Omar Khadr Is Not A Victim Or A Hero

[Anonymous]

The latest media darling is......Omar Khadr.

It's only natural that Canadians are going to have different opinions on the treatment of Omar Khadr. It's what happens in a vibrant democracy.



It's even happening in these very pages – where our columnists have been disagreeing on the finer details of the lengthy Khadr saga.



We get it. It's healthy. But what we don't get is how, in the eyes of some, the man who was released on bail last week has become a folk hero.



Given all we know about him and his family, where are our priorities? Why did Khadr receive such softball questions from the media?



It's one thing to be fair to the guy. But right now he's being treated as a media darling.



As Candice Malcolm put it in her latest column, these are just a couple of the questions Khadr should be asked:



"Omar, you killed Sgt. Speer and maimed Sgt. Layne Morris. Are you remorseful?



Omar, do you renounce all ties to al-Qaida and will you help Canada fight terrorists at home and abroad?"



Perhaps some people are more interested in celebrating Dennis Edney, Khadr's lawyer, unjustifiably labelling PM Stephen Harper a bigot. What nonsense.



As columnist Anthony Furey tweeted out upon Khadr's release: "And with that, the bookmakers have upped the odds of polite society securing Omar Khadr the Order of Canada before Don Cherry."



It's like Khadr is part of the cool kids club. That's genuinely sad. Why are so few people willing to think of the victims?



"It is crucial to keep in mind that Omar Khadr is the victim in all of this," the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative wrote in a statement.



Really? More than Christopher Speer, the U.S. Army combat medic Khadr admitted to murdering?



In a recent column, the Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington recalls a quote from Speer's widow, Tabitha:



"I hear over and over how he's the victim, he's the child. I don't see that... The victims — the children — are my children. Not you. They're the ones hurting. You made a choice, my children had no choice."



It's reasonable to believe Khadr was mistreated. But it's not at all reasonable to turn him into a hero.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/05/10/khadr-not-a-victim-or-hero">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/05/10/k ... im-or-hero">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/05/10/khadr-not-a-victim-or-hero

[J0E]

Well Kadhr may not be a hero, but neither is the soldier he supposedly killed.



No matter the political or social stripe, those who live by the sword die by the sword.



The Americans invaded Afghanistan so if a few of theirs die, then they get what's coming to them. That's the price they pay for starting wars and sending their troops over there. In this regard, no one is innocent be it Muslim or infidel.



Likewise, the Islamic extremists preach war vioence and hate, so if theirs die, they also got what was coming to them.

[Anonymous]

^Fuck off Joe.

[easter bunny]

Khadr is still alive and he seems to be in fairly good spirits.  I doubt the same could be said of the Americans if he and his comrades had won the battle.

[Anonymous]

Khadr is still alive and he seems to be in fairly good spirits.  I doubt the same could be said of the Americans if he and his comrades had won the battle.

He was a kid at the time.

[Anonymous]

How long was Omar Khadr in jail?

[Odinson]

How long was Omar Khadr in jail?

2 months and 16days..



He got reduced sentence for good behaviour.

[Renee]

How long was Omar Khadr in jail?

He was held at Guantanamo Bay from October 2002 to September 2012 when he was repatriated to Canada. You guys have had him since then.

[Anonymous]

How long was Omar Khadr in jail?

He was held at Guantanamo Bay from October 2002 to September 2012 when he was repatriated to Canada. You guys have had him since then.

He's the left's new flava of the moment.

[easter bunny]

Khadr is still alive and he seems to be in fairly good spirits.  I doubt the same could be said of the Americans if he and his comrades had won the battle.

He was a kid at the time.

True. But the Khadrs are not exactly a model family. It's alright to be cautiously optimistic, so long as the emphasis is on caution.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Khadr_and_Maha.png">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Khadr_Kids.png">



His sister Zaynab:



http://www.cp24.com/polopoly_fs/1.977125.1348960896!/httpImage/image.jpeg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpeg">

A quick sketch of the Toronto-based family of Omar Khadr, who was transferred to Canadian custody from Guantanamo Bay on Saturday.



Ahmed Said Khadr



Born in Egypt, Omar Khadr's father moved to Canada in 1977, where he met and married Maha Elsamnah. Khadr fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s where U.S. authorities allege he befriended Osama bin Laden and became a "founding member" and financier of al-Qaida. His family says he did both charity work and ran orphanages in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s. Arrested in connection with the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995, Khadr was released in 1996 with the help of then-prime minister Jean Chretien. Khadr died in a gun battle with Pakistani forces near the Afghanistan border in October 2003.



Maha Elsamnah



Born in Palestine, Omar Khadr's mother moved with her husband and six children to Afghanistan in the 1980s. She returned to Canada in 2004 to seek medical treatment for her son Karim after he was injured in the same firefight that killed her husband. Elsamnah claims to have no association with al-Qaida, but admitted that when the planes hit the World Trade Center in 2001, she thought to herself, "Let them have it." She was also quoted as saying that she took her family away from Canada in the 1980s because of "drug addicts" and "homosexuals."



Omar Khadr



The second youngest son of Ahmed Said Khadr and Maha Elsamnah, the 26-year-old was born in Toronto but also lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He received training in bomb making, marksmanship and combat instruction at al-Qaida training camps. He was detained badly wounded in Afghanistan in 2002 as a 15-year-old following a battle with U.S. troops in which he was shot three times. In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty to throwing a hand grenade that killed an American special forces soldier and sentenced to a further eight years.



Abdul Karim Khadr



Karim, 23, is the youngest son of Ahmed Said Khadr and Maha Elsamnah. He was paralyzed from the waist down in the same gun battle that killed his father in Pakistan in 2003. He returned with his mother to Canada in April 2004 to seek medical treatment and is now living in Toronto.



Abdullah Khadr



Abdullah, 31, is the eldest son of Ahmed Said Khadr and Maha Elsamnah. Khadr denied running an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in the 1990s. He returned to Canada on Dec. 7, 2005, after spending a year in custody in Pakistan in which he said he was tortured. He was arrested in Toronto on Dec. 17, 2005, at the request of U.S. authorities on charges of conspiracy to kill Americans outside the U.S. and accused of purchasing arms and ammunition for al-Qaida militants in Afghanistan. Federal Court freed him more than four years later on the grounds U.S. authorities had abused his rights in Pakistan. He lives in Toronto.



Zaynab Khadr



Zaynab, 33, is the eldest child of Ahmed Said Khadr and Maha Elsamnah. It's alleged bin Laden attended her wedding in 1999. She returned to live in Canada in February 2005, and was the subject of RCMP investigations for allegedly aiding al-Qaida. She later married Joshua Boyle, whom she met during a hunger-strike on Parliament Hill in 2008 to protest her brother's detention in Guantanamo Bay.



Abdurahman Khadr



The second eldest son, Abdurahman, 29, calls himself the "black sheep" of the Khadrs and says he separated from the family after Sept. 11. He was arrested in Afghanistan as a suspected al-Qaida member in November 2001. He claimed he began working for the CIA and giving information on al-Qaida operatives in Kabul. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in early 2003 where he said he was asked to spy on the prison population. Abdurahman admitted in a television interview that he was "raised to become a suicide bomber." He returned to Canada in October 2003. He lives in Toronto and is a father.



http://www.cp24.com/news/a-quick-sketch-of-omar-khadr-s-family-1.977121">//http://www.cp24.com/news/a-quick-sketch-of-omar-khadr-s-family-1.977121

[Lance Leftardashian]

Omar was a teenager and can't be held responsible for what he has done.