Tuesday, October 26, 2010

In war the age of someone trying to kill you does not matter.

A quick thought on the whole 'child soldier' meme being tossed about by so many lately.

Personally I believe that Omar K does not fit the established definition of a child soldier for a couple of reasons. First he was 15 which in some UN conventions (article 38) is the cut-off age for a CS, he did this with permission from his parents, factor in the age of majority in Afghanistan, and the little issue that he was not serving in what could be called a 'regular army'.  IMHO all of this combined precludes him from the definition of a child soldier. (A following UN convention, that Canada signed, sort of raises that age to 18.) 

But none of that really matters because, in international law and in every one of these UN conventions, the rules were written for the recruiters of child soldiers and not those that these child soldiers were shooting at and trying to kill.

In war the age of someone trying to kill you does not matter and it would be totally asinine for our soldiers to respond in combat, to child soldiers who are trying to kill them, any differently than they would towards anyone else doing the same.  Not only would it be impractical to ask for ID on a battlefield before you return fire, it would also more than likely get you killed.


All of these conventions were intended for those that recruit children into combat ( and that includes parents who allow this type of thing), not those he was trying to kill.

Why are those that recruited /enabled Omar to enter the fight not the ones on the receiving end of all this outrage?  I guess it is easier to send them a cheque every month than it is deal with the real problem.


A must read on the trial facts from the CBC.

Why Omar was NOT a child soldier.

5 comments:

CanadianSense said...

It would be nice to be able to revoke citizenship of his mom and take away the children for endangerment if child services were not too busy.

Archie said...

Can someone answer this question, when does a terrorist become a soldier. If I'm not mistaken he was fighting for Al-Qaeda, which is a terrorist organization. Omar wasn't fighting for any given Country, he was in Afghanistan to kill Americans or anyone else who stood against his belief's.

Ardvark said...

Archie, non-uniformed combatants are not considered soldiers.

This rule is in place to protect civilians who might be slaughtered by an army because they have no way to tell who the enemy is. No uniform = no soldier. Start messing with that and anyone is fair game to shoot at.

Bec said...

Can't you just hear all those lefty heads exploding with these questions and obvious points?

After all, the 'wee terrorist' wasn't exactly a skateboard riding 15 year old Canadian teenager now was he? In fact he spent less time on Canadian soil, those 15 years than he did hanging with Osama and the boys.

Archie's comment raised a question in my mind that has never been answered.

The 'wee terrorist' was there participating in fighting the western infidel. Well Canada was there too so why is this not an act of treason?
He was fighting as OUR enemy.

As far as the 'identifiable uniform' aspect in a war zone for this little creep, the left will never address this aspect when using the bleeding heart 'child soldier' garbage, never!

Anonymous said...

The other misused term is Child-Obesity because during my research for some products based on Age and Height/Weight factors I came across the Medical Evidence posted by Stats-Can.
The charts I saw had little change over the last 30+ years of DATA from Doctors and Hospitals, so as I dug deeper I saw a Notation for many deviations which ended up explaining that the U.N. had Changed the Definition of "Children" to now be up to 18 years of age.
The new calculations included the % +- numbers for weight-gain or loss, the one group with a rise in Mean-Weight was from 15-17. But the oddest claim for sudden Obesity was for Seniors around 74 years old,my only guess was that the new Importing of Grand-Parents by Refguees and Immigrants was bringing in Over-weight people had Skewed the Stats to mock the Theory that Seniors are eating cat Food to survive.

The Child-Soldier and the "Torture" claims have been redefined by some Anti-West Civil Rights scam artists exploiting the lazy MSM that rarely challenges absurd claims by the leftist/liberals.

Just wait until Khadr goes Jihad on a Subway train in Toronto,the NDP will blame Harper and Bush and then demand an Inquiry to find out how these things happen.