The Good Khadr

With the news that Omar Khadr has pleaded guilty, setting the stage for his "repatriation" to Canada, it's all "child soldier" this and "child soldier" that. Before we get caught up in what will undoubtedly be a great national wallow about "our" Omie's "homecoming,"  it's a good idea to look back at the words of Omar's older brother, Abdurahman. Think of him as the "white sheep" of the family--the one (and only one) who thought his jihadi papa was off his rocker, and who therefore cooperated with the kafir CIA. Here's an excerpt of a PBS interview with the out-of-step-Khadr:

In terms of the religious training that you got in Al Qaeda camps or around your father, how [did] they regard non-believers and the duty to fight and jihad?

In Islam, there is a saying by the prophet that there will always be a group of Muslims, very little, but these are going to be the group of Allah. These group are always going to fight for Islam. There's always going to be this group. They're going to be very little, very disgraced by people, everybody [will] try to kill them. But if you are with this group, this is the group that will go straight to [paradise]. This is the right group, if you're around that time, try to get to that group.

So they believed they were that group of people. They believed that they're on the right way, what they're doing is right and any Muslim in his right mind should get into this group.

And you believed that at some point?

Yes. Some days, I just believed that, you know, this is the right path and I'm with the right people and I should really do this.

But you know, at no point did I believe in suicide bombing. Two or three times, I'm not sure, but two times, I'm sure now, my father himself tried to get me to become a suicide bomber. He sat me down with the Al Qaeda scholar, he sat me down with the person to train people to become suicide bombers. He sat me down with these two people and tried to convince me to become a suicide bomber. He's like, you know, you'd be our pride in this family, you'd be our pride if you do this. But I was totally against it. I was like, I believe in fighting, you know, someone on the ground and he shoots me and I shoot him. But I don't believe in blowing myself up, killing innocent people. I don't. I just don't believe in that. …

How do you look back at your father doing that to you?

Well, I just see that he really believed in it. And he wanted me to believe in it too.

Did your father ever tell you, if you threaten this family or if you threaten this organization, you'll have to die?

My father always considered me the cancer in their body, and that's why he kicked me out of the house more than once. He said "you are like the cancer in this house. And I have to cut you out right now or you're going to infect the rest of the family." He always referred to me like this. This is what I told the people I worked with in the CIA too. He always referred to me as like cancer in a body. That "you are the one that smokes, drinks, wants to, you know, work his own mind and you're going to make your brothers like this. So I don't want to keep you because I want your brothers to be good Muslims and all."...

Would you argue about [Al Qaeda attacks] with your father?

Oh yeah, I argued about it, about this and about Sept. 11. We talked about it a lot. So when I saw the video [of the Sept. 11 attacks], I was like looking at it and all and everybody was smiling, laughing. I was just looking at it, you know.

I saw this person jumping out of the building, you know, committing suicide, from the building because of what he's going through. And I didn't think it was funny, you know. I didn't think it was smart. I was like more thinking about it, what was going through that person's mind when he did it, you know?

And so my father was like, "what's your problem?" I said "I don't know, this was not right, you know. I don't think this was right and this going to cause a lot of trouble." He's like "well, you know, we hit America." I was like "well, you hit so much people that were in that building that didn't have anything to do." "Well they pay taxes and taxes get guns and the guns kill Muslims. We're hitting the American economy and there is collateral damage." I just didn't understand it. They explained it in 100 ways. I couldn't understand it. …