By Dan Gardner

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA – If Canadians had been told about Omar Khadr in the summer of 2001, they would have seen him as a victim of child abuse. They would have pitied the boy. They would have wanted him saved.

Omar Khadr was born in Toronto on Sept. 19, 1986. In the summer of 2001, he was 14 years old.

His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a violent Islamist radical. In 1988, he took his family, including the two-year-old Omar, to Pakistan. In 1992, Ahmed stepped on a landmine and was nearly killed. He and the family returned to Canada to receive free medical care – only one of many instances in which the Khadr family demanded all the benefits of citizenship in a country which they openly despise.

Several years later, Ahmed Khadr again took his family to Pakistan. Omar was nine years old.

In 1997, Ahmed moved to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to work with al-Qaeda. Omar Khadr was now living amidst what can reasonably be described as a death cult. He was 11 years old.

On Sept. 11, 2001, as jets exploded in the United States, Omar Khadr was the 14-year-old son of a violent religious fanatic who dreamed of martyrdom for himself and his children. If the Khadrs had returned to Canada that day, and the facts had been made clear, Omar would have been seized by child protection authorities.

But the Khadrs didn’t return to Canada. Instead, expecting American retaliation, Ahmed Khadr fled into the mountains of Afghanistan. As always, Omar was told to come along.

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