Adrian MacNair: The whitewashing of Omar Khadr
Adrian MacNair, Special to National Post | May 29, 2015 2:39 PM ET
After watching CBC’s new interview and documentary of Omar Khadr I was left feeling sorry for the 28-year-old who was recently freed on bail after 13 years in custody.
And that’s an indication that the journalists who collaborated on this project didn’t do enough to balance the piece objectively.
That’s somewhat surprising, given that the documentary was a collaboration with the Toronto Star’s Michelle Shephard, who authored the 2008 book Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr. She is one of the few reporters to have reached out for interviews with the widow of one of the soldiers Khadr is alleged to have killed.
Indeed, the piece so strongly advocates for Khadr that it sometimes feels like a public relations piece produced by his lawyer David Edney. Not only are many of the devices used in the segment emotionally manipulative, such as Edney’s wife weeping in the opening, there are no opposing voices beyond stock footage.
Several of Khadr’s former adversaries are rounded up to vouch for his character, such as Damien Corsetti, an American military interrogator who first met Khadr at Bagram. The alleged torture he was subjected to at both that air base and in Guantanamo Bay is a focal point in the piece, portraying his survival under those conditions as being something heroic.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the documentary is the whitewashing of his family’s history and ties to terrorist groups, suggesting they were little more than aid workers caught up in a turbulent time. In a new interview with Khadr’s mother, Maha Elsamnah, she portrays the family as humanitarian workers who were helping bring medicine to the needy and opening schools for children in Afghanistan.
“After Sept. 11 we were on the run,” she says, without explaining why exactly that would be the case.
Khadr explains he became a translator at the behest of his father. He continues to insist this was his only role even as the documentary airs footage of him preparing improvised explosive devices.
No one asks if he felt making explosives was a bad thing to do, what he thought about his role in the war, or whether he felt uneasy helping what were clearly Islamic Jihadis.
No one inquires whether Khadr thought he was in danger or if he understood the seriousness of his actions. It’s a glaring omission, given that he’s been portrayed as a child soldier who couldn’t have known what he was doing.
The documentary offers a plausible scenario in which he’s not even guilty of the crimes to which he’s already confessed: he admits to throwing a grenade but he’s not sure whether he killed anybody.
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“Nobody claims to have seen me throw the grenade and this soldier testified that couldn’t have been me so I always hold to the hope that maybe my memories were not truth.”
It’s a further disappointment to see that Khadr won’t outright denounce the comments his family made in 2004 following his detention in Guantanamo Bay, when they disparaged Canada and glorified “Jihad.” He refers to his family as “very opinionated” and suggests they should not have said those things publicly, but also takes care not to disagree or censure their viewpoints.
He also describes his father, convicted terrorist Ahmed Said Khadr, as being dedicated to helping the victims of the war in Afghanistan, whitewashing the family’s ties to terrorism and implying the Khadrs aren’t guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever.
Given that many of his defenders in Canada insist he was a child soldier brainwashed by his terrorist father, it would have been nice to hear what Omar had to say about all this. If his father wasn’t a terrorist after all, how did he get brainwashed?
What did your father tell you? Did you believe in Islamic Jihad? What do you think about radical Islam? Did you or do you support the efforts of the Taliban or Al Qaeda? Were you aware you were engaged as an unlawful enemy combatant in Afghanistan? Do you think your improvised explosive devices may have harmed innocent people?
None of these questions are asked. Nor are hundreds of others that still leave Canadians wondering. Most importantly, is he sorry? Putting aside the question of his guilt or innocence, whether he was a child soldier, or whether his father brainwashed him, is this 28-year-old man apologetic or remorseful for any of his actions?
Despite the lack of tough questions, or perhaps because of it, Khadr is convincing. He comes off as warm and genuine. It’s difficult to tell on camera whether it’s all an act, but there are strong hints that it is not.
When police officers arrive suddenly at his door his body language changes immediately from comfortable to tense and alert.
Based on my impressions of the short interviews he’s given, Khadr doesn’t seem like a threat to Canadians. Which may be the point of Edney allowing access to his client like this. He also makes the point that if he were going to be radicalized, the best place for it would have been Guantanamo Bay. He hints that he does not share views of his family, nor will he be influenced by their ideology.
“If anything they are going to be affected by me and not the other way around.”
As if to prove a point the camera zooms in on a scene where he’s eating ham at the breakfast table.
I’d like to believe that’s the truth. I think we all would.
