(US) Government says it can hold captured teen fighters

[sabra]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is telling a federal appeals court that it has the authority to detain a Canadian who was captured in Afghanistan when he was 15 and is accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

Attorneys for Omar Khadr, who is being held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, say international law bars governments from detaining people that young as enemy combatants and prosecuting them for war crimes.

The government, in a filing Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, says the military has the authority on the battlefield to capture and detain anyone, including juveniles, attacking and killing U.S. soldiers.

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5il5LCDHbI5AJxB88NybC5-JGwgEgD920AO3G3

[dipsydoodle]

1. All they need

is an elementary uniform : then they'd be POWs.

[tburnsten]

2. Good. He almost certainly killed an american soldier

He was illegally fighting against american forces conducting lawful operations, and from what I've heard on NPR, his family was on a first name basis with some top members of al-qaeda. If that doesn't constitute a war crime then I don't know what does. Had he been a legitimate soldeir, they may (probably not but maybe) have had some ground to push for his release from. But they don't, and he will remain in U.S. custody. He hasn't been mistreated, he is far better off than the victim of his grenade.

[damntexdem]

5. You obviously have no more grasp on 'war crimes' than does Dubya.

And it is only alleged that he threw a grenade. I doubt that there is any evidence that he did so.

[tburnsten]

6. Pretty sure no one else could have thrown it.

And besides that, isn't Canada a NATO country? If so, than wouldn't one of their citizens fighting against NATO forces be considered a war crime on its own? And also, Canada has troops in Afghanistan, so it could have easily been his fellow countrymen he was fighting against. Young men being exploited as soldiers is not that uncommon in many backwards areas of the world, why is it so implausible for you that he was actually a fighter? And what legitimate reason to be in Afghanistan at the time could he have had? His age isn't all that important, he is not an infant, and he is not a U.S. citizen being held for a petty crime. He is a foreign national who was captured fighting against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, not his country of origin, and though he is not an adult by U.S. standards, he is certainly old enough to fight.

[EFerrari]

9. Pretty sure? Implausible?

How old are you?

Good grief. I hope you don't have any children that could be held under the standards you forward.

:puke:

[Jazzgirl]

7. Forget it.

Not worth comment on edit.

[EFerrari]

8. Rumors are not war crimes. n/t

[CHIMO]

10. Democracy And Empire Are Incompatible

The Dark Side: Jane Mayer on the Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/18/the_dark_side_jane_mayer_on

[gratuitous]

3. Refresh my memory

What constitutes making us the good guys? Because we surely don't follow the rule of law anymore. We don't abide by our own Constitution. We don't live up to our treaty obligations. Our society used to get all upset by secret police, government spying on its citizens, toruture, and open-ended detention without charge or trial. Now, we not only tolerate all of that, we've even refined the practices, and perfected the arguments in favor of them. The government isn't going to hold itself accountable, and our citizens are either powerless or too apathetic to effect any change. And there are plenty of our citizens willing to accept anything they're told by a government of law-breakers.

How do we qualify as the good guys again? I mean, besides the indisputable fact that I'm talking about us, and therefore by definition we're the good guys. Is there an objective measure that would qualify us as the good guys? Are the victims of our lawlessness allowed to say?

[damntexdem]

4. Are they sure they are competent to do so?

I wouldn't trust anything the Bushistas say they "can" do.

But, then, I suppose that they have shown some competence at ordering air strikes that have killed babies and young children. Yeah, let's go after all those babies on the battlefield who attack and kill U.S. soldiers!