(no subject)

[luckytroll]

With the upcoming trial of Omar Kadr, I thought I would mutter a bit about the state of law in the world, and what this could mean for everyone.

The precedent being set in the Omar case is that if you are raised by religious fanatics, and you are caught in the middle of a firefight - against American troops somewhere - you will likely be jailed and tortured. Never mind if you are only 15 - not old enough to drink, vote, or to some people even hold a valid opinion owing to your juvenile brain - if you are perceived as being someone who would lob a grenade at american soldiers - you have no rights.

Mind you - from what I know - Omar had the following things going on to set the stage.

He was raised by intensely religious people.  This alone would probably condemn a lot of Americans and Canucks, if it was taken as a good reason to incarcerate indefinitely with a side dish of waterboarding.  It seems a bit premature and unfair to jail everyone who went to a religious school, or was homeschooled because their parents were bible humpers.

He was living in a muslim country, which until very recently was rather firm in its views. The country had just been overthrown by foreign powers, and was at the time being overrun by foreign and non muslim troops.  Lets look at this from the point of view of the Yanks. If a muslim coalition decided that the Bible belt was a source of weapons of mass destruction (it is) and fanatic rhetoric (it is) that endangers international peace - and invaded the USA and overran the USA and bible belt - sending armed crews to peoples homes and bombing the shit out of them if they didnt come out and line up for an "interview:" and ransacking. Yeah, I bet more than a few American adults and kids would be lobbing grenades in resistance.  Hell, they would probably have nuked a few places by then too. And this is the headspace that some of these guys in the Afghan compound were in - government overrun, countryside teeming with unbelievers, etc. etc.  

Another point -  Omar had a guy with an AK47 next to him through most of the ordeal. What are the odds that he would have been able to leave with the women and children? A kid who they probably know speaks english. A kid who at least is doing the whole Stockholm syndrome, and more likely has had the whole program uploaded into him from an early age. Even if he had at some point thought to himself  "fuck this, Im outa here" - he had a guy with a gun standing near him until the very end!  Given a choice between lobbing a grenade at some Christian invader, or being disgraced and possibly shot by a fanatic Jihadi who has decided to fight to the death - I think lobbing the grenade might be an easier choice.  Assuming he did lob the grenade.  It is still unclear if he was any shape to lob anything when the troops arrived. We do know he was shot in the back as he tried to crawl away prior to his capture.

But all of that being what it is - can the USA afford to jail every kid who is religious, proximal to an armed conflict, and residing in a country that has been invaded by the US, One of its client states, or one with a religion that is fundamentally antagonistic towards their own?

If Omar Kadr is "the worst of the worst", and needs to be locked up for life because he is dangerous - infected by the beliefs and attitudes of his parents and peers prior to his incarceration. How many other people are on the list for jail once this minor (pardon the pun) hurdle is crossed?  Will they jail everyone who is in Kadrs position, or just the people who throw grenades at people who bust into their compounds?

Its hard to tell the difference between Waco Texas and Afghanistan sometimes. Aside from the fact that the Waco people would have had a lot more rights, representation, and fewer air-strikes against them before they went down in flames.

Comments

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

So what's the alternative? Send him home? If the US released Kadr, he would try to kill Americans. There is no maybe. If you give him any kind of freedom at all, he will try to kill Americans. Yes, this is because of his upbringing and his family, but letting him return home would have been (and still is) the stupidest thing the Americans could have done.

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

The alternative was (and maybe still is) to declare him and all the others prisoner's of war and treat them as such. IIRC according to the Geneva convention you can legally hold them until the war is over. In this case that would mean until the Taliban formally capitulates in Afghanistan which could very well mean indefinitely. Exactly what the Americans are trying for in this case!

Instead the Americans tried to take the line that because Taliban and those fighting with them weren't abiding by the Geneva conventions themselves (a true statement) then the Americans didn't have to treat them as prisoners of war and instead went the "unlawful combatant" route. The Americans thus abandoned the moral high ground and it lead them to exactly this scenario. Having rejected the established method of dealing with people like Khadr, they are left flailing and trying to make things up as they go along. They can't let him go, but they still have to find some reason to justify holding him.

That being said, I would have had no sympathy for Khadr if he had been killed in the fight with the Americans and I have little sympathy for him now. There is no longer another religious fanatic standing over him with a gun and he hasn't recanted at all as far as I am aware. Further, I reject luckytroll's implication that the grenade was tossed at gun point and that Khadr is not responsible for his own actions.

Technically engaging in combat but not being in uniform is a violation of the Geneva convention. In WWII people were captured and summarily executed on both sides for doing just that. So I'm not convinced that Khadr isn't getting off light. But I'll admit that his age and being raised by religious fanatics may constitute mitigating circumstances.

[luckytroll.livejournal.com]

As some notable lefty observers have quipped - Terrorism could be described as the "privatization of war". The Americans are responsible for a version of this privatization - the outsourcing of logistics and casual combatants (Blackwater et all) who are conveniently outside the usual laws. Likewise, citizens - loony or not - who have not found a state or sanctioned political vehicle to represent their self-identified interests are moving to parallel modes of "diplomacy by other means" to affect political outcomes.

The Geneva convention was written to codify (or civilize?) the wars of states, and protect the non combatants. Later doctrines of total war blurred this distinction by identifying nearly all functioning parts of a society as being legitimate targets as they all contributed in some way to the outcome. How this relates to Kadr, Im not sure - he wasnt affiliated with a state, which probably by todays rules means he gets a bullet in the head, or a dark hole. Being a westerner, this dosent seem so bad until you consider that it creates a striking divide between those with power, who wear the uniforms, and everyone else. From that kind of divide, it only takes a few bad leaders to create another human rights collapse.

Perhaps human rights is like the stock market - it depends on security, and its value is variable - and it can experience adjustments and crashes, just like any market.

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

Valid points, which is why I think the Americans SHOULD have declared them all to be prisoner's of war even if they were in violation of the Geneva conventions (and they were). I think we as members of an enlightened western democracies should hold ourselves to a higher standard.

That being said, I'm certainly not convinced that the Taliban and Al'Queda were somehow ignorant of the Geneva conventions or just not able to obtain uniforms for their fighters. They just rejected them like they rejected so many other things western.

You don't have to be associated with a state to be covered by the Geneva conventions IIRC, but you do have to wear a uniform to differentiate yourself from the civilian population and you have to carry your arms openly.

[luckytroll.livejournal.com]

I would agree that a person inclined to do violence to others in any situation must be sequestered from society. However, this alone would put a large number of soldiers and politicians in jail, if applied evenly.

I am sure this sort of thing played out repeatedly with the Nazis and various resistances during the war. What vexes me is not so much that a fanatically brainwashed kid is in a dark jail, but that a precedent for putting young people like him in dark places has been set, and by virtue of his circumstances, the criterion have been set for whom should be also treated this way. It all smells so much of a slippery slope that ends in Orwellian times.

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

Remember, Kadr was not in jail for being a religious fanatic. He was in jail for fighting against the Americans. He wasn't just a religious fanatic, but he was associated with a group of religious fanatics who had proven in a grossly spectacular way just how violent and dangerous they were.

Something like the Arar case was a huge injustice, and a major mistake by both the Canadians and Americans. I can feel a lot of sympathy for Arar and what he went through. But it is very hard for me to have any sympathy for Kadr.

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an article I linked to with an interview of Ayan Hirsi Ali, but in a marginally different context:

Samir Azouz, another young man in Holland convicted of terrorist plotting, attended a fundamentalist Muslim school in Amsterdam which is still open. He had maps of the Dutch parliament. He wanted to kill me and other politicians. He wanted to cause murder and mayhem congruent with the set of beliefs that he was taught in school using Dutch taxpayers’ money. Now go back in time a little. Isn’t it extremely cruel when you put yourself in the shoes of that little boy? He was just going to an officially recognized school in a multicultural society. Everyone approved—and now he’s being punished for it. He’s in jail.
http://reason.com/news/show/122457.html

[milk-an-honey.livejournal.com]

Yes, however unfortunate it may be we generally wait until someone has actually committed a crime - such as the aforementioned killing of someone - or has passed a deemed point of no return in their intention to commit a crime. From what I understand or the actual facts that can be gleaned: Omar Khadr - a Canadian citizen - was present when an american was killed. Although it seems the allegation was that he was actually responsible for the killing, there actually seems to be precious little evidence that he did anything but be present.

As a child soldier, the United Nations has a number of treaties that apply to him and to his treatment. None of these involve indefinite detention and torture in a foreign country by foreign soldiers. The Canadian Government has done precisely nothing to either secure the release or protest the conditions of his detainment. This alone is deplorable. Canada (and the US) are signatories to the treaties on the treatment of children in general, and on the treatment of child soldiers in specific. Amnesty International has discussed this situation at length with both governments and to date not even a harsh word has been uttered regarding the detention and treatment of this child by either government.

It is absolutley disgusting what is going on in the name of freedom and democracy right now, and has nothing to do with either. It seems to be based on a climate of fear that several governemtns are fostering in order to boost their own powers at home and abroad. We are gladly giving up rights that have been entrenched since the Magna Carta on the basis of phantom fears and staged events. It's truly, truly alarming. Yet there is no alarm. We are all qute happy as long as we get to continue to live our happy insulated lives. Mind you, don't consider protesting anything too strongly or you will quickly find yourself on a no-fly list. Such has already happened to Anglo-Saxon housewifes in the US and likley many others who are not quite so good at getting media attention for their situation.

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

Good points, I had to look it up, but:

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art. 38, (1989) proclaimed: "State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities."

Under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which was adopted and signed in 2002, the use of anyone under the age of 18 in combat is illegal under international law. National armed forces are permitted to recruit individuals below the age of 18, but are strictly forbidden from deploying them into combat. Non-state actors and guerrilla forces are forbidden from recruiting anyone under the age of 18 for any purpose.

So that seems to apply to Khadr. However, it was the Taliban that involved him in the conflict not the Americans and certainly not the government of Canada. So we can't hold the Americans responsible for the Taliban's violation of international law.

Also, my quick search (of those two protocols and the Geneva Convention) didn't find any discussion of the legal status of child soldiers who are prisoners. So I'm not sure what international law says about the treatment of child soldiers that you capture that the OTHER side has introduced into the conflict. I'm not sure it was ever considered, if the Geneva convention applies then the child soldier would have the same rights as any prisoner of war.

That being said, I don't think a 15 year old is a "child" in the same way that an 8 year old is. Surely at 15 he must bear some responsibility for his actions. But you are right, the actual evidence in this particular case seems pretty thin - however Wikipedia indicates that he admitted to throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier as well as assisting the Taliban in other ways. In my view, killing someone in battle is not the same as murder and Khadr should be a prisoner of war not on trial.

Like I said, the Americans painted themselves into that corner by trying to do an end run around the Geneva Convention. They are tying themselves into knots trying to keep from letting him go, because when it comes right down to it, I agree with Joel, Khadr is dangerous.

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

I am willing to agree that holding Kadr for five years with no trial was the wrong thing for the Americans to do. Unfortunately, letting him go is also the wrong thing to do. There is no right thing in this case.

Despite eroding values, I'm still far more appreciative of the Americans than of the Taliban and Al Quaida. I mean, Americans worry about how to make a girl with Down's syndrome a valuable part of society. Al Quaida, instead, sees an easily exploited suicide bomber. The Americans have done Kadr wrong by holding him so long without a trial, but the Americans are angels compared to the people Kadr has associated with.

[luckytroll.livejournal.com]

I wont deny that the Taliban to me are the less desirable lot - at least from my own perspective. Its just kind of creepy that the USA has set itself up as a global jailor, police force, and patron for client states. From a comfy chair in Canada, it seems scarier that a country with enormous potential for global harm is slipping even a little. For people all over the poorest parts of the world who have little to lose, such desparation seems so typical as to be banal from my perspective. It fails to shock me that people in Afghanistan, or Congo, or Mali take up arms and freak out at their disempowerment. Perhaps cynical, but their utter lack of ability to do much to anyone, aside from exporting suicidal fanatics on missions of terrorism, is a drop in the bucket compared to the waves of systemic change that may be overtaking the western world in response.

[iambic-cub.livejournal.com]

That's the success of terrorism. With a small number of people who refuse to play by any rules or hold to any kind of morality, you can disrupt the lives of countless people. It's lousy that the west has been undermined like this, and it's lousy that it has resulted in so much war.

That said, I can actually see the point of the war, the idea being that if exporters of terrorism are turned into free and open societies, it's the fanatics and their message which will be undermined. (Personally, I think a much better approach is figure out something like a super-WiMAX that covers an entire country. Give some of these totalitarian countries utterly open Internet access, and things will change. Sure, it will make it easier for fanatics to recruit, but on the other hand, what suicide bomber would be willing to wait for 70 virgins in heaven, when there are thousands online, willing to perform right now.)

The saddest thing about the Kadr case, and a few others like it, is that even in free and open societies, you can still end up with fanatics.

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced that the USA set them selves up that way. I see it more like it defaulted to them because the rest of us didn't carry our weight. Take a look at Afghanistan. Our involvement there is sanctioned by the UN and NATO and is also at the request of the Afghan government itself. But look at most of our NATO allies, they all say they are concerned about what goes on there, but they are too timid to commit forces to battle against a group we know to be both fanatical and violent and is fundamentally opposed to the human rights we all say we hold dear. Even here in Canada our involvement is highly controversial (though honestly I think the objections are more cynically political).

A great many Europeans like to express their concern that America is currently the only world superpower, but when given a chance to do something about it, they just proved they would prefer to cluck from the sidelines.

I also don't buy the disempowerment argument. The disempowered may be easier to recruit into these groups, but the leadership is anything but disempowered. The leaders clearly have other motivations.

[canuckotter.livejournal.com]

I keep remembering that back in the late 90s and pretty much up til 9/11, there were all sorts of groups demanding international action on Afghanistan because of the horrible conditions there (specifically the treatment of women)... And now that the world finally did something about it, those same people are screaming about how we had no right to invade Afghanistan and we're all evil and blah blah blah.

So yeah, I think you're right... The majority of the objections are very cynical and politically motivated.

[luckytroll.livejournal.com]

I dont think it is the overthrow of a regime that is horrid to women and musicians that is so appalling this day in age. I think a lot of people are feeling a bit like the Romans felt in the latter days - when they had to rely more and more on Germanic mercenary tribes and then discovered that this reliance came at a price. We allowed ourselves to be led by an emergent superpower, and what we are getting is a superpower that is starting to act in ways that are getting disturbing, or at least more disturbing.

It makes me start seeing eery parallels between Austria in the early century and now. We are like Americans, we are onside with their interests and ambitions. We are along for the ride, and will be to the bitter end if only by reason of proximity and culture. Unfortunately, the arrogance with which they are starting to flaunt this power is putting them on track to a global smackdown. Nobody loves a bully. I just hope I can get out of the way when it comes.

[luckytroll.livejournal.com]

Originally, I started thinking about this as an engineer - it comes down to a few cases of bad hardware (psychopaths?, homocidal mental patients), and bad software (raised to be a soldier, or to do any number of things we are seeing frequently in areas of conflict) - when it comes to kids.

Adults can be considered rational - they are assumed to have a level of empowerment to select their own software, assuming they have been given a variety of ideas to choose from. The point of this critical mass of software-self-authoring is probably widely different depending on things like the amount of seclusion or propaganda or freedom of speech you are raised amongst. The point is in Kadrs case, that he probably on the younger side of this cusp of self-determination. Either we declare him and everyone else his age an adult for this purposes, and elect to punish him for choosing the wrong side in a political conflict, or we assume he is running cultural software he hasnt been able to properly beta test yet, or QA for his own purposes. Either way, it pushes the definitions of rational adulthood back, or it defines a rather chilling outcome for young persons who are not yet really in control of the ideas they get uploaded to them. Im not sure I like either possibility.

[luckytroll.livejournal.com]

I guess logically it follows from this that his mother/father should get punished in the second case. Responsibility starts somewhere, but when you start regulating what people teach their children at home, people get really funny - especially when you refer to the teaching as "uploading cultural software"

[travis-w.livejournal.com]

Agreed certainly. But then we still don't have a good answer to that question in relation to regular crimes... at what age to we hold people to the standard of 'Adult' and responsible for their own behavior.

Part of the problem is that people mature at different rates. So there really is no hard and fast rule. A street wise 13 year old is very different from a sheltered and spoiled 18 year old.