Trying children as terrorists:
A Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan should not be tried as a war criminal because he was a child soldier for al Qaeda, too young to voluntarily join its forces, his military defense lawyer told a U.S. war court on Monday.
Navy Lt. William Kuebler asked a military judge to throw out the charges against Canadian defendant Omar Khadr, who was shot and captured at age 15 in a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002.
***If the U.S. Congress intended to try children as war criminals, it would have explicitly authorized that in the 2006 law that serves as a framework for the Guantanamo court, Kuebler said.
But a U.S. Department of Justice attorney, arguing for the prosecution, said that if Congress intended to exclude juveniles from the Guantanamo war court, it would have explicitly written that, because lawmakers knew Khadr could face charges. Instead, Congress wrote the law using the term “person,” which legally refers to “anyone born alive,” Justice Department attorney Andy Oldham said.
There actually was a 60 Minutes piece on this kid a while back.
Obligatory snark: this is one of Don Rumsfeld’s “worst of the worst.”
Keith
I expect that to be changed in future cases where the US govt maintains a person is anyone conceived. This has the two-fold advantage of saying “Hey, lookatus, we’re the Culture of Life” while also being able to imprison pregnant women and their unborn-yet-alive terrorist-spawn at Gitmo.
Jake
Jesus Christ. Gitmo Daycare Center.
Cyrus
I’m having flashbacks to the South Park movie.
I wonder how old the other 274 are. Although I am pleasantly surprised that the number of people being held in Guantanamo without a trial is (apparently, reportedly) down to 275; it was in the thousands for a while, wasn’t it?
Jen
No one is as fervent as the converted, are they? Preach it, John!
Punchy
So the Justice Dept. has gone on record as saying a fetus is not a person.
Pass the popcorn.
The Other Steve
Why can’t we just treat someone like that as a POW?
The Other Steve
Good catch.
Mike
Here’s another worst of the worst.
D-Chance.
If you consider 20- or 21-year-olds ‘daycare’…
the guy took up a gun in an al Qaeda (alleged) camp and fired upon US soldiers. So, Mr Cole, finish the post… what SHOULD we do with a teenage soldier who fires upon U.S. soldiers in an active wartime battle situation?
bago
Stick em in juvie and explain to them that machiso based drive bys aren’t acceptable, and that you are no longer the patron peasant of your regional warlord.
Jen
Yeah! If you hold them long enough, they GET old enough. DUH!
bago
I mean what kind of a sick government conscripts children into the service allowing them to fight and die for their country while denying them the benefits of the choices of what substances to drink or people to have sex with.
Zardoz?
Joey Maloney
Treat him as a prisoner of war, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions? Radical idea, I know…
libarbarian
By 1945, the Germans were conscripting kids as young as 13. AFAIK this is exactly what we kid. Very radical indeed.
Evinfuilt
Oh, you’re a smart one.
So with your logic. If a baby holds a gun, we just have to hold him without trial for 21 years, and then prosecute him as an adult. Brilliant strategy.
GSD
I remember when Brave George Bush opened up the Iraqi jails and let those poor children out of Saddam’s bondage!
Image what kind of cruel dictator would jail children?
-GSD
jvill
Since it’s now OK to try the mentally immature for war crimes, when will we be getting around to President Nitwit? Apparently being a blathering idiot will no longer count as a credible defense.
Cassidy
An EPW is not a captured member of a terrorist organization. It’s a captured member of an opposing army.
J sub D
If he had shot at a cop in a South Central Los Angeles drug raid, he’d be tried as an adult. Few would protest.
Just sayin’
Jen
At 15? I would protest. I would protest.
Jake
The practice of trying juvenilles as adults is getting a lot of push back from those dang activist judges. If people wanted to say adulthood begins at an earlier age that would at least be consistent. But of course, I’d be shouted down as a pervert so I’ll let someone with the proper credentials and children make that arguement.
UnkyT
Brown skin ages you at least 3 years.
Xanthippas
More to the point, he’d get an actual trial, not a “commission.” And a hearing to determine whether he was competent to be tried as an adult. And, if he were found guilty, a sentence that would consider mitigating factors like his minority. In other words, procedural protections not afforded detainees, even if they were minors at the time of capture.
Xanthippas
See my above comment, about the procedures afforded us via the rule of law. You know, that thing that some people on the conservative side of the aisle only have respect for when it’s manifested as a cop beating a free trade protester.
TenguPhule
It’s a war crime to kill an enemy soldier now?
Oh shit, who wants to tell our guys in Iraq they’re fucked now?
We could always do what we did before Bush’s Pussy Insanity took over, follow the damn procedures already set up.
TenguPhule
And if J sub D was caught sucking his dick, few would protest the kid blowing D away as a pedophile.
Just saying….
TenguPhule
Any African nation currently at war.
Though they do allow the kids to drink and rape them at will.
TenguPhule
Because logical thinking has been replaced by dick slapping contests among Bush loyalists.
James F. Elliott
The accused was 15 at the time he allegedly threw a grenade that killed a US soldier. This makes him a child soldier. Children soldiers are protected from prosecution by international treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. So, what does the DoJ say?
To translate: “Treaties apply when we say they apply, bitches.”
Zifnab
What do we do with all the kids in Sudan, conscripted into their little civil war? Round up both sides and lock them away forever?
Perhaps Lt. Kueblar could argue the child was acting in self-defense what with American Soldiers arguably being in Afghanistan illegally (if you remember, we never actually declared war, we just declared our desire to invade and kill people until we felt better as a nation).
Perhaps Lt. Kueblar could argue that Omar wasn’t aiming for the US Soldier he killed, and that the soldier’s death was a result of acceptable levels of collateral damage associated with any military action. Works every time we drop bombs on some goat herder’s wedding party or some rag-head’s business/possible-terrorist-hideout.
I’m a bit confused, because I could have sworn we were at war. When Pat Tillman got shot in the back of the head, no one got prosecuted. Maybe this goes back to the US Government policy of determining sectarian violence. If Omar’s victim took the bullet in the front of the head, I can see how this was an instance of sectarian violence instead of a routine act of violence. In that case, I guess Omar really is a terrorist and should be water boarded until dead.
Paul L.
I am guessing you guys also support the Free the ‘MTA-9’ movement
Afterall, it is a civil rights issue.
Al Sharpton Emerges from Burrow, Declares One More Year of White Guilt
TenguPhule
Shorter Paul L: I’m a fucking jackalope, short and stout. Here is my asshole, here is my snout. Can you figure out which end is which? Because both of them can only bitch!
Svensker
Here’s another of the worst of the worst.
I would really like Dubya to be waterboarded. By someone who doesn’t like him.
Cassidy
Because they are not EPW’s (POW’s).
Priceless!
Technically, it’s not a war. For those of us who ahve been there, it is, but that is another topic. War can only be declared by Congress, yet the Commander in Chief has the ability to utilize the armed forces…but I’m sure you know this.
Unfortunately, this admin. has jumped distinctions to many times to be credible, but across the board, terrorist organizations are considered criminals and usually treated as such. IMO, I agree with that sentiment. By detaining and conducting military tribunals, we’re only legitimizing their actions as acts of soldiers, instead of condemning them as criminals.
Cassidy
Yukoner
For those interested, here is a link to the story as it is being reported in Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/national/080204/n0204150A.html
Initially, the US said Khadr was seen throwing the grenade that killed a US medic.
Then came the admission that no one had seen him throw the grenade but he must have because he was the only guy left alive in the compound at the time.
Now out slips the info that there actually was another guy there as well.
And finally, yesterday we learn, apparantly because the court mistakenly put in a document containing a US soldier’s eyewitness account, that Khadr, already wounded with shrapnel in the chest and facing away from the fight, was shot twice in the back by a US soldier before being captured.
Damien
“…but across the board, terrorist organizations are considered criminals and usually treated as such. IMO, I agree with that sentiment. By detaining and conducting military tribunals, we’re only legitimizing their actions as acts of soldiers, instead of condemning them as criminals.”
I agree completely with the sentiment but isn’t it ironic that we have a “war on terror” and are currently employing most of our armed forces combating these terrorists? We’re waging war against a type of organization that by definition we can’t wage war with.
I’m sorry, but when tanks roll into the picture whoever we’re fighting, if they can fight back, is an opposing military force in my eyes.
Yukoner
As a follow-up, the entire Khadr clan seem to be a fanatical and nasty bunch, tied in closely with al Qaida and Osama.
But in this story as in so many others the US government has shown the world that you simply cannot believe a word they say.
Jake
That whistling noise you hear is the sound of US credibility plummeting further down the jackalope hole. I hope the Chinese don’t get angry when it comes smashing through on their end.
I don’t care if you spend your days cowering under the bed because you think the tarrists are at the door: A US citizen who doesn’t at the very least find this shit embarrassing needs to check his pulse.
No wait, I’m sure Flush Limpbag will tell us that soldier was a “phony soldier,” and so can be ignored. Phew!
Jake
Snarked.
James F. Elliott
A friend of mine just made a related point: By the Administration’s logic, were Canada to invade upstate New York, they would be within their rights to detain, prosecute, and execute a teenage hunter who attempted to defend himself from fierce Quebecoise death commandos.
DougJ
What about all the fifteen year-old kids who aren’t in Gitmo? How come never hear about them?
Dug Jay
Execute the little mother fucker and all those bleeding hearts that feel so fucking sorry for him.
Just sayin,
Cyrus
Wonder of wonders, I agree with you. So let’s turn him over to the government of Afghanistan (this probably wouldn’t even make a difference in any practical way) and let him have a trial.
Why do you hate the Constitution?
Actually, maybe I’m overstating it a bit, but the question is at least half serious. If you aren’t a spoof, then why do you think that the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution are bad ideas? If you think they only apply to U.S. citizens, can you point to any case law or precedent, any at all, backing that up?
Wilfred
Correct, and from the pov of Iraqi nationalists it’s an occupation. Which is also correct. So what it is the legal status of Iraqi nationalists who fight against the occupation of their country? A great deal of whom are Sunni and make up most of the 29,000 being held detention.
Who are you referring to here? What are the deciding factors that separate nationalist based resistance to American occupation and terrorism. Or are they completely conflated by now?
IanY77
I’m sorry, but while I disagree with the Bush Administration’s Gitmo policy, that whole family, not just the little rotten crotch fruit, should be expelled from Canada. I’m a proud Canadian (and you can tell I’m Canadian by the fact that this post was led off with an apology ;)> ), but sometimes we are too goddamned nice. That family has stated that they hate Canada, hate who we are and what we stand for. They won’t let the kids join the school system because us degenerate Canadians will “corrupt him” with sex drugs and rock and roll (no seriously, that’s what they said, just not how they said it). They have vowed to fight us in whatever way we can. Meanwhile, they take benefits and use the free health care system.
Omar Khadr killed a soldier by pretending to be some helpless little boy. He has not expressed any remorse for his actions. My opposition to Gitmo stems from the fact that the detainees are treated as POW without a trial. Put the little f**ker on trial, convict his ass, and make sure he never sees the light of day again. He, and his whole family, are honest-to-God bad guys.
Jake
Trade you a bus load of Fundies who home school their kids to keep them away from the corrupting influences, honestly believe terrorist attacks and hurricanes are God’s Vengance against the homoabortionists and accept welfare.
US criminal prosecution, a primer:
1. The defendant is arrested and charged.
2. The defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt.
3. If convicted by a jury (the “If” it is important) he is sentenced possibly using federal guidelines but it depends on the judge.
4. If his sentence is life without parole he might “never see the light again.”
Now, a lot of things can happen between 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. If you want to be 100% certain 1 leads to 4 you want something like the Gitmo kinda sorta combatant enemy tarrist make shit up as we go along BOOYA USA! system. If you don’t like the Gitmo system, you have to take your chances with 1 – 4.
Paul L.
Progressive hero Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ex parte Quirin
Peace out.
Free the ‘MTA-9’
Chuck Butcher
When does the war in Afghanistan end? If you’re a POW that question has some meaning. What do you do with POWs? There is a functioning “friendly” government in Afghanistan with a “functioning” court system. Since Al-Qaeda was not an underground entity during the overthrown government that would make them official in a certain sense.
I’d have something intelligent to say about this if I could even pretend to understand the mess BushCo has made. Lawyers and courts seem about as confused about it. Well, a little less than a year to go.
Darkness
So… every time we kill a bunch of civilians, accidentally or otherwise, do we get tried for that later on as a war crimes? Or just for murder? There is no war and people died unnecessarily. All deaths are up for grabs here, it sounds like, given this precedent. If I were a prosecutor, I’d start with civilian deaths and work my way up to soldiers killing other soldiers when those worse ones were all cleared up.
I mean really, that word “war crimes” isn’t that like the commander who led his troops against a different racial village and slaughtered everyone (more recently than the Hebrews in the bible, when it was god’s will it should happen) a la Milosevic? Heat of battle, pushed into a corner during a firefight where everyone is dying around the perp is not conducive to proving pre-meditation.
I just want to make sure I have this straight. It’s a crime to kill a soldier from a foreign country who’s aiming a gun at you. That will be news for those gun collecting rednecks who have that as a fantasy. No, no, no, that’s not allowed. You have to put your guns down and come out nicely when the invasion comes. Yeah. Right.
4tehlulz
Naturally, Paul L. “missed” the section where the Geneva Conventions superceded Quinn.
Dumbass. Some people do check your citations, you know.
IanY77
Jake:
Lol, it’s a painful choice, but I’ll take fundies over terrists any day of the week. Way less chance of blowing sh*t up (except for the occasional abortion clinic, and honestly, when’s the last time that happened?).
I hear you on the process thing, but since there were a buttload of witnesses, most if not all American soldiers, I don’t know why the gov’t is slow playing this thing. It’s one of the most frustrating things about. If the gov’t is so sure that he’s guilty, then what’s the harm is putting him on trial. Anyhow, sorry if my comment made it seem like I was advocating Bush-style justice. My anger at the Khadr family can sometimes override my good sense.
Zifnab
Seriously, where do you even find these stories? At least the Duke Lacrosse Rape scandal was all over the news. Is there a secret Paul L sponsored underground news agency that actually gives a shit every time two black people mention Al Sharpton’s name in public?
Xanthippas
Paul L, if you were more schooled in the nuances of national security and international law, you would realize that we’re talking about two different things. Here’s what the Supreme Court had to say about the “unlawful combatants” in Quirin:
In other words, they were talking about spies who infiltrate our country to commit acts of sabotage. Or in other words, not children captured on distant battlefields. Also, as someone who doesn’t fully read the things you cite to, you are apparently unaware that since Quirin the US has ratified the Geneva Conventions. And not only that, but the Supreme Court has already held that those protections apply to “enemy combatants” detained pursuant to the war on terror, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
I’m not commenting on your ridiculous statement to educate you, as you-who think the “MTA-9” have something to do with this-are beyond hope. But you do provide a good “learning opportunity” for the rest of us here.
Wilfred
What about this?:
What is wrong with this picture?
Paul L.
Wow, another progressive using the holy text of Geneva Conventions and not understanding the limits set in it.
Congress to Supremes: Drop Dead!
This comment by Dale Franks says it all about the Geneva Conventions and Terrorists.
Dr Richard Blackmoor
Authority can shoot you accidentally but you can’t shoot authority.
In the USA there have been many instances where a bunch of armed cops bust into the wrong house in a drug raid and are shot at and shoot back. If the police are killed the innocent person is a murderer, if the police kill and innocent person it is an accident.
If anyone invades the USA or tries to mess with my Freedom i will fight. Most people feel that way.
Paul L.
I figured that if you believe that the oppressed kid should not be tried for killing a soldier because he is fifteen, you would apply the same standard to a bunch of oppressed black teenagers accused of brutally beating a white woman who allegedly “spit” on them.
4tehlulz
Which is precisely what the terrorist wants. You sink to his level, he wins.
What’s it like being a tool of al Qaeda?
Cassidy
Doesn’t matter. Regardless of the “movement”, any insurgency, or rebellion, etc., is an illegal organization. Most are, in some way, a terrorist organization. Even if they are the “good guys”, they still fit that definition. The various resistance groups in WWII used terror tactics.
What they are not is legitimate military organizations that should be tried and treated as EPW’s.
Cassidy
That we’re forced into situations where to defend ourselves, we might have to hurt civilians.
LiberalTarian
Um, actually, the right has always been brutal about punishment. It is the left that insists on tempering punishment with mercy. The right does punish children; the left seeks to educate and un-delinquent-ize children.
In a system where good government were being practiced, the right could scream until it was hoarse and they would still have to bend and let the left take care of the children. The problem is that good government is not being practiced, thus we have
peoplechildren in Guantanamo.Wilfred
I don’t agree, although I understand the expediency of the position. In any case, it’s self-defeating since the relatives of the victims are obliged to seek revenge – intention doesn’t matter here. Personally, I was raised in the tradition that Banastre Tarleton was a bad guy and that Andersonville was a black mark on American honor.
For the rest, I don’t that much respect for authority.
So did the Stern Gang, which is why American propaganda is just that and is laughed at by the Arabs.
For once we agree – one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
James F. Elliott
Paul L.,
In 2002 — the same year Khadr was apprehended — the U.S. signed and ratified the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is also a signatory (and ratified) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1976. The latter holds that as a matter of international — and, due to ratification, U.S. — law, the government must abide by the former (also now U.S. law).
Regardless of his status as an “unlawful combatant,” given his age at detention and the Bush Administration’s own adoption of international standards for treatment of underage combatants as law, by what precedent is the Bush Administration justified in abrogating the law?
Just as Quinn is later overturned by the adoption of the Geneva Conventions (a precedent you by implication cite by invoking MCA), the Military Commissions Act (your “drop dead” argument mentioned in the previous clause) applies only to the habeas corpus appeals that were the basis for the Hamdan decision. Neither have anything to do with Khadr’s status as a child participant in armed conflict.
Xanthippas
They are related, but not in the way you think. All some of us flaming liberals want is for a young man who was a minor when he committed the alleged offense to get the same procedures that some kids who allegedly beat up a woman will get without having to be held on an island for a few years first. We happen to think that kids are entitled to some measure of fair treatment even if their a darker color or from another country.
Wilfred
Paul L. bangs his head to his own internal drummer:
Please, Paul, tell me the difference. And do so for the nearly 30 cases of clemency given for routine murders of civilians that I’d be more than happy to start rolling out.
J sub D
Such wit. You must be a big hit at parties for bores.
Xanthippas
Incidentally,
Paul L, that blog will rot your mind. The Supreme Court, not Congress, will decide to what extent Congress may limit habeas jurisdiction. And I’m willing to bet they will be as kind to this Act as they were to the President in Hamdan.
TenguPhule
I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been to one of yours.
TenguPhule
Says the illegal invaders and occupiers.
TenguPhule
Shorter Paul L: If you believe an apple is an apple, that banana over there must surely be a nut.
dutchmarbel
In the USA minority is not so mitigating: