Canadian teenager cries in Gitmo interrogation video

Wednesday 16th July, 06:00 AM JST

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Kijimuna at 11:38 AM JST - 22nd July

Cleo, although I'm not unsympathetic to what you're saying about child soldiers in Sudan, the critical difference is that Khadr was caught in a firefight in which US soldiers were killed. Of course child soldiers in the abstract are bad, but when they're shooting at you that trumps the abstract. It's unreasonable to expect unconditional support.

Given his bio on Wiki, I very much doubt he wasn't disturbed before his incarceration. Parental choices have severe consequences for kids, some of which harm them irreversably. My heart goes out to the kid in some ways, but I'm more inclined to condemn his parents anew for their choices than I am to pick up an armband. Being a parent yourself and having seen kids suffer because of their parents, I'm sure you understand what I mean. I feel sorry for him in principle, but not in specific.
cleo at 12:49 PM JST - 22nd July

Kijimuna -

I don't think you and I are all that far apart on this. I'm sure his parents deserve a lot of the blame for the boy's predicament; but when all's said and done, he is (was) just a kid.

I also understand the bit about 'when they're shooting at you it's different' - but surely that applies only to the soldiers on the ground, not the whole darn US government? Elsewhere the US does show understanding of the plight of child soldiers. It isn't that big of a step to apply the same principle here, and the abject failure to do so smacks of double standards.

USAID .... has tried very hard to focus programs on all children affected by conflict.

http://www.america.gov/st/hr-english/2008/February/20080201170846ajesroM0.9215052.html

At the U.S. Department of State, child soldiering is considered to be “a unique and severe manifestation of trafficking in persons that involves the unlawful recruitment of children through force, fraud or coercion ….”

http://www.america.gov/st/hr-english/2008/April/20080403145159ajesrom0.242428.html
USARonin at 05:06 PM JST - 22nd July

-teenage 'youthful rebellion' gone horribly wrong.

Whoops.

USAR
cleo at 05:13 PM JST - 22nd July

teenage 'youthful rebellion' gone horribly wrong.

Teenage yes, horribly wrong, yes. But this was no 'youthful rebellion'. He was doing what his dad had told him to do. A filial son. Pity that his dad was a fundie terrorist.
bongoboy at 05:14 PM JST - 22nd July

Bet he's bumming he went to Afghanistan now.
USARonin at 06:09 PM JST - 22nd July

Cleo, so it's not his fault. It's anyone else's but his.

I see.

USAR
Alinsky4prez at 06:55 PM JST - 22nd July

I guess Canada doesn't care about people whose homestay adventures in Afghanistan ended with rendition to one of Bush's own personal gulags.
cleo at 07:31 PM JST - 22nd July

USAR -

I doubt that you do see. If he'd been picked up in Sierra Leone or the Congo he'd have been rehabilitated, given access to education, physiotherapy and skills training, and the US would have felt good about helping him. The only difference is that he would have been throwing his grenades at dark-skinned soldiers from a poor country instead of multi-coloured soldiers from a rich country.

Alinsky -

'homestay'?? He was taken to Afghanistan by his own family.
Gyudon at 10:24 PM JST - 22nd July

All this liberal BS about people, including teenagers, not having the ability to take responsibility for their actions is amazing. Anyone looking at the rise in youth crime, grafiti, etc. etc. has to realize that liberal policies of allowing any behavior by anyone anytime anywhere is the root of most of the decline in moral values and rise in crime around the globe. Time to take out the paddle and smack some sense into the miscreants.
Blue_Tiger at 06:08 AM JST - 28th July

Cleo, nice to see you contradict yourself twice in one page of responses to this story. And you didn't answert he question I posed: you aelege that this boy was defending his home. He's from Candaa. If he is Canadian, and defending his home, WHAT IS HE DOING IN AFGHANISTAN (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) KILLING US SOLDIERS IF HE'S DEFENDING HIS HOME? Put up or shut up.....
cleo at 08:56 AM JST - 28th July

Blue Tiger -

I have never said the boy was defending his home. Yet not only do you keep repeating this strawman you yourself cobbled together, you even put it in CAPITALS and scream it at us. Do you have reading disabilities, or did they teach you in school that if you repeat any rubbish often enough and loud enough, eventually it will be true?

Put up or shut up.....

You need to have a word with Sarge. He tells us the US soldiers were shooting children in the back so that I don't need to shut up.

As I mentioned earlier, I think some of you have completely lost the thread when it comes to what you think you're trying to defend. It's come a long, long way from Mom and apple pie.
Blue_Tiger at 09:10 PM JST - 28th July

Yes, cleo, you did say that this kid was defending his home. He is from canada. If he was defending his home, as you said he was, what was he doing in Afghanistan? And I'm not "screaming "it at "us" but "you", as, yes, you stated that he was defending his home.

So sarge is the end all to the situation with the US Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? He is the all-knowing, all-telling source? He may know a lot, but there are far, FAR better sources that I know, and those sources I have make this allegation of US Troops "shooting children in the back" a load of rubbish.
Blue_Tiger at 09:17 PM JST - 28th July

Correction: you didn't say that he was defending his home, cleo, but you did imply that he was.
cleo at 11:04 PM JST - 28th July

you didn't say that he was defending his home, cleo, but you did imply that he was.

Perhaps you'd like to quote the bit where I 'implied' any such thing.

Because I didn't.

I'd suspect you of tilting at windmills thinking they were dragons, but there aren't any windmills there.

Why not just be a good kitty and fess up that you were mistaken?
Kijimuna at 12:18 PM JST - 5th August

Hey cleo, thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you--doubtful that you're still reading this. Again, I don't see a problem in the contradiction you keep pointing out. The fact that the kid was instrumental--or at least proximate--to the deaths of soldiers pretty well means the government doesn't help him out. You don't intervene on behalf of teen runaways who mug and kill a person either. You try them as adults.