Showing posts with label child soldiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child soldiers. Show all posts
Friday, July 3, 2015
US court fines Afghan child soldier $134 millions for defending Afghanistan
Get real!
This is an obscenity.
Whatever slim case America may have to make about its "exceptionality" is greatly diminished by this bit of judicial bullying.
Omar Khadr was a fifteen year old kid when American troops stormed his home town in Afghanistan.
In the first place, that makes him a child soldier. He is due all the considerations due any child soldier. For the most part, we in the Nations of Virtue have lobbied for the rehabilitation and reintegration into civil society of child soldiers.
Secondly, this opens the door to all manner of frivolous lawsuits. If US soldiers can take legal action against Afghan citizens for defending Afghanistan, can WW II Wehrmacht soldiers take legal action against Poles and Danes and Russians for injuries incurred as they were invading those countries?
Can IDF troops sue Lebanon for resisting the various Israeli incursions into that country?
Maybe there's a few Japanese vets who can launch lawsuits against China for resisting their occupation of Shanghai?
This decision is just monumentally stupid.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Why Omar Khadr deserves another chance
In 2002 Canada signed on to an ambitious bit of do-gooderism known as the "Optional protocol on the Rights of the Child".
The aim of this non-binding UN document was to divert "child soldiers" out of the regular stream of consequences that befall adults who are captured in the course of hostilities. Minors who became prisoners of war were to be reintegrated into civil society.
Canada was the first country to ratify the agreement, and one of its most vocal cheerleaders.
Also in 2002, Canadian teen Omar Khadr was captured after a fire-fight in Afghanistan, in the course of which an American serviceman died. Khadr, 14 or 15 years old at the time, was captured by US forces and eventually found his way to Gitmo.
Khadr's repatriation to Canada was resisted at every step by the Canadian government. The child soldier had morphed into an unrepentant terrorist in the view of Canadian authorities. Clearly the protocol on the rights of the child was intended to protect children raised by African savages, not children who were born in Canada.
The naive do-gooderism of well-meaning activists was more than offset by the vindictive racism of the Harper gang.
The Canadian child soldier is now 27 years old and still in prison, albeit in Canada finally. He has launched a legal action against the government for violating his rights.
This case throws into stark relief the hypocrisy of Canadian authorities who are always eager to preach to the rest of the world about doing the right thing, but then pretend those rules don't apply to Canada.
Get over yourselves, you sanctimonious twats! The same rules that apply to child soldiers born in Africa must apply to child soldiers born in Canada. You can not offer prescriptions to right the wrongs of the lesser developed nations, or just lesser peoples, and pretend that you are not subject to those same rules.
Canada's treatment of Omar Khadr has been one long and despicable exercise in hypocrisy and racism.
We need to give him another chance just to exonerate ourselves.
The aim of this non-binding UN document was to divert "child soldiers" out of the regular stream of consequences that befall adults who are captured in the course of hostilities. Minors who became prisoners of war were to be reintegrated into civil society.
Canada was the first country to ratify the agreement, and one of its most vocal cheerleaders.
Also in 2002, Canadian teen Omar Khadr was captured after a fire-fight in Afghanistan, in the course of which an American serviceman died. Khadr, 14 or 15 years old at the time, was captured by US forces and eventually found his way to Gitmo.
Khadr's repatriation to Canada was resisted at every step by the Canadian government. The child soldier had morphed into an unrepentant terrorist in the view of Canadian authorities. Clearly the protocol on the rights of the child was intended to protect children raised by African savages, not children who were born in Canada.
The naive do-gooderism of well-meaning activists was more than offset by the vindictive racism of the Harper gang.
The Canadian child soldier is now 27 years old and still in prison, albeit in Canada finally. He has launched a legal action against the government for violating his rights.
This case throws into stark relief the hypocrisy of Canadian authorities who are always eager to preach to the rest of the world about doing the right thing, but then pretend those rules don't apply to Canada.
Get over yourselves, you sanctimonious twats! The same rules that apply to child soldiers born in Africa must apply to child soldiers born in Canada. You can not offer prescriptions to right the wrongs of the lesser developed nations, or just lesser peoples, and pretend that you are not subject to those same rules.
Canada's treatment of Omar Khadr has been one long and despicable exercise in hypocrisy and racism.
We need to give him another chance just to exonerate ourselves.
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