Quote:
Originally Posted by terminator
Finally the right thing. Releasing a child soldier.
I love the double standards, save african child soldiers and kill Muslim ones
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To clarify, he was 15 at the time he was caught, which puts him outside the definition of a child soldier, and no one here is proposing that we kill him. And although he was a child in many ways at the time he was fighting, we shouldn't execute him, but we shouldn't just let him walk free either. He was indeed a soldier and a POW.
That being said, I don't see any reason to charge him as an adult. He's already served about 10 years in prison. So even if he is found guilty of something eventually, he'll probably walk. And I'd agree he should.
It should also be kept in mind that the Canadian government and public has paid a great cost to this family already. The father was back and forth between militant groups. He came back injured multiple times, and Canadian taxpayers paid for his treatment. The Canadian courts have also resisted moves to deport several members of the family to the US court, and rescued the father, Ahmed, from a Pakistani court. So despite your accusation that people want to kill these people, we've actually spent millions repairing their wounds and stopping them from being deported to the much harsher US system or rotting in Pakistani prisons.
If we are going to accept that Omar Khadr is a child soldier, that suggests that he was not capable of making the decisions to do what he did and someone else put him up to it. My question is why are we not pursuing his family. Specifically, I'm talking about his mother and older siblings.