Khadr,classified as an "irregular" combatant, killed a US soldier. HOW can anyone be absolutely certain amidst the chaos and gunfire of battle that Khadr, in fact, killed the Sgt.? Even if someone saw him firing, the fatal bullet may not have been his: he may have even killed someone else. Or no one at all. He and the sergeant were both fighting for their lives. Everything about war is "irregular" Including the reasons for fighting one in the first place. We reward some for killing and punish others, like Khadr, for doing the same. Kafkaesque.

The world already knows quite a bit about Omar Khadr - his upbringing Canada, the subsequent family move to Pakistan, and his alleged role during the firefight that led to his detainment. We know, too, a lot about the NATO invasion of Afghanistan.

The prosecution's case seems to rest on Khadr's status as an "irregular" combatant. He, perhaps, fits the bill. He was a non-uniformed potential trigger-puller in an unconventional war. Whether or not he was issued a firearm or even expected to use one is debatable. His irregular status seems to rest upon the state in which US forces found him. To the capturing forces, Khadr was fighting for an ideology and an organization deemed criminal by the international community.

He was also, however, probably also fighting for his life. He just did not happen to engage in the rules of warfare that the invading forces believed were prevalent and, to an extent, sacrosanct. Some armies, however, do not have the same luxuries.

I do not wish to get into the motive, ideology, or principles of what the battle was about. But I think I can, in this short write-up, take issue with the definition of what an irregular fighter is.

Non-uniformed and not officially a member of an armed force, Khadr is seen in the eyes of a military tribunal as being an unlawful combatant. In today's wars, it is assumed that every fighter must have some standing orders that govern the visibility and operation of warfighting to bring it up to an internationally agreed-upon legal status. However, as we all know, Afghanistan is not the most ordered place. Uniforms, I suspect, would be a luxury. For all Khadr knew, and probably believed, he (or the people he was around) was fighting for the legal, if rump, government of a collapsed state. Khadr was certainly misled into participating in conflict on behalf of the Taliban but it seems unfair to judge him for his irregular status based on that. Khadr's own capture took place before any semblance of victory could be declared in Afghanistan - 2002 was still only the beginning of the pacification stage. The Taliban, for its part, was never recognized as the legal government and had no interest in declaring an end to hostilities. It was, as it were, still as an undeclared state of war but a war nonetheless.

If, say, Khadr was fighting under the same circumstances in a foreign country, he would be most irregular - a spy, a saboteur, an illegal combatant as it were. But he wasn't.

So what makes him irregular? And by that measure, who else would be?

Tread carefully, commission.

Why did America torture a child ? The answer is very simple - moral cowardice. Having a constitution is not enough, you need the guts to stick to it.

The only thing to regret here is that Omar may have been tortured in custody. Apart from that, it doesn't matter if he was 15, if he was old enough to pick up a weapon and fire it at our forces, he deserves whatever punishment he gets.

And those who argue that his guilt is still in doubt are living in an alternate universe. Over on Weekly Standard, they have an article,

http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/gitmo-lawyers-argue-exclude-video-evidence-appeared-national-tv

The summary is there is an AQ video showing Omar assembling an IED. Defence wants to exclude that on what seems to me, as a layperson, to be a technicality. But to any reasonable person, the video speaks quite clearly to guilt.

We are now down to trying the cooks and recently the driver for Osama Bin Laden as part of these show trials. The military sees no irony in the fact that all the Aghanis and other fighters in that battle were killed by the US military but none of the US military were tried for murdering civilians. Even more hypocrical is that almost 100 men were killed/murdered in captivity using stupid brutish methods by US interrogators and the most severe and rare punishment was six months of very lenient house arrest. President Obama has to take the blame for not stopping these kangaroo courts. He should have charged into the DOD and DOJ with a very sharp hatchet and fired all of the top sleeeper agents left behind by Bush/Cheney as part of their propaganda. The fact that the presiding military judge is willing to allow testimony and confessions obtained by threats of gang rape should be enough to show that the trial has been rigged to obtain a guilty verdict. It's as though Cheney/ Rove and Haynes are still pulling the levers from behind the curtain.

I understand it's your job to watch out for human rights, and it's a commendable thing. But the watch needs to be kept in the perspective of its function of keeping our conduct civilized. Nevertheless, the treatment of detainees cannot become an issue that overshadows what these people have done and why they are there.

The legal problem results from the unanswered question of whether we recognize terrorists as a non-state enemy in a legal state of war or as criminals. Either way, they don't get off scott-free. If they are only the enemy, as you suggest, they get to be in a POW prison camp for the duration of the war. Since the war appears that it will never end, it is essentially a life sentence, and well-deserved at that. If he is a convicted criminal, whether for civil or war crimes, then he can pay some additional punishment.

His age is not an issue. There is plenty of precedent for juveniles who commit serious offenses being tried as adults.