,' is a qualifier, and it means something. But sadly, no, the Senators, and the Representatives keep reinstating the "Adoption and Safe Families" Act. All that money given to the States, all that greed, has kept us as a Nation, a supposedly great Nation, from signing a document that would show the world that we as a People value our children, all children, and want to protect them, including those who are exploited by governments.