Khadr Sentenced To 40 Years By Military Tribunal

[Sharpshooter]

Hey, let's throw a parade for the little monster! Let's invite him into our homes for some Qu'oran reading and discussion on world politics!

I don't think so...

The only thing Canadian about this POS is his birth certificate.

[Wetcoaster]

I think you're being a little over-bearing here. He's not saying you're wrong, just that he FEELS differently than you do regarding a large amount of data and circumstantial evidence. Your perspective is that of a legal professional and (I assume) someone who is concerned personaly with human rights and international law. His perspective is different.

You're opinion, while different, is not more correct overall.

[ronthecivil]

I think you're being a little over-bearing here. He's not saying you're wrong, just that he FEELS differently than you do regarding a large amount of data and circumstantial evidence. Your perspective is that of a legal professional and (I assume) someone who is concerned personaly with human rights and international law. His perspective is different.

You're opinion, while different, is not more correct overall.

[GarthButcher]

I'm not calling anyone who disagrees with me a knuckle dragger. That term is reserved for the folks who use the term "terrorist" as a catch-all term to justify denying the rights of a Canadian citizen (child no less).

Those that want to say that the Taliban attacked anybody have really gone off the reservation.

If someone wants to claim that the horse and pony show in the UN of the US manipulating public trauma to get votes to attack and occupy an entire country in what should have essentially been a police action amounts to any "legal justification", they don't understand international politics one bit.

The question at the heart of some statements. If you're going to try Khadr for murder, what are the US soldiers doing everyday? What about the roughly 1 million dead Iraqis? 1 million dead Vietnamese?

The US has a lot of blood on its hands. The farce that they attempt to try a minor for murder when they have killed millions is laughable.

That's why this cannot stand-up in a real court, and why it's a complete farce. There are so many grounds to dismiss the case.

That would be the knuckle dragging element. That there are some loud and proud people in this discussion who do not understand the fundamental concepts upon which the Cdn legal system was founded. Freedoms that define Canada as a country.

They have been trampled on in this case. It's just too bad that the "terrorism" brain washing has actually forced some pretty important details to the back seat for far too many people.

[ronthecivil]

Sure it is.

it is the difference between an informed opinion and some amorphous "feeling".

[Sharpshooter]

Even if the odds are 95% that the physc assesment is correct and 5% the CSIS assement is correct that 5% danger is far too great.

Even the physc assement noted that his continued incarceration (which is what happened) could result in a risk.

That's a lot of unnecesary risk.

[Sharpshooter]

People on the left wing of things are often increadibly (and ironically) intollerant of dissenting opinions.

At least Wet is relatively polite and actually puts more effort into explaining himself than simply hurling insults.

[JAH]

Treat the son in accordance with the international law that Canada was instrumental in bringing into force in respect of child soldiers? Seems not only simple and straightforward but also in accordance with the law.

I am with Senator, former General and former commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) Romeo Dallaire:

The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties, in order to say that you're doing it to protect yourself and you are going against those rights and conventions, you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all.

...

Since 2000, both Canada and the U.S., along with more than 125 other state-parties to the Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict, have provided millions of dollars in efforts to demobilize, rehabilitate and reintegrate former child soldiers and have consistently advocated for the elimination of the recruitment and use of children in war. Moreover, demobilized child soldiers are considered victims who were coerced into committing serious crimes by adults.

It is hypocritical that Omar Khadr is not receiving the same rights as former child soldiers from countries such as Sierra Leone. His trial puts all former child soldiers in danger and undermines the tireless work that we have done to show child soldiers can be rehabilitated.

One of the problems with this case is that people do not have compassion for Khadr, but have compassion for child soldiers in other parts of the world. If a 15-year-old child in Sierra Leone or Uganda kills someone in a war, he is a victim in need of rehabilitation, but as soon as that child is accused of killing an American soldier, legal standards no longer apply.

It is a shame that Canada has allowed its citizen to be subjected to a process that is an affront to the rule of law. Equally shameful is that the U.S. is using a child detainee charged for war crimes as a test case for an immoral and illegal tribunal.

As early as August 2002, a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held that “(w)e must protect the freedoms of even those who hate us, and that we may find objectionable. If we fail in this task, we become victims of the precedents we create. We have prided ourselves on being a nation of laws applying equally to all and not a nation of men who have few or no standards.” Unfortunately, and much to the dismay of all who stand for the rule of law and due process, today we are all becoming silent victims.

On May 22, 2010 Dallaire wrote this piece for the Globe and Mail:

Canadians must realize by now that our government’s cynicism toward Omar Khadr’s tragic predicament reflects an unacceptable moral position. We are permitting the United States to try a Canadian child soldier using a military tribunal whose procedures violate basic principles of justice.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives slough off this reality using clever words and pat responses.

Speaking recently about his government’s inaction on the Khadr file, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier glibly told the House that “the current policy of the government is one that has been in place since 2002,” and that the government “is making sure that justice takes its course.”

The policy toward Mr. Khadr formulated by the Canadian government in 2002, during the panicky aftermath of 9/11, was unquestionably wrong. Sticking stubbornly to this six-year-old approach illustrates an inflexible policy mechanism, and perhaps even a compulsion to bow and scrape to the Bush administration.

In recent years, we have heard troubling facts about Guantanamo Bay and incontrovertible evidence of U.S. malfeasance.

In July, 2006, the United Nations called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, terming the indefinite detention of individuals without a charge “a violation of the convention against torture.” Two months later, more than 600 U.S. legal scholars and jurists called on Congress not to enact the Military Commissions Act of 2006, as it would rob detainees of fundamental protections provided by domestic and international law.

This act allows prosecutors to use evidence gleaned from abusive interrogations, including coercion and torture. The commissions also sabotage individuals’ ability to defend themselves by barring access to exculpatory evidence known to the U.S. government. In Mr. Khadr’s case, documents to be used as evidence for war-crimes charges, laid in February, 2007, have been altered.

In December, 2007, Colonel Morris Davis, then chief military prosecutor of the military tribunals, resigned in protest over such political interference. “It’s a disgrace to call it a military commission,” he said. “It is a political commission.”

Omar Khadr’s ordeal began in 2002, when the 15-year-old was present during a firefight with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Despite his age and the two serious gunshot wounds Khadr suffered during the incident, he was taken prisoner as an adult combatant for allegedly killing a U.S. serviceman. Even while he lay healing from his wounds, he was ill-treated, possibly tortured and certainly threatened with rendition, rape and death. We now know that even Canadian officials capitalized on Khadr’s incarceration at Guantanamo Bay to question him.

Despite all this, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister sticks to his line that the government “is making sure that justice takes its course.” It’s difficult to imagine how anything resembling justice can come out of Guantanamo Bay.

Within the international community, Canada is viewed as gullible for allowing one its citizens to be processed by an illegal tribunal system at Guantanamo, and as hypocritical for quietly acceding to the first ever child-soldier war-crimes prosecution.

Canada’s inaction has profound ramifications. The UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, says Khadr’s prosecution sets a hazardous precedent in international law, which will endanger child soldiers in conflict zones. The impunity enjoyed by the real criminals — those who have recruited child soldiers — continues to the detriment of real victims: the thousands of child soldiers around the world.

This government must act now, as all of our allies have done already, to bring its citizen home. Otherwise, we are abetting an affront to human rights and international law.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/05/22/rom-233-o-dallaire-bring-omar-khadr-home.aspx#ixzz13VaHfsfL

[ronthecivil]

I'm not calling anyone who disagrees with me a knuckle dragger. That term is reserved for the folks who use the term "terrorist" as a catch-all term to justify denying the rights of a Canadian citizen (child no less).

Those that want to say that the Taliban attacked anybody have really gone off the reservation.

If someone wants to claim that the horse and pony show in the UN of the US manipulating public trauma to get votes to attack and occupy an entire country in what should have essentially been a police action amounts to any "legal justification", they don't understand international politics one bit.

The question at the heart of some statements. If you're going to try Khadr for murder, what are the US soldiers doing everyday? What about the roughly 1 million dead Iraqis? 1 million dead Vietnamese?

The US has a lot of blood on its hands. The farce that they attempt to try a minor for murder when they have killed millions is laughable.

That's why this cannot stand-up in a real court, and why it's a complete farce. There are so many grounds to dismiss the case.

That would be the knuckle dragging element. That there are some loud and proud people in this discussion who do not understand the fundamental concepts upon which the Cdn legal system was founded. Freedoms that define Canada as a country.

They have been trampled on in this case. It's just too bad that the "terrorism" brain washing has actually forced some pretty important details to the back seat for far too many people.

[JAH]

I bet he could teach you a thing or two about U.S. military and its intersection with politics.

His birth certificate is enough to warrant, protection of his fundamental rights, due process and a fair trial. What do you think you're defending by wearing our nation's uniform again?

[ronthecivil]

There is a 99% chance that you'll make it home from work tomorrow and a 1% chance you'll die a horrible death in an motor vehicle accident.

That 1% danger is a present and existential risk to your very life...you should stay in bed tomorrow.

[Wetcoaster]

People on the left wing of things are often increadibly (and ironically) intollerant of dissenting opinions.

At least Wet is relatively polite and actually puts more effort into explaining himself than simply hurling insults.

[JAH]

If you're going to try Khadr for murder, what are the US soldiers doing everyday?

[inane]

He was chilling with Al Quada. They are pretty pro at killing innocent people themselves.

Still don't understand the jusitification for the name calling. Look at the bright side! Apparently the charter even protects Canadians of convienience living in a foreign country engaged in battle with out troops! Man if that's not a test I don't know what is! I have no doubts he will be walking the streets of downtown T.O. within a year and if you want to go shake his hand or wish him your condolences you can go do so in person.

[inane]

Engaging in Military Operations in accordance with International Law.

I'll listen to an argument that the executive arm of the US acted out of turn or even illegally, but the troops on the ground have done NOTHING wrong by simply engaging in combat. Of course, if in the course of their operations, individual soldiers committ war crimes (like murder, rape, etc.) then INDIVIDUALLY they should be puinished. But to label them all murderers because the entire mission is illegal (allegedly) is completely unfair and legally incorrect.

[ronthecivil]

Calling Wet polite after calling him incredibly intolerant, while simultaneously rebuking hurled insults to you is.......

awesome.

[Sharpshooter]

Are you for real?! He could teach me something? Yeah, maybe some of the tripe fed to him by AQ, that'd be fun. And didn;t you know that military operations are, by efinition, political? Military force is the ultimate expression of one's foreign policy afterall.

He got all of those things, and the manner and form the trial took was comensurate with the crimes he was accused of and the circumstance in which he committed them.

[JAH]

You and ron sound pretty comfortable using the words 'terrorist' without looking at the individual...

[ronthecivil]

You and ron sound pretty comfortable using the words 'terrorist' without looking at the individual...

[JAH]

That's why I said he could teach you a thing or two about the intersection between the military and politics...because the military's torture of a child is indeed the ultimate expression of a political ideology. One that you seem to subscribe to....but only when it's not you or your fellow soldiers on the recieving end of such political expression...right?

He got all of those things eh? Interesting observation from your perspective. He was charged with murder...didn't receive a fair trial, had no due process in the 8 years leading to the military tribunal...and even as a child sodlier wasn't afforded any rights by which his country of birth and his country of capture and torture, have entrenched themselves, legally, morally, domestically and internationally.

You sure got a funny observational perspective soldier.