The Khadr Thread

[Old Sweat]

I am not off the mark. I am specifically talking about the actions of 12 SS Panzer Division in combat in Normandy, and not about members of the youth group and their leaders in civilian life.

 

[stegner]

The main reasons we didn't go after more members of the Hitler Youth Division had nothing to do with humanity; the ones that escaped prosecution either had been killed, were unidentified or evaded successfully. In other words, we couldn't apprehend them.

On this you are off the mark.  Consider this:

The Hitler Youth was disbanded by Allied authorities as part of the Denazification process. Some HJ members were suspected of war crimes but - as they were children - no serious efforts were made to prosecute these claims. While the HJ was never declared a criminal organization, its adult leadership was considered tainted for corrupting the minds of young Germans. Many adult leaders of the HJ were put on trial by Allied authorities, and Baldur von Schirach sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was however convicted of crimes against Humanity for his actions as Gauleiter of Vienna, not his leadership of the HJ.

 

[NL_engineer]

Stegner, all tho child soldiers, they were part of the German Military, thus in turn LEGAL COMBATANTS.  Mr. Khadr on the other hand was part of a group of insurgents, thus he is an  ILLEGAL COMBATANT.  There is a big difference between the two.

 

[Old Sweat]

You obviously don't or won't understand the difference between a Waffen SS Division in battle and a civilian youth organization. Please stop dragging the latter into the argument. If you wish to do some reading into the division's atrocities in Normandy a good source is Conduct Unbecoming: The Story of the Murder of Canadian Prisoners of War in Normandy by Howard Margolian.

Back to the aim of this thread and sorry for the hijack. I suggest that Khadr's defence team may, repeat may, think that its case is weak. This could account for its attempts to politicize the case and to get him returned to Canada. A trial in Canada, either as a young offender or an adult, would likely either result in an acquittal or a conviction with a number of questionable points of law that could lead to a successful appeal. It could also be just delaying tactics in the hope that policy will change, the camp will be shut down, an amnesty will be declared or any other numbers of possibilities.

 

[Edward Campbell]

On this you are off the mark.  Consider this:

Sorry, but it is you who is off base.

The HJ like every other NAZI organization was disbanded in 1945. The people who had been members of those organizations were a whole other problem. Many did not wait around for allied troops - they ran away, hoping they could blend in, back home, and avoid whatever consequences their individual actions might have allowed or required.

For example: some of the young men in 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend might well have committed war crimes - when they were 18 years old - and some might well have escaped punishment simply by running away and hiding out at mommy's house.

Since you referenced a Wikipedia article, you might want to consider this one.

 

[Danjanou]

Ok is anybody else finding it amusing that someone is engaging OS on actions in Normandy and using wikipedia as his source? :

careful OS he may start misciting certain books on the battle to prove his point.

 

[Edward Campbell]

... I suggest that Khadr's defence team may, repeat may, think that its case is weak. This could account for its attempts to politicize the case and to get him returned to Canada. A trial in Canada, either as a young offender or an adult, would likely either result in an acquittal or a conviction with a number of questionable points of law that could lead to a successful appeal. It could also be just delaying tactics in the hope that policy will change, the camp will be shut down, an amnesty will be declared or any other numbers of possibilities.

Indeed; that is exactly what his Canadian lawyers have said. They expect him to be allowed full due process (a fair trial) under whatever processes pass muster in the USA (still not quite clear), and they expect him to be convicted on at least some of the charges. Their goal is to avoid that result by pressuring the Canadian government to seek his repatriation before he can be convicted of anything. Their action, in Canada, is 100% political because there is no legal case for Kadhr to answer here.

As I have said before: the Government of Canada is acting correctly - Kadhr is in trouble in a foreign country; the Government of Canada is duty bound to monitor his situation with the aim of ensuring that his Canadian citizenship does not interfere with due process in the foreign country. In other words, so long as Kadhr is not treated differently, at law, from other detainees just because he is a Canadian then his 'rights,' as a Canadian, have been protected by Canada. After he is convicted, if he is convicted, then, presumably, he can apply for repatriation to serve his prison term in Canada - as can other Canadians gaoled in the USA.

 

[stegner]

The HJ left no records for the Allies to find?  When the Abwehr, SS, Gestapo and every other Nazi organization including the concentration camps did. Highly unlikely!  My point is that the Allies did not try the children of the HJ precisely because they were children not because they could not find them.  Absurd!  Many of these folks were drafted, drafting requires paper work-lots of it.  The Germans left lots and lots of paperwork on the HJ and lots else.  If the Allies wanted to track them down they could have. 

The HJ was a civilian organization?  Certainly not-they were paramilitary.  Not too many civilian organizations send folks or children into battle with guns.  Look at any book on the Battle of Berlin-they will mention the activities of youths pressed in to service.   

I never talked about Normandy. In fact, I never mentioned the 12 SS Division until now.   

 

[Old Sweat]

Nice try, but the Battle of Berlin was a case of defence of the homeland. Once again you are obsfucating the issue. The members of the Hitler Youth were children and there was nothing to be gained in prosecuting them after the war. There was a reason for going after those who had committed war crimes, which as I said, included members of the 12 SS Panzer Division. They were sought because of their alleged actions, not because of their membership in an organization.

I suspect many of their elders with less than clean hands were relieved to find that the Allied governing nations (in the three western zones at least) were willing to let minor Nazis not implicated in war crimes off the hook in the name of rebuilding Germany.

 

[stegner]

But the obfuscation is coming from the linking of Khadr with war crimes committed by the HJ.  I was trying to demonstrate that what Khadr did was by no means a war crime, but comparable to what HJ were doing at the Battle of Berlin-not the war crimes committed by the 12 SS Panzer Division.  After all, the Taliban was once the sovereign government of Afghanistan, even after 9/11.  Could his actions not be seen as a defense on a homeland from a Taliban perspective?  This being said, would Khadr be comparable to a minor Nazi, such as a German youth under 18 who joined the HJ voluntarily or was brainwashed into doing so?  If so, why the difference in treatment?  That was my point.  Sorry that we have taken such a roundabout way to get here.

 

[OldSolduer]

I think OldSweat has made his point. The German HJ fought in uniform, and were recognized as combatants. Mr. Khadr fought as an insurgent, non uniformed.

 

[GAP]

stegner if you want to divert to talking about the SS etc., start another thread, that is not the issue here

 

[Old Sweat]

If you want to link Khadr to the defence of Berlin, remember that neither he nor the Hitler Youth were members of an accepted military organization, and therefore were subject to the interpretation of their status by the winners. (Personally I think he should have been treated as a prisoner of war, but my feeling have no bearing on what will happen to him.)

 

[MarkOttawa]

Two posts at Daimnation! (usual copyright disclaimer for newspaper quotes):

Problems with prosecuting Omar Khadr
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/011551.html

The Khadr options
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/011557.html

And the foreign service officer involved at Guantanamo is noticed by the press (the foreign first, oddly):

Omar Khadr, the child soldier of Guantanamo, interrogated in his cell
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4339958.ece

...An official report made public yesterday [July 15] said that Jim Gould, a Canadian Foreign Ministry official who questioned Mr Khadr in 2004, considered him a “thoroughly screwed-up young man”. The diplomat also criticised the United States, saying: “All those persons who have been in positions of authority over him have abused him and his trust, for their own purposes. In this group can be included his parents and his grandparents, his associates in Afghanistan and fellow detainees in Camp Delta and the US military...

Ex-diplomat denies Khadr charges
'He was happy as a little clam . . . having fun'
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1068128.html

A former Canadian diplomat whose cloak of obscurity has been ripped away by new insights into the treatment of Omar Khadr said Thursday he feels somewhat demonized for his fact-finding visits to the controversial Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

In an interview from Ottawa, Jim Gould was adamant neither he nor anyone else at the Department of Foreign Affairs requested, endorsed or acquiesced to American abuse of the teen.

"We certainly never would have asked them to do anything to him," Gould said. "That’s appalling. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I thought that was the case."

Gould is one of the very few Canadians who have seen the Toronto-born Khadr since his capture by U.S. forces after a four-hour firefight in Afghanistan six years ago when he was just 15.

Now 21, Khadr is accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed an American medic, and is to be tried before a U.S. military commission in October.

"I’ve had sympathy with the kid since I first went down," Gould said.

"I was very aware of the fact that in Canada he probably would be a young offender, marginally responsible for what he was doing."

Gould visited Khadr twice at Guantanamo Bay — once in February of 2003 and again in April 2004.

It was the only way to glean first-hand information about the teenager’s mental and physical condition and had no intelligence purpose, he said.

"We (the department) thought we were on the side of the angels. We wanted to look at the kid, find out what he’s like, what we should do for him."

On the first visit, Gould was present at Khadr’s interrogation over four days by an agent for Canada’s spy service who can only be identified as Greg.

Video of the interrogation, released under court order on Tuesday, sparked some ugly accusations against the Canadian officials.

For example, Gould can be seen at one point adjusting the air conditioner in Khadr’s cell.

"This is now being described as torture because we were changing the temperatures — making it freezing cold or burning hot," he said.

"Well, we were uncomfortable or the kid was uncomfortable. That was what that was."

Newly released information also shows the Americans put Khadr on the widely criticized "frequent flyer plan" — waking the prisoner every three hours and moving him to a different cell — to prepare him for interrogation.

Gould noted that only occurred more than a year after the videotaped interrogation and said he only found out about the treatment just before going in to see Khadr for the second visit that lasted a few hours in 2004.

In any event, he said, the tactic was "stupid" and ineffective.

"He was not sleepy, he was not drowsy; he was happy as a little clam; he was having fun with me; he was playing with me," said Gould, 63, who retired shortly after his second visit.

Disclosure: I know Mr Gould, a very bright and caustically honest man--with great knowledge relevant to the Islamism problem plus good Arabic.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[vonGarvin]

OK, I have to differentiate between the Hitler Youth ("Hitlerjugend") and the 12th SS Panzer-division "Hitlerjugend". 
The former was an organisation in Germany during the period known as the third empire ("das dritte Reich").
The latter was an SS tank division whose soldiers ("Other ranks") were largely volunteers who had (naturally) come from the Hitler Youth Organisation.  Its NCOs and Officers, however, were battle-hardened veterans of the East Front.

The origins of the 12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend can be traced back to late 1942 and early 1943. In all probability, the idea to create a "Hitlerjugend" division was first tabled by SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger for Hitler's consideration sometime in January of 1943. His vision called for the drafting of all HJ members who were born in 1926 and assigning them to a "Hitlerjugend" combat formation. Hitler liked the proposal and ordered Berger to commence organizing the division. The official order was issued on the 10th of February, 1943. Berger, probably thinking that, because the "HJ division" was "his" idea, nominated himself to be the first divisional commander of "Hitlerjugend". Much to everyone's amusement, Himmler politely declined Berger's candidacy a week later. Himmler gave that duty to SS-Oberführer Fritz Witt instead; a former HJ member.

In April of 1943, Hitler signed off on a number of additional decrees relating to the formation of the "Hitlerjugend" Panzergrenadier-Division; though it need be noted that Joseph Goebbels has serious reservations about the whole undertaking. One of Hitler's provisions called for the German Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) to release a number of HJ members for immediate transfer to the new embryonic HJ Panzer Grenadier Division. A number of pre-requisites however had to be met before a final transfer to the HJ division was officially approved:

a minimum height of 170cm/5ft.7in. was required for HJ Division infantrymen;

a minimum height of 168cm/5ft.6in. was required for HJ Division armor, FLAK, etc., troops; and,

all recruits would undergo an initial six week, pre-basic WEL training camp.

On May 1st, 1943, the first group of 8.000 HJ volunteers reported to the WEL camps. Of note is that of the 8.000 HJ boys, 6.000 were sent to the WEL camps and 2.000 were directed to attend advanced or special military training camps. Because the planning officials were not able to adhere to their desired six week training classes (and probably because they were under great pressures to expedite the training and subsequent combat availability of the new HJ division), they shortened the training time by two weeks. On July 1st, 1943, the graduating class of 8.000 HJ trainees were released for service in the HJ division. That same day, a second group of 8.000 HJ boys was ready to enter the above training regimen. By the 1st of September, 1943, 16.000 trained HJ recruits were listed on the rosters of the newly formed "Hitlerjugend" division.

Source:  http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1963

 

[Blindspot]

If you want to link Khadr to the defence of Berlin, remember that neither he nor the Hitler Youth were members of an accepted military organization, and therefore were subject to the interpretation of their status by the winners. (Personally I think he should have been treated as a prisoner of war, but my feeling have no bearing on what will happen to him.)

It's funny when the left thinks it's absurd to compare the war on terrorism with fighting Nazis in WWII.

 

[54/102 CEF]

Just read a book by Marc Sageman titled Leaderless Jihad http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14390.html

This guy is among the top of the pile looking at who the Jihadi`s are - states that the front end of the movement in contact with friendly troops are rarely aware of the issues on either side. Goes into quite a lot of detail on this.

Now with regard to Omar Khadr - my point - despite what he may have done - he equates to a piece of equipment in that he may not be able to think through why he was captured, now or when he was captured.

Hence they probably have a useless inmate - can`t use him, must warehouse him. The CSIS video shows either an Ultra Operative of the other side - or a stooge - and so was probably useless to either side of the question.

The PM's sentiments of he did stuff and must go through the process....... are meaningless, closer to a civil case?, where the law? is blind. If there is a law it should be applied to him and then rehab - if possible. No way you say? We brought the FLQ Terror Fools to a Judge.

Bringing him back probably easy - but then we get into the home base issues - let my kid out of Jail! You'd have a non-stop circus on the go in Toronto with the Black Clad Designer Glasses Home base team and the Douchebags who line up with them vs the government.

Catch 22 for all if ever there was one. A competant enemy he was not, dangerous yes, but like a land mine that has to be dis-armed.

Now what to do?

Some searching on the law.gc.ca website shows (and its not exhaustive) - I ain't in the legal game so I have no opinion
See the Security of Information Act ( R.S., 1985, c. O-5 ) at link below

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowTdm/cs/O-5//20080719/en?command=home&caller=SI&search_type=all&shorttitle=Security%20of%20Information%20Act%20&day=19&month=7&year=2008&search_domain=cs&showall=L&statuteyear=all&lengthannual=50&length=50

extract

Security of Information Act ( R.S., 1985, c. O-5 )

OFFENCES
Prejudice to the safety or interest of the State

3. (1) For the purposes of this Act, a purpose is prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State if a person

(a) commits, in Canada, an offence against the laws of Canada or a province that is punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of two years or more in order to advance a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause or to benefit a foreign entity or terrorist group;

(b) commits, inside or outside Canada, a terrorist activity;

.........

(e) endangers, outside Canada, any person by reason of that person’s relationship with Canada or a province or the fact that the person is doing business with or on behalf of the Government of Canada or of a province;

(f) damages property outside Canada because a person or entity with an interest in the property or occupying the property has a relationship with Canada or a province or is doing business with or on behalf of the Government of Canada or of a province;

(m) contrary to a treaty to which Canada is a party, develops or uses anything that is intended or has the capability to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of people by means of

(iv) an explosion; or

does or omits to do anything that is directed towards or in preparation of the undertaking of an activity mentioned in any of paragraphs (a) to (m).

Harm to Canadian interests

(2) For the purposes of this Act, harm is caused to Canadian interests if a foreign entity or terrorist group does anything referred to in any of paragraphs (1)(a) to .
R.S., 1985, c. O-5, s. 3; 2001, c. 41, s. 27.

See table of contents and OFFENCES - note areas where it  relates to outside of Canada

Now - the question - was he competetant? - could he think through the consequences of his actions or was he a pawn?

My conclusion - bring him back - pay scads of $ to high sounding leeches in the legal system - and see what happens.

Its a bit of a harder question than "let him rot."

 

[North Star]

My question is, why risk bringing him back for a trial when the Americans will do it for us?

If he's found guilty, then we get him back as part of a prisoner repatriation. If they let him go, we use the Statute you just posted to give it another go (a different offence than murder, in another sovereign's jurisdiction).

 

[54/102 CEF]

My question is, why risk bringing him back for a trial when the Americans will do it for us?

If he's found guilty, then we get him back as part of a prisoner repatriation. If they let him go, we use the Statute you just posted to give it another go (a different offence than murder, in another sovereign's jurisdiction).

The idea of an American precedent to try them seems to be iffy - if it wasn`t `the other foreign nationals that have been repatriated may still be there... I understand Khadr is the last in the line of losers still held. Curious that there`s a coalition to fight but not a coalition to clean up the puzzle pieces.

I see the following

If a National law is on the books, and a citizen of the Nation breaks it - then the government is bound - like any Soldier or officer to do what they signed up to do - and cannot shirk its duties because its inconveniant - note this started with the Liberals

In my opinion the govt has to take control of him, examine him, and try him to prove he was fully aware of what he was doing - if he's found to be not accountable by reason of incapacity to understand what he was involved in - then it gets very hazy...... maybe they don't want to do this because their analysis suggests he'd get off.

 

[54/102 CEF]

Earlier I wrote

If a National law is on the books, and a citizen of the Nation breaks it - then the government is bound - like any Soldier or officer to do what they signed up to do - and cannot shirk its duties because its inconveniant - note this started with the Liberals

Now we have the Right Hon Ex PM Martin diving into the swamp

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080720.wmartin21/BNStory/National/home

There is absolutely nothing like being Ready to do your duty after you`re no longer able to if you were ever willing to