The Innocent Terrorist

"I don't think I had a choice in my life to regret anything, because I didn't make any choice to regret them."
"I know my father and I don't accept anybody saying that he's a bad person."
Omar Khadr, convicted murderer

Handout/U.S. Defense    This image released by the U.S. Defense Press Operations on October 31, 2010 shows Omar Khadr constructing an improvised explosive device. 

 

Islamists believe that whatever they do, it is done on behalf of Islam, and in honour of Islam, and in obedience to the precepts of Islam, and therefore whether it be setting off explosive devices to kill non-Muslim military or civilians, or crucifying Muslims worshipping the wrong sect, or beheading foreign journalists or aid workers, or Christians living in the Middle East, they are only obeying instructions readily found in the Koran.

If the Koran reads: [Sura 9] "Fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)", they are completely justified in prosecuting such a war as mujahideen, fearless jihadists prepared to die as martyrs for Islam. Omar Khadr, at age 15 in Afghanistan, was part of an al-Qaeda group fighting the presence of American troops. He threw a grenade that killed a U.S. military medic and half-blinded another medic.

His own life was saved by American military doctors. The fact that he was fifteen at the time of the gunfight when he committed himself in a way he could have evaded but chose not to, in recognition of his father's wishes for his sons including the youngest to be mujahideen, to fight alongside other al-Qaeda terrorists, pulls at the heartstrings of Western sensibilities. Who don't understand and don't wish to understand that in societies from which Omar Khadr's father came, 15 is the age of majority.

Young Arab and Muslim men are meant to demonstrate their mettle on the battlefield. Islam prepares them psychologically to take their place as jihadists, and their jihadi leaders prepare them physically for the task at hand, arranging for weapons and explosives-manufacturing training. This is what Omar Khadr's father did for his sons, accustoming them to living in Osama bin Laden's compound, and fund-raising for the cause.

And this is what Omar Khadr venerates, his memory of his father as a 'good man'. Which is to say from his perspective as an unregenerated Islamist. Although Omar Khadr now denies what he admitted in a 2010 plea deal whereby he received a maximum of eight years for acknowledging his guilt in the death of Christopher Speer, the mantle of guilt fits him very well; he did toss the grenade killing the combat medic.

He spurned the opportunity he had to leave the area of conflict but chose to remain and to take part in the fighting that ensued. He admitted he had converted and placed ten landmines whose purpose was to kill as many Americans as it might be possible to do. At age 24 he was interviewed by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Weiner who had been hired by American prosecutors.

Dr. Weiner described Omar Khadr as charming, but "conniving, unrepentant, as radicalized as ever". A young man who views himself as a victim, and someone repidiating that his late father had anything to do with terrorism. Jihad is honourable, after all, a dedicated task taken up by the faithful on orders of Islamic principle. This is what is taught in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and this is what Omar Khadr imbibed throughout his formative years.

His lawyer however, views the young man tenderly, through the rose-coloured glasses of compassion and understanding for someone wronged by the society in which he was born, has citizenship in, and whose legal structure by government insistence, will honour the sentence handed down to Omar Khadr by an American court. Dennis Edney, lawyer for the erstwhile terrorist, speaks fondly of him as a bright, intelligent and likeable young man.

While the lawyer vilifies the government and specifically Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he and his wife are themselves happily prepared to give living haven to Omar Khadr, as part of the Alberta court-ordered bail release, acting as surety, prepared to supervise him, as the law decrees. It's hard to figure out which of the two is more loathsome; the 28-year-old whose pledge of normalcy fronts unrepentant Islamism, or the lawyer dedicated to rescuing a young Islamist from Western justice.