QUOTE (ryhntyntyn @ Jul 18 2008, 12:34 pm)
That would be a whole lot of differences from the average child soldier I think. He's not just a child soldier unfortunatly. His individual, personal experiences, who he met, where he went, what he heard, and who he killed and when, mark him as not just rank and file point and shoot child infantry man. Which is probably why the US sent him to Guantanamo in the first place and probably why they are holding him, especially since they couldn't get his Father.
Hey, we're making progress here. You finally seem to be acknowledging that he was a child soldier. He certainly fits the UNICEF definition which explicitly states that a child soldier doesn't have to be just rank and file point and shoot child infantry. Given your tremendous military background, you know that not every soldier is in the infantry, regardless of whether in a standing national army or irregular militia group. So why would you assume that every child soldier must be in the infantry? Even girls used as cooks and prostitutes can fall into the category, but not Omar? As for being raised by an arrogant prick, or even being one, that isn't an indictable offence, or else most 15 year olds, and even many folks here on TT would be already sitting behind bars, waiting 5 years just to hear what they've been charged with, and hoping for a fair trial sometime in the next 6 or 7 years.
Ah... but we also already agree that the 15 year old boy was treated horribly and unjustly, so we're slowly finding common ground.
I do wonder why he wasn't placed into Camp Iguana with the other juveniles that were detained (and later released). At Camp Iguana the children had the opportunity to learn, play games, speak with child psychologists and social workers, and start their rehabilitation right away. Instead, Omar was kept with the adults and given none of the services usually associated with juvenile detention. He has spent a very long time in solitary confinement.
But what is truly interesting is the new evidence that only now is starting to become public. The US government released some information to journalists by accident that seems to question whether Omar really did throw that grenade. Could be that the kid has never killed anyone in his life, and was just a member of the back-room brigade.
Was Omar Khadr coerced?QUOTE (National Post @ Fri Mar 14 2008)
The likelihood the United States subjected Omar Khadr to harsh interrogations some would call torture increased Thursday after it emerged one of his early interrogators had been court-martialled for abusing prisoners and had also been involved in an interrogation of a detainee who died.
Legal arguments before the U.S. war crimes commission in Guantanamo Bay indicated Sgt. Joshua Claus of military intelligence participated in many, maybe all, of the interrogations of the Canadian terror suspect after U.S. forces delivered him to the Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan in July 2002.
A U.S. army investigation into the deaths of two other Bagram detainees in late 2002 describes a litany of coercive techniques he allegedly used to interrogate one of the men.
The disclosure came on a day Mr. Khadr's defence lawyers also highlighted a critical change made to a senior commander's report of the firefight in which the Canadian is accused of killing a U.S. soldier in a grenade attack.
Speaking afterward with reporters, Mr. Khadr's military lawyer, navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler, charged the change helped what he called the U.S. government's "manufactured" theory about what happened the day of Mr. Khadr's capture.
The author of the combat report, identified as Lt.-Col. "W," initially wrote July 28, 2002, that another U.S. operative subsequently killed the fighter who "engaged" the deceased U.S. soldier, Lt.-Cmdr. Kuebler told the commission.
About two months later, a new report -- bearing the same July date -- emerged saying the fighter had not been killed.
This is significant, because a separate confidential combat report inadvertently released to journalists last month revealed for the first time that a second fighter had been present alongside Khadr at the time the grenade was thrown. That fighter, who was killed, could be the person Col. "W" refers to in his first draft.
It is a very plausible theory. Omar could have been hiding behind the wall with an adult, who threw the grenade. The US soldiers targetted the thrower, shot and killed him, and injured Omar in the process. Makes me wonder, though, why it has taken so long to find out that there was a second fighter still alive after the bombardment of the air strike.
