Hysterium Canuckistania: The Saga of Omar Khadr and the "War on Terror."
It says something about the polarization over the “war on terror” that you could end up understanding less about its complexities after reading either of these books than you understood before you started. To get any useful sense of the facts and arguments involved, especially as they relate to the saga of Omar Khadr, you’d be better off reading both of these books, or neither.
From my Globe and Mail review of Omar Khadr, Oh Canada, edited by Janice Williamson, and The Enemy Within Terror, Lies and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr by Ezra Levant.
My take: Sure, the guy was a kid. That doesn't cut much ice with me, but fair enough. And Guantanamo is a legal and constitutional black hole, and yes, Obama has kept it open (what to do?), and Obama has taken to himself the power to order the murder of Yemeni jihadis who also happen to be American citizens (so?).
It's complicated. None of us - not us Canucks, not the Yanks, not the Brits, the Dutch, the French, none of us - were ready for what happened on September 11, 2001. We weren't ready morally, intellectually, militarily, culturally, constitutionally, legally. And we still haven't got it figured out.
Make jokes about George W. Bu$h all you like, smartass. None of you were ready, and you're still not.
You've heard all about Omar Khadr. I bet you've never heard of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani. There are tens of thousands just like him.
La lutte continue.
You've heard all about Omar Khadr. I bet you've never heard of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani. There are tens of thousands just like him.
La lutte continue.
posted by Terry Glavin at 12:01 AM
3 Comments:
Terry,
A good, even-handed review on two books with polar opposite views on Mr. Khadr. At the end you give moral equivalence to both -- yet I for one agree with Ezra Levant. Yes he engages in verbal overkill, but essentially his view of Khadr as an unrepentant mean-spirited Islamist is correct.
Btw: yes, you wrote a review for the Globe and Mail. But the newspaper, by featuring Graeme Smith as its prinicpal reporter in Afghanistan, became a de facto supporter of the Taliban. Smith wrote article after article cheerleading this awful force. The Globe and Mail's readership these days is radical and anti-human rights (supporting fascism everywhere). You probably disagree with me on this, but check out the wacko comments after your review, nearly all of which pummel you:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/omar-khadr-his-fans-and-his-foes/article4394367/comments/
-- David Murrell (Fredericton, NB)
"But the newspaper, by featuring Graeme Smith as its prinicpal reporter in Afghanistan, became a de facto supporter of the Taliban. Smith wrote article after article cheerleading this awful force. The Globe and Mail's readership these days is radical and anti-human rights (supporting fascism everywhere)."
Huh?
Well, in my first post I posted the Globe and Mail's thread of readers' comments on Terry's balanced book reviews on the two books on Omar Khadr. The comments are all supportive of Mr. Khadr. Read any published letter-to-the-letter to the Globe, on Afghanistan or Omar Khadr. All the letters are uniformly supportive of Khadr and the Taliban. Since I consider the Taliban fascist, then supporters of the Taliban are pro-fascist.
I concede the Globe and Mail did show some evenhandedness, in allowing Terry to publish his book review. The book review is not complementary towards Omar Khadr. But two points: (1) virtually all op-ed peices, and editorials, in the Globe are supportive of Omar Khadr. And (2) during the entire Canadian military expenience in Afghanistan, the Globe and Mail undertook a policy of negative news coverage and commentary. Only rarely would the Globe and Mail say anything positive about the intervention.
So, I am sorry. If a newspaper devotes almost all of its considerable resources to oppose the intervention -- and to portray the Taliban in a postive light -- then one must assume that the newspaper is supportive of the fascistic Taliban.
I could go on. China offers a more lighter fascist government than that of the Taliban when it was in power -- and yet the Globe and Mail almost uniformly opposed Stephen Harper's early oppostion to human right violations in China. The intense Globe attacks, against Harper, led Harper to soften his tone from 2006 on.
Should the Globe and Mail decide, one day, to support international human rights, I will cheer them on. But as of now, the Globe and Mail opposes international human rights. I wish the situation was different.
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