Who Are Terrorists Anyway

To me, terrorists were always people who targeted innocent civilians going about their daily lives. So how does a 15 year old child soldier accused of killing an American soldier in a battle become referred to as a terrorist.

But my definition of terrorism (and genocide) includes dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations. However, my definition does not take into account that it's not terrorism if the good guys do it and only the losing side ever commits war crimes.

The Right Wing on Child Soldiers and War Resisters

The right wing believes that a fifteen year old child soldier (according to the United Nations definition) accused of killing an American soldier (based on questionable evidence) in a war zone should be treated as a terrorist.

The right wing also believes that American soldiers taking refuge in Canada after refusing to fight in an illegal war, where they might be required to kill innocent civilians, should be returned to the United States to face punishment.

Go figure.

Dion to Liberals: We Don't Tell It As It Is

We knew that before but now it's official.

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said he disagreed with Dallaire's choice of words, and hinted the senator could be disciplined.

"This is a matter to deal with the (party) whip, and we'll deal with that," Dion told reporters.

This is about what we have come to expect from the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Abstainers.

Omar Khadr Is a Child Soldier-Period!

If anyone can talk with authority on human rights and child soldiers it is Senator Roméo Dallaire.

The CBC reported that:

Canada has sunk to the moral equivalent of al-Qaeda by failing to treat Canadian Omar Khadr the same way it treats other child soldiers, Liberal Senator Roméo Dallaire said Tuesday.

Dallaire, who appeared before a foreign affairs committee on international human rights, said Khadr is clearly a child soldier who shouldn't be prosecuted by an illegal court system at Guantanamo Bay but reintegrated into society.

Canada is heading down a slippery slope by failing to obey the United Nations conventions on child soldiers to which it is a signatory, he said.

"The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties in order to say you are doing it to protect yourself … you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all," he said.

"We are slipping down the slope of going down that same route."

When Senator Dallaire speaks the government should listen and pay heed rather than countering with a political defence of the United States Bush government's illegal actions. Perhaps Stephen Harper prefers to shake hands with the devil.

Omar Khadr: al-Qaeda Says it Best

Ironically, perhaps the best description of Omar Khadr's status as a child soldier was stated by the terrorists themselves, in a biograpphy of Omar Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, in the "Book of 120 Martyrs in Afghanistan", posted online at the Al-Fajr media centre, al-Qaeda's online news service. The CBC website states that the biography praises Ahmed Said Khadr for "tossing his little child in the furnace of the battle."

Under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which was adopted and signed in 2002, the use of anyone under the age of 18 in combat is illegal under international law. National armed forces are permitted to recruit individuals below the age of 18, but are strictly forbidden from deploying them into combat. Non-state actors and guerrilla forces are forbidden from recruiting anyone under the age of 18 for any purpose. (Military use of children - Wikipedia)

Indeed, do we consider "a little child tossed in the furnace of the battle by his father" a terrorist or a victim. International law requires that we consider child soldiers to be victims not warriors.