mike arthur dot co dot you kay

I agree with you to an extent. I would have no problem with his being incarcerated until he was 21 years old, if he were being held at a reasonable, public, humane prison after a reasonable and fair trial before a jury of his peers. Unfortunately, his current residence is none of these things and he received no such due process.

Now, if he had those things, I wouldn’t agree with releasing him, no matter what his age, until he had a full understanding of his crimes and the reasons why they were wrong. I have very little sympathy for those willing to kill another human being in such circumstances. The fact that he may not have understood the consequences of his actions (either for himself or those he attempted to murder) are relevant only to the extent and intention of his punishment, not whether to punish him or not.

As for my corrupt and dysfunctional government…

6 months, 7 days, 16 hours, and 32 minutes longer…

Comment by Scott Abbey — Wednesday 16th July, 2008 @ 9:28 pm

I don’t want to argue against your whole post, but I have to disagree with one sentence.

“Is it just me or should children be cut more slack than grown adults? They screw up and one (albeit huge) screw-up shouldn’t destroy their life.”

We’re not talking about high school pranks. We’re talking about going to another country to attack and kill a US soldier (or many if given the opportunity) . I’m will to bet he also ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions in doing so (specifically the parts requiring a uniform and openly carrying weapons). He’s lucky to be alive. Torture? No (although in the linked article I don’t see any evidence of torture), life ruined? Yes.

Comment by Steven — Wednesday 16th July, 2008 @ 9:53 pm

@Steven: He allegedly tried to kill a US soldier. This hasn’t been proved in a court of law. Regardless, if I went down to an army base in US and threw a grenade in I’d be punished incredibly severely but I doubt I’d be sent to Gitmo.

How many 15-year olds do you know that would make that kind of decision without adult input? How did he get out of Canada without an adult?

As for torture, he claims to have been tortured, as does everyone else who has been released from Gitmo and we have the US government admitting waterboarding and the incidents at Abu Ghraib.

Doesn’t the sand round your head make it get itchy?

Comment by Mike Arthur — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 1:25 am

@Steven:
Please, protecting a US soldier in Iraq (sidenote: the US soldiers earned my respect long ago, by doing that “!%!”% job in Iraq) with Geneva Conventions is ridiculous.

Even id the kid did breach the Geneva Conventions, that fact definitely does not entitle any country or human being to breach the Geneva Conventions themselves. Gitmo itself is a breach Geneva Conventions. So are the trials. Even the “interrogation methods” (like waterbording) are a breach of the Geneva Conventions.

So, two (several?) evils make one right?

Comment by Michael — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 1:57 am

Young ppl often make the wrong decisions, esp if influenced by the wrong people. Yesterday I heard about a 20 year old girl who drunk herself Korsakov in 3 weeks. She’s institutionalized now, and every morning, she wakes up and doesn’t know where she is. Her life is ruined. And nothing can be done. How’s that for fair?

Comment by jospoortvliet — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 6:52 am

I find it amazingly frustrating to hear Americans talk about this and similar cases.

Now you(previous posters collectively) are actually among the more sane, with a belief at least in humane treatment etc. But like the majority of your peers you manage to completely miss the elephant in the room. You automatically assume that the US must be in the right, and anyone fighting the US is wrong. I honestly believe that the great majority of Americans never even question this. It’s just “obviously true” to most Americans.

The reality is that the US soldier, that this kid is alleged to have thrown a grenade at, was part of an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. You do know that starting a war is the supreme war crime of aggression, that many of those tried after world war 2 were found guilty of and executed for, don’t you? The administration that sent the soldier are the war criminals, not the boy taking part in the defense against an illegal war of aggression. The amount of gall and contempt for actual justice that it takes to imprison this kid, torture him, and then claim that he is the war criminal is sickening.

The same is true for the situation in Iraq. Your so called news media keep calling the forces fighting the illegal occupation terrorists. It’s obviously absurd, but most Americans manage to buy it anyway.

Even those of you that realize that both wars are illegal wars of aggression manage somehow to simultaneously believe that anyone fighting the US in these wars is in the wrong. The cognitive dissonance must be a bitch!

Me, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Comment by Heretic — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 9:10 am

Go away. I’m tired of everyone syndicated on planet pushing political agendas on their blogs. “Skip my post if you dont like it” is no longer an acceptable answer. Keep a personal blog if you like, but don’t push your jump on the bandwagon western bashing agenda on so many readers every chance you get.

Comment by Gene — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 9:34 am

“I wouldn’t agree with releasing him, no matter what his age, until he had a full understanding of his crimes and the reasons why they were wrong. I have very little sympathy for those willing to kill another human being in such circumstances. The fact that he may not have understood the consequences of his actions (either for himself or those he attempted to murder) are relevant only to the extent and intention of his punishment, not whether to punish him or not.” Scott Abbey

Yes Scott, I agree. Which is why Bush (and pretty much every post-war US President and British PM) should be in jail, “until he ha[s] a full understanding of his crimes and the reasons why they were wrong.”

This is no rhetorical hyperbole. The endless assumption that state violence is OK and non-state violence is deviant is hard to justify. That the US and UK electorates are guilty of murder is easier to argue than the idea that this kid should be imprisoned by them.

Comment by boxthejack — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 12:42 pm

@Heretic - I thought Afghanistan was the just war that even the Obamessiah supports. NATO is heavily involved, isn’t Europe the bastion of righteousness?

Comment by Tom — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 2:52 pm

@Gene: I asked the organiser of the Planet if they wanted to filter just my software development posts or have all my posts on the Planet. He’s said (multiple times) that the Planet is meant to be just the blogs of KDE developers, not just KDE-specific topics. Don’t like it? Complain to him, I’m fed up of people like you complaining on my blog. I also wasn’t aware that criticising torture was “western bashing”.

@boxthejack: Totally agreed and very good points there mate.

Comment by Mike Arthur — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 3:30 pm

“I also wasn’t aware that criticising torture was ‘western bashing’.”

Disclaimer: I would like to make a “general” observation that may or may not apply to you in particular.

I find it interesting that newspapers, television, blogs, and just about any other news source will take a story like the above and make headlines out of it if it was done by Americans under the evil George Bush. However, I do not remember seeing the media respond like this to any of the following:
*Sadaam Hussein - killing tens of thousands of people (not just torturing, but killing); torturing thousands more
*Fidel Castro - forcing the people of his country to stay poor, denying them basic human needs
*North Korean leader - causing his people to starve
*Russia - killing people who disagree with the government
*China - human rights violations galore
*India, Pakistan, Turkey, to name a few - torturing and even killing people just because they believe differently

I suppose I could go on, but this should be enough for now. Noticing the above reactions, I have to ask, “Why is it only the Americans under George Bush that receive this reaction and not the others, also?” I mean, if what the Americans are doing is bad enough to complain about, why do people not also complain about the other things mentioned above?

Now, back to the quote I took from your response. You said you did not think you were “western bashing.” Maybe you were not. However, when the only criticism of torture I see is in regards to “the evil Americans,” I am inclined to think of it as “western bashing” since I see no “eastern bashing” or “middle eastern bashing” or any other “bashing.”

Comment by Nathan — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 6:48 pm

@Nathan: Newspapers, television, blogs. Of those I only find blogs tend to take more about America. I don’t know what country you are from but over in the UK the news is focused way more on those other countries than on the US’s violations. Perhaps you don’t remember seeing the media respond because you don’t remember what things were like at those times.

It’s not only the Americans who receive this reaction. As you may have seen there have been huge amounts of protests against the Chinese government. As for the other countries, Sadaam Hussein frequently killed with weapons supplied by the US and was supported by the US against Iran, Castro’s country is partly so poor because of US sanctions, no-one ever stands up and says North Korea is a nice place, the single recent incident of a alleged government murder received massive coverage and India, Pakistan and Turkey I don’t really know enough about to comment.

The reason why the Americans are being attacked is because of their disgusting levels of hypocracy. Your country (or at least your government) thinks it is qualified to oppose it’s military prescence on various sovereign nations (including when violating internation law to do so). Your country condemns all those other regimes you mentioned.

Pretty much all the above countries are known as being fairly brutal regimes. If those are who you seek comparison with then you are in bad shape. Additionally, I don’t see them acting like the world police.

I’m sorry if it’s upsetting your you but you need to take responsibility for the actions of your government. I’m deeply ashamed of what the British government has done in our (and my) name and you should be too. Simply comparing yourself to other terrible countries just makes you look worse.

Comment by Mike Arthur — Thursday 17th July, 2008 @ 11:55 pm

Let’s just rewind time for a bit here…

September 9, 2001 4 planes were hijacked and flown into three buildings and the 4th into the ground killing thousands. After your done watching the video about this young man and you’re good and mad go and watch the videos of people jumping to their death. Maybe that will settle you down a little…

Comment by Mike — Monday 21st July, 2008 @ 3:22 pm

It was a horrible and brutal unprovoked attack against that killed thousands of innocent civilians, many of who died in agony.

Am I talking about the invasion of Iraq or September 11th?

Of course I think September 11th was awful, I just don’t think it gives your country the right to do whatever the hell they like and torture children.

Comment by Mike Arthur — Wednesday 23rd July, 2008 @ 11:39 pm