Re: Mindelle Jacobs's Wednesday column [16Jul2008, Edmonton Sun]. Moonwebs, a book on cults, shows us how easy it is to take a secular, university-educated young man and, using a combination of peer pressure, isolation and brainwashing techniques, get him on board some cultic bandwagon.

How much more vulnerable to indoctrination would a teenage boy, raised from infancy in the Khadr household and sharing a compound with Osama bin Laden, be to the most absurd, destructive religious theories?

Omar Khadr is damaged goods: Damaged by his parents and by his six years in American captivity. It's hard to tell which is more pathetic -- his upbringing or the unabashed loathing many Canadians feel for him.

Orest Slepokura

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(This case is a talker.)