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.
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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.






The Money Tree and the Evil of Good Intentions
2012 Leave a Comment
“Do you think money grows on trees?”
Dad
It’s something most of us learn when we’re very young. Money isn’t easy to come by. You have to earn it. You have to work for it. You have to do your chores. You have to get a job delivering newspapers. You have to mow people’s lawns or shovel their walks when it snows. You have to do something productive and then people will pay you. Only then can you go to the candy store and buy yourself a treat, or spend your Saturday afternoon in a dark movie theater enjoying an eye popping spectacle. That was part of Americana when I was growing up, learning that things weren’t just handed to you, they needed to be earned. READ MORE »