Back in the last century there was an initiative in the World. It was instigated by reports that a specific military force in Africa, I thinki it was The Lords Resistance Army, was going into villages and raping and killing the adults and forcing the male children into their ranks and the girl children were raped. Appalling does not even get close to describing this horror. The International Community rose to the occasion and signed into treaty the Rights of the Child into International Law. There was an optional provision in it dealing with the right of a child not to be a soldier. Canada signed this treaty and it signed the optional provision as well.
Then on September 11, 2001, the Taliban Government in Afghanistan and through its terrorist arm al-Qaeda, attacked the United States. And then the United States declared war on Afghanistan and invaded. And the Afghanistan government did not sign the treaty on the rights of the child and they had child soldiers in their ranks and the Americans and the Canadians killed these soldiers like the others and they captured them and then they ignored the treaty they signed.
The United States declared everyone in the country as terrorists. Which is not true because they couldn't all be terrorists. What they were doing was saying that they wanted to do things to people, do illegal things to people and justify it.
What is a terrorist? What is an insurgent? What is a soldier? A soldier is a member of a military unit in a nationally recruited military force. An insurgent is a rebel, an outlaw of a government that is fighting the government and attempting to overthrow said government. Soldiers fight in wars against other soldiers and against rebels of their own country. Rebels fight their own government soldiers. Terrorists fight civilians to make people scared, sometimes they hit military targets but mostly they attack civilians. Usually terrorists are civilians themselves, no wait they are always civilians.
The attackers on 9/11 were terrorists. The American Soldiers invaded Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban government who had soldiers and al-Qaeda a terrorist organization. When the USA won the war, the Taliban were reduced to insurgents and they fought against the occupation of Afghanistan. The American army fought the Afghanistan army in a mismatched fight and the Afghanistan military crumbled. When the Americans captured people fighting them they called them terrorist and they tortured them. If they recognised them for what they were, enemy soldiers, they would have to call them Prisoners of War and POWs have rights, like they can't be tortured and when the war is over they have to be repatriated. The US broke International Law and they committed War Crimes.
Omar Khadr, age 15 was a child soldier. In one account when his unit was attacked he was shot and in desperation he threw a hand grenade and killed and wounded a few of his attackers and was then captured. The US would add the word 'maliciously' before the word: threw, and as previously stated, not recognise that he was in a National Army. This was two international crimes. They tortured a child soldier. And the Canadian Government let them. They knew that the US government had a child soldier in prison because he is and was a Canadian citizen.
The Government that signed the Charter of the rights of a Child was the very same Liberal Government who ignored the child soldier in the custody of the Americans, who were torturing him.
People have short memories. Sure this is a different Liberal government with a new leader, but it has members that are the same and the political machine is the same. Moreover, they have not admitted guilt. The test of a society is how they treat the most vulnerable members of their society.
Canada Fails.
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