During wartime, when is killing rightly seen as murder as opposed to what constitutes normal warfare? One would think the lines between the two are quite distinct, but the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have muddied that difference.
The policies of the US administration and, more specifically, Bush’s decisions to opt out of the International Criminal Court and to make new rules governing the rights of “enemy combatants” in defiance of the Geneva Conventions has left soldiers on all sides in a legal no-man’s land.
Summary of the definition of murder under the Geneva Conventions:
Murder is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions, both in cases of internal conflicts (Convention I, Art. 3, Sec. 1A), wounded combatants (Convention I, Art. 12), civilians in occupied territories (Convention IV, Art. 32), civilians in international conflicts (Protocol I, Art. 75, Sec. 2Ai) and civilians in internal conflicts (Protocol II, Art. 4, Sec. 2A).
On Monday, a Canadian teen being held at Gitmo for 3 years was charged with murder for killing a US soldier when he allegedly threw a grenade at him at an Al Quaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002 during a gun battle in which he was shot three times. He was 15 at the time of the incident.
Via Common Dreams, June, 2005 (reprint of a Toronto Star article):
In February, his U.S. lawyer told reporters the teenager had been used as a human mop to clean urine on the floor and had been beaten, threatened with rape and tied up for hours in painful positions at Guantanamo Bay.
More from the Toronto Star article:
Khadr’s Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney said yesterday he has regularly raised concerns with Ottawa about the teen’s treatment at Guantanamo and use of his client’s medical records.
“This conduct is a blatant disregard by both Canada and the U.S. to recognize the special status international treaties and human rights law accords children and youths,” Edney said yesterday.
Obviously, there are many disturbing questions in this case. Fundamentally though, should a person in a gun battle with an army not be allowed to defend himself by any means necessary?
Just as the Bush administration’s latest push for allowing the CIA to use torture ignores the fact that such an exemption calls for retribution by others to torture US soldiers and citizens, the twisting of the definition of murder during wartime would seem to allow US troops to be charged with that crime as well in circumstances such as Khadr’s. That type of policy defies logic.
Canada will keep pushing to ensure that Khadr is treated humanely and that he has proper legal representation but it is fighting an uphill battle with a US government that has no regard for anyone’s rights.
If Omar Khadr is found guilty, he faces the death penalty.
Read more about Khadr’s family background here and here.