On Friday, Omar Khadr, the sole Canadian citizen in Guantanamo, marked his 22nd birthday in isolation. Seized in Afghanistan when he was just 15 years old, Omar has now spent nearly a third of his life in U.S. custody, in conditions that ought to be shameful to the U.S. administration responsible for holding him and to the Canadian government that has abdicated its responsibilities toward him.Under the terms of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (on the involvement of children in armed conflict), to which both the United States and Canada are signatories, juvenile prisoners -- defined as those accused of a crime that took place when they were under 18 years of age -- "require special protection." The Optional Protocol specifically recognizes "the special needs of those children who are particularly vulnerable to recruitment or use in hostilities," and requires its signatories to promote "the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict."

Disgusting.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/99537?page=entire

Yes, and I have to wonder how many times this story has been repeated--in cases that haven't hit the news.

Inside Iraq, no doubt quite a few times, as the American public has very little sense of the demographics of that country. Literally HALF of Iraq's population is under the age of 15. It is quite literally a nation of children, whose childhood we are literally bombing.

If they make it out alive, what kind of adults do you think that will produce?