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Terrorist, War on Terror, Khadr Family

CBS portrays Omar Khadr as “obedient son”



Although the Globe & Mail called new footage in a 12-minute 60 Minutes segment “shocking new footage of a Canadian terrorism suspect allegedly building bomb timers and planting land mines when he was a 15-year-old militant hoping to take on American soldiers in Afghanistan,” a November 18 CBS News cast shows Canada’s infamous Khadr family in a mostly sympathetic light. Click here.

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“The footage, some of it shot on a night-vision camera by alleged al-Qaeda fighters before it was seized by U.S. forces after a deadly raid, leaves a more sinister impression of Omar Khadr than the widely circulated photo of him as a boy benignly smiling at the camera.” (Globe and Mail, Nov. 19, 2007). …”The military has long been planning to show the seized videotape during trial, but proceedings have repeatedly stalled before the evidence could be aired.” 60 Minutes dug up footage shot just a few weeks before 9/11, when the patriarch of the family made anti-American remarks from Afghanistan. “It looks like after we have removed the Russian empire we will have to be ending up removing also the American empire,” Ahmed Said Khadr said at the time. Time ran out on the elder Khadr, who was killed in a battle against the Pakistani army in 2003, allegedly as a senior al-Qaeda member. There were no references in the CBS interview that Papa Khadr was allegedly one of the senior financiers for al Qaeda or that former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had successfully appealed to Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto for his release from prison. No reasons were given why CBS resurrected the 2001 footage in a story on Omar Khadr on November 18. Although Sgt. Layne Morris, who lost an eye in the Afghanistan battle where colleague Sgt. 1st. class Christopher Speer was killed, the fundamentalist Khadr family dominates the footage. A U.S. military official who launched the prosecution described the case against Omar Khadr as strong, but circumstantial. “I think it’s fair to say that no person saw him actually throw the grenade,” retired general John Altenburg told 60 Minutes. A producer for the news program, the late George Crile who died of pancreatic cancer at age 61 in 2006, had a long-standing relationship with the Khadr family and his fondness for them shows on the film footage. In their portrayal of Omar Khadr, CBS posits that he may have been just an “obedient son”. The only Canadian detainee at “Gitmo”, Omar Khadr, now 21 is portrayed as a hero, who asked American soldiers to shoot him three times after he allegedly threw the grenade that killed 1st class Sgt. Speer. In happier times, the Khadr boys were shown running off to play with the sons of Osama bin Laden. Omar’s younger brother Karim was also shown in the piece. The footage was shot in 2004, just weeks after he returned to Canada from Pakistan. He survived, but was paralyzed by the deadly battle that killed his father. Karim had returned to Canada with his mother, Maha Khadr for medical treatment. Maha said at the time her children were better in terrorist camps than attending Canadian schools with homosexuals. In the Nov. 18 CBS piece, Maha tearfully says that she sees her son Omar standing before her “alive”. Absent from the show was daughter Zaynab Khadr, who said in a 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) interview that she believed the September 11 attacks gave the Americans an opportunity to feel the same pain that they inflicted on others around the world. In Omar Khadr: Youngest Terrorist? 14-year-old Karim Khadr talks about how he wanted to become a martyr so he could be doted on in the afterlife by dozens of perfumed virgins. He said that he expected that Omar would want to resume battles against Americans when he gets out of Guantanamo Bay. “When he’s all right again he’ll find them again…and take his revenge,” he said with a smile.


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Judi McLeod -- Bio and Archives -- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

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