Khadr should make us ashamed to be Canadian

[Army Guy]

So you're now asserting that Khadr was a freedom fighter?

That depends what side of the conflict you are on.

Thats BS and you know it, Those laws we are talking about are very clear and who's main purpose is to protect the civilian masses, if we are going to throw them out and allow terrorism within the current confines of combat then what you are saying is ALL sides are free to use what ever it takes regardless of cost.....think about that for a minute...War as it stands today has very few restrictions to it....by adding terror to be used armies will come very close to total war, or no rules at all...

And while one can still be a freedom fighter, without using terror as a wpn, In Omar case , is not the same....One does not join the KKK and not practice racistism....

[eyeball]

Thats BS and you know it, Those laws we are talking about are very clear and who's main purpose is to protect the civilian masses, if we are going to throw them out and allow terrorism within the current confines of combat then what you are saying is ALL sides are free to use what ever it takes regardless of cost.....think about that for a minute...War as it stands today has very few restrictions to it....by adding terror to be used armies will come very close to total war, or no rules at all...

It's just as clear that those laws were intended to protect kids from being pressed into a war. When I compare the slack that the West managed to find within the interpretation of international laws to legalize and justify what it's done to wage this war against terror to the utterly inflexible and hidebound interpretation of those same laws used to justify the persecution of a kid...I know I'm looking at two sides of the same cowpie.

What you should think about for a minute is that the law as it stands today with regards to war is so morally ambiguous that anything goes.

And while one can still be a freedom fighter, without using terror as a wpn, In Omar case , is not the same....One does not join the KKK and not practice racistism....

By the very same token one can be a Shining Beacon of freedom and democracy without propping up bloodthirsty dictators. One cannot help Saddam Hussein or any of a dozen or more other criminals without being regarded as being just as evil and criminal themselves.

I'm pretty sure we had laws to protect civilian masses from this misbehaviour too. No doubt they're as flexible and as rigid as need be too.

Edited October 27, 2010 by eyeball

[ToadBrother]

His compensation settlement will be his final vindication and the shadow it casts will obscure that tattered little scrap of a confession he was forced to make.

Apparently he's an unrepetant Jihadist. I guess he can use the money to go back to Afghanistan.

[Army Guy]

You make it sound like he just chose to buy a plane ticket and take off on his own volition a week or so before he was arrested when its far closer to the truth to say he was effectively kidnapped and taken there when he was 11.

And you make it sound like he was on prison lock down.....that he was effectivly told to shut up and do as he was told, which was to become a good little terrorist...

And yet Omar and his brothers have all stated that while their lives certainly were mapped out for them, they had control as young as 13 when they where considered adults....proof of that is when their own mother, and some relatives tried to convince Omar and his brother to become suicide bombers, "blow themselfs up for the cause", make mommy proud....both had refused they had known exactly what that meant....it would mean they were not full believers, and life meant more to them some religious learning of recieveing some virgins,and living in paradise.....it meant they were afraid to die....it also meant that Mommy did not have full control over her sons destiny any more.....if she had they would be pink mist today and none of this would be happening....

Omar had plenty of chances to leave and stop the life he was living , as a terrorist....but he has said more than once he enjoyed it....And don't tell me at 15 he did not know that all his training he had done to date was for...at 14 he was on active operations he assisted with gather Intel on NATO convoys, he was learning how to make and plant IED's, he was taking part in combat operations by planting them with one purpose to KILL as MANY NATO soldiers as he could....to collect the bounty that was offered...He knew exactly what he was doing , and he knew what was wrong and right.....

[eyeball]

And you make it sound like he was on prison lock down.....that he was effectivly told to shut up and do as he was told, which was to become a good little terrorist...

...He knew exactly what he was doing , and he knew what was wrong and right.....

It was probably a lot more like Jonestown and I bet they all thought they were right in the head too.

[Radsickle]

On Khadr's `court':

...I think you better qualify that even better. It's not the Americans and certainly not the administration. It is the prosecution in Guantanamo Bay of a legal process that even the American Supreme Court did not agree with.

On Canada's shame:

Instead of being exemplary as we were when we started the whole concept of a child soldier, now that we're being tested by having one of ours... we just don't wanna get into the nuts and bolts of how do we handle this inside our country so why not abdicate it to the next guy...

I would contend that bringing him into our process and figuring out how to handle him... demonstrates a lot more intestinal fortitude and maturity by a country like us than simply walking out and abandoning him to another state.

Thank you, General Romeo Dallaire. You speak the truth, sir.

Khadr content starts after the first 6 minutes:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/10/oct-2810---pt-3-letters.html#

[CANADIEN]

And you make it sound like he was on prison lock down.....that he was effectivly told to shut up and do as he was told, which was to become a good little terrorist...

And yet Omar and his brothers have all stated that while their lives certainly were mapped out for them, they had control as young as 13 when they where considered adults....proof of that is when their own mother, and some relatives tried to convince Omar and his brother to become suicide bombers, "blow themselfs up for the cause", make mommy proud....both had refused they had known exactly what that meant....it would mean they were not full believers, and life meant more to them some religious learning of recieveing some virgins,and living in paradise.....it meant they were afraid to die....it also meant that Mommy did not have full control over her sons destiny any more.....if she had they would be pink mist today and none of this would be happening....

Omar had plenty of chances to leave and stop the life he was living , as a terrorist....but he has said more than once he enjoyed it....And don't tell me at 15 he did not know that all his training he had done to date was for...at 14 he was on active operations he assisted with gather Intel on NATO convoys, he was learning how to make and plant IED's, he was taking part in combat operations by planting them with one purpose to KILL as MANY NATO soldiers as he could....to collect the bounty that was offered...He knew exactly what he was doing , and he knew what was wrong and right.....

I have had my problems with the handling of Omar Khadr by American AND Canadian authorities. But you are right on the mark.

We are not talking about an innocent child-soldier abducted then drugged and beaten into becoming a mindless killing machine He is no more a victim than a 15 year old who joins a criminal gang.

[bloodyminded]

I have had my problems with the handling of Omar Khadr by American AND Canadian authorities. But you are right on the mark.

We are not talking about an innocent child-soldier abducted then drugged and beaten into becoming a mindless killing machine He is no more a victim than a 15 year old who joins a criminal gang.

That analogy only works when the parents themselves indoctrinate the 15 year old into the criminal gang.

And I imagine the justice system would usually take this not insignificant matter into account during sentencing.

Edited October 30, 2010 by bloodyminded

[eyeball]

That analogy only works when the parents themselves indoctrinate the 15 year old into the criminal gang.

And I imagine the justice system would usually take this not insignificant matter into account during sentencing.

It would be a little hypocritical if the justice system of a society that indoctrinates it's children to obey their parents didn't. The fact so much of the society can't or won't doesn't bode well.

[Oleg Bach]

My ideas on Khdar changed totally..when I saw the video of him grinning like a little pecker head while learning to make bombs. He reminded me of the deviate kid on the block who was simply a nasty evil little bastard...I don't buy the child soldier thing anymore - I do now believe he no matter how young or old is a little liar and took great glee in killing - and it probably did not matter who.

[eyeball]

My ideas on Khdar changed totally..when I saw the video of him grinning like a little pecker head while learning to make bombs. He reminded me of the deviate kid on the block who was simply a nasty evil little bastard...I don't buy the child soldier thing anymore - I do now believe he no matter how young or old is a little liar and took great glee in killing - and it probably did not matter who.

Everyone who is trained to kill is trained to desensitize themselves to the enemy, it's why our own troops use terms like scum and vermin to describe theirs. The difference of course is that we wait until our troops are of legal adult age before doing so. We don't start them at age 11.

If our soldiers were video-taped during their own preparations for battle you'd see a very similar savage gleefulness, like the locker room bravado you'd see before a football team storms out to the field.

[wyly]

Everyone who is trained to kill is trained to desensitize themselves to the enemy, it's why our own troops use terms like scum and vermin to describe theirs. The difference of course is that we wait until our troops are of legal adult age before doing so. We don't start them at age 11.

If our soldiers were video-taped during their own preparations for battle you'd see a very similar savage gleefulness, like the locker room bravado you'd see before a football team storms out to the field.

I recall some interviews/quotes from canadian recruits anxious to bag some "towel heads"...

[M.Dancer]

I recall some interviews/quotes from canadian recruits anxious to bag some "towel heads"...

SHOCKING!!!

[wyly]

And while one can still be a freedom fighter, without using terror as a wpn, In Omar case , is not the same....

what terror weapon are being used in afghanistan is worse than what the Nato forces are using?

[M.Dancer]

what terror weapon are being used in afghanistan is worse than what the Nato forces are using?

Acid in the faces of girls going to school...not that Army guy said anything about terror weapons..

[GostHacked]

You can take that point of view only if you believe the laws of war only apply to us.

And only if the rules actually existed.

[M.Dancer]

And only if the rules actually existed.

If they don't exist, you are okay with that and all that it implies?

[Guest TrueMetis]

Everyone who is trained to kill is trained to desensitize themselves to the enemy, it's why our own troops use terms like scum and vermin to describe theirs. The difference of course is that we wait until our troops are of legal adult age before doing so. We don't start them at age 11.

If our soldiers were video-taped during their own preparations for battle you'd see a very similar savage gleefulness, like the locker room bravado you'd see before a football team storms out to the field.

There's a documentary that was made a while back called combat school. It follows a battle group, though more one of its platoons more than anyone else, as they train for Afghanistan. It also shows some of their tour of duty, maybe after you've watched it you will have some clue of what the hell you talking about.

Edited November 23, 2010 by TrueMetis

[bloodyminded]

There's a documentary that was made a while back called combat school. It follows a battle group, though more one of its platoons more than anyone else, as they train for Afghanistan. It also shows some of their tour of duty, maybe after you've watched it you will have some clue of what the hell you talking about.

I think you're confessing some "support the troops" oversensitivity here. Like many people, I have had family and friends serve in the military; and when they're in the right mood, they can tell you some pretty harrowing stuff about brutality. Our brutality.

And eyeball wasn't on some perverse attack; he was contextualizing an absurd (and truly perverse) situation in which "the enemy" is always barbaric, and Canadian soldiers are moral beacons...in fact, morally superior to the rest of us.

Which any soldier worth his salt will tell you is pure hogwash.

[Shwa]

Which any soldier worth his salt will tell you is pure hogwash.

Which can be attested to by the some of the more intelligent members of the former Canadian Airborne Regiment.

[Guest TrueMetis]

I think you're confessing some "support the troops" oversensitivity here. Like many people, I have had family and friends serve in the military; and when they're in the right mood, they can tell you some pretty harrowing stuff about brutality. Our brutality.

And eyeball wasn't on some perverse attack; he was contextualizing an absurd (and truly perverse) situation in which "the enemy" is always barbaric, and Canadian soldiers are moral beacons...in fact, morally superior to the rest of us.

Which any soldier worth his salt will tell you is pure hogwash.

I think your mistaking my meaning, I never said that Canadian soldiers are moral beacons, and I never said the enemy is always barbaric. (though the Taliban are by most measures) And I certainly never said that these soldiers did not want to kill their enemy, but no soldier I have ever met has ever enjoyed killing the enemy. And I've certainly never heard of soldiers psyching themselves up for fights in the way a football team would for a game.

And my comment isn't just in response to that single comment of eyeballs, eyeball has shown many time that he has no clue what being a soldier is like.

Edited November 23, 2010 by TrueMetis

[bloodyminded]

I think your mistaking my meaning, I never said that Canadian soldiers are moral beacons, and I never said the enemy is always barbaric. (though the Taliban are by most measures) And I certainly never said that these soldiers did not want to kill their enemy, but no soldier I have ever met has ever enjoyed killing the enemy.

Certainly there's a lot of enjoyment involved in killing the enemy during battle. That's just a fact. There's also often a lot of pain involved. Sometimes, both can occur.

And I've certainly never heard of soldiers psyching themselves up for fights in the way a football team would for a game.

The scene in Jarheads, where the pre-battle Marines shout and hoot in joy while watching the "Flight of the Valkyries" scene in Apocalypse Now is not an invention, but is the recollection and reporting of a Marine. (The author said they watched a lot of Platoon as well: a distinctly anti-war film used as war-psyche self-propaganda.)

Of course soldiers are psyched up for killing; and it's not so much them doing it, as it is the military itself doing it for them.

How are you supposed to kill human beings while recognizing the sheer gravity and horror of the act? That tends to come later, upon self-reflection. It doesn't clearly mean you were wrong, either...which is a separate argument. (For example, war can sometimes be necessary. That I personally believe it is rarely necessary is a mere opinion, and changes nothing about what I've said.)

Edited November 23, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Guest TrueMetis]

Well bloodyminded you and me have met some very different soldiers.

[bloodyminded]

Well bloodyminded you and me have met some very different soldiers.

Maybe so.

[GostHacked]

If they don't exist, you are okay with that and all that it implies?

Yes I am.