Widow Testifies at a Military Court

[ShadowHM]

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

Occhi, I have tried to use plain English in my responses. Where did I say he should be excused for his participation? I said (repeatedly) that he deserves my sympathy - that I 'feel bad' for him. And I still do. I firmly believe that his decisions were not what brought him to that firefight.

Please don't conflate that with 'he should be excused for any action he has undertaken'.

I did say that I felt that he had limited responsibility for them, because he was a minor. If you have a problem with that, I am sorry to know it.

In this case, the criminal who put him there (his father) is dead already. And the 'victim' he is convicted of killing was there because he was an adult who volunteered for duty. But Omar was there because he was forced to be there by his family, his education and his culture. Frankly, your insistence that a military prison is the appropriate place for a child soldier seems like continued penalization of the victim.

Life's a bitch.

Life is a bitch. I quite agree.

If Achilles deserves eternal fame for what he did at about the same age, I think sympathy in this case is a double standard. I regret the situation, the culture that fosters that kind of behavior, but I have no sympathy for those who embrace that culture.

Huh? When did Achilles fate become relevant to this discussion?

And just how, exactly, does one decide (before the age of 15) not to embrace the culture you were reared in? How are you supposed to even notice that there might be another one?

P.S. Did you even bother to read the time line I gave you?