Khadr Sentenced To 40 Years By Military Tribunal

[ronthecivil]

Yes I do know. You asked IMHO because you are playing silly bugger yet again and going off on yet another bizarre tangent.

Rather than playing such games you might try thinking through the question - it is not that difficult.

Think of it as an application of the Socratic method.

"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime"

Or perhaps as has been paraphrased for modern times:

"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks."

[ronthecivil]

1) Khadr isn't a minor currently.

2) His father is dead.

3) Omar isn't and hasn't been under his mother's care for the last 13-14 years.

[Wetcoaster]

No, I asked because it's not at all unreasonable to expect that if he was back with mom that the indoctrination would simply be restarted.

[Sharpshooter]

His mother is still alive and certainly doesn't seem to upset about the fact that he was with Al Queda, makes me think that she was part and parcel to the abuse. Why not charge her?

[ronthecivil]

Much of what you have posted in this thread begins with being unreasonable and deliberately obtuse. I am not optimistic regarding any change in your manner of posting.

The best strategy of dealing with such behaviour is simply to continue to highlight it for what it is.

[ronthecivil]

Adults are just as prone to brainwashing by an imposing and radical spouse, as are the children of those same people.

I'm not defending her...i'm just saying.

Perhaps after the entire review is done, there could be some charges against her. I doubt it though, but I don't think there's a statute of limits when it comes to child abuse. That is, if you can prove the mother was at fault, and it wasn't just the father. And in most religiously fundamental Pakistani homes...men rule, with an iron fist and without any challenge, by the kids or the wife.

I'm not too sure what they could or couldn't charge her with, with any expert or professional certainty.

[Sharpshooter]

The whole family still seems to be pretty pro Al Queda even with Dad dead, one son in jail, and the other crippled.

[Wetcoaster]

Interesting article in The Guardian (UK) about how the US twisted international law and the rules of war while disregarding basic legal rights in convicting Omar Khadr:

The article was written by Jason Ralph who is a professor in international relations at the University of Leeds. He is an expert in the fields of international law, American foreign policy, human rights and the war on terror.

The news that the youngest of the Guantánamo detainees, Omar Khadr, has been sentenced to eight years in a maximum security prison for the killing of US special forces medic Christopher Speer is a reminder that some of the more contentious practices in America's war on terror continue. The charges against Khadr reflect US attempts to rewrite international law – and the implications for the laws of war are potentially profound.

Khadr's case was heard by a military commission rather than a federal court, and rights groups have consistently denounced the procedures leading up to the plea bargain. Of course, President Obama promised to close Guantánamo Bay within a year of taking office. Now, at the mid-point of his first term, 174 detainees remain in the camp, and the plan to close it either by repatriating them, prosecuting them in federal courts, or transferring them to a "supermax" prison on the mainland, has stalled because of political opposition.

The Obama administration justifies the use of military commissions and what it calls "prolonged detention" by referring to the president's war powers, which, it reminds us, were delegated by Congress when it passed the Authorisation to Use Military Force (AUMF) on 18 September 2001. It uses the same argument to justify the equally contentious practice of "targeted killing".

Liberals continue to argue that such actions are illegal outside the battlefield, or that they can only be justified in circumstances when there is no other way of preventing a terrorist atrocity. If there is one single, compelling piece of evidence that the post 9/11 American exception has outlasted the Bush administration, then its successor's continued reliance on the AUMF is it.

Much of the controversy surrounding Khadr related to his age at the time he was detained on the Afghan battlefield: he was 15. Given his juvenile status, at the time he threw the grenade that killed Speer, he should have been subject to a different judicial process. There are other aspects of the case that attract attention, including the Canadian government's refusal to request extradition and its role, now apparent in facilitating the plea bargain, as well as what should have been the admissibility of a confession allegedly extracted through torture.

What has not been reported so widely, however, is the nature of the charges against Khadr and the impact his guilty plea could have on the laws of war.

The issue here is that "murder in violation of the laws of war" – the charge laid against Khadr – is not recognised internationally as a war crime. Following the Bush administration's lead, the US Congress insisted in the 2009 Military Commission Act that any civilian targeting an American soldier was an unprivileged belligerent guilty of murder or attempted murder. But "unprivileged belligerent" is not a category of combatant defined in the laws of war.

Under the Geneva conventions, violent individuals are either combatants or civilians. As an enemy combatant, one would have expected Khadr (age aside) to be targeting US soldiers. The only way the US government could have prosecuted him under the laws of war, therefore, was to charge him with killing while disguised as a civilian or with "perfidy".

As the defence counsel argued in the similar case of Mohammed Jawad, however, al-Qaida fighters do not have uniforms to give up, so their civilian appearance was not a disguise. They were, therefore, in the eyes of the laws of war, civilians. As a non-combatant throwing a grenade, Khadr could certainly have been prosecuted for murder – but not under the laws of war and not in a military commission. He should have been due a trial in the civilian courts of Afghanistan, the US or Canada, where the rules of evidence would have been very different.

The implication of finding a civilian guilty of murder in violation of the laws of war is significant. It is another instance where the US has "militarised" civilian crimes. Other detainees, for instance, have been found guilty by military commission for providing material support for terrorism, and rights groups continue to fear that the US interpretation of "enemy combatant" is now so broad that a proverbial "little old lady in Switzerland" giving to a charity with armed Islamist connections could be tried in a military commission.

Above all, the Khadr ruling is a case where the US has pursued its own definition of the laws of war. "Murder in violation of the laws of war" was codified by the US Congress alone, and many experts consider it a rank misinterpretation of international law. If other states adopt the American example, then we may look back at the Khadr trial as the moment when a new form of war crime was created, unilaterally and for the expediency of the world's pre-eminent military power.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/02/omar-khadr-al-qaida-canada/print

[ronthecivil]

So?

It's not a crime to ideologically support them, as wrong as I believe that ideology to be.

[Wetcoaster]

One of the better thought out letters to the editor in response to the article in the Hamilton Spectator "Ottawa will consider return ‘favourably’ ".

At the personal level, I couldn’t care less about the Khadr tribe but I do care passionately about the rule of law and due process. The Omar Khadr show trial has effectively ignored both.

During the entirety of the Military Courts Commission’s bastardized proceedings, the sight of justice being done has been akin to the sound of a one-hand clap. The United States’ system of justice has been dealt a hard blow, seriously harmed by those egregious, substandard proceedings that have flouted both federal and military law.

Strong legal arguments can and have been made that four of the five “war crimes” with which Khadr was charged and to which he pled his “guilt” do not actually exist under international law: murder in violation of the law-of-war, attempted murder in violation of the law-of-war, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. The only war crime that does exist — although the charge sheet doesn’t provide much information about what he really did — is spying.

The Department of Defense had little or no chance of convicting Khadr as a “war criminal” in a federal court, indeed, even in a legitimate military court, knew it and successfully stonewalled the State Department’s efforts to transfer the case to the federal system.

The endgame of the DOD, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against the Military Commissions Act (2006) has been twofold: Show the world that Khadr is “guilty” as charged and create the illusion that justice has been served.

Mission accomplished.

Pity.

Doug Campbell, Burlington

http://www.thespec.com/opinion/letters/article/272741--khadr-trial-ignored-rule-of-law

Very well put and it accurately summarizes exactly what was so horribly wrong with this illegal military tribunal process.

[Wetcoaster]

It's what makes me think that she had just as much to do with him going over there as dad.

[JAH]

As the defence counsel argued in the similar case of Mohammed Jawad, however, al-Qaida fighters do not have uniforms to give up, so their civilian appearance was not a disguise. They were, therefore, in the eyes of the laws of war, civilians. As a non-combatant throwing a grenade, Khadr could certainly have been prosecuted for murder – but not under the laws of war and not in a military commission. He should have been due a trial in the civilian courts of Afghanistan, the US or Canada, where the rules of evidence would have been very different.

[Sharpshooter]

One of the better thought out letters to the editor in response to the article in the Hamilton Spectator "Ottawa will consider return 'favourably' ".

At the personal level, I couldn't care less about the Khadr tribe but I do care passionately about the rule of law and due process. The Omar Khadr show trial has effectively ignored both.

During the entirety of the Military Courts Commission's bastardized proceedings, the sight of justice being done has been akin to the sound of a one-hand clap. The United States' system of justice has been dealt a hard blow, seriously harmed by those egregious, substandard proceedings that have flouted both federal and military law.

Strong legal arguments can and have been made that four of the five "war crimes" with which Khadr was charged and to which he pled his "guilt" do not actually exist under international law: murder in violation of the law-of-war, attempted murder in violation of the law-of-war, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. The only war crime that does exist — although the charge sheet doesn't provide much information about what he really did — is spying.

The Department of Defense had little or no chance of convicting Khadr as a "war criminal" in a federal court, indeed, even in a legitimate military court, knew it and successfully stonewalled the State Department's efforts to transfer the case to the federal system.

The endgame of the DOD, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling against the Military Commissions Act (2006) has been twofold: Show the world that Khadr is "guilty" as charged and create the illusion that justice has been served.

Mission accomplished.

Pity.

Doug Campbell, Burlington

http://www.thespec.c...red-rule-of-law

Very well put and it accurately summarizes exactly what was so horribly wrong with this illegal military tribunal process.

[ronthecivil]

It seems as usual little thought went into that opinion.

[Sharpshooter]

It's what makes me think that she had just as much to do with him going over there as dad.

[ronthecivil]

What makes you think that? Her ideology? How do you know she didn't just support the cause and didn't want her 10 year old son, out there in that mess? A mother is still a mother, no matter how much she's vilified. I doubt any mother would send her 10 year old child to fight and die at that age. I do, feel that the dad IS that bat crap crazy...but again, it's all speculation. How do we know Jor' El didn't command her to send him there by way of telepathic message from the planet Krypton??

Let's just stick to the facts, ma'am.

[Sharpshooter]

Even after dad was dead she was recorded as saying they are an Al Quada family and was proud of her son's actions. Seems to me that she had no problems whatsoever with him going to that camp then.

As such, what makes you think that only the dad is responsible for him being there?

[Sharpshooter]

On account of she said she was proud of his actions.

Your right (other than me being a ma'am) that there's no way to prove that she had a part in it, but the way she acts would certainly indicate that it's the most likely scenario.

Now, I know that something being the most likely scenario is not enough to convict, and perhaps that's the reason no charges have been laid. Still it seems odd that there would be a solid case against the dad were he alive but not the mom.

[Sharpshooter]

Even after dad was dead she was recorded as saying they are an Al Quada family and was proud of her son's actions. Seems to me that she had no problems whatsoever with him going to that camp then.

As such, what makes you think that only the dad is responsible for him being there?

[ronthecivil]

See video above.

And the 'ma'am' comment was a Sergeant Friday reference....you're old enough to remember Dragnet, aren't ya?