TERROR THREAT RISES FROM NORTHERN BORDER
by
Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.
A Canadian judge has refused to sign the extradition order for Abdullah Khadr, a leading terror suspect.
Khadr has been held in Canada since his arrest in Toronto on December 7, 2005.
The U.S. Justice Department has accused him of killing a peace-keeper in Kabul, of operating a training camp for jihadi recruits in Afghanistan, of purchasing munutions and explosives for al Qaeda, and of participating in a plot to assassinate Pervez Musharraf, the former president of Pakistan.
He pleaded guilty to these charges but Canadian Judge Christopher Speyer ruled that Khadr’s confession was “manifestly unreliable” since it may have been the result of coercion.
Upon his release from custody, Khadr said: “I think this is going to be the beginning of a new life for me. I just want to start anew now.”
Khadr’s “starting anew” may be bad news for the American people.
Witness this portion of his interview with a correspondent from the PBS news program Frontline:
PBS: What was your reaction to September 11, 2001?
Khadr: Like, I think itself was very amazing. It was very wild to see a person seeing a building in front of him and he’s going 900 kilometers per hour straight in the building. That was very hard to believe. If you believe in something very hard you can do that. . .
PBS: So you felt admiration for the people who did this?
Khadr: Yes. Because they did some things that stunned the entire world. Everybody for entire, like months, was talking about that. I was watching TV and they brought some person from China, I think. China, Taiwan, something like that. And they asked him, he said that this is good for America to know that it is not always the superpower that can hit, that weak people have ways to call the world for the world to listen to them, what they are saying, what they can do.
PBS: Once again, almost 2,500 people were killed in the World Trade Center, almost entirely civilians.
Khadr: I feel sorry for those killed. But Americans kill civilians in Afghanistan. Nobody said anything to them. They killed about 100 persons in a wedding caravan and other place they had killed about the same thing, 100, 115 in a wedding. Nobody blamed them for doing it. And they have the most advanced technology in missiles and controls. So you cannot say they missed because they knew what they’re hitting. If their planes couldn’t see it, the satellites couldn’t see it, then it’s not a superpower, they shouldn’t start hitting everybody. Accusing everybody of anything if they can’t see.
PBS: What were your impressions of Osama bin Laden? I guess you saw him for the first time as a young boy. What were your impressions of him?
Khadr: He was very quiet person. He would eventually get his respect. You would respect what he says. If he talks, he talks very slowly. He never jokes, very quiet person, very polite. He could be a saint, something like a saint.
At Khadr’s preliminary trial for extradition in July 2006, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin weighed in for Abdullah’s rights by saying: “The family came in many, many years ago and they obtained Canadian citizenship many years ago. They have Canadian citizenship. We don’t have two classes of citizens.”
Mr. Martin neglected to say that Abdullah comes from a line of Muslim terrorists. His father Ahmed Said Khadr, known throughout the Arabian world as “al-Kanadi” or “the Canadian,” was a leading al-Qaeda member who was killed in 2003 by the Pakistani army.
Abdullah’s brother Omar is currently detained in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay for killing an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002.
His youngest brother Abdul was left half-paralyzed from gunshot wounds sustained when Pakistani forces raided an al-Qaeda camp near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in October 2003.
All of the Khadr children, including Abdullah, were raised in al-Qaeda training camps. Elsamnah Khadr, Abullah’s mother, was quoted in the Toronto Globe and Mail as saying: “Would you like me to raise my child in Canada to be, by the time he’s 12 or 13 years old, to be on drugs or having some homosexual relationship? Is it better?”
In 2004, Elsamnah transported her remaining children back to Toronto so that her wounded son Abdul could take full advantage of the Canadian healthcare system. She appeared in full burqa before the throng of reporters who gathered at her home in Scarborough to say: “We’ve just been to the [Ontario Health Insurance Plan] office. That’s it. They said we have to fill out forms. I’m proud of what we are and I’m proud we’re in Canada now.”
The application met with immediate approval.
The saga of the Khadr family and the decision by Judge Speyer should cause all Americans to shudder. It illustrates the fact that the Canadian government remains reluctant to address the problem of Islamic terrorism even when radical Muslims perform egregious acts. Terrorists from Canada, even those who have killed members of US-led coalition forces (including fellow Canadians) retain the rights to political asylum, public welfare, and Canadian passports.
Why, therefore, would any self-respecting terrorist feel compelled to wade across the Rio Grande?
Concerning the threat from America’s neighbor to the north, Walter Todd Huston writes:
Al Qaeda understands well that Canada happily creates the conditions by which those attacks can be planned and fostered. Islamofascist operatives worldwide understand that Canada offers a rich bounty of social programs, a lax law enforcement culture and a visceral hatred of the USA that is growing with every year, all verdant soil in which to plant the hatred of Islamofascism.
Al Qaeda knows that if one of their operatives is arrested in Canada it is pretty sure that no prosecution or even deportment will result. Further they know that even if arrested once, this does not eliminate the possibility of an operative carrying on his efforts as many are arrested and released multiple times before anything more stringent is applied to them.
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