Edmonton Sun | 27Oct2010 | Orest Slepokura
http://www.edmontonsun.com/comment/letters/2010/10/26/15835241.html

Cut Omar Khadr some slack

Re: Mindelle Jacobs, “Brainwashed child soldiers can be saved, says prof,” Sun, Oct. 26. Omar Khadr certainly shouldn’t reconnect with his “very toxic” family, says U of A Prof. Andy Knight, because they’d likely indoctrinate him again. Agreed! When Omar’s mother and sister sat for a lengthy TV documentary interview some years ago, the pair exuded a mix of malice, stupidity, and tawdriness, like watching low-brow Klan couples on The Jerry Springer Show mouthing off about the browning of America. Their crassness was off the scale. A child soldier mentored by adult authority figures to have faith in toxic ideas cannot be held to the same standard as an adult exercising free agency. Older judgmental Canadians might do well to recall the metaphysical terrors instilled in them as children by devout parents, warning of eternal damnation in hellfire as divine punishment for often minor character flaws, and cut Omar Khadr some slack.

Orest Slepokura

(May be too late to do anything about it now.)