Widow Testifies at a Military Court

[ShadowHM]

This tangent started because I expressed my sympathy for a child soldier and Occhi expressed the opinion that said child soldier (and by extension, all of them) is not deserving of any particular sympathy or treatment other than that which would be meted to any enemy combatant.

Please define 'lawful combatant', for purposes of this discussion about child soldiers. You seem to be placing a great deal of importance to the distinction.

A lawful combatant is one entitled to the protections of a soldier under the Geneva accords, the rest are not. Partisan irregulars, for example, are not. Neither are saboteurs nor spies. One vacates one's protected status as "child" or "civilian" or "non combatant" when one chooses to engage in a military function, or a combat function, in a war. This young man did so. He is a combatant of some sort, lawful or otherwise, his age is utterly irrelevant. If unlawful, he is not afforded the protections that I would have been under Geneva and LOAC when I was on active duty.

Your reliance on a legalistic view of the issue of child soldiers versus an ethical view is troubling. (It also seems very convenient for a citizen of a country that sends 'legal combatants' all over the world, often to places where child soldiers are, to lean on an argument that that exonerates their own participation while permitting prosecution of the 'enemy', regardless of age.)

Using an (exceedingly murky) set of legal opinions as basis for one's ethical opinions is not what I would have expected from you.

And the fact that you have done so brings us right back to the post that started this whole side show.

I understand that from your viewpoint, he made his choice when he arranged to be born into that gawdawful family. However, most of the rest of us believe that minors have limited moral responsibility and no legal responsibility for their actions. Their parents do. That doesn't help anyone in a war zone, but it does, in my mind, temper my judgement of their actions.

Unfortunately, from my viewpoint, you have proved that my assessment above of your attitude was accurate. However, you needn't trouble to express your umbrage again. Bolty may have erased it, but I remember.

Since I find it hypocritical to judge a child anywhere by a standard other than that which applies to my own children, we shall have to agree to disagree.

Citizenship has both privileges and duties.

Agreed, but irrelevant to this case.
<excised irrelevant meandering>
I find it useless to apply your and my nation's norm to his "citizenship," but as it remains irrelevant to his actions as combatant, legal or otherwise, nothing further on that score.

See Jester's point above regarding citizenship in this specific case. At the generalized level for the rest of the world's child soldiers, citizenship is absolutely relevant, since it clearly impacts on whether one ends up a child soldier or not.

He became a combatant through his actions. He joined in the fray. So, he gets to reap the consequences.

Occhi

The immediate consequences of battle are, as already stipulated, reaped by all participants. However, deciding to prosecute children later for their participation, because they don't fit your criteria for a legal exemption, is repugnant to me. I am sorry to know you don't feel the same way.

if you are going to make a point of his Canadian citizenship, then perhaps you should make a point that Canada is one of the nations fighting in Afghanistan and thus he is technically a traitor.

--Pete

Technically, Canada has not declared war on anyone. So, technically AFAIK, he can't be a traitor, regardless of his age.