Making headlines today in the Canadian newspapers was the interrogation of Omar Kahdr (see, for example, the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star). (Briefly, Omar Kahdr is a 20-year-old Canadian citizen who's was interrogated at Guantanamo Bay when he was 16. He was caught fighting in Afghanistan against the American troops.)
The topic also came up over lunch today, and I found the reactions of my colleagues (all 3 are Canadians) interesting. One said that Kahdr took part in a war and should be tried as such; she said, if your family was killed by this guy, wouldn't you want revenge? Personally, I think it's this type of thinking that leads to a lot of problems and wars.
The other two argued that he's should be tried as a child and not as an adult. One pointed out that although Omar did kill combatant troops, if Omar was a high-schooler and he were to go on a school rampage in the US and killed people, he would not have been tried as an adult. I agree with the two -- what do kids at 12, 13, even 16 years know? They may be physically big enough to handle a weapon, but mentally, these child soldiers probably do not fully understand what they are doing. (Even many adults don't know what they are doing in a war...) And by treating a child soldier as an adult and torturing him, what does that say about the captors? That colleagues added that he think it takes a sick person to be able to torture another.
To them, age is the lynch-pin in this argument. But I think that's a slippery slope (how old is old enough?), and that there's also something else that's wrong with the case -- the validity and legality and morality of interrogation and torture.
I also pointed out that it was highly unlikely that a teenager would know anything about Al Queda intelligence (anything of worth that the US side did not know already), and more importantly, that any information obtained under interrogation is highly suspect. Kahdr was, among other things, deprived of sleep before his interrogation, and people are capable of saying absolute nonsense when they are sleep-deprived. So if the information they get is suspect, why are they doing it (interrogation at Guantanamo Bay)? Lots of cynical reasons come to mind.
Under the Third Geneva Convention, which primarily concerns the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) (Article 17):
"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."
Blah blah... "unlawful combatants"...blah blah
Huh.
The topic also came up over lunch today, and I found the reactions of my colleagues (all 3 are Canadians) interesting. One said that Kahdr took part in a war and should be tried as such; she said, if your family was killed by this guy, wouldn't you want revenge? Personally, I think it's this type of thinking that leads to a lot of problems and wars.
The other two argued that he's should be tried as a child and not as an adult. One pointed out that although Omar did kill combatant troops, if Omar was a high-schooler and he were to go on a school rampage in the US and killed people, he would not have been tried as an adult. I agree with the two -- what do kids at 12, 13, even 16 years know? They may be physically big enough to handle a weapon, but mentally, these child soldiers probably do not fully understand what they are doing. (Even many adults don't know what they are doing in a war...) And by treating a child soldier as an adult and torturing him, what does that say about the captors? That colleagues added that he think it takes a sick person to be able to torture another.
To them, age is the lynch-pin in this argument. But I think that's a slippery slope (how old is old enough?), and that there's also something else that's wrong with the case -- the validity and legality and morality of interrogation and torture.
I also pointed out that it was highly unlikely that a teenager would know anything about Al Queda intelligence (anything of worth that the US side did not know already), and more importantly, that any information obtained under interrogation is highly suspect. Kahdr was, among other things, deprived of sleep before his interrogation, and people are capable of saying absolute nonsense when they are sleep-deprived. So if the information they get is suspect, why are they doing it (interrogation at Guantanamo Bay)? Lots of cynical reasons come to mind.
Under the Third Geneva Convention, which primarily concerns the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) (Article 17):
"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."
Blah blah... "unlawful combatants"...blah blah
Huh.
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