Omar Khadr–Why Are These Neo-Cons So Angry? They Got What They Wanted

I caught Zionist Tea-baggin’ Tommy and the Gang of Four on CJAD this morning. The question: “Do You Feel Sorry For Omar Khadr?” Tommy’s answer is so blatantly obvious, I’m not even going to elaborate. Trude the Prude was on the fence, but she’s an idiot, anyway. Kim Fraser, the neo-con Harperite, much to my pleasant surprise, got it!

Fraser points out that Khadr’s family chose to move to Afghanistan when Omar was 11,  and asks Tommy what choice did the boy have then? And then she asks,  a 15 year old child soldier; again, what choice did he have?  No money to escape & try to fly back to Canada; and can’t ask commander to be relieved of his duties; would probably have his head split open. Tea-baggin’ Tommy, like so many other neo-cons of the day, of course, have no answer and deflect and distract with irrelevent arguments and simply be louder than her. But she did get ol’ Tommy to basically admit what he really thinks of international laws and such; he basically says we outta fuck ‘em!

Kim Fraser would go on to bring up another child soldier, Ishmael Beah of Sierra Leone, who, by his own admission, ‘killed more people than he can count’;  who, instead of being carted away to a military prison, he, like other child soldiers in the region was rescued by UNICEF and other NGOs and was given a chance to rebuild his life.  Why do many begrudge Khadr that same chance those like Beah had? In the end, what is the difference?

Of course,  when they open the phone lines it got worse, starting with a wingnut ranter calling the group “sick” and a bunch of other colourful words I can’t remember off hand, but you get the idea. Never mind that Fraser presented clear,  concise arguments as to why this child soldier deserves our pity, not our condemnation.

I have to wonder, what children who are raised in KKK households in the US? Or Neo-Nazi white supremacist households? Those values of hate and bigotry are all they know.  One day, at age 13-14-15, that same kid goes out and kills a Jew or a  gay person or a black person.  How do we feel about them? Do we have the same hatred for them as we do for Khadr?  I know that even if they’re tried in an adult court, they serve time in a Juvenile facility until they age out at 18; they don’t go to military prisons.   While many of them don’t change, they do have a chance to rebuild their lives away from that dysfunction.  A much better one than Khadr ever had.

But why so angry? These wingnuts essentially got what they wanted. Khadr entered a guilty plea, more than likely as the only way he and his lawyers saw as an exit from Gitmo rather than an admission.   That’s right! These angry, white, bigotted neo-cons wanted (and still do) Omar Khadr to be guilty.  I saw Adrian McNair tweet, all happy, that he plead guilty, only to McNair, it was an admission. One can’t help but feel he was doing a happy dance at his keyboard when tweeting that.  So, neo-cons, you got what you wanted.

Real logical. Instead of being given a second chance at a normal life away from his dysfunctional family and the deranged company they kept, Khadr spent many years living in terrible conditions at Gitmo, since he was a kid.  More than likely, he was probably taught more wingnuttery from extremist inmates; taught to hate further during the continuation of his formative years.

He’s forced to plead guilty simply to extracate himself from that terrible place. Yet, if he ever sees the light of day again as a free man, he will more than likely run into hateful people who will insult him or even hurt him in some shape or form, thus further fuelling his conditioning that all westerners are bad.

If he ever sees the light of day and if he commits an act of terror or any other crime for that matter, we will have only ourselves to blame.  Ironically, those neo-con bigotted Islamophobes would love nothing better than for Khadr to commit an act of terror, in fact, they’d be cheering; they desperately need to validate themselves somehow.  Indeed, all this growing neo-con Islamophobic movement is doing is giving credence  to every stereotype and anti-Western rhetoric those religious extremist terrorist groups like  Al-Qaeda have been touting.  Again, we have only ourselves to blame.