Total War... It's Hard on the Kids

Apparently "young adult invasion" is actually considered a literary genre in some corners.

Written by John Marsden, Tomorrow: When the War Began is a novel, set in Australia, pitting a band of teenagers against professional soldiers for the control of Australia.

The film opens in very WB-esque fashion, with Ellie Linton (Caitlin Stasey) and six firends camping in a secluded corner of Australia. Upon returning to their homes, they find their families missing, the power shut off, and the phone lines dead.

In time, they learn the harrowing truth: Australia has been invaded by "the Coalition", a group of Asian countries (which may or may not include China). Their families are being held in internment camps.

They eventually learn via radio broadcasts that the Coalition has invaded Australia for its territory. They eventually conclude they really have only one option: fight back.

It's a remarkably similar scenario to that presented in Red Dawn: one in which an ordinary day at school is suddenly interrupted by the landing of Soviet paratroopers in the schoolyard. The mid-western United States has been overrun by a communist invasion.

Former football hero Jed (Patrick Swayze) lead a rag-tag collection of teenagers to become a battle-hardened guerilla unit.

Throughout each film, the horrors of the war take a deep psychological toll on the youths. In Tomorrow, Ellie nearly kills stoner Chris Lang (Andy Ryan) when he falls asleep while he's supposed to be keeping watch for Coalition patrols. In Red Dawn, Robert (C Thomas Howell) sends the surviving members of their unit -- those not killed by enemy action or killed for betraying their friends -- back across allied lines without himself and Jed, noting that the two of them are "all used up".

In Tomorrow and Red Dawn each group has at least enjoyed the benefit of ever having had the opportunity to be kids. Many of the youths involved in total wars today are not nearly so fortunate.

Total war, of course, is the condition of all-encompassing warfare between two groups. Throughout Africa, many ongoing civil wars -- including the ongoing conflict in Libya -- are total wars. There is no real distinction between combatants and non-combatants: everyone is a target.

The psychological effect of total war on children is undeniably striking. But if the west thinks that total war is only an issue in the most remote reaches of Africa, they're wrong.

There are forces waging total war against the western world today, and they very much are recruiting their own children in their war against the west. Al Qaida and the Taliban have press-ganged young girls into cells of suicide bombers. In Pakistan, "suicide bomber" has become a children's game.

These cells of child terrorists can't strike at the west in our backyards -- just yet. In the meantime, Al Qaida and the Taliban have settled for using these suicide bombers to target and intimidate their own people.

Just imagine what the total war Al Qaida and the Taliban are waging against civilized values are doing to those children.

Regardless of whether the war would actually be fought on US soil, Australian soil, in Africa, or in Afghanistan and Pakistan, total war is always hard on the kids.

The Burning Stupid of Canada's Extreme Left

From the same people who brought you the insidious Ollie North/Taliban conspiracy theory comes this recent gem in which John Baglow, aka "Dr Dawg", takes issue with a less recent National Post Full Comment blogpost by Raphael Alexander.

In the post, Raphael renews the call for the trial of Omar Khadr to begin:

"Seven years in prison without trial is certainly a lengthy incarceration without due process, and I am concerned that we may never get to see Omar Khadr’s day in court."

What emerges as so distasteful however, is the notion that Alexander would think that Khadr is likely guilty:"

...This is still a man 22 years of age who, if released in the next few years, would still have his entire life to make amends with his fellow Canadian citizens, to whom he has brought shame and embarrassment"

"Seven years without trial -- and still guilty," Baglow complains.

Which leads one to ask themselves this question:

What, precisely, do John Baglow and company think Omar Khadr was doing in Afghanistan in the first place? Enjoying tea and crumpets?

One really does wonder. Because, as Mike from (Ir)Rational Reasons seems to indicate, they really may have no clue whatsoever:

"Raph does not even entertain the possibility that Omar is not guilty of the crime his is accused of and is the victim of his circumstances - brought to Afghanistan by his father at a young age and brought up in that environment.

Its simple: if he is guilty of an actual crime, produce the evidence and convict him. Now. Otherwise, bring him home and let him go. Now."

Apparently, in the mind of Mike -- and one wonders how many share his particularly fevered and hazardous way of thinking -- a "not guilty" verdict in a trial means that Omar Khadr walks free immediately.

And if a judge were particularly reckless with Canadian national security, that very well may be the case.

After all, Canadians know full well what Omar Khadr was doing in Afghanistan -- or, rather, what Ahmed Said Khadr was doing on the many occasions when he had his family overseas. In 2003, Ahmed, a known Al Qaida financier, was killed in a firefight in Pakistan.

He was continuing to indoctrinate his children in his militant Islamic religious beliefs, and involving them in militant Islamic groups. In 2002, Ahmed Khadr sent Omar with a band of Arab Muslims who associated Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior Al Qaida leader.

Ahmed Khadr had a habit of putting his sons into warzones that should disquiet even the most unscrupulous "peace" activist -- the kind of "peace" activist that have often been willing to participate in rallies with the Khadrs. Not only did Ahmed Khadr expose Omar to the rigours of warfare, but his son Abdul Karim Khadr was paralyzed during the same firefight in which Ahmed himself was killed.

Omar Khadr is a child soldier -- not simply a child soldier, but a child terrorist soldier. And that makes his prospect of immediate release far cloudier than Mike is giving it credit for.

Demobilizing child soldiers is a long and arduous process. Child soldiers need to be provided with education and psychiatric care. The rehabilitation of Omar Khadr would only be further complicated by the fact that his enlistment as a child soldier was also a gross act of child abuse -- even though he and his family may not recognize it.

To turn Khadr loose into the public would be allowing a ticking time bomb to go free. While Mike is close to spot-on when he notes the resentment that comes with seven years of imprisonment without trial -- only another reason why said detention is a miscarriage of justice -- but to credit that with any militancy is to ignore his family history, and ignore what his father indoctrinated him in, and subjected him to.

Considering Mike's long and far-from-rational history of lunacy, one should be far from surprised to find that he has so little grasp of these concepts.

That he can't conceive of the very real possibility -- even likelihood -- that a child soldier indoctrinated in Islamic militancy could be dangerous is just another example of the burning stupidity of Canada's far left.

Not Nearly So Simple

After Khadr comes back to Canada, what's next?

If predictions for the coming new year turn out to be true, Omar Khadr may be on his way back to Canada.

With Barack Obama planning to finally close down Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, many are expecting Obama to return Khadr to Canada.

Michael Byers is among them.

"I am absolutely convinced that Khadr is coming home," Byers remarked. "Not because Stephen Harper wants him to come home but because of the pressure from the Obama administration for Canada to provide this small degree of assistance with respect to their closing down of Guantanamo Bay."

(This last little bit is yet another manifestation of Byers' bizarre predilection for blaming Stephen Harper for things that were actually started by the Liberal party that he somehow prefers to Harper.)

This may or may not happen before Khadr finally goes on trial for killing an American soldier in Afghanistan. In fact, rumours abound that Khadr will be returned to Canada mere days before he's scheduled to go on trial.

If that is the case, then Obama will have to act quickly. He takes office a mere six days before Khadr's trial is scheduled to begin.

Even if Khadr is quickly returned to Canada, serious questions will remain for individuals such as Byers to answer. Most important is the question of what, precisely, will be done with Khadr after he's returned.

Essentially, there are two ways to treat Khadr: as a terrorist or as a child soldier.

If Khadr is to be treated as a terrorist, he will have to be charged under Canadian law and put on trial. At that point the government will have to deport Khadr, as they should have deported Khadr's family long ago.

In Khadr's case, however, the more appropriate method is to treat him as a child soldier. But even in that case, Khadr cannot simply be turned loose into the Canadian public. If Khadr is to be treated as a child soldier -- and considering that he was indoctrinated into Islamic militant ideology by his father and participated in combat at the age of 15 -- he will have to be rehabilitated. Above all, he must renounce the terrorist philosophy his father raised him on.

If Khadr cannot be rehabilitated and will not renounce the beliefs he was taught by his father -- something representing the ultimate form of child abuse by any civilized standard -- then Khadr will have to be treated as a terrorist, and either imprisioned for life or deported.

But, upon his return to Canada, Khadr deserves the opportunity to determine his own future. Whether he does that by working hard toward rehabilitating and reintegrating into society or in how he chooses to answer for his purported crimes will have to be seen.

What should be known in the meantime is precisely what individuals such as Michael Byers believe should be done with Khadr upon his return to Canada.

If Byers were to suggest another one of his trademark reckless ideological stances -- such as his stance that Canada should interact amicably with countries that beat and rape our citizens to death -- it should serve as yet another reason for Byers to be rejected again by Canadian voters in a future election.

Odds are, the Omar Khadr situation is not nearly as simple as Byers would like Canadians to believe.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Connie Crosby - "Continuing Efforts to Bring Omar Khadr Home"

Toni Inst - "A Child Soldier or Just a Child?"

Partisans With Short Memories

Omar Khadr affair has serious implications for Liberal party

There's little question that the ongoing Omar Khadr affair poses a significant dilemma for Canada, one that, by necessity will eventually have to be addressed by the sitting Conservative government.

Yet as the issue continues to gather steam as a partisan issue, the Omar Khadr case has also taken on some very serious implications for the Liberal party -- implications that Romeo Dallaire and Stephane Dion don't really seem to comprehend.

"Canada is alone among Western nations in not having secured the release from Guantanamo of one of its nationals. Prime Minister Harper must finally ensure Mr. Khadr receives the same consular support that any other Canadian -- detainee or not -- would receive," Dion lectured in September 2007.

Dallaire first publicly announced his intention to agitate on Khadr's behalf on May 1 of this year.

"I'm going to be a pain. Every time I stand up in the Senate, the leader of the government knows I'm coming at her and every time she gives the same answer, she is losing more and more feathers," Dallaire said.

"There is no depth of logic in [the government's position]," Dallaire added. "There is a real smell of short-term political fiddling. There's no doubt that's influencing the decisions. It's setting up Canada to lose enormous credibility when it's being tested on one of its own people."

Of course, the problem for Dallaire -- and for the entire Liberal party -- is this: where was Romeo Dallaire before May 1, 2008?

Where was Stephane Dion and the Liberal party in July of 2002 when he was first arrested by US troops in Afghanistan?

The answer: in power.

Where was Stephane Dion and the the Liberal party on September 19, 2004 when Omar Khadr turned 18 years old?

The answer: in power. Romeo Dallaire would be appointed to the Senate the very next year.

And what did the Liberal party do to help Omar Khadr? Not a damn thing up until their ouster from office in January 2006.

This party that now wants to agitate on Khadr's behalf, and take up the mantle of human rights and clemency for child soldiers, didn't do a damn thing on Khadr's behalf when they were in power and had the ability to do so.

It's a reality regarding this affair that only serves to undermine them politically. While both men may well be legitimately concerned for Khadr's well-being -- and Dallaire's previous tragic experience with child soldiers arms him with particular credibility to this end -- their previous inaction only serves to discredit them.

As each man seeks to lecture the government from the opposition benches of their respective House, their sudden show of concern is starkly contrasted by their previous silence while sitting on the other side of the aisle.

There is a serious issue underlying the Khadr case that must be resolved.

But in order to contribute constructively, Dion and Dallaire need to cool their partisan fires, think back to all the things they didn't do when they had the opportunity, and accept their share of the responsibility for the current state of affairs vis a vis Omar Khadr.

Then we'll be one step closer to recognizing the Khadr affair for what it is: a non-partisan political issue that demands resolution.

Tough Questions Regarding Omar Khadr

Child soldier, terrorist, or a little of both?

The controversy surrounding Omar Khadr came to a head during a hearing of the foreign affairs committee on international human rights, as Lt Gen (ret) Romeo Dallaire and Parliamentary Secretary Jason Kenney came to odds of Khadr's treatment.

Today, Dallaire compared Canada unfavourably to Al Qaeda for not treating Khadr as a child soldier.

"The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties in order to say you are doing it to protect yourself … you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all," said Dallaire. "We are slipping down the slope of going down that same route."

For his part, Kenney took exception.

"Is it your testimony that al-Qaeda strapping up a 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome and sending her into a pet market to be remotely detonated is the moral equivalent to Canada's not making extraordinary political efforts for a transfer of Omar Khadr to this country?" Kenney asked.

Dallaire was typically resolute in his answer.

"If you want a black and white [response] … I am only too prepared to give it to you: absolutely," Dallaire replied. "You are either with the law or you are against the law. You're either a child soldier or you're not. You're either guilty or you're not."

The dramatic nature of Dallaire's response aside -- that is certainly one thing that Dallaire excels at -- the issue really is not that simple, regardless of what Khadr's advocates may claim.

The Khadr affair has taken on some degree of partisanship, as the Liberal party's Dominic LeBlanc, NDP's Joe Comartin and Bloc Quebecois' Vivian Barbot have been quite vocal on his behalf.

For his own part, general Dallaire has proven to have little use for partisanship. As an individual with extensive experience dealing with child soldiers, his concerns are certainly genuine.

The confrontation really underscores a key dilemma as it regards Omar Khadr: notably, whether to treat him as a child soldier or a terrorist.

Certainly, the age at which Khadr was taken prisoner by US soldiers -- 15 years -- is of issue. There is absolutely no question Omar Khadr was a child soldier. However, there is a larger question about whether or not Khadr should be treated as a terrorist.

Dallaire insists that Khadr should be released almost immediately. But the experiences some other countries have had releasing terrorists should give Canadians cause to think twice.

Considering the experience Algeria has had with its clemency program -- in which terrorists surrendered peacefully in return for a full pardon, only to continue to plot and carry out attacks such as the various bombings this past year.

Of more concern still are the activities of Khadr's family. In particular, Abdullah Khadr, Omar's older brother, was arrested in Pakistan for buying weapons for Al Qaeda.

While Khadr's tender and impressionable age certainly warrant consideration, one must certainly consider that Abdullah Khadr -- 25 years old at the time of his arrest -- serves as an example that the militant ideology taught to them by Ahmed Said Khadr has taken root very deeply indeed.

If Omar Khadr is simply released into Canadian society, we must realize that we are taking a tremendous risk. Upon release, he very well could be a ticking time bomb.

It's important to note that Khadr's US military lawyer, Lt Cmndr William Keubler, has assessed Khadr very differently.

"The Omar Khadr they describe does not exist," Kuebler previously testified. "He is not one of our enemies in the war on terror, he is a fellow victim of those enemies."

Keubler's assessment of Khadr could very well be accurate. But Canadian officials had better be certain before releasing Khadr into the general public. The stakes are simply too high to take any unnecessary risks.

Some of Dallaire's other criticisms were spot on. The highly questionable legality of the legal proceedings -- not to mention the torture -- at Guantanamo Bay are clearly of concern to any country whose citizens are being held there.

The question is not really if the Canadian government should be seeking Khadr's release into their custody. Certainly they should. The question is what Canada should do with Khadr after taking him into custody.

It's a very contentious question, one that will continue to provoke a good deal of controversy yet. But one thing is for certain. Canada needs to bring Khadr home. His brother Abdullah's criminal responsibility is much more certain, and even he has been in Canadian custody since 2005.

"The way to sort it out is you get the prime minister of this country to call the president and say 'I want my boy out and we’ll fill out the paperwork after.' And that's it," Dallaire insisted.

Likewise, what to ultimately do with Khadr is something better left until after he's back in Canadian custody.

Solution to Challenges of Demobilizing Child Soldiers May Be More Apparent Than We Imagine

Could third-world warmongers inadvertantly be creating the next generation of peacekeepers?

In opposition to the International Day of the Unborn Child, various opponents of the pro-fetal rights movement have declared today to be the International Day of the Already-Born Child. While the clear desire to politicize various issues facing children in the world today should be condemned, it is an opportunity to shed some light on a few different issues -- such as the scourge of child soldiers.

Depending up whose estimate you believe, anywhere between 200,000 to 300,000 child soldiers may be active in the world today.

According to the United Nations parlance, a child soldier is anyone under the age of 18 who has been recruited into a military conflict. some are as young as eight years old.

For those who are unscrupulous enough to make use of them, child soldiers offer various advantages.

"There's all kinds of children. You just go and swipe them from their school and so on," says Lt-Gen (ret) Romeo Dallaire, "And you take them and you drill them and you incorporate them and they eat less and they're less problem if you have to get rid of them, there's lots of them."

Demobilizing child soldiers has been a top priority of UNICEF for years. However, there are various challenges associated with demobilizing child soldiers that are often overlooked.

"There's the mechanics of demobilization," says Neil Boothby of the United Nations Refugee Agency. "The sorting out of the kids, putting the guns down, transporting them back to the communities. But what we don't know very much about is once the kid goes home, what should we do? What kinds of education is most, most important? What kinds of vocational skills or training? What kinds of, you know, livelihood skills are needed? And I think that's the area which we, we have a, a lot further to go on. What do, what do we do once they put down their guns to ensure they don't pick it up again?"

Clearly, the challenges associated with demobilizing child soldiers are numerous: educational, psychological and emotional.

These children need to find a way to cope with the things they were put through. Sometimes, they have been so thoroughly conditioned that they don't even realize that the things did to them were wrong. Even if they do realize this, they have to learn to cope with having taken human lives -- more often than not, the lives of children no older than themselves -- and find a purpose in life.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing things about what has been done to them is that they've been exposed to combat, and all the hazards and the lifestyle of soldiering without any of the discipline taught in the modern armed forces.

Moreover, they've been used to sustain the conflicts that our western governments have purported themselves as being committed to putting a stop to, yet all too often have declined (Dallaire's experiences in Rwanda are a clear example).

All too often, the leaders of such countries argue that they don't have the troops to send, or that the risks are too great.

But what if the various warlords and despots around the world who are recruiting child soldiers and sending them out to do their dirty work were, in the most perverse way possible, providing us with an incredible opportunity to ensure that a shortage of peacekeeping troops would never again prevent intervention in the midst of an atrocity?

At its basest level, it almost seems unthinkable: recruiting demobilized child soldiers into a United Nations program that would transform them into our next generation of peacekeepers.

But then one must consider what such a program would require: one would have to provide them with psychological care (to heal the psychological and emotional wounds they've already sustained in combat), education (to give them the skills necessary to assist in the rebuilding efforts that, by necessity, must accompany peacekeeping operations), and military training (focusing largely on the discipline necessary for professional soldiering). It isn't simply a matter of taking child soldiers and pumping them back into combat under the guise of peacekeeping. It's a matter of providing them with a rehabilitation program tailor-made to the experiences they've already endured.

More importantly, these demobilized child soldiers would already have the combat experience necessary for modern peacekeeping operations (which are, whether idealists care to admit it or not, combat missions).

But most importantly, the generation of professional peacekeeping soldiers produced by such a program would know first-hand what the stakes of their missions are. If we could instill in them the motivation to stop what was done to them from happening to anyone else, the United Nations would finally have a dependable, professional corps of peacekeepers to dispatch where western countries shamefully cannot muster the political will to go.

And while the idea, at its basest level, may seem unthinkable -- and rightfully so -- one has to remember that the principal difference between these demobilized child soldiers and those enrolled in cadet programs in western countries is that these children would already have combat experience.

On a deeper, more philosophical level, training demobilized child soldiers for future peacekeeping duties (and naturally not to be used until they've reached the age of 18) may provide their experiences with the meaning that is often so necessary to foster the healing process.

Not that such a grand experiment would be without risks. And when one considers that an experiment such as this would be played out with such fragile human lives, one also has to realize that, the potential benefit aside, it simply may not be worth the risk.

For the most part, it's a question of whether or not world leaders are willing to think far enough outside the box, and whether or not they're willing to foot the price tag (likely in the billions) for such an initiative.

But it's an idea that's crazy enough that it just might work. And it could, in due time, provide some hope for some of the most hopeless places in the world, as well as hope for some of the most hopeless children.

Fight Against Child Soldiers in Afghanistan Critical to Mission's Success

Camp Okutta campaign underscores critical Afghan issue

“Camp Okutta does not exist.”

“But camps like it exist all over the world.”

This is the tagline for War Child Canada’s newest campaign to raise awareness for the critically important issue of child soldiers.

Using several striking ads as well as the Camp Okutta website, War Child is using this brilliantly-conceived viral ad campaign to attract attention to the issue of child soldiers around the world.

The child soldier issue also has implications for Canada’s participation in the war in Afghanistan.

In late 2004, UNICEF reported they had demobilized up to 4,000 of Afghanistan’s 8,000 known child soldiers. UNICEF and several other organizations continue to work in Afghanistan helping former child soldiers through education and therapy.

The Taliban has been known to use children as recently as April 2007, when a child was used to behead a suspected traitor.

“Part of the Taliban's strategy is to make Afghan civilians afraid and their attempts to show that everybody is unified against the occupation of Afghanistan as they call it,” says Human Rights Watch commentator John Sifton. “They may have decided that it would be intelligent to use children to somehow show a kind of solidarity with the Afghan people.”

The use of child soldiers in Afghanistan, by both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, has a long history, basically spanning at least the last 30 years of the country’s civil conflict.

While reports of Taliban use of child soldiers (whether as front-line fighters, executioners or merely as indentured support staff) continue, it has been suggested that the participation of NATO troops in the training of the Afghan National Army has prevented the recruitment of child soldiers into its ranks. In 2003, Afghan president Hammad Karzai issued a presidential decree forbidding the recruitment of anyone 22 years old or younger into the ANA.

It should, however, be noted that the Northern Alliance – a group integrated within the current government – has used child soldiers before, sometimes as young as 11 years old. “Our cause is so great that even our children want to join us in fighting the enemy,” one Northern Alliance commander is noted to have once claimed.

Clearly, if Canadian efforts to help demobilize Afghanistan’s child soldiers and keep them demobilized are to be successful, we’ll have to ensure the Afghan government doesn’t regress in its policies regarding recruitment.

One of the most important, factors involved, however, will be the ever-present fight against Afghan poverty. As of 2007, Afghanistan remains the seventh poorest country in the world.

Economic hardship drives children out of schools and into the work force, and military work tends to be most abundant in a war zone like Afghanistan. Pairing micro-economic foreign aid programs with a push toward attracting private sector business into Afghanistan will go a long way toward ensuring Afghan families don’t feel the need to send their children to war.

But it isn’t only Afghan children who have been recruited to the Afghan battlefield as child soldiers. Consider that Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen was only 15 years old when he was arrested while fighting in Afghanistan.

He’s currently being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Cutting off the supply of child soldiers can also go a long way toward defeating the Taliban, making it harder for them to replace their lost fighters on the battlefield. To that end, perhaps the search for – and subsequent demobilization of – child soldiers needs to continue on Canadian soil as well as in Afghanistan.

Whatever the future nature of Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan – be it a combat mission or otherwise -- helping to demobilize and rehabilitate child soldiers will be a key factor toward ensuring a successful disengagement.

Even beyond that, it’s just the right thing to do.

Camp Okutta doesn’t exist. Canada needs to ensure camps like it don’t exist in Afghanistan.