Wishful Thinking

"I got scared. I was thinking, 'What should I do' I didn't know what to do. So I thought, I'm just going to throw this grenade and maybe just scare them away."
"Nobody claims to have seen me throw the grenade, and this soldier has testified that I was under the debris, and it couldn't have been me."
"Is my memory more accurate than a soldier who was actually there? On one side, I killed another person, and on the other side I didn't. So it does make a huge difference."
"I always hold to the hope that, you know, maybe my memories were not true."
Omar Khadr, Egyptian-Canadian Muslim terrorist suspect

Supplied/Bowden Institution  Omar Khadr

He was fifteen and had been groomed as a soldier of jihad. He and his brothers were exposed to all the values of Islamist jihad. It was a way of life. It was their family's intention that Omar Khadr and his older brothers be proud of who and what they were. And be faithful to the religion of peace that demands of its faithful that they be prepared to surrender their lives for Islam. And this is to be achieved by attacking non-Muslims, the faithless offensive to Islamist sensibilities.

Omar Khadr, like his brothers, was trained in guerrilla warfare, was a fedayeen and made his parents proud. He was born in Canada, but not exactly raised in Canada. His entire family lived for years in the bin Laden compound, committed members of al-Qaeda. Khadr senior was a fund raiser for al-Qaeda, he operated a 'charity' while in Canada whose proceeds were dedicated to jihad and al-Qaeda's activities in the sinful world of non-believers.

With that background, might intelligence agencies whose purpose is to protect the public vulnerable to attack by al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists, not believe Omar Khadr to remain committed to his father's aspirations for him as a faithful Muslim fanatic? Omar Khadr has expressed his sincere trust and belief in his father as a good and decent man. A man who died on the battlefield of jihad.

Khadr pleaded guilty to murder and terrorism, after his stay at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. His later recantation of his confession sounds rather whimsical in view of his expressed insecurity of memory; his own memory informing him that he was indeed guilty as charged, but finding solace in the belief that perhaps because of someone else's memory in the midst of the famous 'fog of war' that might make him innocent of the commission of murder.

But he remembered throwing the deadly grenade, knowing full well what it would accomplish despite his weaving and bobbing about it having the effect of 'scaring them away'. And the grenade he threw killed U.S. Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, a medic, and half-blinded another medic. American medics in fact saved this 15-year-old 'boy's' life.  As for his wish that his memories have failed him and he's innocent of what they inform him of; not bloody likely.

And as for his additional plaintive considerations: "I don't wish people to love me. I don't wish people to hate me. I just wish for people to just give me a chance", the response of many Canadians to those three wishes is no, no, no.