"What you saw puts a lie to the long-standing argument by some that Omar Khadr is a victim ... He's not. He is a murderer and he is convicted by the strength of his own words."
An update on this story. "Canadian at Gitmo pleads guilty to all charges," by Ben Fox for the Associated Press, October 25:
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Eight years after he was taken to Guantanamo as a teenage prisoner, a Canadian pleaded guilty Monday to killing a U.S. Army sergeant during a battle in Afghanistan, in a deal that will send him home in a year to serve his sentence.
Defenders say Omar Khadr, who was 15 at the time of his capture, was a "child soldier" pushed into becoming an al-Qaida fighter by his father, an associate of Osama bin Laden.
The plea deal ends a widely criticized trial that made the United States the first Western nation since World War II to prosecute a child offender for alleged war crimes. The exact terms were not immediately disclosed, but Khadr's sentence was reportedly capped at eight years, in addition to time already spent at the Guantanamo detention camp.
The now 24-year-old prisoner, who was seriously wounded when he was seized in a gunbattle in 2002, admitted to throwing a grenade that killed a special forces medic during a fierce raid on an al-Qaida compound. He also pleaded guilty to building and planting roadside bombs and receiving weapons training from al-Qaida. He is the last Western detainee at Guantanamo.
The Toronto-born Khadr's trial had been scheduled to start Monday and he faced a possible life sentence.
The chief military prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said the government welcomed the deal, which was initiated by the defense, because it removes any doubt about Khadr's guilt.
"What you saw puts a lie to the long-standing argument by some that Omar Khadr is a victim," Murphy told reporters in an aircraft hangar near the courthouse on the U.S. base in Cuba. "He's not. He is a murderer and he is convicted by the strength of his own words."
Khadr did not explain why he changed his plea, though Dennis Edney, one of his Canadian attorneys, said it was a "very, very difficult" decision made only because Canada agreed to repatriate him after a year.
It came down to a choice between a trial his lawyers called "illegal" trial and going home -- and he chose the latter, Edney said. [...]
Khadr was charged with murder in the death of U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, a special forces medic from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The U.S. says the Canadian is a war criminal because was not a legitimate soldier. He also faced charges of spying, material support for terrorism, conspiracy and attempted murder. [...]
Another soldier who was blinded in one eye during the firefight said he was pleased Khadr admitted guilt but is concerned the Canadian may not serve a sufficiently long sentence. Several Canadian media outlets, citing anonymous sources, have reported he would serve one year at Guantanamo and seven in his native country.
"It's way too short but I think you probably couldn't give him a sentence that I thought was too long," said Layne Morris, a retired Army sergeant who now lives in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. "We have put him on a track to freedom in the prime of his life."
Ah yes, another Muslim "youth" totally misunderstanding the oft hawked "religion of peace" and wanting to murderously act upon the murderous teachings of Allah's "perfect religion".
Whatever could be the problem?
Certainly not the Islamic texts themselves and the conduct and orders laid down by Mad Moe the perfect man himself. Oh good lord no, why even to suggest such a thing would be an outrageous act of bigotry, and, you guessed it – ISLAMOPHOBIA!! ~sarc off~
And exactly how many jihad terrorist attacks have there been since 911?
16,272 to be precise. But hey, that number may have increased in the last 5 minutes and need some adjusting... Get it?...
Hmmm... kinda makes ya think, don't it. don't it?...
I am a Canadian ex-Muslim with a website
http://considerationsofacanadianex-muslim.org
Catch and release program works on 'endangered' species, though I didn't think Al-Qaeda and its band of merry killer jihadis was in danger of going extinct. Our Western secular sensitivities are sooohh 'Christian', just too nice. Not what the enemy would have given us while screaming "Allah Akjbaaar!!" and sawing our head on video.
We are just soooh nice, especially in Canada. Aren't we nice?... oh please say it....
If we're going to treat them like members of an endangered species - catch, and then release into the wild - we're forgetting the rest of it - the 'chip and track by satellite' part.
In a somewhat related matter, there is an important and under reported story breaking/happening in Calgary, Alberta.
A Muslim man named Naheed Nenshi has just been elected mayor of the city of Calgary.
The most unfortunate thing about this, in my opinion, is how the smiling faces and good nature of Muslims like Naheed give under-informed non-Muslims the WRONG impression about Islam. Muslims like Naheed focus exclusively on the few good traditions to be found in Islam and ignore or refuse to acknowledge the MMMANY evil traditions and commandments found in the religion. If Naheed were a true believing Muslim and understood Islam properly and followed it to the letter he would join with Osama bin Laden and his lot. Bin Laden understands his religion perfectly and accurately unfortunately. Unfortunately indeed...
Here is a link to the Calgary story:
http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=3700112&sponsor=
Omar Khadr and his lawyers trying to have peoples believe that
he was a child soldier! Common at 15 years old, a child.
They used whatever they could to make Khadr look like a
victim!! A child soldier is a child who is in danger of being
starved or tortured if he or she does not obey to the peoples
who keep them prisoneers. Now, tell me that Khadr lived under
these conditions with his family members, are you kidding?
The comedy is over and Canadians will end up paying to keep this
guy incarcerated. You watch!
"In legal motions, the defense said Khadr had been chained in painful "stress positions" for long periods of time, suffocated until he passed out, terrorized with barking dogs and threatened that he would be tortured and raped in prison."
If true, that stinks. We should set an example as a civilized society, not show barbarism. We should leave that example setting to terrorists, and respond with measure.
Sorry sumdum, sounds like more taquiyya from a punk, or as CBS news referred to him, "a young man from Canada."
Khadr is a jihadist who killed and maimed our soldiers. The fact that he's still alive is a gross miscarriage of military justice.
The example we should set for terrorists is a quick execution.
I have some real problems with this, but not what most people may think. My problems derive from my understanding of international law regarding war.
Omar Khadr is an unlawful combatant. While this affects his legal status in many ways, I don't think that it makes his killing of one of our soldiers legally a crime. Maybe I'm wrong, but in the first years of the Vietnam War the Viet Cong were considered to be unlawful combatants and I don't recall any trials. But hey, if I'm wrong, then the whole lot of them can be charged as accessories.
The original article has few details about how Sgt. Speer was killed. Was Khadr pretending injury or pretending surrendering when he threw the grenade? That's a war crime and as such deserves prosecution, and a lot more than eight years. I hope for our legal system that this was the case.
My other objection is that (in the absence of a war crime) we are having a trial at all. Our international law is quite clear: POWs, unlawful or not, can be held until the end of the conflict. This fact, coupled with the open-ended jihad, seems to make a lot of people queasy. Much of the criticism of the U.S. seems to say "International law says you can hold them until the end of the conflict, but [whisper] we know it will never end, so [stop whisper] holding them this way is unfair".
It doesn't make me queasy. I have no trouble holding these people until the end of their days if their coreligionists continue the jihad. Why should I?
We should be following the law (excluding those treaties not ratified by the U.S. Senate) to the letter. No hearings, except to determine POW status. No trials, except for war crimes. No release, unless the war completely and permanently ends.
"If we're going to treat them like members of an endangered species - catch, and then release into the wild - we're forgetting the rest of it - the 'chip and track by satellite' part."
LOL, yes! And the microphone too!
This flaw in justice will be remedied by placement in the general prison population.
Look for this "kid" to be released, go home, have a parade, a halal feast and then to come back as Adam Gadahn's assistant. There may even be the deflowering of a virgin in his future, brave jihadi that he is.
This little s#$@^ithead knew exactly what he was doing when he threw that grenade at Christopher Speers. The hand-wringing and sobbing in the liberal media in Canada regarding the "mistreatment" and "civil rights abuses" this little puke is "enduring" is revolting. He is a proud member of an "AlQueda family" (his parents quotes). Child soldier, please! Don't make me hurl! He was FIFTEEN when he did this, some "child" soldier! And his disgusting "al Quaeda family" still lives here collecting welfare benefits even though they have publicly said they hate Canada.
The then Pie-Minister Jean Cretin (intentionally spelled) (look up the story about how he got this moniker for a good laugh) moved mountains to get his (Khadrs) father back to Canada from Pakistan a few years before this happened. The left libtards who have rule this country the past few decades never met a terrorist or communist dictator they didn 't love)
Okay, I have to stop now cuz I'm really feeling nauseated, he'll probably get a few tens of millions of dollars from the feds just like "poor tortured Maher Arar", gotta go now, please excuse me while I try to stop my stomach from convulsing.
For the Mohammedans he is a hero and for the useful idiots on the left he is a victim, just like David Hicks aka Mahmud Dawoud downunder, who, inspite of his guilty plea and convicition finds other useful idiots to perpetuate the BS that he was just a "kid being in the wrong place at the wrong time".
There is no cure for this.
http://sheikyermami.com/2010/10/22/the-real-hicks/
A Moonbat Hero is Something to Be
http://sheikyermami.com/2010/10/21/a-moonbat-hero-is-something-to-be/
I've tried to hold up a mirror to all those smug/elite/leftist/Lieberal canadians that cry about poor little Omar Khadr and the big-bad USA when it is Cuba that leases GITMO bay to the USA while those same canadians vacation there and are sheltered from the poverty in a nice beachfront hotel.
Many Cubans even wait for the garbage from GITMO to be dumped so they can sift through it for any orts to stay alive another day.
But don't you dare tell the truth about Cuba or the misognynistic murderer Che (ernesto) Guevera that got his kick beating up females befor he raped them and then killed them. Liberals enjoy their false-reality where other people do the thinking for them to avoid the actual work to research the truth,any opinion that doesn't fit into their perception of the world is a threat to them and they resort to lawfare or cries of racism to silence the opinion.
I used to be young and stupid, people expected it from kids or punks.....but there is no pride in being the World's oldest 17 year old that is now almost 60 normal year old. How pathetic for people to make a free-will choice to remain ignorant and reject any wisdom because change mean growth....and growth means pain to give-up what you held as the truth for the last 15+ years and accept you were actually too stupid to know how stupid you were.
The Khadr's have been scam-artists for years now in canada that want all the welfare hand-outs funded by non-muslim taxpayers while the males in the family plot to murder us,the CBC even did a interview with Omars sister who said she would be proud if her brothers died in Jihad to slaughter more canadians on our soil for what we are doing in Afghanistan.
But when the Khadr's needed health care for one of the sons injured in a fire-fight, these bottom-feeder islamists came back to canada and insisted they were canadians and entitled to free health care. The Khadr's still go to the pro-taliban/Jihad Mosque run by the Imam that opined on TV about how Muslims should stay in canada to do Jihad to civilians rather than go to Afghanistan to kill our soldiers because Jihad is a global struggle for Allah and islam.
Omar has been at Gitmo and Afghanistan far more longer then he ever had been in canada,so at what point is he actually a Afghani dual citizen be charge with treason against canada???
Living in canada for about 12 years made Omar no more a canadian then me living in a garage for 20 years would make me a car,we have a African female that wants welfare because she gave birth in the airplane on route to the USA when it flew over canadian airspace.....the Courts are actually looking at the refugee claim by the mother who has a lawyer that is fighting this to claim the baby was Born In canada and is a citizen.
Why even Randy McQuade is now making a refugee claim in B.C. because he fled Hollywood for fear of being killed by a Celebrity death-squad. So if I was a soldier now after what I saw Omar Khadr do, I'd make an extra effort to not take POW's in Afganistan when I'm fighting the Jihadist thugs. At least the nazi facsists had the guts to wear a Uniform so we knew what they sttod for, but these islamofacists are gutless misogynists that dress as civilians and slaughter anyone right from babies to the elderly.
And now CAIR is backing the GZ Victory Mosque project when the cremation dust is still in the building walls from the 9/11 Jihad slaughter, this takes a special nerve to plant the flag of islam on the same ground as a mass slaughter of civilains by warriors for Allah just 9 years earlier by the 19 Muslim brothers praising Allah as they murder civilians.
"While this affects his legal status in many ways, I don't think that it makes his killing of one of our soldiers legally a crime. "
It took some digging on the Internet, but it appears that U.S. criminal law CAN be invoked. From Wikipedia:
"...in the opinion of the ICRC "If civilians directly engage in hostilities, they are considered 'unlawful' or 'unprivileged' combatants or belligerents ... [and] They may be prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action"
The widow Speers will be taking any lawfare money Omar thinks he will be using for Jihad...
Now do you think that Chinese troops would have let him survive a gun battle had he killed a Chinese medic? I think not.
I'm not debating whether or not he is guilty, but the treatment he was given. We should not torture people. That would make us no better than some of the despots in foreign countries where this happens all the time.
Yesterday the real Canadians of Toronto elected Rob Ford mayor in a three race that saw him get 47% of the vote. He beat the runner up, George Smitherman who is gay by about 12%. Among the tragedies and farces there is some good.
You know, when people bitch and moan and whine about the poor Japanese who were rounded up and placed in internment camps in the U.S. during WWII they forget about or never knew about this:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html
Is history repeating itself, but this time with a Muslim flavor to it? Is there something we can learn from it?
It was quite disconcerting that many Canadians showed how anti-American they were by supporting Khadr and claiming his innocence. A terrorist is a terrorist, however, even if he says he is not. Now we all know that he was lying. Most terrorists will proclaim their innocence, to either avoid jail or to mastermind a lawsuit to claim millions.
Canada is becoming a country of terrorists and their supporters. Canada did nothing to prevent Sikh extremism from becoming the norm in Canada. Now Canadians are doing nothing to prevent Muslim radicals from hijacking this country. Canadians have to reduce Muslim immigration and refugees in order to prevent Canada from one day becoming a jihadist country where Shariah law prevails and non-Muslims will be subject to the whims of Islamic fundamentalists.
Canadians should be ashamed of taking a weak stand against Islamic terrorists and for being anti-American. Canadians have forgotten that the US is its big brother. Canadians must treat the US with love and respect. And not bite the hand that feeds it.
Thanks, Robert, for the quotes around "Canadian".
That murderous little punk is no Canadian, as far as a good many of us are concerned. Sadly, as imyy4u noted, there are lots of left leaning idiots in Canada wringing their hands over this "poor sweet boy who has been so horribly mistreated". (Spit.)
Send him back to Afghanistan. We don't want him here.
Seven letters.
Two words.
HANG HIM.
Otherwise you encourage him and his many jihadi clones.
The failure to exact the only sane punishment for captured terrorists -execution- has resulted in more innocent people getting killed by released "reformed" killers when they turned back to the holy war and happily killed again.
And those who freed them have not been held accountable in any way for their blind, callous fixation on legalisms and the tragically-unneeded deaths that these functionaries ultimately caused.
If you catch spies, saboteurs and terrorists, you have to cut off their earthly jihad permanently.
And let the noose be pigskin, for toughness.