I apologise for the length.
This is a 2 part article by Ezra Levant. One of my favourite political commentators. About the Omar Khader and Maher Arar cases.
For those of you not familiar with Khader. He was convicted of murdering U.S. army soldier Sgt. C.J. Speer, A combat medic. http://www.groups.sfahq.com/3rd/speer_kia.htm
The intro from The Ottawa Sun:
In a revealing new book, The Enemy Within, the Sun's Ezra Levant brings Omar Khadr's story back into the public eye. Having completed his U.S. sentence in October 2011, Omar Khadr could return to Canada at any time. He may well be released, thanks to a lenient system that will likely credit him for the time he has served awaiting trial in Guantanamo Bay. With Parliament back in session, Levant brings his razor-sharp perspective to bear on a story that is vital to our notions of citizenship and justice, and to our national security.
Part 1
So, what can we expect to happen with Omar Khadr when he inevitably returns to Canada?
Unfortunately, it's not hard to guess. When Maher Arar came back to Canada after he was released from a prison in Syria, he was hailed as a hero and celebrity. Every anti-war, anti-Western activist with an axe to grind--which includes a large swath of Canada's mainstream media--turned his homecoming into a triumph. If only they treated our wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan so warmly.
If Maher Arar became a minor celebrity after his wrangle with the Syrian security system, with a secondary role played by Washington and Ottawa, it's a virtual lock that Omar Khadr--the leading man in a supposed morality play pitting the Bush administration, perennial bugbear of the left, and its Guantanamo "gulag" against a purportedly naive and pitiable "child soldier" from Canada--is set to become nothing less than a superstar.
Unlike Arar, who enjoyed only a fraction of the sympathy and media coverage, Khadr will be coming home to the built-in fan club that he's amassed since his capture. Arlette Zinck, the professor at Edmonton's King's University College who struck up a tender pen pal relationship with Khadr -- "Whenever you are lonesome, remember you have many friends who keep you in their prayers. Each morning at 9 o'clock, I include you in mine," she wrote to him in Guantanamo, referring to Khadr as "my dear student"--has led the charge in turning her campus into a factory for Khadr groupies.
Zinck actually testified in Khadr's defence, calling him a "considerate young man ... thoughtful and generous in spirit" in a sentencing hearing for a murder he himself confessed he took pleasure in reminiscing about (how considerate). In 2008, her school hosted a talk by Dennis Edney, one of Khadr's lawyers, to give a speech about how "a young Muslim man has been branded a terrorist without trial" and the failures of the Canadian government in supporting Khadr's case.
Along with a "consortium of activist groups," Zinck's students organized a rally later that year drawing seven hundred Khadr supporters to cheer for Khadr in downtown Edmonton, and Zinck herself has said she would personally recommend Omar Khadr's application to attend King's University College as a mature student.
But then he probably won't have the time. Or the need. Omar Khadr isn't likely to spend much time in prison once he applies to be released to Canadian custody in late 2011 after serving just one additional year in Gitmo (part of the plea agreement with the Obama administration). Under current Canadian law, Khadr should be able to apply for parole after serving one-third of his sentence --and his nine years in pre-trial custody means he's already done that (even statutory release kicks in after two-thirds of a sentence). A free man,
he'll have a career waiting for him here in Canada as a top speaker on the anti-American lecture circuit. Every pro-Islamist campus club, every unreformed mosque, as well as conferences for the reflexively anti-American New Democratic Party and the Canadian Bar Association, the national lawyers' group that for years churned out reams of press releases calling for Khadr's release and return to Canada, all are sure to hound the freed terrorist to come speak to them, paying him thousands of dollars an hour for the pleasure.
The Canadian Islamic Congress and Canadian Arab Federation have been vocal supporters of Khadr's defence and will surely welcome him with open arms onto their staff: Who better to fundraise among their Israel-hating, America-hating supporters? Perhaps Judy Rebick--the founding publisher of the left-wing webzine rabble.ca,
who hailed Khadr as a new Nelson Mandela--will offer him a regular column to share his views with thousands of readers, and, as a professor of social justice and democracy at Toronto's Ryerson University, maybe she'll make him a featured speaker at her school. That is, when he isn't busy with Professor Zinck's students.
No doubt both will be in a race with hard-left universities like York University in Toronto, the University of Ottawa, and Concordia University in Montreal to be the first to award Omar Khadr an honorary doctorate degree. He could be the first terrorist ever nominated for the Order of Canada. What's less sure is that the nomination will be declined.
Khadr will be courted by on-campus radio stations and left-wing reporters, becoming the go-to guy to comment on radical Islam, terrorism, Afghanistan, the fight against al-Qaida, American security, the evils of Israel, and a hundred other topics where his supposed expertise can be deployed to advance the same distorted world-view that's been used to tilt virtually every Khadr story reported here over the last nine years.
If the CBC isn't already planning a reality show around Omar Khadr and what they'd surely call his "struggles" to adapt back into Canadian society, it's because they're not quite quick enough on the uptake: Just give them a few more months and tax dollars. Khadr's plea deal with the U.S. government may forbid him from personally profiting from telling stories about his crimes or the time he spent in Guantanamo Bay, but even if that portion of his plea deal with Washington were enforceable in Canada, it would be stunningly simple to get around: Either by funnelling the money to someone else--or perhaps even another fellow jihadi--or by ensuring that whenever and wherever he speaks, he refers to it as a more general discussion about the evils of Islamophobia.
Other notorious murderers have to live under strict conditions when they're released: The child-killer Karla Homolka was ordered to keep police constantly apprised of her whereabouts after she was let out of prison. But will Canada's National Parole Board require anything like that for Khadr? And as he's travelling the country for all his speaking tours, media appearances, and awards, how many Canadians will be forced to share an airplane ride with the committed al-Qaida terrorist? There's nothing right now that would stop the avowed jihadi from boarding the same Air Canada flight as you and your family, nor from loitering outside synagogues and Hebrew schools.
What fun it will be for Canadians to have to live with a confessed murdering Islamist walking free among them (you can be sure that any attempts by police or security to keep tabs on Khadr will be met with vigorous civil rights lawsuits by his friends in the Canadian Bar Association, and any landlord who refuses to rent him a flat or employer who refuses him a job is bound to find him-or herself in court facing down a phalanx of pro-Khadr lawyers).
The spectacle of an admitted al-Qaida terrorist with American blood on his hands smiling down at us from podiums and TV screens for years to come is chilling enough. But what's sure to prove even more alarming about all the publicity and support that Omar Khadr is bound to enjoy when he comes home is that there's nothing to stop him from spewing whatever vileness he wants. No one can tell Omar Khadr what to say. He can condemn our American allies --or our own soldiers--before a national audience with all the vitriol of a radical imam and get paid handsomely for it; he can denounce Canada and our soldiers just as easily. And, yes, he's perfectly free to share his vicious hatred for Jews, Christians, and Americans. Omar Khadr will be free to spout as many militant lies as he likes, and, unlike other dangerous Islamists and al-Qaida supporters, he's got a massive and sympathetic national fan base eager to hear him out.
After all, other terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay are frequently compelled to complete at least some kind of nominal de-radicalization process before being released again onto the streets of their home countries. But there's nothing to date requiring Omar Khadr to do any such thing. Even German soldiers, after the Second World War, were required by the Allies to complete "deNazification" programs to rehabilitate their odious views about Jews and other minorities. After years of stewing in the propaganda and hatred of Hitler's suffocating culture of indoctrination, they required some sort of antidote. Khadr, meanwhile, went from growing up with a family of terrorist radicals to palling around with terrorist radicals in the Hindu Kush, to spending his days consorting and studying the Qur'an with terrorist radicals in Guantanamo Bay. Don't expect him to return to Canada as a big supporter of multi-ethnic harmony, democracy, women's rights, and peace.
But enough public outrage could cause Canada's legal system to grudgingly keep Khadr behind bars. If Canadian courts don't give him credit for time served, and if he's treated as an adult, not a young offender, Khadr could serve as much as 21/2 years in jail before being paroled. And the parole board could put conditions on him, such as living in a halfway house and seeking employment. Section 810.01 of the Criminal Code allows a judge to order participation in a treatment program or even the wearing of a monitoring device.
It's theoretically possible--it could happen that Canada's legal establishment will suddenly make a 180-degree change in their view of Khadr, and treat him as a convicted terrorist. Even then, he'll be out on our streets while still in his 20s. But there's only one sure way: Convincing the Conservative government not to let him back into Canada in the first place.
The Khadrs were once upon a time considered among the most reviled, most dangerous people ever to make this country their home. Thanks to years of hard cheerleading on our campuses, in our political movements, and in our newsrooms for the family's most favoured son, Canada will soon become Omar Khadr's country. The rest of us will just be forced to live in it.
Part 2
In his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly promised to shut down the U.S. prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After becoming president, he didn't: the heavy responsibilities of a president leading a War on Terror quickly replaced the easy promises of an inexperienced candidate.
But getting rid of Guantanamo's celebrity inmate, Omar Khadr, remained a political priority.
And so, despite conclusive evidence of Khadr's crimes, including video footage of Khadr assembling terrorist bombs, the Obama administration offered Khadr a plea bargain. He would be sentenced to eight years for his terrorist crimes but need serve only a single year in a U.S. prison.
After that, he could be returned to Canada, where he would be eligible for full parole immediately.
That deal was accepted by Khadr on Oct. 13, 2010, but its terms were kept secret from the U.S. jury at Guantanamo Bay that still met to sentence Khadr. They handed him a forty-year sentence.
Forty years, pled down to one year. That's a 97.5% discount.
But the deal wasn't just between Obama's prosecutors and Khadr.
Canada played an essential part in issuing the get-out-of-jail-free card. Without Canada's diplomatic assurances, the promise of a transfer back to Canada, and to freedom, would have been meaningless.
Without Ottawa's nod at allowing a confessed and convicted al Qaeda terrorist back on to Canadian soil, Khadr wouldn't have accepted the plea and Obama's prosecutors wouldn't have offered it. In fact, the deal specifically promised that the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs would give Khadr a "diplomatic note" confirming their support for the plea deal.
So, Canada's Conservative government, which had for years so vigorously fought off court challenges to compel them to bring Khadr back to Canada, battling a full court press of public attacks from Khadr's personal lobby in the media, the legal profession, and opportunist politicians throughout, suddenly gave everything away in a fire sale.
It's one thing for a liberal U.S. Democrat to go soft on crime. But what about Stephen Harper¹s Conservatives, who have made criminal justice, including "truth in sentencing," a centrepiece of their political platform?
Terrorists on the street in Canada are taken seriously. And terrorism in Afghanistan isn't an abstract matter for Canadians either; more than 150 Canadian Forces personnel have died there, the overwhelming majority of them brutally killed by improvised explosive devices exactly like the ones Khadr was filmed assembling. In fact, the very first Canadian casualty in Afghanistan fell victim to an IED planted by a teenager.
Yet Khadr's sweetheart deal was approved by the Canadian Conservative government in a series of secret negotiations. The Canadian public was kept in the dark until the deal was already done. U.S. prosecutors were bushwhacked.
The agreement was signed by Khadr, his two lawyers, and two representatives of the U.S. government, but it was cooked up in a backroom deal among Obama's inner circle, Khadr's lawyers, and a cooperative Canadian government. Khadr's one-year U.S. sentence expired in October 2011, and his transfer to Canada could happen at any time.
Khadr wants that to happen. So does the Obama administration. And so do a lot of Khadr's allies, from the Canadian Bar Association to the CBC. And, of course, no one wants Khadr's public release more than al Qaeda itself, who knows the immense public relations value that comes with having a convicted terrorist set free, triumphant and remorseless.
Khadr has never abandoned his grotesque, murderous interpretation of the Koran and Islam; he has never once renounced his allegiance to al Qaeda; and throughout his detention, his family, a pillar of the al Qaeda community, has continued to propagandize for Islamism and to publicly undermine the Canadian and American war against terror.
His release is an advertisement for al Qaeda, both in revealing the weakness of will it has always accused Westerners of possessing and in recruiting yet more teenagers to its cause by proving that they, like Khadr, will escape harsh punishment should they ever be caught murdering Western soldiers.
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