Though a plea deal will cap the amount of time he serves at nine additional years, Toronto-born Gitmo child soldier Omar Khadr was sentenced to 40 years for “war crimes” related to allegations he may have been the one who threw a hand grenade during the Afghan War in 2002, killing a US soldier. The charges included “terrorism” and “spying.”
Khadr was forced into service resisting the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 by his father, and despite the fact that he was only 15 when the alleged crime was committed US lawyers insist he is a “terrorist and murder” and that the protections normally afforded to child soldiers doesn’t count because the group he was with wasn’t technically an army.
A number of questions were raised during the trial, including the years of abuse Khadr suffered in US detention and the coerced confession which was the center of the case against him. Less often mentioned was that the “crime” in question, throwing a hand grenade during combat, has never been considered a war crime. The military jury in Khadr’s “trial” deliberated for less than nine hours before delivering the ruling.
Under the plea deal, Khadr will spend another year in US military custody at Guantanamo Bay and then be turned over to the Canadian government to serve another seven years in Canadian prisons. Canadian lawyers believe they can win his release in short order once he is out of US military custody, considering his status as a child soldier. The Harper government has been trying to prevent Khadr’s return, not wanting to have to take any official stand on the treatment of a Canadian born Canadian citizen by the US military tribunal system.
Sure am proud to be Canadian today…sniff… Thanks Mister Harper for looking after your citizens no
matter race creed or color!
WHO, WHAT,other than our corrupt justice system is responsible for this outrage?? How is it that a fifteen year old KID…….who MAY have thrown a grenade……….. at his foreign invader attackers…… can POSSIBLY be guilty of WARCRIMES, but the lying snake oilmen who with the forgeries and [BLACK] stooges like Condi [mushroom cloud] Rice and Colin [Mai Lie cover-up…mobile weapons lab U.N. LIES] Powell …….and lets not forget the anthrax "letters" to frighten the sheeple into into an illegal war that KILLED a MILLION or more….. and who is guilty of WAR CRIMES………oh yeah the fifteen year old ……as the true authors of all the carnage slither off to their multi million dollar retirements… The current state of justice in America…. Shame on America, Shame on Qbama….. Shame on all of us…..!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dead on. The ones responsible for countless thousands dying are not war criminals but someone who might… just might… have tossed a grenade is labeled as such. I would think that the military prosecutors and judges would have the decency to resign out of disgust. I wonder if there were ever another Nuremberg style trial that these officers could hide behind the "I was following orders" excuse or dance the hang mans jig?
Allah have mercy on us all- if the US is ever invaded like we've invaded other nations you can bet I'll be throwing grenades at enemy forces every chance I get, and I'm far past 15 years old. The entire war is a crime in itself and this boy gets to be the poster child representing the enemy- I'm sadly not surprised that the US would stoop so low. The USG avoids declaring war so they don't have to observe any rules, plain and simple. Congress, like Pontius Pilate, simply washes its hands of the matter and lets the rabble- in this case, the Executive Branch- decide the fate of innocents.
The United States can't be invaded for all intent and purpose which our leaders know damn well- and which makes our wars against poor third world countries on the other side of the globe all the more despicable and cowardly and self serving.
So shameful being an American these days. I've gone from being a flag waving rube right after 9/11 to being totally disgusted by the mere sight of an American flag these days (which in America- are about as ubiquitous a presence in our lives as Lenin's image was in the old Soviet Union.
I sport a state flag on my bumper now- not an American flag. Never will again.
If this is a war crime then i to am guilty.
You also have the selfmade problem, that judges are appointed by politicians Also a general accept of spin as something of cultural value in itself, regardless of lies and deceptions. .
… and not one day in detention for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld ? Call that balanced ? Call that Justice?
It is another war crime added to that long list of war crimes committed in our names.
You couldn't make this shit up.
wow, and the guy running for congress in NC is a "hero" for gunning down 2 unarmed people….kind of sickening.
Er…I'm slow so help me out here. I thought that it's normal for participants in a war to try to kill each other. There was a fight going on? Each side was shooting at the other, is that correct? So why would this one fellow (age 15) be arrested for "murder"? He was doing what soldiers do, wasn't he? Do only the Americans get to shoot at, or bomb, others? Are their enemies supposed to just sit there and be killed? Please, I really want to know why this boy was locked up for years and is now found guilty of "murder".
Also, why did he have a change of heart and apologize to the dead American soldier's wife? Shouldn't she be expressing her sorrow to him that her government is killing all & sundry for…what?