A Terrorist by Any Other Name

"Mr. Khadr was then a 17-year-old minor, who was being detained without legal representation, with no access to his family, and with no Canadian consular assistance."
Federal Court judge, Canada

Omar Khadr is seen in Guantanamo Bay's Camp 4 in October 2010. Photo: COLIN PERKEL/The Canadian Press

Well, poor Omar Khadr. We none of us choose our parents and without even trying, he hit the jackpot. His entire family, parents, brothers, sister, grandparents, all living in Canada, all taking advantage of the security and comforts available to citizens and residents of the country, but detesting the despicable social values that they saw all around them, and which they rejected. Khadr senior must have been a very nice man, since he worked for a charity.

That the charity was al-Qaeda wasn't so nice, however. But believing as he did in the spiritual quality and redemption to be found in Islamic jihad, he took his family back to basics so the boys could have some advantages denied them in Canada. Taking them to Afghanistan they were given the privilege of a special education at jihadi camps for boys, learning how to use weapons, how to make explosive devices, how to be proud of al-Qaeda's mission.

A Canadian prime minister even vouched for Khadr senior's innocence when he was arrested and incarcerated as a terrorist in Pakistan, when Jean Chretien visited and effected his release to enable him to return to his mission until he died a martyr, leaving the boys to tend to their jihadi pledges on behalf of a future caliphate.

At fifteen years of age, Omar Khadr was one of the mujahadeen that greeted American troops on a mission to combat Islamist terror, when Omar tossed a grenade and killed a U.S. medic. But American medics went out of their way anyway, to save his life, and so he lived to take up residence at Guantanamo, until he was returned to Canada to spend a few years left of his sentence, at home so to speak.

When his mother, his sister and brothers returned to Canada, they remained verbal critics of Canadian values, extolling the superior values of Islamist jihad. But their citizenship allowed their return, and the ongoing ability to take advantage of Canada's superior welfare services. Now closing in on 28 years of age, Omar Khadr envisions a life for himself of respectability, he says, of academic study, of a profession.

On the way to achieving all of that he is planning on suing the Government of Canada, which is to say, Canadian taxpayers to compensate  him for the misery he endured as a prisoner of the Americans, representing his boy-mujahadeen service to Islamism. His civil lawyers appeared in Federal Court before Judge Richard Mosley to argue that their client's $20-million lawsuit be broadened to embrace a further claim that Canada conspired with the United States in his abuse and torture at Guantanamo.

His lawyers stated the reason to add conspiracy to their case against the government was for the purpose of expanding the potential award their client might anticipate receiving. In the words of Judge Mosley: "He's acting in his client's best interests; he's trying to ratchet up the damages -- why wouldn't he?" Money is a prime motivator, no doubt about it.

For Omar Khadr, to fund his proposed new lifestyle, for his legal team whose fattened coffers will please them mightily as their portion of the fees-for-service in enabling Mr. Khadr to realize his dreams of his future. A DFAIT report of Mr. Khadr's time at Guantanamo noted that he seemed fine, not sleep-deprived or tired, appearing instead well-fed and healthy.