Charges dropped against Khadr in Guantanamo

[Argus]

The latest on Khadr.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/04...4114554-cp.html

"Thompson suggested the only trial Khadr could face in Canada would be that on high treason charges, and "that has not been tested here since 1946."

(John Thompson is with the Mackenzie Institute.

There is no chance of him being convicted of treason. His activities were directed against the Americans before Canada ever arrived in Afghanistan. He has never acted against Canada.

As repugnant as he is, Khadr is a Canadian citizen.

That is why the refugee and immigration systems need to be overhauled, so we can remove the citizenship of people like the Khadrs and ship the whole clan back to the cesspool which gave them birth.

But you'll NEVER get the cooperation of the Liberals and NDP in something like that.

[capricorn]

Argus, you're right on. He can't be tried in a Canadian court for a crime against an American. I don't see Canada putting him on trial for treason. Yep, if released into our custody he'd be free as a bird in no time. Do you think mama Khadr is working on a fat lawsuit against us?

Edit: Argus we're cross posting - we have the same view.

[Remiel]

...and the hope of some kind of honest trial Khadr will get.

And, in our superior Western society, why is it exactly that one should have hope for an honest trial? Aren't honest trials supposed to be guaranteed? You do not have to hope for what is guaranteed.

Since when do you care about those people in India, China, Pakistan, Syria, Kenya, Russia and Zimbabwe? You never show any real sympathy for anything or anyone when posting here, so there is no reason to assume that sympathize for those people. Hell, there are plenty of less guilty people than Khadr rotting in U.S. prisons, yet they get no mention from you.

[FTA Lawyer]

I fully agree that justice delayed is justice denied. Khadr should have been brought to trial years ago. But just on the matter of releasing an accused, if the situation was reversed and we were holding a US citizen charged with murdering a Canadian, what would our government do? Would we cave in to US pressure to release the accused into US custody without first holding a trial? I would hope not.

My whole point is simply that habeas corpus applications allow a prisoner who feels that their incarceration is unlawful to require the person imprisoning them to justify to an impartial judge that they are in fact doing so legally.

This is all nitpicking by lawyers - who, of course, care NOTHING about justice, and everything about their petty, if often insane rules of evidence and law and precise interpretations of minute definitions.

People forget that national laws and constitutional protections were never intended to be used with regard to wars fought on foreign shores. As for international law which DOES deal with war, it was never intended to deal with combatants who owe no allegiance to any international body, and whose word can not be relied upon in any way, shape or form to cease combat upon cessation of hostilities.

Khadr is not a citizen of Afghanistan, and was not fighting for any national government. So even if the Afghanistan government had surrendered (it has not, it is still in hiding, still engaged in hostilities) Khadr could not be released to them upon cessation of hostilities. Realistically, if released, he would probably immediately seek out similar minded Islamists and engage in continued violence, whether in Canada or Afghanistan or elsewhere.

But lawyers don't care about what a person is likely to do, of course. All they'll do is say "Well, he broke no law here, because we don't consider killing the American soldier to be murder, so let him go. If he kills a few dozen people later, in a way we do accept to be murder, well, then the law will deal with him".

One solution. Let him live with FTA. No doubt he will abandon all his Islamist ways walk in gay pride parades and become a member of the Liberal party.

Or he'll blow up FTA and his family, but hey, then the law can deal with him, right?

Argus,

God forbid you or anyone you know or care about ever gets mistreated by someone in a position of trust / power / authority...or worse yet ever actually finds yourself wrongfully accused / detained / convicted of something...because you will have nothing but a "nitpicking lawyer" to get you out of the situation.

You truly are feeble-minded if you don't understand that rules of evidence and application of the rule of law are concepts designed to protect against abuse. You have an indefensible concept of JUSTICE if what it means to you is completely disregarding law and fairness for someone accused of doing wrong...as long as you are personally convinced based on media reports that the person is guilty.

If Khadr is the devil-child you say he is, I certainly don't want him to live in my basement. That being said, if the US government can't implement a fair procedure that sees them present and prove their case against him in a reasonably timely manner, then I say he should be released.

Going back to my earlier point, if there is so much clear and cogent evidence of Khadr's guilt, why can't the US government just put him on trial and prove their case? Why would they be afraid of having to answer to a judge in a habeas corpus application? Why have they "accidentally" forgotten to declare him an Illegal Enemy Combatant? Seems to me like a pretty important thing that you wouldn't just forget to do with a horrific murderous terrorist don't you think?

Why does a brown guy labelled a "terrorist" suddenly have no right whatsoever to say, "wait a minute...I disagree" before he is locked away indefinitely?

From an analysis of procedural fairness / natural justice how is Khadr any different than a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp right now? (Please note...I am making this a procedural comparison...not suggesting that in terms of substantive innocence that Khadr is like an innocent Jewish child). See, Jews in such camps were detained by government officials on charges that they were committing crimes against Germany. No proof ever presented...no valid process / trial / hearing...just allegations.

Is Bush the next Hitler? No, I'm not suggesting that at all...and it may very well be that Khadr should ultimately be imprisoned for his actions as a child soldier. What I am pointing out though, is that if you detain someone indefinitely, without following your own laws that purport to permit you to do so, without ever proving your justification for doing so, and indeed you outlaw the centuries old legal procedure that would allow that detainee to challenge his incarceration, then you are giving yourself the same credibility as a gaoler that one would give to the "warden" of a Nazi concertration camp.

Follow the law, follow the procedures (designed to prevent arbitrariness) allow people to defend themselves fully, allow detainees to challenge their detention...then prosecute to your heart's content...and then when you convict you do so with credibility, colour of right, and above all with justice.

FTA

[kimmy]

Yes, he should be returned to Afghanistan to be held with all of the other captured Taliban fighters.

Khadr should be freed from the American police-state and ensconced in the safety of an Afghan jail where he belongs.

-k

[Argus]

God forbid you or anyone you know or care about ever gets mistreated by someone in a position of trust / power / authority...or worse yet ever actually finds yourself wrongfully accused / detained / convicted of something...because you will have nothing but a "nitpicking lawyer" to get you out of the situation.

If I am in that situation, FTA, I have no doubt it will be as a result of the incompetence and lack of common sense applicability of the law you lawyers have created. The law, as it has come to be developed in Canada and the US is a snakey, weaselly, twisting, turning corrupt, many headed snake with no sense or heart or brain. It's like a machine with corrupt coding subject to repeated buggy belches. It's a ghastly, complicated, expensive monster choking the life out of our society.

You truly are feeble-minded if you don't understand that rules of evidence and application of the rule of law are concepts designed to protect against abuse. You have an indefensible concept of JUSTICE if what it means to you is completely disregarding law and fairness for someone accused of doing wrong...as long as you are personally convinced based on media reports that the person is guilty.

Apparently, FTA, you don't read very well. Let me reiterate the problem here.

National laws are designed to punish criminal behaviour within a given border. They do not apply to Khadr.

International laws which apply to war say that Khadr is a prisoner of war - except he never declared war, nor did the group he represented, nor was he in uniform, nor was he fighting for any national body which can be tasked with responsibility for overseeing him. And so it does not apply either.

If you really want to get down to responsibility - he belongs to the duly elected Afghanistan government. They are the only people I can see who have the actual right to try him under normal legal procedures.

Of course, I'm betting you and the others complaining about the poor lad would be less than happy to have him turned over to the Afghanistan government for trial and punishment.

Going back to my earlier point, if there is so much clear and cogent evidence of Khadr's guilt, why can't the US government just put him on trial and prove their case?

What American law did he break? And imagine the explosion of claims and appeals should he ever get into an American court. The case will take years, decades as clever lawyers try to work their way around him fighting against the US in a war which didn't exist, for a terrorist group, but in another country. What exactly does he get charged with?

There were some ten thousand members of al Quaida at that camp. Only a few hundred are imprisoned in Cuba. One might ask why that is, if the US is so arbitrary it simply picks up any poor, innocent boy who wanders by.

[Alexandra]

Follow the law, follow the procedures (designed to prevent arbitrariness) allow people to defend themselves fully, allow detainees to challenge their detention...then prosecute to your heart's content...and then when you convict you do so with credibility, colour of right, and above all with justice.

FTA

Khadr should be accorded justice? What justice did this Khadr kid accord the American trooper he killed? The American trooper who, as a medic, was simply trying to save the life of another American trooper in this firefight that Khadr's father was also killed in?

I wonder how much justice the American medic's widow and family feels Khadr should receive at the hands of a military tribunal? I wonder if the American medic's widow feels that justice would have been done if the Khadr kid had been left to bleed to death from his wounds? Instead, the Khadr kid's life was saved by another American medic.

The Americans have made a huge mistake. All of these 'foreign fighters' in Gitmo should have been shipped back to Afghanistan to rot in one of the Afghani prisons.

The Canadian liberal (not party) bedwetters could then shriek and holler and wring their hands about the treatment of the Convenient Canadian citizen Khadr kid in a filthy, squalid, Afghani jail cell.

Why Canadians are paying for this Canadian lawyer and his team to represent this Khadr kid in a U.S. tribunal while the U.S. has provided an excellent defence team is another question. Cut the little puke off and maybe he'll be only too pleased to accept the U.S. defence team --- free of charge of course. Just as he accepts all of the other 'privileges' he receives in a U.S. rather than Afghani jail.

`

[Fortunata]

U.S. hid witness who could help Khadr: defence lawyer

The U.S. government has withheld information about a witness who could help clear Canadian Omar Khadr as an "unlawful enemy combatant," Khadr's military defence lawyer at Guantanamo Bay said Thursday.

"It's an eyewitness the government has always known about," Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler told reporters. "This is something that was buried because nobody ever looked."

Kuebler's comments came after a pre-trial hearing was adjourned at the U.S. naval base in Cuba,

Kuebler said U.S. officials never bothered to speak to the witness and the prosecution didn't find out about him until recently.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. Col. Peter Brownback, the military judge presiding over the commission, recessed the hearing without ruling whether Khadr would be subject to a military tribunal.

Brownback postponed a decision to name Khadr as an "unlawful enemy combatant"

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/11/08/khadr-trial.html

And around and around it goes.

[Topaz]

Its so sad yo see what's happening in this world since GW appearance in the White House! Will Canadians really know what our gov't does behind the scenes when comes to the US? IF OBL was behind 9/11 which lead to the war in Afg. why hasn't NATO found him? The US has satellites out there in space and they can track anyone they WANT to find and yet no OBL and yet they want to punish this 15 year. I wonder if Johnny Walker is still in jail in the US or was he a plant by the CIA to find out info.?

[DogOnPorch]

Its so sad yo see what's happening in this world since GW appearance in the White House! Will Canadians really know what our gov't does behind the scenes when comes to the US? IF OBL was behind 9/11 which lead to the war in Afg. why hasn't NATO found him? The US has satellites out there in space and they can track anyone they WANT to find and yet no OBL and yet they want to punish this 15 year. I wonder if Johnny Walker is still in jail in the US or was he a plant by the CIA to find out info.?

Satellites follow an orbital path (straight-line) and some of the spy satellites can take super high-resolution pictures...but no satellite can 'track' an unseen individual. Moving at over 7.5km per second, you might see how this would be a problem.

Khadr is no longer 15...he was captured in a firefight where he apparently killed a medic (red cross on helmet). His father was OBL's #2 man. His family in Canada shows open contempt for 'the West'. What would you like to see done with this innocent lamb?

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Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.

---Dr Wernher von Braun

[Fortunata]

What would you like to see done with this innocent lamb?

How would you like justice to work? A fair and open affair or persons condemned by perhaps incorrect facts, public condemnation, general prejudice, other family members' values? Just askin'.

[M.Dancer]

How would you like justice to work? A fair and open affair or persons condemned by perhaps incorrect facts, public condemnation, general prejudice, other family members' values? Just askin'.

I would be happy if he was detained as a POW till the war on terror was won. Then he should be repatriated to Canada to stand trial for treason.

[DogOnPorch]

How would you like justice to work? A fair and open affair or persons condemned by perhaps incorrect facts, public condemnation, general prejudice, other family members' values? Just askin'

I don't support al-Qaeda...nor the Taliban.

Personally, I don't feel the Khadr family deserves to be Canadian citizens...but I didn't let 'em in and it won't be up to me to kick them out.

As for young Omar...he's a terrorist...what more needs to be done except execute? Maybe he'll attempt to escape and save the planet a lot of trouble. But sure...we all want proof that he's the monster he appears to be. Some just want the 'proof' for different reasons.

He might have been born in Canada...but if this 'poor kid' is "Canadian", I'm Bill Gates... Spare me the usual lawyer-speak re: lawful, unlawful, terrorist, soldier. No uniform...no rules. You get what you pay for in this life...he paid his own way onto the bus...now he must ride that line to the end.

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Excuse me Mr. Judge,.. I'm being punished for exercising my right and being co-operative in participating in this military commission. For that, I say with my respect to you and everybody else here, that I'm boycotting these procedures until I be treated humanely and fair.

---Omar Khadr

[DogOnPorch]

I would be happy if he was detained as a POW till the war on terror was won.

That'll be anytime soon.

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A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

---Sir Winston Churchill

Edited November 9, 2007 by DogOnPorch

[Peter F]

Khadr is no longer 15...he was captured in a firefight where he apparently killed a medic (red cross on helmet).

Like this? American medic

I think the days of unarmed medics decked out in red crosses have gone the way of the typewriter.

[DogOnPorch]

I stand corrected: re: red cross...wouldn't want to offend the Muslim hosts.

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God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

---John Lennon

[M.Dancer]

I stand corrected: re: red cross...wouldn't want to offend the Muslim hosts.

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God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

---John Lennon

Nothing to do with that....just a bright red cross camo does not make.

[DogOnPorch]

Yeah...the cross is green/tan now, apparently. Too much of a sniper target. Combat medics in other services still use the red cross, however.

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Radar: Hawk... Hawk...

Nurse Baker: Who's that?

Hawkeye: It's my wife...she alays hawks like that.

---M*A*S*H

[Fortunata]

Seriously, is that how you want justice to work? Justice should be applied the same across the board. So you are ok with the government throwing the book at anyone without a trial, with lopsided trials, without all the evidence heard ... just because they say so? What is good for one should be good for all. Or do you just want to pick and choose who can have justice and who can't, like Steve wants to pick who should die and who should live?

[M.Dancer]

Seriously, is that how you want justice to work? Justice should be applied the same across the board. So you are ok with the government throwing the book at anyone without a trial, with lopsided trials, without all the evidence heard ... just because they say so? What is good for one should be good for all. Or do you just want to pick and choose who can have justice and who can't, like Steve wants to pick who should die and who should live?

I'm sure according to the GC that POWs shouldn't be tried.

[capricorn]

Here is Omar Khadr's supposed new defense strategy from his new defense team. Khadr did not know the attackers were US military hence he was acting in self defence when he lobbed grenades at them. I heard this on one of CTV's news reports yesterday.

So if the argument that he did not know he was engaging military personnel is accepted, it follows that he cannot be categorized an enemy combatant. If he is deemed not to be an ennemy combatant, the military trial venue will be thrown out. I suppose he would then be tried in a civilian court.

This is all conjecture of course. But one way or another, he will stand trial in the US for murder. This is how it should be.

IMO, Canada should not interfere in this case just as we wouldn't want the US to butt in if we were prosecuting a US citizen.

[guyser]

IMO, Canada should not interfere in this case just as we wouldn't want the US to butt in if we were prosecuting a US citizen.

I wonder, did stevey change the stance of govt reagrding the death penalty not so much for our Montana killer but perhaps so that he could ignore Khadr ?

[M.Dancer]

I wonder, did stevey change the stance of govt reagrding the death penalty not so much for our Montana killer but perhaps so that he could ignore Khadr ?

From your lips to Allah's ears

[DogOnPorch]

Seriously, is that how you want justice to work? Justice should be applied the same across the board. So you are ok with the government throwing the book at anyone without a trial, with lopsided trials, without all the evidence heard ... just because they say so? What is good for one should be good for all. Or do you just want to pick and choose who can have justice and who can't, like Steve wants to pick who should die and who should live?

Justice? War? Terrorism? Seriously...do you think civilization's laws are for those that set themselves apart from civilization? No matter what we may think, our country is at war. He picked the wrong side and will pay for his error one way or another. He was lucky they didn't let him bleed to death. The rest of his miserable life is gravy, now.

Just because Canada is a whore who spreads her legs for anyone and everyone doesn't mean I have to entertain her clients. That's perhaps more your duty.

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Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God...

---Osama bin Laden

[trex]

How can he be held until hostilities cease? Hostilities were never even declared. The US is not at war with either Afghanistan or Pakistan. They are at war with Iraq, yes. But no other country. So what war is he a prisoner of? Let me guess, the war on terror...

Ok and who decides when that war ends? That sounds to me like the kind of a war that never ends, not like war with another country, in the conventional sense. So Khadr is not at all a conventional prisoner of war.