Dion's bringing up Khadr.

[jdobbin]

I would think he could be tried for treason up here as Canada was in the war at the time he the medic. I think in Canada that's 20 days, served on weekends.

Canada should be able to charge him with murder. I don't know that treason applies in such a case.

I believe he should be tried in a civilian court in the U.S. though. Guantanamo has become something of a conundrum for the U.S. because it doesn't seem to have any legal standing where it can try a detainee. The crime was committed against a U.S. soldier so I think a U.S. civilian court should try it.

Edited September 19, 2007 by jdobbin

[jdobbin]

By the way, today's response to Dion's question on the issue was pre-scripted.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/AL...Cju7K3WPzo4hmGw

— The foreign affairs minister was advised to dismiss questions about whether Canada would even accept the repatriation of Omar Khadr, a Canadian held in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, much less ask Washington for it.

Newly released documents reveal that reams of paperwork were created to help advise former minister Peter MacKay and his spokespeople on how to answer questions on Khadr, even though they said virtually nothing about the case for more than a year.

The records were obtained by The Canadian Press through the Access to Information Act, and cover the period between November 2006 and April 2007.

One of the 34 potential questions MacKay was told he might get from reporters or opposition politicians was: "Would Canada accept the repatriation of Omar Khadr?" He was advised to respond: "The question is premature and speculative."

Premature and speculative was the response given today. The script for it was written in August.

[Argus]

Canada should be able to charge him with murder. I don't know that treason applies in such a case.

He was involved in Afghanistan before we were, so I don't see how treason could apply. He also committed murder in another country's jurisdiction, so I don't see how any of our criminal laws would apply. If he were sent back to Canada he would have to be released onto the street to do as he wished.

[old_bold&cold]

I think he should be sent back to Afghanistan and let the courts there charge him with murder. We maybe could find a way for his whole family to attend such a court case. We can refuse to accept him back into Canada, due to his actions and can deny him any Canadian citizenship. I do not think I would care to spend money on a trial here.

[jdobbin]

He was involved in Afghanistan before we were, so I don't see how treason could apply. He also committed murder in another country's jurisdiction, so I don't see how any of our criminal laws would apply. If he were sent back to Canada he would have to be released onto the street to do as he wished.

Some legal experts believe he can be tried here. I am not a lawyer so I don't know but it probably should be looked into in the event that Guantanamo is closed and Khadr is dropped on our doorstep.

[Leafless]

Maher Arar was not a welfare case. He was a successful engineering consultant, which is why he was travelling to the United States in the first place.

-k

You must be an Arar fan.

Arar was not travelling to the U.S. as part of his work.

First of all:

Last week the Canadian government issued an unusual warning for many of its citizens: beware of traveling in the United States.

The travel advisory was directed toward Canadian citizens born in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan,Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Yemen

And secondly:

On September 26, the man, Maher Arar was in JFKairport on a stopover flight from Tunisia to Montreal. Arar was detained and interrogated for nine hours without a lawyer. Officials claimed Arar had ties to a terrorist organization. Arar was then detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0312228

[guyser]

You must be an Arar fan.

No, I think she is an arbiter of truth. Anyone saying he was an unemployed welfare bum would be talking out of the spot that emits gaseuos fumes. Take your pick on how you want to be categorized.

One need not be a fan to tell the truth. He was an engineering consultant and was previously employed in Boston.

Arar was not travelling to the U.S. as part of his work.

Funny that, he was travelling back to his home for work and made a stopover en route. Semantics, but go ahead and base your defense on that.

First of all:

You quote a cite that says not to travel to XYZ , issued after he is detained?

And in fact , none of the countries shown were where Arar was.

Ouch!

And secondly:

Same cite, bad choice.

[jbg]

Yes siree. Having this photo op with the rest of the Khadr family in the hotel would surely gladen the hearts and boost up the morale of our boys and girls in Afghanistan!

Lots of "Khadr votes" I suppose.

[jbg]

I don't think the Americans will ever be able to try him.

The U.S. is concerned that any trial of any kind will result in the divulgence of sensitive information.

[jdobbin]

The U.S. is concerned that any trial of any kind will result in the divulgence of sensitive information.

It seems an untenable situation. Either the law will be applied or it will not.

Edited September 20, 2007 by jdobbin

[ScottSA]

It seems an untenable situation. Either the law will be applied or it will not.

Let's send him to Brussels, where they'll no doubt knight him and possibly enthrone him.

[jdobbin]

Let's send him to Brussels, where they'll no doubt knight him and possibly enthrone him.

If the U.S. recognized anyone else's authority but their own, they might.

They'd probably like a secret trial and a secret execution. We'll see. Every military judge so far asked to hear cases has refused to go forward. In the end, they might just go with execution with no trial.

[ScottSA]

If the U.S. recognized anyone else's authority but their own, they might.

They'd probably like a secret trial and a secret execution. We'll see. Every military judge so far asked to hear cases has refused to go forward. In the end, they might just go with execution with no trial.

I'd prefer a public trial followed by a thrashing and lynching, but that's just me.

[jbg]

It seems an untenable situation. Either the law will be applied or it will not.

(Former) United States District Court Judge Michael Mukasey, who conducted a seditious conspiracy trial (link to article) during 1995-6 has expressed concerns about whether conducting civilian trials of Muslim terrorists is, to quote you, "tenable". Excerpts below:

Long before most Americans had given deep consideration to the terrorist threat from radical Islam or to whether the criminal justice system is the right forum for trying people accused of terrorism, Judge Mukasey received an intensive education on those topics.

The vivid lessons Judge Mukasey took away from the trial — notably that the urgency of the threat requires tilting toward protecting national security even at some cost to civil liberties — have echoed through his speeches and writings. Now, as President Bush’s choice for attorney general, he is poised to put those lessons into practice.

*******

Rules applicable in ordinary criminal cases, Judge Mukasey wrote last month in The Wall Street Journal, “do not protect a society that must gather information about, and at least incapacitate, people who have cosmic goals that they are intent on achieving by cataclysmic means.”

***********

“He ran the tightest ship you ever saw,” said Roger L. Stavis, another defense lawyer. “He’s a very kind, generous man, but also a tough law-and-order guy.”

But Mr. Stavis also wondered about whether a conventional trial was capable of addressing the charges in the case. “It doesn’t fit,” he said. “You cannot get at the problem in a discrete trial in an American courtroom.”

The case was unusual from the start. It relied, for instance, on a Civil War-era seditious conspiracy statute that made it a crime to plot to levy war on the United States.

“The tools we had to charge terrorism were appallingly bad,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, the lead prosecutor. Partly by happenstance, then, the case brought the metaphor of terrorism as a war into an American courtroom.

Judge Mukasey was concerned throughout about balancing the defendants’ rights against national security. He ordered an array of potential evidence to be disclosed to the defense, for instance, but drew the line at information he said would needlessly compromise intelligence operations.

In his Wall Street Journal article, he wrote that terrorism prosecutions “risk disclosure to our enemies of methods and sources of intelligence that can then be neutralized.”

The risk, he wrote, is not theoretical. A list of unindicted co-conspirators provided to the defense in the 1995 trial, including Osama bin Laden, reached Mr. bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, within 10 days, Judge Mukasey wrote, “letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.”

*******

I highly recommend reading the balance of the article.

[jdobbin]

(Former) United States District Court Judge Michael Mukasey, who conducted a seditious conspiracy trial

I highly recommend reading the balance of the article.

I read the article.

I suppose the issue now is if the U.S. will bypass a trial altogether and whether a decision on the fates of those detained will be decided by an executive order of some kind.

[Leafless]

No, I think she is an arbiter of truth. Anyone saying he was an unemployed welfare bum would be talking out of the spot that emits gaseuos fumes. Take your pick on how you want to be categorized.

One need not be a fan to tell the truth. He was an engineering consultant and was previously employed in Boston.

Obviously you have no idea what a engineering consultant is.

Any consultant if not employed by a company and who works for himself or herself is technically UNEMPLOYED.

Funny that, he was travelling back to his home for work and made a stopover en route. Semantics, but go ahead and base your defense on that.

Was he not returning home from vacationing in Tunisia, nothing to suggest or do with any type of work.

You quote a cite that says not to travel to XYZ , issued after he is detained?

And in fact , none of the countries shown were where Arar was.

Arar is a dual citizen of both Syria and Canada, that is where the Syrian connection comes in.

Ouch!

Same cite, bad choice.

Actually this is a good site as it goes to bat for Arab nationalities. It warns of the bad U.S.

BTW- Maybe you can tell me who paid for Arar's legal team?

[Rue]

I have no objection to Dion pursuing this. Theoretically, it is a legitimate issue for a Canadian MP to investigate.

However, if he thinks this is an issue that'll reverse his fortunes, he is in for a big disappointment.

Because while it's theoretically a legitimate issue, to many Canadian voters it's also a non-issue. I would anticipate that even among Canadians who philosophically oppose Omar Khadr's continued detention, few have much passion to see him returned to Canadian soil.

Maher Arar was not a welfare case. He was a successful engineering consultant, which is why he was travelling to the United States in the first place.

-k

To me Kimmy he can address the legal issuesrelated to the Kadr detention without the crass photo-ops.

I am sure you would also agree the Kadr amd Arar cases while both bring up questions as to national security and detention laws are highly different in that one was a lawful Canadian while the other was enagged in an act of war/terror.

I think the pith and substance of the Kadr case is that the line between conventional war and terror has been blurred and the law based on conventions for conventional wars, has yet to come up with a formula for defining the activities of civilians who engage in armed violence. Kadr was not in a legal army fighting by conventional rules of war. He was in fact acting as a person in an armed cell of civilians who did not have legal authority to represent their country.

Some say he is not a terrorist because his actions were directed at soldiers not civilians. I am not sure in law if it would make sense to try define terror by simplying stating its NOT terror as long as the violent action is directed at soldiers. Therein lies the problem.

Is he entitled to the same treatment as a conventional soldier or do you treat him as a civilian criminal or this third category no one has defined yet with a uniform definition in law but we all call terrorist.

To answer JBG a bit, my concern with the American approach at Guantanamo Bay is that it created a category of treatment for terrorists that completely violates the US constitution.

As a lawyer I just can not be comfortable with any legal procedure that does not allow a fair trial, a speedy trial, and does not honour fundamental rules of natural justice.

Even in military tribunals that deal with conventional soldiers, there are basic principals of natural justice that are followed.

I think this concept of indefinite detention by its very nature is a threat to fundamental democractic principles and fair and just applications of law.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want terrorists on the loose nor do I think its practical to think if one is about to kill you, you can afford them certain democractic benefits -its just I am worried about when and how you limit those benefits, because when you limit those benefits they won't just be used against that terrorist but one day against good people for the wrong reasons.

I do not think our soldiers are dying to support totalitarianism but just the opposite. It is precisely because of what they sacrifice for, I find it incumbent on people such as myself who enjoy the benefits of the democracy they safeguard to come up with ways to properly contain terror without destroying democracy and turning it into totalitarianism.

I think in this case, the failure with Kadr is in the fact he was not tried sooner and in a court of law.

In theory he should have been tried in an Aghhani court according to afghani laws and detained in an Afghani jail.

I do not agree with the US exercise of creating a parallel world of rules beyond domestic Afghani law or international law or for that matter US domestic law or US military law. Heck at this point I would settle for any of those systems of law being followed.

That said Dion is an idiot.

As for Arar he has been justly compensated and hopefully we learned a valuable lesson as to what happens when there are arbitrary detentions without sufficient checks and balances to keep the state's powers in perspective-something the US constitution envisions but Mr. Bush has deliberately ignored.

I do not like elected politicians who ignore the very constitution that defines who and what they are and can do.

It reminds me of someone with a bad hair cut and a ridiculous mustache. (say that could be Hitler, Stalin, Hussein or Jack Layton-just kidding on the last one except for the hair and mustache)

Edited September 20, 2007 by Rue

[jbg]

Canada should be able to charge him with murder. I don't know that treason applies in such a case.

I believe he should be tried in a civilian court in the U.S. though. Guantanamo has become something of a conundrum for the U.S. because it doesn't seem to have any legal standing where it can try a detainee. The crime was committed against a U.S. soldier so I think a U.S. civilian court should try it.

The within e-mail, which I believe to be a parody, amply answers your inquiry:

THE LARK PROGRAM

A Lady libertarian wrote a number of letters to the White House complaining about the treatment of a captive insurgent, (terrorist or as liberal Democrats like to call them "Freedom Fighters") being held in Guantanamo Bay. She received back the following reply:

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, D.C. 20016

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for your recent letter roundly criticizing our treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba .

Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinion was heard loud and clear here in Washington . You'll be pleased to learn that, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new division of the Terrorist Retraining Program, to be called the "Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers" program, or LARK for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided to place one terrorist under your personal care. Your personal detainee has been selected and scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence next Monday. Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud (you can just call him Ahmed) is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of complaint.

It will likely be necessary for you to hire some assistant caretakers.

We will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with those you so strongly recommended in your letter.

Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his "attitudinal problem" will help him overcome these character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand that you plan to offer counselling and home schooling.

Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills at your next yoga group. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless (in your opinion) this might offend him.

Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters (except sexually), since he views females as a subhuman form of property. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him and he has been known to show violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the new dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka -- over time.

Just remember that it is all part of "respecting his culture and his religious beliefs" -- wasn't that how you put it?

Thanks again for your letter. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job. You take good care of Ahmed - and remember...we'll be watching.

Good luck!

Cordially, your friend,

Don Rumsfeld

[Visionseeker]

Parsing one of my posts in another thread:

Khadr didn’t just decide to toss a grenade on that fateful day; he was groomed to do so almost from the time he was born. Most here should be somewhat aware of his father's exploits and should consider that Omar was in terrorist training camps from the age of 7. Now I ask you, if Omar were a white boy trained by his reclusive white supremacist parents to fight the government from the age of 7, and then subsequently killed an ATF agent during a raid on their compound when he was 15, would we vilify him so?

Ah, if you don’t see my logic, maybe Dan Gardner can succeed where I failed.

Bring the boy home and do what we can to rehabilitate the poor abused soul.

[jbg]

Bring the boy home and do what we can to rehabilitate the poor abused soul.

I'm very concerned about his social and psychological development (link).

[jdobbin]

The within e-mail, which I believe to be a parody, amply answers your inquiry:

Since Canada seems to have washed its hands of the Khadr, I guess it is an American problem. Perhaps the U.S. will just execute him on executive order.

[Visionseeker]

The above statement is simply false.

That statement you made above might fool the casual reader who is new to the forum or glosses over headlines, but that will not fool the well read people here on the forum who throughly investigated the Arar issue.

The Arar family has spent the majority of time here using services and not working. That is a fact. The wife has only recieved hand out jobs in her very short working life.

The husband has NEVER worked a real engineering job and has made his job to extort millions out of our gov't.

You know little about their family and I feel the media has done an injustice by spinning the headlines that he was some sort of engineer and high standing citizen.

He's been in the country this long and can still barely speak English. It's truly sad what has happened.

He needs to be KICKED OUT NOW.

Actually, If I ever see him on the street I swear I will tell him off and I'll do it on behalf of Canadians. Those who are taxpayers and not into self hatred.

(that's probably.. um.. maybe 50 Canadians in total?)

Mikedavid00,

I feel compelled to caution you that making patently false and defamatory statements about someone in a public forum constitutes slander and may very well render you liable for damages. What's worse, your victims have all the funds they would ever need to fund counsel who would be more than happy to obligate you to accept facts and correct your record.

Just some free advice.

[Visionseeker]

Thats a very good point Argus.

If Dion is going as a politico (and I can only assume he is since Khadr is not family to Dion) is he not violating protocol in meeting with a us govt official? (my stretch is if the military officer is a govt official)

One would hope that Dion cleared this with Harpers people , doubtful , and has the full backing to look into this mess , doubly doubtful.

Here is one case where I would support a heavy handed public rebuke of Dion and the placing of a call to Washington asking them to recind the Officers ability to meet w Dion. Like it or not, Harper was elected as our PM and to be our rep on the world stage. Thus , Harper calls the shots.

Dion, sit down and shut up.

Oh, but then again, I just thought of something.Dion and Mr Mil Official do meet , and when asked later by the press "What did Mr Dion have to say?"

Mil Official: " I dunno, couldn't understand a word and no translator was available"

Quite frankly, if I'm Harper's office I would do nothing to prevent the meeting. Doing so would generate extremely bad press so I wouldn't raise a hair to stop it. As most here can attest, there are enough fundamentalist in this country to pander to in order to let the matter play its course.

[jennie]

In 2004, a military panel classified Khadr as an "enemy combatant." However, since he wasn't classified as an "unlawful" enemy combatant -- required under rules written by Congress -- a military judge threw the case out last June.

So he was a lawful enemy combatant, fighting against the US Army in Afghanistan.

So murder does not apply, and the US Military Court is not interested in him, because what he did was not against the rules of war ... Is that right? He is a prisoner of war, then?

It sounds like there are appeals going on that are legitimate delays perhaps, but ... anybody know why the Bar Assoc is interested?

"I'm hopeful, based on what we've seen recently from the Canadian Bar Association, which came out (last month) and called upon the prime minister to command Omar's repatriation

I have edited that quote, because I think that's what it means.

Edited September 21, 2007 by jennie

[Visionseeker]

(Former) United States District Court Judge Michael Mukasey, who conducted a seditious conspiracy trial (link to article) during 1995-6 has expressed concerns about whether conducting civilian trials of Muslim terrorists is, to quote you, "tenable". Excerpts below:

Long before most Americans had given deep consideration to the terrorist threat from radical Islam or to whether the criminal justice system is the right forum for trying people accused of terrorism, Judge Mukasey received an intensive education on those topics.

The vivid lessons Judge Mukasey took away from the trial — notably that the urgency of the threat requires tilting toward protecting national security even at some cost to civil liberties — have echoed through his speeches and writings. Now, as President Bush’s choice for attorney general, he is poised to put those lessons into practice.

*******

Rules applicable in ordinary criminal cases, Judge Mukasey wrote last month in The Wall Street Journal, “do not protect a society that must gather information about, and at least incapacitate, people who have cosmic goals that they are intent on achieving by cataclysmic means.”

***********

“He ran the tightest ship you ever saw,” said Roger L. Stavis, another defense lawyer. “He’s a very kind, generous man, but also a tough law-and-order guy.”

But Mr. Stavis also wondered about whether a conventional trial was capable of addressing the charges in the case. “It doesn’t fit,” he said. “You cannot get at the problem in a discrete trial in an American courtroom.”

The case was unusual from the start. It relied, for instance, on a Civil War-era seditious conspiracy statute that made it a crime to plot to levy war on the United States.

“The tools we had to charge terrorism were appallingly bad,” said Andrew C. McCarthy, the lead prosecutor. Partly by happenstance, then, the case brought the metaphor of terrorism as a war into an American courtroom.

Judge Mukasey was concerned throughout about balancing the defendants’ rights against national security. He ordered an array of potential evidence to be disclosed to the defense, for instance, but drew the line at information he said would needlessly compromise intelligence operations.

In his Wall Street Journal article, he wrote that terrorism prosecutions “risk disclosure to our enemies of methods and sources of intelligence that can then be neutralized.”

The risk, he wrote, is not theoretical. A list of unindicted co-conspirators provided to the defense in the 1995 trial, including Osama bin Laden, reached Mr. bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, within 10 days, Judge Mukasey wrote, “letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.”

I highly recommend reading the balance of the article.

I see, 9/11 was the manifest failure of the courts. Give me a freaking break!

The States had all the tools it ever needed before 9/11. Their weakness was internal communication which, from what I understand, they've only exasperated in creating the Department of Homeland Security.