AWM,

A couple more thoughts on the Khadr story:

1. I believe that his family (particularly his father Ahmed Said Khadr) is someone who that authorities would like to put pressure on.  This is one reason, no doubt, that his son has been held all these years.

2. I’ve always been amazed at the logic in this story.  The U.S. invades Afghanistan (hence now has an “Afghanistan WAR”) and runs into pockets of resistance which they mostly easily overrun with superior fire power.  In this case, an American is killed as they overrun an Afghani position killing all the occupants except one ... and this one is considered a criminal because he may have killed the American?  Funny definition of “war” ...

Khadr’s story is quite well known.  Jawad I hadn’t heard of until this article.

There is yet another child soldier in Gitmo. His name is Omar Kadr. At age 15 during a fire fight an American soldier was killed by a grenade.After extensive shelling special forces entered the building finding 2 people alive one was severely injured he was executed on the spot. The other was Omar on his knees praying, was then shot several times in the back and was about to be finished off when an intelligence officer interceded wanting him for questioning.

He was then taken to Bagram where he was tortured before being taken to Gitmo.He still sits there today years later. The US military has fired a judge and several lawyers for doing their jobs too well. The reports on the fire fight have been doctored to say that only Omar was alive and therefore the only one who could have thrown the grenade.

Very well put Handyman,

The analogy of spending the family’s money on weapons and protection when food, school and power might have made more sense is one I have used myself.  In this case the neighbour’s child was kidnapped and abused as well.  A great way to ensure that there will be security issues well into the future.  I would add that there have been great parties funded by multiple mortgages on the house.

Now watch as the visiting partygoers (execs in the financial sector, the oil industry and the military industrial complex) lose interest in the family when the money runs out.

I remember seeing the movie Red Dawn when it came out. I was appalled at the way people cheered when the very young Russian soldier was killed. And again when the American teenager who had been captured and implanted with a tracking device was executed. And here were all these teenage kids defending their country and everyone was cheering as well they should have been Now we have a 12 year old kid who, even if he had thrown a grenade had every right in the world to defend his country, for we were the invaders and someone had the temerity to imprison him for nearly 8 years for something we would have cheered had he been an American. We are the Russians and the Cubans now. But our government says it is we who are saving them from destruction. And how has that worked so far?

This insanity has not only prevented this young man from being in his own country but it has helped demonize us and it is hard to find fault with other country’s assessment of who were are.

They continue to kill and maim us and we continue to do the same to them in even greater and staggering numbers. And we are spreading what is a civil war into Pakistan and we decry the possibility that these dissidents, who are also batshitcrazy, might gain control of Pakistans nuclear weapons. If they do so it will be because of our hubris.

We are like some dysfuctional family who is squadering every penny they can lay their hands on to buy guns, and barbed wire and powerful lights because we are so afraid of our neighbors and we haven’t noticed that we are starving, dying because we have no healthcare, and we are without water, electricity, and heat. And we cheer because we are winning or maybe we are just indifferent to our own suffering. I had no doubt that when I was in high school I thought that we were getting better as a country. And then I journeyed to Africa in the Peace Corps. I was disillusioned when I came home. I saw the effects of our governments meddling in their affairs all in my name and yours. Then I did a tour in Vietnam in 68-69. I returned home a nervous wreck and hating my own country for what it had made me do and I have never trusted it again.

So now we have evolved to the point where we can elect a Black man as President only to find out that he is as oblivious to the sufferings of others as any White man. He is a man who could have changed the way in which we are viewed by others. He could have changed the way we view ourselves. Instead he cannot distinguish between a war of choice and a war of necessity. And it is such a simple distinction. All wars are wars of choice uless they come to your home to fight. And that is what this young boy may have done. His was a war of necessity. Ours is a war of choice! To punish him for our misdeeds and not to punish the people who lied us into these 2 and a half wars is unforgiveable!

the American descent into barbarism is most saliently marked by the US torture of children. Child soldiers is one of the characteristics of groups that the US sponsors and fights against, and the US explicitly denies that age is a bar to its brand of punishment. 

Gitmo had a juvenile wing, complete with toys, etc.  There are now 2000 prisoners serving life sentences without parole who were convicted of commintting crimes when they were juveniles.  Most of them probably non-White.

Israel routinely tortures Arab children.  And the Zionist lemmings have imported it into the US. Obama is continuing Bushite policies sanitized by his articulate rhetoric.  He is looking forward, not backward.

So ends another small chapter in a hugely embarrassing chapter for the United States.

In 20 years, people will look back on this generation and the pre-occupation with “terrorists” with the same amazement as the way the McCarthy “Reds under Beds” era is viewed.  In the 50’s one only had to claim that someone was a “communist” to destroy them.  Now the magic word is “terrorist” but the process is the same.  Rights are removed, justice is avoided and lives are ruined.

How much compensation is appropriate for the thousands of people rounded up into Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and other less publicised sites by the American government?  It is an already proven fact that the vast majority of these people were innocent of what they were accused of.  So how do you recompense people for taking away years of their lives?  In this case an entire adolesence ...

The Canadian government paid one of their citizens $10M in compensation for providing information to the Americans leading to his kidnapping, rendition and torture.  They didn’t even do the torturing.  So how much America?  $100M each?  ... times thousands of victims?

Take it from Halliburton, Blackwater (Xe), Exxon and Chevron ... that’s who everyone has been fighting and dying for.