The Khadr Thread

[ModlrMike]

They could as long as they're non-citizens and convicted of crimes, according to the latest proposal from Minister Kenny & Co.

Which proposes the next logical question:

Should naturalized Canadians be subject to the same stipulations?

 

[The Bread Guy]

Which proposes the next logical question:

Should naturalized Canadians be subject to the same stipulations?

"Two tiers of Canadian citizenship" arguing team - UP!

Seriously, though, here's Senator Dallaire on this in the Senate yesterday:

Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire: Honourable senators, this is not the first time that I have asked this question, but this matter continues to drag on because the person in question remains in prison. Could the leader inquire of the appropriate minister, perhaps even the Prime Minister, and tell us when the repatriation of Omar Khadr will take place in order for him to serve his seven-year sentence here, in Canada, as agreed by the United States and Canada?

[English]

Hon. Marjory LeBreton (Leader of the Government): Honourable senators, I thought we would get through a full couple of months without a question on Omar Khadr, but I thank the Honourable Senator Dallaire for the question. My answer will not be much different than the answer I gave in the past, but it is my answer nonetheless.

Mr. Khadr is a Canadian citizen that pled guilty to the murder of an American Army medic. The U.S. no longer wants him and has asked us to take him. A decision regarding his application has to be made in accordance with Canadian law.

Senator Dallaire: Things change, however, although the response has not, because I have been at this since 2006. The previous responses were, "Well, it is in due process," and "We have to let the process in the United States run its course." Now we have the response that we are, in the methodology of the government, working out the modalities of his return.

It is interesting that on April 16 the only department in the United States that was holding back the file — having gone down there to discuss it with them — was the Pentagon. On April 16, the Secretary of Defense in the United States signed off on the move of Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay to Canada. The lawyers and staffs in the United States have been trying to talk with the Canadians, who do not even come to the meetings on working out the modalities of that.

Therefore, we signed a deal. It said that he would be repatriated within an appropriate period of time. The average time is about nine months, but it has now been over a year since the original recognition by the government of the sentencing and acceptance thereof.

If all the technical stuff has been sorted out, what is the reason that we have not gotten him on a plane and into one of our institutions to incarcerate him for the rest of his sentence?

Senator LeBreton: Honourable senators, I cannot answer for what has taken place in the United States. I can only repeat what I said a moment ago: A decision has to be made on his application in accordance with Canadian law. That is all I can report today. No matter how many times the question is asked, that is the only answer I can give at the moment.

Senator Dallaire: Honourable senators, it is not a question of law. The leader's response is off the target. The law has been sorted out; the procedures have been sorted out to ensure that the law is being applied. The treaties between the two governments have been agreed to and signed. The different ministries involved have done their work to implement this agreement that, within one year of the sentence being applied in Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr would be repatriated.

Yes, the Canadian government has leeway in doing the analysis of whether to repatriate him, and how and when. However, that normal time frame has already passed. On top of that, the Americans are now embarrassed by holding him in Guantanamo Bay given that other treaty agreements for other incarcerated individuals are being put at risk because a country like Canada, the next door neighbour and firm ally of the United States, does not want to hold up its side of the deal.

It is not procedure or law; it is political. What is the political hang-up of implementing what we have signed in law to get this individual here and into our prisons?

Senator LeBreton: Honourable senators, again, Senator Dallaire has put on the record his view of the matter and what has transpired. I can only say that, yes, Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen and a decision about him has to be made in accordance with Canadian law. There is nothing more I can add at this point in time.

I am aware of Senator Dallaire's interest. I am aware of a media conference he had earlier today, although I did not see it. Having said that, there is a process and a decision has to be made in accordance with the laws of Canada. I cannot comment regarding what has transpired in the United States of America, as my honourable friend can understand.

Senator Dallaire: On a supplementary, would the leader be in a position to inquire of the appropriate ministries about what law is being applied and what law is holding up this process? I will not negate any response in that area, but I have an enormous problem accepting from the leader an answer that we are working within the law when in fact there is not a law involved in this. If the leader says so, would she be so kind as to provide me with that reference so I can educate myself regarding the nature of the hang-up?

Senator LeBreton: Not being a lawyer — thank God — I will simply ensure Senator Dallaire's question is brought to the attention of the Minister of Public Safety.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Just spotted this bit of Senate discussion from the end of June:

.... Senator Di Nino: I have not heard Mr. Khadr at any time express sentiments of regret or show any sign of remorse. That would go a long way to making me think this way.

Second, our country is acting within the law. They said they have and they are. These are complex issues and they take time. We are not a country that acts outside the law.

Finally, we will disagree on this issue, and that is fine. However, if the senator has any influence on the young man, if he got up and said, "Canada, please forgive me," it may go a long way to changing the minds of many Canadians like me.

Hon. Michael Duffy: Honourable senators, I had not planned to get into this, but it is time to set the record straight.

Dr. Michael Welner, American's leading forensic psychiatrist, asked Omar Khadr what the worst physical torture was that they did to him while he was in Guantanamo. The doctor brought along a video camera to record the whole conversation. All eight hours are on tape. Was he water boarded, electrocuted and chained to the floor? He is suing the Canadian government for millions of dollars.

According to Dr. Welner, all Khadr could come up with as an example of physical torture was when the Red Cross came to make sure he was being taken care of, the Red Cross insisted he be weighed. Khadr resisted and wriggled around and cried out as the guards put him on the scale. That is it. That is the extent of the torture.

He shouted in Arabic as he entered the area to be weighed that it was all just for show and that they should not be worried about it.

That is it. Omar Khadr.

Senator Dallaire: I would like to ask a question of Senator Duffy.

Omar Khadr was 15 years old, had been in a firefight, had been shot three times, lost an eye and been tortured. In fact, one of the people who was in the jail before he was moved to Guantanamo Bay has been prosecuted subsequently because he killed one of the prisoners. Then Omar Khadr ends up in Guantanamo Bay and people are starting to offer him opportunities, to maybe see the future and he is grasping at straws. Is that young man still fully stable, cognizant of what he is saying, not under duress by the incarceration in that jail to start with? In fact, there were processes by which people were coming to say that they were there to help him but were interrogating him was proven in the Supreme Court.

Senator Duffy: We do know this, honourable senators: Khadr is a racist and sexist, calling a Black woman guard a "slave" and a "b***h." I think his actions speak for themselves.

Some Hon. Senators: Oh, oh!

Senator Dallaire: My subsequent question to that is, has Senator Duffy never had a bad day? Has the honourable senator never been pushed to the brink of saying something that might be a little foolish? Has he never been in that type of condition and been brought to the limits of wanting to react, not getting the medication to control his emotions, and something like that is said and he is going to take that as cash in order for the Canadian government not to implement the deal that it has committed itself to? Come on.

The Hon. the Speaker: There being no further debate on this inquiry, it is considered debated.

 

[KevinB]

Good to see Romeo Dallaire is still a turd...

 

[George Wallace]

...living in some other alternate universe.

 

[OldSolduer]

...living in some other alternate universe.

Called the Liberal Party of Canada.

There is more than one alternate universe in Parliament. 

 

[2 Cdo]

Good to see Romeo Dallaire is still a turd...

Your assessment is of Dullaire is way nicer than mine. 8)

 

[beach_bum]

Your assessment is of Dullaire is way nicer than mine. 8)

I was just thinking the same thing.

 

[fraserdw]

Did anyone receive an email from Senator Dallaire recently?  I did and a lot of folks I work with did.  The email was a request to sign a petition to bring Canada's favorite little terrorist home.  I was amazed that his organization would send this out to serving troops.  My reply was short and descriptive as to where the Senator and his little buddy could go and what they could do once there.

 

[medicineman]

Should have sent him a link to the thread on Jihadists and sodomy...

MM

 

[KevinB]

Your assessment is of Dullaire is way nicer than mine. 8)

Well its my public comment's  :nod:
  Its a fraud that his incompetent and worthless ass was graced with another public paid position.

The Belgian Para's in Afghan still consider him a war criminal -and after his comments about little shitstain I for one would love to send his ass to the Belgians.

 

[Pusser]

Which proposes the next logical question:

Should naturalized Canadians be subject to the same stipulations?

Hell NO!!!

Citizenship, once granted should be irrevocable, with the sole exception of cases where someone has committed fraud in order to gain it.  Otherwise, naturalized Canadians become second class citizens and that is entirely unacceptable.  I've spent close to 30 years in this country's uniform and I'll be damned if I'll allow anyone to treat me as second class.

 

[ModlrMike]

I agree. As a naturalized citizen myself, I find the idea morally repugnant. I just asked the question here, because it had been asked of me elsewhere.

 

[winnipegoo7]

Is there any proof that Khadr ever killed anyone? The only evidence I can find is his 'confession', which I think was signed under duress.

It seems like a lot of what happened that day is secret and will probably remain secret for a long time to come. Hopefully the truth will come out one day.


*Edited, because I didn't read my post before I pressed submit.

 

[George Wallace]

Is there any proof that Khadr ever killed anyone? The only evidence I can find is his 'confession', which I was signed under duress.

It seems like a lot of what happened that day is secret and will probably remain secret for a long time to come. Hopefully the truth will come out one day.

Welcome to the site Mr Khadr.  If you did indeed sign a confession under duress, please give us the details.

 

[KevinB]

Is there any proof that Khadr ever killed anyone? The only evidence I can find is his 'confession', which I think was signed under duress.

It seems like a lot of what happened that day is secret and will probably remain secret for a long time to come. Hopefully the truth will come out one day.


*Edited, because I didn't read my post before I pressed submit.

Yes there is.  The site was hit by a Special Operations Team due to the High Value Targets on site, and due to OPSEC and PERSEC issues most of the info is classified.

 

[OldSolduer]

I, for one, am growing weary of the defenders of this murderous - oops - I mean misguided poor young urchin and the folks like him, including some of our more violent criminals - oops- I mean misunderstood and oppressed youths.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I, for one, am growing weary of the defenders of this murderous - oops - I mean misguided poor young urchin and the folks like him, including some of our more violent criminals - oops- I mean misunderstood and oppressed youths.

Me too.  Except that I reached the saturation point years ago.

 

[GAP]

No Khadr return without sealed video interviews: Toews
By Terry Davidson, Toronto Sun
Article Link

TORONTO - Omar Khadr won’t be coming home to Canada any time soon.

The Canadian government has balked at the return of the convicted war criminal and murderer until U.S. authorities turn over allegedly-damning video footage of psychiatrists’ interviews with the Guantanamo Bay prisoner.

In a formal letter sent Thursday to both U.S. defence secretary Leon Panetta and Khadr’s Toronto lawyer, John Norris, Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews states that in order to have Khadr sent back to serve the remainder of his sentence in Canada, officials north of the boarder must be given access to sealed video footage of separate interviews with Khadr that were carried out by two psychiatrists during the lead-up to Khadr’s trial in 2010.

Toews also stated complete reports from Dr. Michael Welner and Dr. Alan Hopewell have not been supplied to Correctional Service of Canada and the parole board, and that both are required to administer Khadr’s sentence in Canada, according to sources familiar with the letter.

Welner — who interviewed Khadr for eight hours in June 2010 and spent “hundreds of hours” researching his history - charges Khadr has become an even more “dangerous” radical while serving time in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, mainly because of the hard-line jihadist prisoners that are around him, Khadr’s continued connections to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, his loyalty to his radical-Islamist family and his celebrity among militant, anti-West jihadis.

“I came to the conclusion that Omar Khadr (is) highly dangerous because of the nature of his role in the community of al-Qaida and other Islamist terrorists,” Welner said, adding the “street smart” Khadr, when he is eventually released from custody, will be “under tremendous pressure” from those around him to be a leader in radical Islam’s war on the West.


“His family continues to be ideologically motivated ... (and he) will be under tremendous pressure from (those) people who are the source of his self esteem,” Welner said, adding Khadr is considered a “rock star” among the jihadis being held with him in America’s Guantanamo Bay prison.

At Khadr’s sentencing hearing, Welner submitted a document of 73 points — all “undisputed” by Khadr’s lawyers, he said — as to why Khadr continues to be a threat, including his bragging about killing an American soldier, being “angry” and “manipulative,” and having the “capacity to be inspiring to others in his potential for further jihad violence.”

Welner also noted in his submission that Khadr “did not want to confront his previous actions and blamed others” when it came to video footage of him as a 15-year-old planting land mines near Khost, Afghanistan, in July of 2002.

Seven days later, Khadr, who was born in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in 1986 into a family with connections to the al-Qaida terrorist group, was on a fighting mission when he killed U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer with a grenade during an altercation with American troops.

Khadr pleaded guilty to murder and several other charges in 2010 and was sentenced to 40 years, but as part of a plea deal he received eight years and was to be returned to Canada to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

While Canada agreed to his repatriation in 2010, Toews has resisted Khadr’s return, arguing public safety trumps the wishes of Khadr’s sympathizers for his speedy return to Canada.

Toews has insisted he won’t be “pushed” into making a decision, despite attempts by Khadr’s legal team to force the matter in federal court, and his letter suggests Canada will not admit Khadr until it receives the documentation and video interviews Canadian officials need to determine how to deal with the convicted terrorist and murderer.

Meanwhile, a movement has been building in Toronto to keep Khadr out of Canada or have him charged with treason if he is returned.
end

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

Omar Khadr: Peace-loving Canadian or al-Qaeda royalty?
LINK
19/07/2012 5:03:03 AM
CBC News

Two psychiatrists who interviewed Omar Khadr give differing opinions on the 25-year-old Canadian and the potential threat he might pose when he returns.

Welner spent seven to eight hours with Khadr over two days, while Xenakis says he has spent more than 200 hours with the inmate.

The two doctors came up with vastly divergent opinions of the 25-year-old Canadian, who in a deal with prosecution pleaded guilty to the murder of Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer. Khadr was captured following a battle in Afghanistan in 2002 and accused of throwing a hand grenade that killed Speer.

Khadr, who is currently imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, agreed in a plea deal to a sentence of eight years, with no credit for time served, with the first year spent in U.S. custody. The U.S. has agreed to return Khadr to Canada.

Days ago, his lawyers filed a notice of application seeking to ask the Federal Court to review the federal government's failure to ask the U.S. to transfer Khadr to Canadian custody.

It seems inevitable that Khadr will eventually return to Canada, where he could be eligible for parole. But who is the real Omar Khadr? Does the former al-Qaeda fighter pose any kind of threat to Canadians?

CBC News's Mark Gollom interviewed Welner and Xenakis to ask about their different views on Khadr. Xenakis agreed to a phone interview and Welner responded by email. Below is an edited transcript of the interviews.
'Not a threat by any stretch of the imagination' 

CBC News:What is your impression of Khadr in terms of his personality, intelligence?

Xenakis: He's a smart, extremely decent young man. Thoughtful, very sensitive and I will say, amazingly, there's hardly an instinct of aggression or meanness in him at all. For a person who has had to endure what he has in these kinds of settings now for 10 plus years, he has an equanimity about him and a sensitivity and a thoughtfulness that is extraordinary.

CBC News:What's the threat potential Khadr may pose to Canadians?

Xenakis: It is between zero and one per cent. It is as low as it can be. He is not a threat by any stretch of the imagination.

CBC News:You have also said before that he's not a violent person and never was a violent person. Yet we have seen videos of him making bombs and he has admitted to killing Christopher Speer. How can you say he's never been a threat and is currently not a threat?

Xenakis: The admission is an artifact of the court proceedings. It is not a statement of truth as you and I know it as laymen.

CBC Newso you think he has ever done anything violent?

Xenakis: No, I do not believe that he has done anything violent. Remember that this was a firefight and that our forces attacked the compound that he was placed in by his father. He was an adolescent and we have never ... talked about what would be reasonable self-defence and protection in the midst of a firefight like that in what we call the fog of battle.

I'm not saying that he never fired a weapon. I'm not saying that he never threw a grenade. I will say that no one knows.

CBC News: If he did throw a grenade, wouldn't that suggest a tendency toward violence?

Xenakis: No, he's an adolescent. That's the second point here, and I think what the travesty is, what the error is. This was a 15-year-old kid sent there by his father and doing what his father asked him to do. We as civilized democratic countries recognize that different standards should be applied socially and legally to people who are adolescents.

CBC News:This gets into the whole "child soldier" debate. Dr. Welner said he doesn't believe the child soldier label necessarily applies to Khadr, because in this case you have an individual who wasn't kidnapped, he wasn't drugged, he went on his own accord to fight.

Xenakis: Totally misses what the mental state is, capacity, reasoning, and the maturity of adolescence. What [Welner's] doing is in fact characterizing this [then] teenage boy as if he's a small adult and absolutely ignores everything we know about neuro development for young people, in particular teenagers.

He did what his father asked him. In that culture, you do not disagree or defy your father. The whole thing about the [bomb-making] videotaping, that was highly staged.

CBC News: You have also said you don't think Khadr was ever a committed jihadist or radicalized, yet he grew up in a family where he is being trained and taught by a father who was a top al-Qaeda leader and a personal friend of Osama bin Laden. How could he not be influenced by that? And what's your evidence he's not a jihadist?

Xenakis: The evidence is he does not wish at any time nor does he want to consider talk about politics, doesn't want to talk about military things. He absolutely wants to remove himself from anything that at all touches on those areas. He wants, if at all possible, to lead a a private, quiet life and be a health-care practitioner.

If you look at the family, there is room in there for people to make their own decisions and lead their own lives. This is not a criminal family or a Mafia family where you're either in or out. The father was killed nine years ago.

[Khadr] is religious, he's peace loving, he's compassionate, he's very compassionate.

CBC News: Many Canadians saw the videotapes of his interrogation by CSIS agents, where we see him crying, and he says he was tortured. Critics say he was playing to the camera and that in the so-called al-Qaeda handbook, you always claim to be tortured by your captors.

Xenakis: He was a boy there and he was 16 years old. There's so much of what I've been able to reconstruct that was very childlike and adolescent that's consistent with his immaturity at the time he was interviewed. I'm not sure he knew there was a camera.

I've not been able to confirm anything that would corroborate that they're trained this way. I've seen these manuals, excerpts of these manuals - actually I've seen more the statements from the prosecution, from the government that that's what's going on, but I've not seen any evidence of it. And having done a lot of military training, I know how hard it is to train the average person, particularly under circumstances like this, and that's unrealistic.

CBC News: How do you know you're getting the clear picture of who he is and that he's just not telling you what you want to hear?

Xenakis: There are patients that do that. But I don't think many of them do, really. I think that's a movie characterization that you get a flat-out psychopath that's so skilful ... that they can artfully sort of pull the wool over the psychiatrist's eyes. Even when you do that, if you are a fairly experienced clinician, you kind of know what's artificial that you're hearing.

It is so important for him to be truthful, for him to be honest.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'The ideal person to establish a beachhead for al-Qaeda in Canada'

CBC News: You interviewed Khadr for seven to eight hours. Is that enough time to get a good assessment of an individual?

Welner: The interview was conducted after I had devoted over 300 hours to the study of records ranging from interrogation notes to psychologist observations to medical records to classified documents to correspondence between Khadr and his family, and interviewing many others who had interacted with him in one way or another.

For the questions I was asked to resolve, my interview was adequate. I had the opportunity to ask every question that was appropriate for the occasion of our meeting. Omar answered some questions and obfuscated some others. And then I headed directly to an interview with five different guards who had interacted with him and supervisors of those guards, collecting their insights on how he related to his peers and they to him, and how he to them, as well as his relatedness to the guards and how that evolved over time.

One learns from many sources, and no one accounted for more direct contact with a broader range of source materials than I did. No one. The interview was informative enough that the defence did everything in its power to prevent not only the jury from seeing it, but even the prosecutors.

CBC News: What was your impression of him, in terms of his personality, intelligence?

Welner: He is street smart and carries himself with the bearing of a confident person who knows others are interested in him. He is amiable and has a ready smile, and an easy comportment as long as he is not being confronted. He unfailingly portrayed himself as a victim with nothing of his own to regret or to renounce.

CBC News: What did he say during that time that made you believe he's a danger?

Welner: His is the dilemma of Michael Corleone, who even when directed to one way of life may not ultimately turn away from family pressures to lead their ambitions for him, and his own visceral identification. Omar Khadr is undisputed al-Qaeda royalty and undeniably has yet to renounce it.

If not de-radicalized, and without a system of checks and balances that protects the pluralistic fabric of Canadian society, the Omar Khadr I evaluated will re-enter Canada ideally positioned and exploited by jihadist elements to legitimize and to promote Islamist aims, to inspire others to hostility to Canada and to avenge his claimed grievance. He is the ideal person to establish a beachhead for al-Qaeda in Canada, and will be pressured by the radicals who expect him to do so.

Mr. Khadr remains in closest identification with his family. That family has publicly characterized itself as an al-Qaeda family. He aims to return to that family and its inspiration when he returns to Canada and has specifically avoided repudiating jihadism in the slightest.

His being a killer of an American soldier has given him great standing among the Guantanamo detainees, who have been his entire community, and are essentially the source of his self-esteem. As the man even elder al-Qaeda and Taliban prevail upon to be their voice in Guantanamo, it is obvious that these elders and others would favour Omar Khadr's potential benefit to their movement once he has freedom of movement.

His supporters have worsened his risk by enabling him to coast through his process by denying responsibility and therefore, any need to mature in a way that killers customarily come to live with what they have done.
Omar Khadr will not be directly violent; his father was not, yet a leader in al-Qaeda. Mr. Khadr does not need to be in order to promote the aims his father advanced.

CBC News: You have said he's devout and that he's angry. Did he show instances of anger? Or was he angry like anyone would be angry over being examined by someone he might think isn't sympathetic or has an agenda?

Welner: He was not angry over talking to me. The independence of my examination was clear to him and when he questioned it, I replied that the videotaping of my interview ensured complete transparency and would safeguard his interview from potential bias by holding me accountable.

He was angry that he was being incarcerated at all. He was angry when he could not control the interview by directing the discussion to topics of his preference. He was at his angriest when shown the videotape of his bomb-making activity and being asked about it. Experiences that do not make it possible for him to whitewash his killing and attempted killing make him particularly angry.

As he has fired numerous talented and doting attorneys to date, I experienced his anger as the way he in particular reacts to not being in control over a situation.

CBC News: What evidence was there that he's still radicalized?

Khadr's history of having killed an American soldier, his being the son of an al-Qaeda leader, his being in a family that fashions itself as an al-Qaeda family and therefore able to provide support from outside prison, his access to media who wish to decriminalize his jihadist violence and to legitimize his grievance, his access to devoted NGOs and pro bono Canadian and American legal talent no ordinary citizen could dream of, his having memorized the Qur'an, his fluency in English and Western social skills with guards prompted numerous blocks within Guantanamo to ask that he be their block leader.

The deputy camp commander depicted him, for these reasons, as a "rock star" of the camps. For those who feel he has not been further radicalized, consider this: as radical as the remaining detainees are, would they choose a moderately minded person to act as their leader? Would they choose a child? I don't think so. Nor does any other person charged with responsibility in Guantanamo think so.

What is different about Omar Khadr is that his advocacy has been so successfully hyped that he has achieved something no one in the world has: the unthinkable makeover of al-Qaeda as a victim and the legitimization of its grievance and to act as it chooses.

CBC News: Many Canadians saw the videotapes of his interrogation by CSIS agents where we see him crying, and he says he was tortured. What did you make of that?

Welner: The tapes are compelling viewing, and if one were to know nothing more of the case, would experience the scene as a teenager in great distress being dismissed by an unusually insensitive adult.

By 2001, the intelligence community had possession of the al-Qaeda handbook seized in Manchester, England. That handbook contained directives to captured al-Qaeda to claim torture and abuse by captors, especially if they gave statements.

Omar Khadr co-operated with the hope that Canada would repatriate him (as it once did his father, when Ahmed Khadr had been incarcerated in Pakistan). The CSIS agent met with Khadr and found him to be the amiable and charming lad his father raised him to be. To Khadr's great dismay, the CSIS agent flatly extinguished Khadr's hopes of returning to Canada, and made note of Ahmed's terrorist legacy.

When Omar Khadr sat for a followup interview the next day, his presentation was dramatically different. He not only exhibited a dramatically different mood and comportment with no event to explain his distress, but essentially articulated a story that the intelligence community recognized as the de rigeur claim of "torture" as having that familiar Manchester aroma.

CBC News: Khadr is considered by many to be a child soldier. He was brought up in a household where he was brainwashed and trained by his father about al-Qaeda. Why should someone who was only 15 at the time of the killing of Christopher Speer be held accountable for his actions?

Welner: The notion of brainwashing is part of the fiction created of Khadr - consider that his older brother completely rejected living religiously and militantly, yet was never rejected by the family.

Omar Khadr was sent to translate at an al-Qaeda compound where his father was known and no one would have exploited that child. On his own volition, Omar Khadr buoyantly assembled roadside bombs, planted them, and announced that he wanted to kill lots of Americans - as he videotaped the experience. His father was nowhere in sight and this initiative bore no resemblance to his purpose of acting as a translator there, as he had for his father's terrorist business elsewhere.

When coalition forces converged only to disarm the compound, they gave the occupants 30 minutes to leave. A number of women and children did. Omar Khadr elected to stay, with colleagues who did not attack on impulse, but rather continued to wait while troops slowly gathered at the house to negotiate its disarmament. He therefore chose not only to be part of a group that launched an attack it did not have to, but one which deliberately waited for troops to converge so as to maximize coalition casualties.

A child soldier is ripped from his (often murdered) family and forced and habituated into violence. Omar Khadr enjoyed the martial arts for a number of years and voluntarily engaged in weapons training. He was hardly ripped from his father. The child soldier is drugged into a numbed detachment; Omar Khadr clearly was delighted by being part of the planned destruction. A child soldier is mortified by their actions; Omar Khadr felt glorified by what he did.

CBC News: Xenakis has said in previous interviews that anyone who has had personal contact with Khadr, including the Guantanamo Bay guards, would say, "This is a sensitive, caring, very considerate individual."

Welner: Mr. Khadr was raised very well, contrary to the public misinformation that his father was a weirdo. His father was a dignified, educated man who ran an orphanage. He was also a terrorist who conducted al-Qaeda business using Omar Khadr as a translator from a very early age. One can have a sensitive and caring example set for him and learn how to carry social graces. Forensic examination does not afford the luxury of limiting an analysis to superficialities.

I would agree that Omar Khadr is very sensitive to his family and to his father's legacy, and caring of his mother. That he happens to be closest to his family and possessed of such sensitivities is part of the problem.

With files from The Canadian Press