The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hack hit Clinton campaign,
Fallen fighter’s dad: ‘You have sacrificed nothing and no one.’
Khizr Khan lost his son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, to the war in Iraq more than a decade ago.
Thursday night, he shared his grief, and the story of his son’s sacrifice, at the Democratic National Convention in an emotional rebuke of Donald Trump’s immigra- tion proposals and his ideas on religious tolerance.
It was a moment that for many of the thousands of people at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia — and the millions more watching it elsewhere — was the night’s most memorable.
“Donald Trump, you’re asking Americans to trust you with their future,” said Khan, a Muslim who immigrated from the United Arab Emirates when his son was 2. “Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution?”
Then, to cheers, he pulled out a pocket edition.
“I will gladly lend you my copy,” he said.
Trump has called for a ban on Muslim immigrants to the U.S. And if it were up to the Republican presidential nominee, Khan told the audience, his son would never have had the opportunity to serve his country. Khan, who lives in Charlottesville, Va., went on to ask Trump if he had ever visited Arlington National Cemetery.
“Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending United States of America,” he said. “You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities.”
“You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”
Clinton told Khan’s story in a Dec. 15 speech after Trump, then competing for the Republican nomination, said he would seek to bar Muslim immigrants if he were elected.
“If you want to see the best of America, you need look no further than Army Capt. Humayun Khan,” she said.
Khan, who grew up in suburban Maryland, was killed in June 2004 by a car bomb near Baquba, Iraq. He had told his fellow soldiers to stay away from the suspicious vehicle. He approached it, and it exploded.
Khan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
“Hillary Clinton was right when she called my son the best of America,” Khan said Thursday.
Trump, he said, “consistently smears the character of Muslims.”
The speech was greeted with a standing ovation.
Some conservatives said they were moved by Khan.
Erick Erickson, a former editor of the website Red State and a critic of Trump, posted a clip of the speech on Twitter, adding that Republicans should “be ashamed” of nominating Trump for president.
John Podhoretz, editor of the magazine Commentary, echoed that sentiment on Twitter, and Meghan McCain, the daughter of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called it the “most powerful speech” of the Democratic convention.