Virtuous Canadian Citizenship

"I am satisfied the Correctional Service of Canada can administer Omar Khadr's sentence in a manner which recognizes the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed and ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration."  In addition to which Public Safety Minister Vic Toews added being cognizant there are still issues that give cause for "concern", it will be necessary to recognize that they "therefore will require substantial management in order to ensure safe reintegration into Canada."

Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen, but he has never been Canadian.  He attended school until grade four, when his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, took his family, including second-youngest, Omar, out of Canada to return them to the real world whence they had come.  That real world was the world of Islamism where closer ties with al-Qaeda's founder Osama bin Laden could be renewed and the family re-commit to jihad.

Not that, while living in Canada, Ahmed Khadr wasn't involved in that same battleground for he was busy working within a charitable foundation, raising funds that could be funnelled to terrorist networks.  Ahmed Khadr and his wife preferred to raise their young children within an environment that more closely reflected their cultural values, and Canada's environment certainly did not. 

In Afghanistan they found a purpose, in having their sons trained in camps where they would become traditional mujahadeen, fadaheen.

How Canadian is that?  To decry the arrest and incarceration of a 15-year-old raised in an environment that elevated violent jihad to the highest esteem, prepared to sacrifice the normalcy of young adulthood to the 'struggle' against the infidel is to ignore the fact that in tribal societies, from the Middle East to North Africa, the warrior is exalted, and it is common for teens to be trained as militants, as happens in Afghanistan and Somalia.

Canada has agreed to absorb Omar Khadr back into society because it has little choice in the matter.  He holds Canadian citizenship, as does his family, all now living again in Canada.  One of his older brothers has recanted his terrorist ideals, spoken publicly of the manner in which he and his brothers were groomed to join mujahadeen militias to do righteous battle against the forces of the West which had imposed themselves upon the Muslim world.

Omar Khadr's life as a budding jihadist was circumscribed by his family, by ideology, by political-religious dictates.  There is very little discernibly Canadian about all of this; it runs counter to all that Canada and Canadians value.  He was responsible for the murder of a U.S. medic, and for blinding another American soldier.  American doctors treated Omar Khadr's serious wounds received at the chaotic battle scene in Afghanistan that saw him toss the deadly grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer.

Omar Khadr pleaded guilty to throwing that deadly grenade, he made a plea deal with the Americans seeing his 40-year sentence reduced to eight.  He knew what he was doing, trained in handling arms, in preparing IEDs, in planting them, which he did, where it was well known that ISAF/NATO troops would be certain to travel.  And now, now that freedom is in sight, Omar Khadr, having killed a medic, is interested in himself achieving a medical degree.

Although his father was invested in his sons becoming fighters for Islam, far less interested that they become educated, it has been during his incarceration that he has been provided with educational materials and permitted to pursue an education through remote, electronic means.  Despite which, Omar Khadr remains faithful to his father's memory, extolling his virtues, grateful to his father for everything he did on his behalf.

His mother and his sister remain devoted to the concept of violent jihad, they regard it as moral and have no problem supporting it, in contrast to their ill regard for Western societal values which they deem to be degraded.  Despite which, they seem content to continue living in Canada, absorbing all the social benefits available in Canada, and not in the countries from which they came; Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan.

Under the influence of his family, responsible for radicalizing the thoughts and priorities and values of a young boy to shape him into the man they wanted him to become, he will once again be presented as a problem for Canadian society.  Legal obligations under the law and the Constitution for equality do not obviate the necessity for those who take advantage of that security to gratefully reciprocate.