‘Mob’ rules

Re: Releasing Omar Khadr Would Be An Insult To Our Soldiers, letters to the editor, May 4. Letter-writer Ian V. Macdonald’s response to the question about whether Omar Khadr should be released on bail, is convoluted and puzzling. Macdonald suggests that Khadr was “defending his home from a horrendous, unprovoked attack” and ends his soliloquy by stating that, “lethal force is permitted for selfpreservation, with no questions asked when one’s home is invaded.”

That’s strange. I was under the impression that “his home” was (unfortunately) Canada. That being said, I agree with Macdonald, in that I have no problem with Khadr being released, as long as he is sent back to his “home” — Afghanistan.

David Honigsberg, Toronto. I half expected today’s newspaper to spontaneously combust as I read the letters concerning Omar Khadr’s potential release on bail. These people are really angry.

According to your letter writers, Khadr is a “terrorist” who “should be jailed for life”; his citizenship should be revoked; he is “irreversibly evil”; “the personification of treasonous, unrepentant, driven evil”; and “a convicted war criminal.” Apparently, he “should not be entitled to any civil rights,” he and his family should be stripped of their citizenship and deported, in the view of one reader, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “executive privilege.” Well, so much for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the judicial branch.

One letter writer says the fact that Khadr was 15 years old at the time and following his father means nothing since “he was not conscripted to fight against his will.” Would this reader feel the same if a 15-year-old claimed to have had consen- sual sex with a 35-year-old? Or would this letter writer say the child could not knowingly have consented to the act, especially if led to it by someone in a position of authority and influence, such as a father? Of course not. This reader would consider the child blameless. That’s why we have laws to protect children: we believe they are not capable of making certain choices freely. Thank God we also have laws to protect us from the mob!

Bill Kerson, Toronto.