Justifying an Apology to a Jihadist and Making Him Wealthy

"The measure of a just society is not whether we stand up for people's rights when it's easy or popular to do so, it's whether we recognize rights when it's difficult, when it's unpopular."
"Had we continued to fight this, [Omar Khadr's $20-million lawsuit for reparations to his reputation] not only would we have inevitably lost, but estimates range from $30 to $40-million that it would have ended up costing the government."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

  Sill from Video: Image released by the U.S. Defence Press Operations, Pentagon

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper had initiated a move to put into the framework of criminal law the revocation of Canadian citizenship in those instances where anyone with Canadian citizenship joined a terrorist group or travelled abroad to fight with terrorist groups. Citizenship can be revoked when someone fails to divulge their criminal past when applying for citizenship. To most Canadians it made eminent good sense that anyone holding Canadian citizenship and passport was undeserving if they plotted against the country, carrying out destructive acts against civilization.

When current Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took up the helm of government from the former Conservative-led government, one of his first acts was to neuter that rescinding of citizenship from terrorists holding Canadian citizenship. Perhaps it made perfect sense to him to overlook the deliberate carnage undertaken by terrorists and to welcome them back to Canada with full citizenship rights, but the rationale in so doing eludes most intelligent people who still believe, however naively, that there are obligations accompanying citizenship.

When the arrangement was made to 'apologize' to Omar Khadr, the confessed murderer-jihadist who killed a U.S. Army medic and blinded another American soldier in a fire-fight in Afghanistan, Khadr expressed satisfaction that this apology due him in his estimation, according to the Rights and Freedoms guaranteed all Canadians under the Constitution, would 'restore' his reputation, and help him find satisfactory employment, because, as he stated disarmingly, all he wanted was to live a 'normal' life in Canada.

Daily Wire    Supporters for former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr

While the agreement to give this man a bonus in acknowledgement of his bomb-making capabilities where the IEDs he constructed at a terrorist training camp could very well have been used to kill and maim Canadian military personnel fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda of whose groups Omar Khadr was a part, may have soothed his disappointed feelings of isolation and misunderstanding, in the process creating an atmosphere of 'reconciliation', the government chose to conduct all this quietly, surreptitiously.

As well they might, since the vast majority of Canadians are outraged at this decision. Feeling for the most part that the government acquiescence to his repatriation from Guantanamo Bay prison back to Canada, with the full return of his citizenship, should have represented more than adequate 'reparation'. Canadian military veterans observe that none of their contingent who were wounded in the battle against the groups Omar Khadr fought with, were presented with any such generous recognition of their pain and suffering.

The public is dismayed at the thought that the widow of U.S. special forces medic Sgt.Chris Speer and former U.S. soldier Sgt. Layne Morris, have gained little acknowledgement of their suffering, let alone a cash settlement from any source that would enable them to support their current and future needs reflecting circumstances that the war inflicted upon them through Omar Khadr's participation in that war. Omar Khadr was convicted on five war crimes counts, yet receives a gift of millions; those he irremediably harmed have their memories.

They also have an online fundraiser where Canadians and others, reacting to the $10.5-million Canadian taxpayer gift to soothe Omar Khadr's hurt feelings of rejection from Canadian society, are able to donate to a fund meant to give financial aid to Sgt. Speer's widow and children, and Layne Morris. They had succeeded in obtaining a $134-million judgement against Omar Khadr through a court in Utah, but the Canadian government took steps to shield their gift to Khadr from being disbursed to his victims.

Omar Khadr confessed to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15. He made the admission during interrogations by the FBI and U.S. military investigators, some of which were later deemed 'oppressive.' A government source confirmed Tuesday that Khadr will receive an apology and financial compensation for the conditions of his imprisonment. (Terry Reith/CBC)