child [ chld ] (plural chil·dren [ chíldrn ])
noun

1. young human being: a young human being between birth and puberty

That's the definition from the Encarta dictionary. These are juveniles. A child is young and dependant on their parents. These boys come to a foreign country and throw grenades.

Sounds like they're being coddled. I love how it ends with;

"Hanks, after building a ramshackle raft, escapes and is rescued. "


Shutup bitch, rescued from learning math and watching movies? I want to kick that journalist in the nuts.

I say we take all these 13 year old terrorists--ooops, I meant, completely innocent children who miss their mommies and daddies--and send them to live with The_Dude indefinately.

Heh :p

Great idea Boco. By the sounds of it he won't mind if they blow him up.

Let me say something about these little shits, if they were old enough to hold a rifle and get caught between my sights then they would have died....
Where they are is a much better fate dont you think?

if y'all are so certain of their guilt, why not give them a proper trial?

instead of holding them indefinately

Read the article, Dude. They have -admitted- to guilt. One of them was identified by a newspaper. At Guantanamo they're outside normal US jurisdiction. If they were in the US, they'd likely be coddled by a jury cuz "they're just kids", released to afghanistan, and the whole thing would start all over. At Guantanamo they're being rehabilitated by psychologists and educated by former jr. high teachers. Sounds like they're better off where they're at.

i dont think the article said anything about any admission of guilt.

"The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff defended the detentions, saying the boys "are very dangerous. Some have killed, SOME HAVE STATED THAT THEY'RE GOING TO KILL AGAIN.....The Toronto Globe and Mail this week identified a Canadian teenager at Guantanamo Bay as the attacker who threw a grenade that killed a U.S. sergeant in Afghanistan in July."

Check the article. These kids are hardened.

In alot if other cultures, you're an adult when you reach puberty. These boys acted as adults, and I see no reason to treat them like kids.

wow, just just cuz they threaten to kill doesnt mean they have killed

The Dude, I am trying so friggen hard not to flame your very young and naive self.

Get a grip, when you get into the real world..(notice I said when)
you will see it is not as peachey keen you think it is, there are some very bad people and some of them are children, I would be willing to bet in your great homeland that there are some kids just across the border in pakistan that would love to waste your Hindu ass.

"The Toronto Globe and Mail this week identified a Canadian teenager at Guantanamo Bay as the attacker who threw a grenade that KILLED A U.S. SERGEANT in Afghanistan in July."

Again, read the whole article. Get the facts, don't just jump to conclusions.

dude, there's a difference between deserving punishment and deserving to go to guatanamo... personally, i'm not bitching about the kids being punished, i'm bitching about how they're being punished.

personal insults now huh?


anyway i'm not saying they shouldnt be punished.

i'm saying what darksparkles said.

this is not the punishment they deserve.

put 'em on fair trial (on any real court) and let the judge decide the punishment.

as if i could catch any pakistani kid doing this, i would NOT hold him/her indefinately w/o rights in a territory like guatanamo.

i'd send 'em to international court of justice or whatever it's called.

war crimes court maybe even if thta's called.

So what is appropriate for lobbing a grenade and killing a human being???????????????????????????????????????????????????


(EDIT) if it would have been one of my troops that he killed it would have been death on the spot.

Did your finger get stuck? If you step back from the keyboard and take a deep breath (I've noticed that's been hard for you to do in the past) you would notice that The_Dude and darksparkles are saying a judge (or jury) should decide the appropriate punishment. Since you scream about your patriotism so often I wonder why you seem to be so adament against such a concept.

Uh huh. I think Smooth has the right idea. Why don't you step back, and remind yourself of the rules of TFP. And of Tiltled Politics.

It's so easy (and must be fun?) to get righteous and declaim that others are "naive" or "young" or just plain wrong. It's much harder to slow down, read what the other person writes, try to understand where they are coming from, and respond in kind.

Give it a whirl sometime.

While I agree that personal insults should be left out of this discussion, (and those were way too many question marks,) naive is a pretty good adjective. Read the article, the -WHOLE- article. These are youth that have been essentially brainwashed by their culture since they were kids, came over here, and killed a person. The american court system isn't prepared to deal with something like this-- if they are found guilty, they are thrown into ju-v somewhere until they're 18, then released as "martyrs". They go back to their country hailed as heroes, get a few more grenades, come back, and kill somebody else. That time, since they're now "mature", they'll get a death sentence or life in prison. Or they're found innocent and released, go immediately back to their country hailed as heroes, get a few more grenades, come back, and kill somebody else, and repeat the process until they're found guilty or 18. At Guantanamo, these youth are being dealt with by professional psychologists. They learn to read and write in arabic. They even get to watch movies and play soccer! This isn't jail-- this is rehabilitation, which is exactly what these kids need and won't be able to get in the american court system.

Yeah, 13 year olds are smart enough to know what's going on, I agree with that logic. There are tons of streetgangs in America to prove that. But holding people indefinately violates so many international laws, while we give everyone else shit about breaking laws.

They held a portion of the US population in internment camps during World War 2, although none of them were guilty of any crime but looking like the enemy.

And I think everyone should lay off the personal insults. This whole "when you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your bestfriend's face" rhetoric is way too dramatic for a discussion on TFP.

Who ever said it was indefinite? They're being held for a purpose-- rehabilitation. Presumably once that goal has been accomplished they would be released.

Does a judge and jury get to decide what family they kill too!? :eek:

"Rehabilitation camps." Still doesn't sound that appealing, indefinite or not. I figured they were indefinite since so far everyone else they have down there hasn't had a time limit.

Nice that the Japanese internment camps were mentioned. That goes to show that during times of war, the US government does some things that might not be good for *some* people, to protect the rest (be that protection real or imagined).

As the US has technically declared war on terror, suspected terrorists have to suffer along with real ones, just like innocent US-Japanese had to suffer along with "real" Japanese during WW2. It may not be totally legal, nor very nice, but so be it.

There's another option, of course. We in the Netherlands do not have specific anti-terror laws. This has meant that a couple of suspected terrorists were put on trial and *released* because the secret service had used unauthorized phone-taps to get evidence. This evidence was ruled illegal, and the case was thrown out...

Now, if these guys were indeed terrorists, their release would suck big time. I don't think they could be trusted - they had some serious interest in Muslim extremism, they had suspected links to Al-Qaida, and on the whole, most Dutch people agreed they should have remained in jail... But because of legal technicalities, they were released. In fact, because of this legal precedent, prosecutors have complained that they cannot arrest terrorists until *after* they blow people up. How fucked up is that???

I can see how these people being held without trial by the US makes it easier for terrorists to justify killing US-civilians. What goes around comes around, and that goes boath ways. The side that can claim moral superiority is the side that manages to stay with their standards of justice even during hardship, in this case clearly no-one can.

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I too agree that the 'detainees' should be charged and prosecuted for their crimes.

Not just held in limbo indefinately.

Give them due process. Its the (north) American way and what makes us better than them.

I have no problems at all if they were treated as prisoners of war.

Prisoners of war are subject to rules. The US govt. has thrown the rulebook out the window and are holding these people without any due process, without any representation, and without any access to freinds, family, their own governments, etc.

Post removed.

how certain are we that all of the people (including the kids) are guilty of their crimes?

they could be innocent, and just have hardline political views. (which is not illegal btw)

i'm not saying that they be tried in the US courts (i dont think they'd have jurisdiction over something like this).

some special court (an international court w/ legitimacy) should try a case like this.

For one, you could take their word for it. If they say they've killed before and plan on doing so again in the future then I have no reason not to believe them. How are you so certain they aren't guilty, and that guantonomo is such a bad place? Sure it's a prison camp outside U.S. jurisdiction, but it's also a place where everyone says they're getting treated better than they deserve.

The military will do it's investigations, hold a military tribunal, and give them a sentence, one that I trust will be more just than the crazy judges here hand out.

are you telling me that every single detainee has confessed to their crimes?? oh wait, nobody knows for sure.

there is a pretty good chance that an innocent person is being held there.

and y'all are saying that guatanamo is a better place than where they're from, i just dont get this.

so we throw all our homeless downtrodden people into jail since they're better off there?

I'm saying the children have admitted to it, the evidence against everyone else you're right, you don't know, so you can't really bash the military for imprisoning innocent people. You can't tell me Guantonomo has oppressive, horrible conditions either, they have proper shelter, 3 meals a day and watch movies. These are better conditions then where they come from. Homeless and downtrodden is one thing, homeless and downtrodden whilst shooting at people is another. There's not much to get, they aren't random hobo's, they're terrorists.

so, it's guilty till you are proved innocent?

Yes, of course that's just a saying here, you still get detained in the United States under these kinds of charges. It's only logical, you don't want them killing a U.S. soldier do you? They have now, and will continue to have basic human rights while being detained, and will retain these while being imprisoned if found guilty. This is more than adequate treatment to these people, we can't leave them go in Afghanistan or wherever they come from, and we don't do international crime courts, so Guantonomo and a military tribunal will do just fine.

quit saying that they're better off here!

they dont have their family/friends w/ them.

just material surroundings is not everything here.


and btw, i still operate by the innocent by guilty thing.

You have got to be kidding.

are you justifying that what they did w/ the internment camps was right?

You're the only one saying they're better off there. I'm saying they are being properly handled in Guantanomo Bay. And you can think you're innocent until proven guilty all you want, you're still detained in jail under these circumstances.

They're being held in a separate area I thought. Is this not so?

i really think that they're better off w/ people that love 'em .