Widow Testifies at a Military Court

[Occhidiangela]

What started this little sideshow contretemps was Occhi's assertion that the kid deserves 'no sympathy', regardless of his age. Occhi didn't like my assessment of that response. I have invited him to give me an opportunity to revise it.

Once again, age is no excuse for participation in violent acts, to include war, guerilla wars, and whatever it is one calls what goes on of late. Child soldiers all over Africa are killing just as adults do. Their age is a data point, their capability and capacity for violence defies your (or if you prefer, "society's") arbitrary boundary of childhood. THe same is true for the violent criminals in my nation''s fine cities who take part in manslaughter and murder.

To attempt to excuse this person's actions via the argument of 'he really didn't want to be involved' is about the same as attempting to excuse any conscript for violent action in a war, or to excuse those whose recruiter lied to them in a war ... they didn't really want to be involved.

You appear to choose to excuse the participation on the arbitraty basis of age, and an asserted lack of agency on the part of this person. I am not sure if you assume truthfulness on his part or not, but I do not.

You have yet to satisfy me that you have a valid argument for excusing his participation in warlike/violent acts.

I repeat, I am not convinced that a courtroom is where his disposition belongs, but that is an outcome, and result, of the policy that brought a number of people to Gitmo ... and quite frankly, I am not interested in diverging in that direction, at all.

Cheers.

Occhi

---

@ Deebye:

All I was implying was that a 15 year old kid does not belong in a warzone or in a military prison

Sadly, he belongs in the latter due to what he did in the former, and he was there, doing, whether he belonged there or not.

Life's a bitch.