Juno News - Standing Ovation for a Terrorist (feat. Ezra Levant)

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.920 Coming up, a recap and reflection on Omar Khadr's keynote address at Dalhousie University.

00:00:20.780 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:24.460 Hey, welcome to a on-location edition of The Andrew Lawton Show, the first of its kind, although hopefully we'll have more to come.

00:00:34.660 I'm coming to you from Halifax, Nova Scotia, just after Omar Khadr took the stage as the keynote speaker at a Dalhousie University event put together by Dalhousie and the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.

00:00:48.560 Now, this event was in many respects one of the first times that Omar Khadr has ever faced the audience in a way at a ticketed event like this in an open forum.

00:00:59.640 It was supposed to be a venue for tough questions and it ended up being the event about nothing.

00:01:06.540 Here's a guy, a convicted murderer, a convicted terrorist on stage and they don't address anything of substance.

00:01:13.120 I'm going to talk about the event and I'm also going to share clips from some of my interviews with people that were going into the event.

00:01:19.380 People that were in some cases supportive of Omar Khadr, in some cases people that had an open mind and in other cases people that were thinking this was a profound mark of shame for Canada that this event was taking place.

00:01:32.680 But I want to set the stage for it before I get too far into the weeds on it because this event was presented as being about child soldiers.

00:01:42.520 It was presented as being about holding Omar Khadr up as an example as a child soldier.

00:01:48.060 And the reason for that is that if you accept someone as a child soldier, you also have to accept that they are a victim and they are a passenger and not that they are a perpetrator or that they are a killer.

00:01:59.520 And the reason that this was a relevant distinction is because it comes down to whether you are allowed to hold Omar Khadr responsible and hold him to account for what he's done by his own confession.

00:02:13.480 And I'm never going to stop telling people and reminding people that he confessed to throwing the grenade that killed Sergeant Christopher Spear and injured Lane Morris,

00:02:21.740 that left Tabitha Spear a widow, that left Taron and Tanner Spear fatherless. 0.50

00:02:27.240 And this is profoundly important because you talk about a Canadian ally, the United States having a soldier killed and the Canadian government exalting and lionizing by giving that $10.5 million check that we all know about now.

00:02:43.140 But again, I'll never stop reminding people of the gross disparity between the way that he should be treated by the government and the way he is treated by the government.

00:02:53.540 And he was on stage at this event in Dalhousie with Ishmael Beah, who's a former child soldier himself from Sierra Leone.

00:03:00.520 But the two are held up as being equivalent, which again pushes that narrative that Omar Khadr can't be criticized because he was just a child soldier.

00:03:10.700 And even that term child, by the way, has implications.

00:03:14.540 And I'd say it has a lot of assumptions that people make when they hear child.

00:03:20.620 And we heard it probably seven or eight times in the first 20 minutes of the event from the MC, from Romeo Dallaire, who spoke before things started,

00:03:29.100 and also from the moderator, who was the executive director of the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.

00:03:35.660 So a couple of things, though.

00:03:37.320 The CBC moderator who was originally scheduled, Nala Ayed, bowed out.

00:03:42.960 And I emailed her and said, hey, you know, just curious about why you stepped down from this.

00:03:47.080 No response from her.

00:03:49.540 CBC did send out a statement that we received from a couple of places saying that they've decided to explore the topic in a different avenue down the road.

00:03:58.860 And they may cover the event, but they're not going to be a part of it.

00:04:02.040 And this, in and of itself, I find interesting because it also means that even CBC, and yes, I mean that, even CBC decided that,

00:04:11.160 OK, maybe we don't want to be the cheerleaders of Omar Khadr at this event, which, had they been on stage moderating, as was initially planned, would have been the outcome.

00:04:23.120 And that, I guess, is the big sticking point here.

00:04:26.320 This was not an opportunity to hold Khadr to account.

00:04:30.820 This was not an opportunity to address any of the inconsistencies.

00:04:34.460 This was an opportunity or could have been an opportunity to do these things, but it ended up being just a bunch of pablum.

00:04:42.620 It ended up being just a bunch of pablum.

00:04:44.180 Now, I was live-tweening throughout the event.

00:04:46.360 The first question started out as being, how do you manage the cold of Halifax?

00:04:51.280 Because, admittedly, it was a pretty terrible weather day with freezing rain and all of that.

00:04:55.580 And then the moderator realized halfway through the question that Omar Khadr lives in Edmonton, so he's managed the cold.

00:05:01.300 So then the question just morphs into, how do you like life in Edmonton, which is a real hard-hitting question.

00:05:07.240 Other questions were, you know, how do you feel hearing about this story?

00:05:11.340 How do you feel about this?

00:05:12.860 And I was waiting, OK, maybe they're just easing into it.

00:05:15.900 Maybe they're just going to get there, and their hard-hitting questions are just around the corner.

00:05:20.040 And they never came.

00:05:21.680 And even when they started taking questions from the audience that were submitted via this app called Slido, which I downloaded,

00:05:27.980 I got the app, and I even put my questions in, and none of the questions, you could see what people were asking,

00:05:36.080 none of the questions that really dealt with the substantive portions of Omar Khadr's life were asked.

00:05:44.980 And by extension, none of them were answered.

00:05:46.880 And I'm going to talk a little bit later on in this show about what those answers would be and what those questions should have been.

00:05:58.400 And the reason for that is because we are looking at a guy who has had a red-carpet treatment ever since he came back to Canada.

00:06:08.200 And a guy who has never had to answer the tough questions, and I mentioned on a previous show that first press conference he had

00:06:18.320 in the driveway of his lawyer, Dennis Edney's house, where Dennis Edney said,

00:06:22.620 if anyone asks a question I don't like, we're taking him inside, and the media complied.

00:06:26.540 And Omar Khadr, who sat down with the Toronto Star's Michelle Shepard, and again, no critical questions.

00:06:32.480 Her main approach to it was that she had literally written a book calling him Guantanamo's child,

00:06:38.040 a book supporting Omar Khadr.

00:06:40.580 And time and time again, no difficult questions.

00:06:43.740 And it's not about a railroading of him.

00:06:45.840 It's not about ambushing him.

00:06:46.980 It's about saying, listen, you say this, what about this?

00:06:49.440 You say this, what about this?

00:06:51.060 And that's especially germane now that he's decided to become a public speaker.

00:06:56.200 He isn't just retreating into the wilderness and living his life and saying, you know,

00:07:00.160 everyone leave me alone, I want a normal life, which is what he's previously said.

00:07:03.640 He's taking the stage.

00:07:05.100 He's taking the stage.

00:07:06.280 So if you're going to answer questions, I think you have to answer genuine questions.

00:07:11.620 And I will say that the moderator of the event said at the outset,

00:07:17.120 the incident that happened in Afghanistan is off limits as far as questions are concerned,

00:07:23.220 as well as any questions about his settlement with the government.

00:07:26.400 Now she said this after saying, and I quote,

00:07:29.080 quote, we want you to ask hard questions, unquote.

00:07:33.520 She said, you can ask about the difference between victims and perpetrators.

00:07:37.020 You can ask about child soldier versus terrorists, all of these things.

00:07:40.600 But you can't ask about the incident that happened in Afghanistan.

00:07:45.620 Now the incident in question is, of course, the firefight that killed Sergeant Christopher Spear

00:07:50.420 and injured Lane Morris.

00:07:51.420 That incident has had pretty long-term implications for a number of people in the United States

00:07:57.520 and by extension in the West.

00:07:59.960 And the incident that happened, you can't ask about.

00:08:05.980 Okay, well, if you can't ask the guy that you're holding up as a child soldier

00:08:09.760 about his most well-known battle, to use that narrative,

00:08:15.460 why on earth are you saying that he's answering questions?

00:08:18.520 He's not answering any questions.

00:08:19.980 And she did address Christopher Spear, by the way.

00:08:22.820 He was mentioned by name earlier on in her remarks.

00:08:26.840 And she said that he was killed by a grenade allegedly thrown by Omar Khadr.

00:08:33.300 Her word, allegedly.

00:08:34.760 He's been convicted.

00:08:35.740 It's a matter of fact.

00:08:37.080 It's a matter of law.

00:08:38.680 Raise judicata is the answer to this. 0.99

00:08:41.200 It's already been adjudicated.

00:08:42.620 He's done this.

00:08:43.720 So to say, well, allegedly.

00:08:45.740 And there was a snideness in that.

00:08:49.400 And there was no live stream of this that the veterans outside could have seen.

00:08:53.500 But I can only imagine their response to this.

00:08:56.060 And I want to play one of the clips from one of the veterans that I spoke with in particular.

00:09:00.660 This is a gentleman by the name of Frank McLeod.

00:09:03.080 And I'll let you hear for yourself what he thought about this.

00:09:07.500 My name is Frank McLeod.

00:09:08.560 And I'm just here to show my disappointment with the Canadian people. 0.98

00:09:11.820 What is the source of the disappointment?

00:09:14.640 How they, how Canada's react to basically, what do you want to call them, terrorists.

00:09:22.260 And we're soft on it.

00:09:23.620 What do we got, 60 ISIS fighters now in Canada?

00:09:26.460 But yet our government doesn't look after our veterans?

00:09:29.040 Come on.

00:09:29.860 We're not asking for much.

00:09:31.000 We're just asking to be looked after.

00:09:32.200 And to be acknowledged for what we've done.

00:09:36.400 Because right now it's the opposite.

00:09:38.140 And you're a veteran yourself?

00:09:39.200 Yes, I am.

00:09:39.640 Where did you serve?

00:09:40.560 I served in Syria.

00:09:42.060 I served in Bosnia.

00:09:43.500 And I'm from Germany.

00:09:44.880 Thank you for your service.

00:09:45.880 Thank you.

00:09:46.640 If all of the things that you want as a veteran were looked after, would it bother you, those

00:09:51.720 things that you just cited?

00:09:52.840 Or is it, is it the either or that you're finding troubling?

00:09:55.340 No, it's not the either or.

00:09:57.160 It's just, it's a lack of respect for our service members that have gone over.

00:10:02.260 And we still have service members over there.

00:10:04.000 You know, men and women that are, put the uniform on and go.

00:10:06.340 And then when they come home, they get looked down upon.

00:10:08.800 You know, it's just, it's not the fact that it's one or the other.

00:10:12.960 It's just the fact that he has, our government has multi-millions of dollars for terrorists

00:10:18.540 and other companies and stuff.

00:10:20.260 But yet veterans are asking for too much.

00:10:22.260 Thank you, Kimmel.

00:10:22.920 Well, when you embrace that issue, I have to ask, is the Omar Khadr frustration specific

00:10:27.980 to Omar Khadr having this platform?

00:10:30.200 Or is it really symbolic of these other grievances that you're citing?

00:10:33.100 No, it's about, it's about what he did and how he did it.

00:10:39.060 Child soldiers.

00:10:40.160 We've all met them.

00:10:41.140 We've all worked with them.

00:10:42.600 We've seen them, what they do and all that.

00:10:44.580 You don't stand there with a hand to pull a string and with hands on it that you cut

00:10:48.380 off and be proud of the fact.

00:10:50.080 You know, it's just not, that's not the way it's supposed to be.

00:10:53.300 And I think of all the people that served in the United States and imagine if the roles

00:10:58.420 were reversed here and the U.S. were honoring someone who killed a Canadian soldier, the

00:11:03.800 outcry, and justifiably so.

00:11:05.440 And, you know, there has been some outcry from Americans over this, but even that has not

00:11:10.360 really dampened any of the Canadian response to Omar Khadr from the media, from the government,

00:11:16.040 all of these things.

00:11:16.600 I find now that they treat them as a rock star.

00:11:20.260 I know many men who are brave and women that are served and they come home and they look

00:11:24.200 down upon.

00:11:24.800 Like, why is a known terrorist looked upon as a rock star and a guy that serves or a

00:11:29.420 woman look down upon when they come home? 1.00

00:11:31.820 You know, even our government does it to us all the time.

00:11:33.860 Every time you ask, you know, try to get something, DVA.

00:11:36.700 It's deny, deny, then you die.

00:11:38.800 That's our motto with them, unfortunately.

00:11:42.140 You know, it's just, it's a slap in the face.

00:11:44.860 It really is.

00:11:45.540 When you look at Canadians that, like yourself, Canadians in uniform that have fought for freedom,

00:11:51.160 do you think that includes the right for Omar Khadr to speak here?

00:11:54.040 Yes, very much so.

00:11:56.040 So this isn't about shutting him down?

00:11:57.720 No, no.

00:11:57.920 It's not about uninviting?

00:11:58.800 It's not about us telling, we do not feel that he has to be brought up as a rock star

00:12:04.980 sort of thing or out here to talk about child soldiers and all that.

00:12:08.320 You can talk, go ahead, but we don't agree with what you're saying because we're from

00:12:12.060 the other side of the fence.

00:12:13.120 We're the guys that they were trying to kill with IEDs and stuff, you know?

00:12:16.980 So it's just, we just don't think it's correct.

00:12:21.360 Now, like I said, I genuinely wanted to hear what people thought.

00:12:25.240 Those who were supporting Khadr, those who were against Khadr, those who genuinely didn't

00:12:30.100 know.

00:12:30.500 And there were a few of those.

00:12:31.720 What I found most baffling is how few people wanted to talk about what they were doing there.

00:12:37.380 Now, maybe it was just the weather.

00:12:38.540 Like I said, freezing rain.

00:12:39.800 It was a crappy day outside, but no one wanted to answer any questions.

00:12:44.660 And by the way, I'm, contrary to popular belief, I'm not a terrifying person.

00:12:48.800 I'm actually very easygoing and convivial with these sorts of things because I genuinely

00:12:53.240 enjoy having conversations.

00:12:55.240 And I'd say to people, hey, you know, do you want to talk about what you're doing here?

00:12:59.040 Hey, do you have any thoughts about why you're at this event?

00:13:01.960 Hey, what do you think about child soldiers?

00:13:04.380 No one wanted to talk.

00:13:06.220 And I don't know if it's because they don't know why they're there, because they're embarrassed

00:13:09.440 that they're there, because they just don't want to end up being a punchline if they say

00:13:13.500 the wrong thing.

00:13:14.060 I don't know.

00:13:14.880 I don't know why.

00:13:15.580 But people would not talk about what they were doing there, which was very disappointing

00:13:20.340 because these are the people that were cheering him and ultimately giving Omar Khadr a standing

00:13:26.620 ovation.

00:13:28.220 This is that clip of the end of the event.

00:13:30.020 Now, video recording was not allowed, and I obliged until the very end because the event

00:13:35.080 was over at that point.

00:13:36.140 And this was the response.

00:13:37.820 When they closed things up, Omar Khadr got a standing ovation.

00:13:53.400 This is not his first standing ovation, by the way.

00:13:55.780 He also got one on To Le Monde en Parle, that Radio Canada show on which he appeared.

00:14:00.880 But this is a guy who, I don't think I've ever had a standing ovation before, and he

00:14:05.320 gets two of them after killing a soldier.

00:14:07.680 Now, talk about the real injustice in this all, in jest, of course.

00:14:10.980 But here's one of the people that I did speak with that was able to say what they thought

00:14:16.640 about Omar Khadr being there.

00:14:19.380 This guy seemed like an academic, the way he talked about imperialism and the empire and

00:14:23.540 all of that.

00:14:24.180 But we had a reasonable enough conversation.

00:14:26.380 I'm not there to railroad people.

00:14:27.700 I'm there to highlight what they think.

00:14:29.840 Here's that clip.

00:14:30.460 I'm just really glad to see that Omar Khadr is kind of having a platform to talk a little

00:14:36.880 bit about his experience as a child soldier and, yeah, kind of hear what he's got to say.

00:14:41.700 Now, you say child soldier.

00:14:42.860 A lot of people say terrorist.

00:14:44.120 How do you square those two?

00:14:45.360 Well, I mean, the people who say that he's a terrorist are just wrong.

00:14:48.200 I mean, he's factually a child soldier.

00:14:50.560 But he was in Al-Qaeda on the battlefield, killed an American soldier.

00:14:54.600 How is that not terrorism? 0.58

00:14:56.340 Well, it's not terrorism because he was in Afghanistan and America was an invading army

00:15:01.580 at the time against a country that hadn't declared war against America.

00:15:05.760 So America is an invading army in that context.

00:15:08.480 Now, there are a number of veterans out here that say Omar Khadr having a platform dishonours

00:15:12.760 their sacrifice.

00:15:13.640 What's your message to them?

00:15:14.900 Oh, it doesn't.

00:15:15.500 I think that there's a structure at play here that's bigger than what an individual did.

00:15:21.300 And to think that a child, a 15-year-old, could somehow come to signify the entirety of

00:15:26.100 the history of imperialism that soldiers themselves have been sort of treated as pawns in, I think

00:15:32.920 it makes light of the entirety of the situation.

00:15:35.940 So do you see them as equivalent then, the Canadian and American soldiers and Omar Khadr in that case?

00:15:41.220 It's not that I see them as equivalent.

00:15:42.620 I think they're quite different.

00:15:43.580 One of the biggest differences is that a soldier is a grown adult who makes a conscious, informed

00:15:48.000 decision to do what he or she is choosing to do.

00:15:51.000 They decide to go to war.

00:15:52.880 A child soldier, by definition, does not decide to go to war.

00:15:56.280 You know, they're organised into it.

00:15:58.620 So he's a victim in that context then?

00:16:00.700 He's a victim, yeah.

00:16:01.380 Do you think that it is that black and white, though?

00:16:04.100 Or do you think there is a middle ground between terrorist and victim?

00:16:07.000 It's precisely that it isn't black and white is the point that I'm trying to make.

00:16:10.560 That you can't just look at a child and define that child as a terrorist or not a terrorist.

00:16:16.920 They're a human being that is a product of generations of empire.

00:16:21.960 So even for people that are going there to support Omar Khadr, I don't think they got

00:16:27.760 anything of substance out of this except for being able to say, I saw Omar Khadr on stage.

00:16:34.440 And that's my big frustration with this event is that there was nothing.

00:16:37.900 I mean, even for me going in as somewhat of a sceptic, there's very little to take away

00:16:43.240 because he didn't say anything.

00:16:45.020 And I don't even put the blame squarely on Omar Khadr for that, by the way.

00:16:48.560 He was not put in a situation where he had to answer any questions.

00:16:52.660 You know, I want to read some of the questions that were put to Omar Khadr in the app that

00:16:59.040 were never actually asked.

00:17:00.400 And there were some questions that were very reasonable questions in here that I would have

00:17:04.880 loved to have heard answers to.

00:17:06.280 Some of them were just hilarious.

00:17:08.520 This is one who says,

00:17:10.040 As a fellow Canadian citizen, I want to apologize for how the Canadian government treated you

00:17:14.100 and abandoning you for those 10 years.

00:17:16.220 So some people are just there to get their fan mail in.

00:17:20.120 But someone says,

00:17:21.140 Is there a specific age or mentality that makes someone a child soldier?

00:17:25.900 Someone else asks,

00:17:27.700 Many Canadians feel enormous sympathy for you, but less so for your parents.

00:17:31.520 Can you please speak about your own feelings about your parents?

00:17:34.700 I think that's a very good question.

00:17:36.440 My question that I put in the app,

00:17:37.900 What's your message to the families of soldiers killed by IEDs in Afghanistan?

00:17:43.400 Another question that was put forward in the app that I thought was a very positive one

00:17:48.100 or could have been a very positive one.

00:17:50.180 Do you have resentment towards the people who put you to war or have you found forgiveness for them?

00:17:55.600 Now, I don't know if it's a question of forgiveness, but does he resent his family?

00:18:00.300 And this is where you get into what I think is the most critical contradiction in the Omar Khadr

00:18:06.860 as a victim narrative, which is his relationship with his family.

00:18:10.980 If you accept he's a victim, you have to be a victim of something or a victim of someone.

00:18:16.200 It's not just about being a victim of circumstance.

00:18:19.060 Omar Khadr, if you view him as a victim, was a victim of his family.

00:18:23.680 His father was an Al-Qaeda financier.

00:18:25.960 His mother's a radical.

00:18:27.440 His older sister's a radical.

00:18:28.760 So, he was a victim of them if he was a victim of anyone.

00:18:33.280 Yet, that same family, he fought tooth and nail to have more access to.

00:18:38.880 His father is dead, but he wanted unsupervised access to his sister.

00:18:43.320 He wanted to be able to visit her.

00:18:45.060 He wanted to be able to go to Saudi Arabia.

00:18:47.200 He wanted to have closer connections with his family.

00:18:50.280 If your family is the reason that you were put through what you describe as the worst experience

00:18:56.800 of your life, why would you actively and fervently fight to be closer to that family?

00:19:05.680 And I get that family dynamics are complicated, but you cannot say that you've moved beyond

00:19:11.860 radicalism if you are not prepared to answer the questions about your relationship with your

00:19:18.100 family, your view of your family, and if you are not prepared to denounce your family's

00:19:24.140 ties to radicalism, which are undisputed.

00:19:28.720 They're undisputed.

00:19:29.680 His father was in bin Laden's inner circle.

00:19:32.240 He was a financier.

00:19:33.320 His sister has said that Omar Khadr is great because he killed the soldier and most parents

00:19:40.020 should be fortunate to have a child that's going to do that.

00:19:42.880 She said that in an interview, by the way.

00:19:45.200 She's also said bin Laden is a great guy.

00:19:47.760 Al-Qaeda has a mission. 0.99

00:19:49.600 So these are the people that were surrounding him when he ended up getting embroiled in

00:19:55.820 the world of terror, yet they're also the people that he is still surrounding himself

00:20:00.960 with now.

00:20:02.720 And that was not a question worth asking when Omar Khadr took the stage at Dalhousie University.

00:20:10.320 That was not a question worth asking.

00:20:12.860 I don't know how.

00:20:14.180 I don't know how that's not.

00:20:15.320 How is that not the first question?

00:20:17.760 And you know, Omar Khadr comes off as a very charming guy.

00:20:21.240 He comes across as very meek in many respects.

00:20:24.380 In fact, Ezra Levant ended up just by fluke being on the same airplane as Khadr from Toronto

00:20:30.340 to Edmonton and didn't notice it until the end.

00:20:33.700 And so Ezra went and tried to talk to him at the airport.

00:20:36.180 And his first response is, do you want a selfie?

00:20:39.060 And wouldn't take questions.

00:20:40.140 He just kept smiling, stone-faced, didn't say anything, didn't respond, didn't engage.

00:20:45.480 And this is a guy who, again, on stage, comes across as just very mild and unassuming.

00:20:51.780 And he said something.

00:20:54.300 He said something that I really found positive at the end.

00:20:57.560 He said, you know, I'll talk to anyone.

00:20:59.580 I'll have a conversation with anyone.

00:21:01.020 He said, even people that are critical of me, they are doing it from a place of pain.

00:21:05.640 And we can find some understanding.

00:21:07.480 I'll talk to anyone.

00:21:08.300 Well, talk to me.

00:21:10.100 Talk to me.

00:21:10.500 Talk to someone that's going to ask difficult questions.

00:21:13.680 Because I'm actually a firm believer in second chances.

00:21:16.400 I am.

00:21:17.060 I'm a firm believer in people being able to move beyond bad things in their life.

00:21:22.620 But you have to actually move beyond them.

00:21:25.280 And I am totally willing on anywhere he wants, anywhere he wants, to sit down and have a conversation

00:21:32.360 with Omar Khadr.

00:21:33.340 That's my offer.

00:21:34.080 And ask the questions that I think are essential, like the relationship with the family, like

00:21:42.000 his true belief about what happened, like his belief on some of the geopolitical situations

00:21:48.020 that emerge, that involve Al-Qaeda, that involve radical Islam, that involve Islamic terror

00:21:52.680 and jihad.

00:21:53.620 And these are the questions that need to be answered if people are going to view him in

00:22:01.320 the way that he wants to be viewed.

00:22:04.080 I want to play a clip from my chat with Ezra Levant right after the event.

00:22:10.060 Now, Ezra, as I showed a brief little B-roll package of earlier, saw Omar Khadr at the

00:22:16.920 airport, tried to get an interview, didn't end up getting any answers out of him.

00:22:20.160 But I did speak with Ezra after the speech at Dalhousie to get his thoughts.

00:22:24.720 So, Ezra, what was it that really brought you here?

00:22:27.980 Because I know you've covered this case for years.

00:22:29.600 Well, I wanted to hear what he had to say when he was given direct access to students,

00:22:35.640 including high school students.

00:22:37.000 I wanted to hear if he was going to start recruit or propagandize, because he's never renounced

00:22:42.320 the jihad.

00:22:43.180 He's never renounced his father's terrorism.

00:22:45.320 He's never renounced his own act of murder.

00:22:48.100 So, I think he played the room like a violin.

00:22:51.440 And, I mean, they were oohing and cooing over him.

00:22:55.020 Of course, no real questions were put to him about his murder. 0.58

00:22:58.060 I mean, he's an Al-Qaeda terrorist.

00:23:01.400 The most shocking part of the day for me, of course, was coming here when I actually saw

00:23:05.040 him on an Air Canada plane.

00:23:06.220 I was shocked that he wasn't on the no-fly list.

00:23:08.660 The Air Canada pilot and flight attendant I spoke to were shocked, too.

00:23:11.900 So, I mean, listen, I think Canadians are hospitable and we're friendly. 0.98

00:23:15.960 But in this case, we're being taken for suckers. 0.78

00:23:18.580 This guy has never renounced the family business or his family, for that matter. 1.00

00:23:23.340 He's a terrorist.

00:23:23.900 So, what's the question or questions that weren't asked that you thought needed to be

00:23:27.880 asked for this to be of substance?

00:23:29.480 Well, I had a few technical questions, you know, about why he's hiding the money from

00:23:36.660 the widow and the two kids whose father he killed.

00:23:40.220 I mean, if he really is sorry, why is he going to such lengths to hide money from them?

00:23:44.240 I mean, is he sorry or not?

00:23:45.780 And is he sorry or is he not sorry and denies he ever did it and is fighting his own confession?

00:23:52.120 Second, technical questions about his conduct in Guantanamo Bay.

00:23:56.940 For example, he told guards there that killing Christopher Speer was the best day of his life. 1.00

00:24:02.940 He told a black female guard at Guantanamo Bay that she was a bitch and a slave because 1.00

00:24:08.760 he hates women, obviously, and he hates blacks, obviously. 1.00

00:24:11.520 So, these things were not done by a 15-year-old. 0.99

00:24:14.520 They were done by a 20-year-old, 21, 22, 23.

00:24:17.020 He, in fact, led the prayers in Guantanamo Bay.

00:24:21.200 He was so fundamentalist there and he fomented against the guards in Guantanamo Bay.

00:24:26.660 He revved up the other prisoners against the order in Guantanamo Bay. 0.98

00:24:31.420 So, this pretend act of contrition and meekness is just fleecing all these suckers here who love it.

00:24:39.260 So, I guess then the big question is, is there anything that he could do to turn the page on this? 0.88

00:24:45.280 Because he's saying, on that stage, that's all he wants.

00:24:48.020 He wants to just not have to feel bad when he's out in the world.

00:24:51.900 Well, Dr. Michael Wellner and others who have studied radical Islamic terrorism,

00:24:57.180 see there's three indicia for whether or not someone is really reformed or not.

00:25:02.800 One of them is religiosity.

00:25:04.720 Are they still really hardcore fundamentalist Muslims?

00:25:08.280 And, of course, with Omar Khadr, the answer is yes.

00:25:11.680 The second is, is he still associating with the people who he was running with when he committed this terrorism?

00:25:18.820 Again, the answer is yes.

00:25:20.560 Not only in person, but online.

00:25:22.560 His sister, who says that al-Qaeda is no big deal.

00:25:26.180 And the final thing is, has he actually renounced publicly the jihad?

00:25:31.360 And, again, no, he has not.

00:25:32.620 So, three indicia, he's three for three.

00:25:36.240 You know, if I try to drill down into what to take away from what Omar Khadr said, there are a few things.

00:25:44.500 Number one, he's surrounded by enablers.

00:25:47.320 He's surrounded by people that genuinely view him as a rock star and as a celebrity.

00:25:55.260 And that's not entirely his fault, by the way.

00:25:57.540 But he's surrounded by people that just want to fawn over him and protect him and build this bubble, this envelope around him and not let him answer any tough questions because these people genuinely don't think that he has anything to answer for.

00:26:11.180 These people do not believe that he has anything to answer for.

00:26:14.900 So, those people around him will always put the questions to him that are like, tell me a nice moment from your childhood.

00:26:25.000 And then Omar Khadr talked about how his dad bought him a horse.

00:26:27.620 Or how's the cold treating you?

00:26:29.580 Or how do you like Edmonton?

00:26:30.560 Or whatever the case may be.

00:26:31.640 You know, there was at one point, he was talking about why he is viewed differently than Ishmael Baia is, for example.

00:26:40.180 And the vision of a child soldier being a small African child with a gun. 0.96

00:26:46.240 And that was, again, the whole context of the event.

00:26:48.620 They're trying to say that Omar Khadr needs to be viewed in the same terms that we would view these people.

00:26:53.860 And Omar Khadr actually said something very interesting, and I actually don't disagree with it.

00:26:59.280 He said, it's hard to forgive someone when they do something that impacts you.

00:27:04.880 And he said, that's the feeling that Canadians have because an American soldier was killed.

00:27:08.920 He said, you know, Canada, America, it's all the same.

00:27:12.140 And then the moderator interjected to say Canada and the United States are not the same, especially now.

00:27:19.100 So, there is a veiled Trump reference, of course.

00:27:22.080 And then the audience loves it and hoots and hollers.

00:27:24.220 And Omar Khadr, who's just said something I agree with, responds by saying,

00:27:29.280 quote, I don't believe in borders and I don't believe in nationalities, unquote.

00:27:35.220 So, I'd say that was the only time during the evening that we got something from him

00:27:42.120 that tells us a bit about who he is and what he believes and what he feels.

00:27:46.480 I don't believe in borders and I don't believe in nationalities.

00:27:51.140 And I wonder who teaches him this?

00:27:54.200 Who teaches him this?

00:27:55.160 There was another point in the evening when someone asked him why he's speaking up now.

00:28:00.740 And he said, well, I want to do some work.

00:28:03.600 I'm trying to figure out my calling in life and I wanted a safe space to do it.

00:28:07.760 Now, here's a guy who in some situations is saying, listen, I'm still figuring out how

00:28:14.060 to navigate the world, how to interact with people, how to trust.

00:28:17.360 And then on the other hand, he's using Berkeley rhetoric.

00:28:20.560 He's talking about safe spaces, open borders, post-nationalism.

00:28:25.440 And all of these things are like, you know, I get that he likes to read, he says, but this

00:28:32.860 is what happens when you're surrounded by people that are infecting you with an agenda.

00:28:39.320 These are not things that you just come up with.

00:28:41.820 These are things that you're taught.

00:28:43.300 These are things that you're told or things that you come to learn and come to believe

00:28:46.740 based on what you're told.

00:28:48.180 And when he's talking about these sorts of things, he is becoming an activist and he's

00:28:52.640 surrounded by activists.

00:28:55.440 And that's going to be very interesting to see if he does speak out more, how that unfolds.

00:29:02.440 And on that note, there was some discussion about whether this was going to be a national

00:29:07.160 speaking tour of some kind.

00:29:08.700 And I never, I never saw that, but people were telling me they were seeing it elsewhere.

00:29:12.220 I never saw it.

00:29:13.260 My interest was in whether he was getting paid, whether Omar Khadr was getting a speaking

00:29:18.320 fee of any kind.

00:29:19.800 And I had asked the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative and didn't get a response.

00:29:24.740 I asked Dalhousie University, didn't get a response.

00:29:29.040 Eventually, I just ran a story about the fact that they weren't responding.

00:29:33.100 And that story ended up getting shared quite a bit.

00:29:36.980 And they addressed that on stage, believe it or not.

00:29:40.340 They said he's not getting a speaking fee and it's not a publicity stunt and it's not

00:29:45.800 the beginning of a larger tour.

00:29:47.840 So Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative and Dalhousie are saying this is just a one-off.

00:29:53.620 And does it matter?

00:29:54.940 If he were getting a speaking fee, would it make a difference?

00:29:57.420 I don't think it would necessarily from the context of what he's doing.

00:30:02.060 I think it would matter in the sense of a publicly funded university, Dalhousie, handing over

00:30:08.820 a check to a convicted terrorist.

00:30:10.280 I think that's the issue.

00:30:11.260 That's the question mark.

00:30:12.820 And as you saw from my interview with Frank McLeod, the veteran earlier, the issue is not

00:30:17.740 about free speech.

00:30:18.620 I'm not saying he doesn't deserve the right to speak.

00:30:22.240 No one is saying that.

00:30:23.100 Even the veterans outside, they're the first to line up and say, we defend Canadian rights.

00:30:27.620 We protect Canadian rights.

00:30:28.940 The issue is always and has always been about judgment.

00:30:34.760 The judgment in holding this guy up as a victim, holding him up as a hero.

00:30:40.320 You know, he was not just viewed by the audience as being a guy who was in the wrong place at

00:30:46.180 the wrong time, a guy who was a victim of circumstance, a victim of his family.

00:30:50.080 He was held up as a hero.

00:30:51.460 So, Romeo Dallaire, a man who has done more for peace and more for Canada than most people

00:31:00.320 I've ever met.

00:31:01.160 And I have interviewed Lieutenant General Dallaire.

00:31:04.780 Despite my disagreements with him on political issues, the guy certainly has earned the right

00:31:09.340 to say what he wants and to advocate.

00:31:11.440 And I know he's seen horrific, horrific things.

00:31:13.680 Dallaire, at the very beginning of the event, said that Cotter is a magnificent gentleman.

00:31:22.080 A magnificent gentleman.

00:31:23.780 Now, you can say many things.

00:31:26.980 And even if you don't necessarily like the idea of calling him a terrorist, is there not

00:31:35.420 a bit of a gap between terrorist and magnificent gentleman that you could probably find something

00:31:41.760 more accurate in the middle of?

00:31:45.000 Magnificent gentleman.

00:31:45.860 And that term stuck with me.

00:31:47.620 Why is he a magnificent gentleman?

00:31:49.520 Why?

00:31:50.020 If he is a victim, if he is a passenger, and if he's just some guy, some poor kid that didn't

00:31:55.420 know what was going on, and now he's out on his own free after serving his sentence, what

00:32:01.040 is magnificent about that?

00:32:02.640 What is gentlemanly about that?

00:32:04.260 So if he has done nothing, and he's just been along for the ride, why does he get any credit

00:32:13.080 for that?

00:32:15.040 Why are people so fond of him?

00:32:17.060 Again, that standing ovation.

00:32:19.080 Women in the audience, when he was talking, going, aw. 1.00

00:32:22.720 And I was waiting to do the show to share that, by the way, because I didn't know how

00:32:26.220 to tweet about that.

00:32:27.500 I didn't know if it was a sigh.

00:32:28.720 I didn't know if it was an exhale.

00:32:30.760 I didn't know if it was a whinny, so not a whinny, that's horses do whinnies. 0.98

00:32:35.440 Okay, anyway, take that part back.

00:32:37.340 But he, like, he would say something like, oh, you know, I find it hard to be myself.

00:32:41.700 And they would just go, aw.

00:32:43.600 So they're actually fans.

00:32:45.900 They're actually fans of him.

00:32:48.220 And this is a guy that has the power to do a lot.

00:32:54.120 If he does a national speaking tour, he'll sell out.

00:32:56.840 I mean, the event wasn't packed.

00:32:58.780 Part of that might have been the weather.

00:33:00.760 Certainly there was a lot of interest in it.

00:33:03.760 But the people tend to love him.

00:33:07.620 And they can't answer why.

00:33:10.540 They can't answer why.

00:33:11.680 Because if he is a victim, if he is a passenger, he's not deserving of love and fandom.

00:33:17.980 And if he's a terrorist, he's certainly not.

00:33:20.480 And even if you view somewhere in between, there were some people there that I think were

00:33:24.980 genuinely there with open minds about, oh, you know, I want to hear.

00:33:27.780 But even those people were supporters.

00:33:30.780 Those people were supporters.

00:33:32.020 They wouldn't view him as a terrorist.

00:33:34.740 There was this one woman I spoke with, for example.

00:33:36.900 Very kind.

00:33:37.560 We had a lovely interaction.

00:33:39.440 But she, despite saying she's open, she wants to listen, there's probably a real story there,

00:33:45.480 couldn't call him a terrorist.

00:33:46.500 So what brings you out to this event?

00:33:48.780 I'm really interested in hearing what he has to say.

00:33:53.240 And, you know, I was thinking there are four or five stories to everything, right?

00:33:59.960 And somewhere in between, in the middle, is the truth.

00:34:03.640 So you're not here viewing him as a terrorist or viewing him in a supportive way.

00:34:08.360 You're looking for that in between?

00:34:10.500 I'm just interested in what he did.

00:34:13.160 And our government gave $10.3 million to him.

00:34:18.760 I just know.

00:34:20.020 I don't consider him a terrorist.

00:34:22.480 I'm just, I'm open.

00:34:24.060 I just really want to hear him.

00:34:26.960 What would you like to hear him say?

00:34:28.320 Oh, my gosh.

00:34:32.600 The truth.

00:34:34.160 And maybe he's already said the truth.

00:34:36.860 But, yeah, just where he's coming from.

00:34:43.700 Just the truth.

00:34:45.040 And I think that was true of a lot of the people.

00:34:47.520 I won't play every single interaction I did because a lot of them were very similar to one another.

00:34:52.360 I've tried to show you a cross-section of the people I spoke with, the veterans,

00:34:56.520 the people with open minds, the supporters, and all of that.

00:35:00.280 But that is genuinely what you're dealing with here.

00:35:04.480 And I think if it's important to you that Omar Khadr is speaking,

00:35:09.480 you have to either decide what you think he did or what you think it represents

00:35:16.780 or what you want to hear from him now or what you think he needs to do, all of these things.

00:35:22.140 And I'm not sure that introspection was being done.

00:35:24.860 I think people have just decided they support him and he's on stage.

00:35:29.400 And it's like if Michael Buble comes to town, you may not like his new album,

00:35:33.400 but you like Michael Buble and he can sing whatever he wants and you'll go there.

00:35:37.140 And I think that was the same thing here.

00:35:38.980 I think Omar Khadr, they don't even know what the latest album is,

00:35:42.400 but they've decided they like him.

00:35:43.760 So they're going to get a ticket to the show.

00:35:45.400 And that was what happened.

00:35:46.580 Now, I do have to say, I support free speech.

00:35:50.140 And I'm glad that the event was not disrupted for whatever grievances I have with Omar Khadr,

00:35:58.100 that the way you settle those is not by taking away someone's right to free speech, in my view.

00:36:02.560 And I also have to say that the Romeo de la R child soldiers initiative does a lot of really important work.

00:36:07.720 They do.

00:36:08.220 So my issue is with viewing Omar Khadr as a child soldier.

00:36:13.540 And the Romeo de la R child soldiers initiative, they were very good with me.

00:36:17.000 They knew who I was.

00:36:17.820 They knew where I was from.

00:36:19.080 When I showed up in the cold, soaking wet, they said, oh, here's your media badge.

00:36:23.240 Come on in.

00:36:23.660 We'll bring you to the media seat.

00:36:24.760 So they were not at all trying to stop me from doing my job.

00:36:28.600 Now, in true Ezra Levant fashion, they did try to stop Ezra from going in,

00:36:32.120 but eventually he won, which I don't think he was expecting, but he did get in.

00:36:38.380 And I'm glad he was able to chat with us after about that.

00:36:41.520 So I want to share just a few final thoughts on this before I close out today's show,

00:36:46.820 because it would be great if I could show you the video of the event and say,

00:36:51.680 you know, here's when he said this, here's when he said this.

00:36:53.700 I can't do that.

00:36:54.580 No videography was allowed.

00:36:55.840 The only clip that I got was that little bit about the standing ovation,

00:37:01.440 which I think says more than a lot of the clips of the event itself could, frankly.

00:37:08.320 It's not about hatred of Omar Khadr as a person.

00:37:13.020 If he were just to say, I want to live my life, as he has said, and he were to do that,

00:37:18.680 I don't think it's fair to track him down, bang on his door and say, you need to answer for this.

00:37:24.880 In the eyes of the law, he's walking free.

00:37:28.620 I do think it is incredibly fair when he injects himself into public discourse,

00:37:35.180 when he injects himself into a public discussion to ask questions.

00:37:40.000 And I think it's profoundly dangerous for an organization, for people to say,

00:37:48.540 we're going to ask the hard questions and then not permit any of those questions,

00:37:52.740 to not ask any of these questions.

00:37:54.880 You can ask tough questions.

00:37:56.500 You can ask challenging questions in a way that is diplomatic,

00:37:59.640 in a way that is sensitive, in a way that doesn't threaten a safe space.

00:38:02.940 But they didn't do that.

00:38:04.540 I'd say the hardest question, you know, I don't even know the hardest question, actually.

00:38:09.000 I'd say the hardest questions were the ones that weren't asked, the ones that were never posed.

00:38:16.220 That one question that was up on the, the one that I love, I'd say is the easiest question.

00:38:20.960 Where do you find the patience and generosity to face the hypocrisy of your critics?

00:38:25.740 I hope you have found peace, brother.

00:38:28.260 And that was a question that had more thumbs up in the question app than, than most other questions did.

00:38:35.880 So certainly that was the audience there.

00:38:37.780 That was the audience.

00:38:38.900 They were there because they supported him.

00:38:40.660 They liked him.

00:38:41.300 They wanted to hear from him.

00:38:42.880 And at the end of it, if you're a Canadian veteran, you are quite literally out in the cold.

00:38:49.800 I want to thank everyone who supported this, who supported this fully crowdfunded effort to send my videographer and I to Halifax.

00:38:57.900 We had a great time talking to people and more importantly, covering a story that the mainstream media really didn't and didn't cover in a way that had any skepticism.

00:39:06.620 So all of you who chipped into that, we really appreciate it.

00:39:09.040 And to the people that agreed to chat with me and the one woman who gave me the finger and the other three that called me racist, thanks to you as well.

00:39:15.500 Because there's nothing better than being in the freezing cold and being called a racist.

00:39:19.280 So thanks very much for that.

00:39:20.760 We'll talk to you later this week with more of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:39:24.020 Thank you.

00:39:24.460 God bless.

00:39:24.880 And from Halifax, good day, Canada.

00:39:26.540 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:39:29.060 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - February 11, 2020

Standing Ovation for a Terrorist (feat. Ezra Levant)

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