Talk:Canadian teen faces disputed US military tribunal

Sources

This article misstates or presents misleading information which is more clearly given in the source articles.

• Omar Khadr is not charged with war crimes. He is charged with murder and attempted murder.
• Mr. Khadr is facing a military tribunal, not a War Crimes court.
• Neither of the sources support that Mr. Khadr was defending barracks.

There may be additional misrepresentations or misinformation, but clearly these are more than mildly wrong. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 03:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Please read the source material Amgine. You are wrong in fact on every count; but in order to know that you need to please read the sources. Also, please feel free to make edits; the story is in the developing stage. Neutralizer 04:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

If you read my first sentence, I say I have read the sources. But I will re-read them. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 06:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• "for throwing a grenade that killed U.S. medic Christopher Speer in July 2002. The attack also..." CBC "with a grenade during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound" Washington Post
• "Khadr is charged with murder" CBC "is accused of killing a U.S. Army medic" Washington Post
• "U.S. military commission" CBC "before a U.S. war crimes tribunal" Washington Post

In case you are unaware of the distinction, a tribunal generally considers rules while a court considers laws; they also generally use a quota to determine guilt. (Also, the post is incorrect in that this is not a tribunal set up within the judicial branch, therefore it must be called a U.S. military tribunal rather than a U.S. tribunal.) - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 07:01, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

"U.S. war crimes tribunal"

This is in the first paragraph of the Post story. Please do not place tags on a story simply because of a personal conflict with the first editor. This easily found link[1] shows the whole world knows and the US acknowledges it is a "war crimes" trial; Please, assuming good faith that your objection is not trollish, reevaluate the untenable position of your tag that "a rose is not a rose". Neutralizer 15:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

That's two different cases. One is of a Yemen native, this is of a Canadian. Confusing, but either way, you should take a look at Amgine's link. Tribunal and court are two different processes. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 15:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

MrM. Wrong interpretation on your part. Please re-read.They are BOTH war crimes cases; don't be confused by the US governments shenanigans and weasel words. Neutralizer 02:02, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe the use of the term "War Crimes" will be misleading to readers of the article. It builds the expectation that someone is being charged for an offense such as torturing or ordering torture. It 'may' be possible within the article to reference some sources calling it a "war crime court" provided there is some sourced link to how treatment would be different as a POW under the Geneva Convention. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 17:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Tag Removed

Because of our personality conflict please allow other editors (hopefully other than MrM) to tag articles I initiate; in other words; please stop the stalking. Neutralizer 15:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

POV

an army medic was attacking this youth's barracks? -Edbrown05 01:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I suppose this is a case of collateral damage from the other side. Also I do think that sometimes the medics are right up there in the front lines. Neutralizer 02:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

war crimes court, war crimes charges?

IMHO the wikipedia articles on w:war crime and the w:laws of war are completely clear that war crimes and laws of war are a matter of international law. They can, in principle, be judged in national courts, but only under certain conditions and i would be surprised if the US military tribunal would qualify as satisfying the minimum conditions internationally agreed upon.

Secondly, i don't see anything in the sources claiming that the charge is war crime. Killing an enemy soldier is a war crime if it was unnecessary for military strategic purposes. Killing civilians in a way that is unnecessary is also, in general, a war crime (i'm only roughly quoting here). But Khadr is a Canadian citizen, so US soldiers were not enemies. He's being charged with a crime during a time of war but not a war crime AFAIK.

i agree with amgine that:

• the tribunal is not a "War Crimes court"
• Khadr is not charged with a war crime, he's being charged with a crime during a time of war

In any case, the whole concept of war crimes and laws of war assumes that this applies to all States - US, Canada, Afghanistan, Iraq, ... Since the US is one of the few States that has refused to ratify the w:International Criminal Court, it's hard to see in what sense a single country (US) definition of war crimes makes sense.

Imagine that i, boud, make up boud's own rules of wikinews editing and conflict solving and deciding on requests-for-deletions. i then gain admin powers. i document my decision-making on requests-for-deletions on some wikipage (locked by me to allow only my edits). In this (fortunately hypothetical :) case, can we really talk about the wikimedia editorial decision-making process?

Anyway, although i agreed with neutralizer on another page, in this case i agree with amgine. Boud 01:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

i think we can safely report it as "described as a war crime by Khadr's lawyer".

quote from washpost

Khadr's civilian lawyer, Muneer Ahmad, said earlier that trying Khadr before a military tribunal for war crimes alleged to have been committed at age 15 ... [italics mine]

the offense does appear to meet the requirements of a war crime (see below). but we dont know whether he has in fact been charged "under the war crimes title".

Article 19 of the First Geneva Convention[2]

Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.

US Code TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 118, § 2441 War crimes[3]

(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States

...

(c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct— (1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;

see also the opening quote "Military commissions to try enemy combatants held here for alleged war crimes are intended ..." in a defence dept news article covering the chief prosecutor's press conference[4]

Doldrums 09:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV name for the article

How about this?

• Canadian teen faces disputed US military tribunal

disputed is based on the miami herald article:

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the constitutionality of the commissions this session, with oral arguments in March. Among those challenging the war-crimes court are a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and other active-duty lawyers, called JAGs, for judge advocates general.

i think it is NPOV to say that it is a military something - it is not a civilian court.

i don't know about court versus tribunal - there may be some subtle difference in english, but tribunal in French is the normal word for court in english. Boud 15:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

B52 attack

Took out the paragraph regarding the B52 attack as I could not see the direct connection to the Khadr case. If there is an imminant connection, please explain and we can put it back in. --vonbergm 18:46, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, the point was that many people claimed that the B52 attack was a war crime by the US - so this may be the reason why there is an attempt by US media (maybe Bush used the term war crimes court?) to claim that war crimes occurred against US forces as well. But i agree it's not really that necessary. Boud 19:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd vote for reintegration too, but its clearly not trivial to keep it NPOV. I'd say something vaguely like many object to this characterization of murder because the U.S. killed a wedding party. I felt the version vonbergm removed was too long to be NPOV, but a shorter simpler version should be fine. Nyarlathotep 21:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

medic

There seems to be quite some confusion in the media as to the role of the killed american soldier. Some news sources refer to him as a "medic", implying that he served in the role of a medic, i.e. did not actively participate in combat operations and was clearly identifiable by his uniform as a non-combattant. This seems to directly contradict media reports and reports of a fellow soldier that he was "leading" a group of soldiers that were serching the compound. Howeve sources agree that Speer was "trained" as a medic. IMO it is the most sensible thing to report that he was medic by training, but do not make a comment on what his role at the time of the incident was, as there is no definite information on this. If someone can find a solid reference to settle this question, it would be a great addition to the article. --vonbergm 18:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

i agree. Boud 19:46, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

wikipedia links

Is there a general wikinews policy which is against having a list of see also wikipedia links? AFAIR brian mcneill changed the section title from see also to References. i agree that if wikipedia links are present in the text, then it's up to the reader to decide which ones to click, but on the other hand, it can also be nice to have a list of the most relevant links. Boud 19:46, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

My personal preference is to see Wikipedia articles that have been used as a reference source listed as "References", unless there is only one, and it is significant enough to merit a Wikipediapar link. Prior Wikinews stories that cover the same, or closely related, topic should be under "Related News", then "Sources", and anthing else really depends on the article. As stressed, this is my preference, and it is just for consistency that I work with predefined sets of section headers. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

You can use wikipediapar even if its not a source, wikipediapar is for showing a "cannonical reference", but not necissarily one which is actually used at all. Here you should have wikipediapar to Omar Ahmed Khadr, as that is the canonical page for updated information. Christopher Speer's page OTOH has no reason to keep up with the situation (notice even the Speer/Morris lawsuit is updated at Khadr, not Speer). If an article is really about a list of people, you can use Template:wikipediapars and write them all out by hand. Wikipediapar(s) are much like pictures: would you put a picture of Khadr or Speer on this page? Nyarlathotep 21:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

A picture of Khadr would be quite appropriate for the article. Since wikipedia has one, this should be easily accomplished if one knows how to do it. I don't, but if someone can tell me I will do it. I would not object if someone wants to add a picture of Speer. --vonbergm 00:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

publish?

Any more objections or is this ok to publish (once that deletion request is removed)?--vonbergm 00:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Congrats to all who worked on this

Ended up being great,imo. Neutralizer 21:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

WOOOOOOOOOOOO I LOVE FREE NEWS...I wish I had a job (I don't right now) so I could devote myself more to this. I will have a job after my degree, and during too (many jobs, ha ha ha) but I will need to focus on my scholarly ways. Wish me luck.

good luck:)Neutralizer 04:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)