Thomas Jocelyn and Captain McCarthy on Omar Khadr

Over at the Weekly Standard, Thomas Jocelyn of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has this piece on the repatriation to Canada of Omar Khadr. Jocelyn is angry over the myths the international left has generated about the Khadr case, and I sympathize with him on that point. His brief piece is basically an exercise in myth-busting about Khadr's case, with which I have no quarrel. There is, however, some implication in Jocelyn's piece that Khadr is an irredeemable terrorist, though---to be fair---Jocelyn never says this. To the extent the reader may come away with that impression, I commend the reader to the testimony of Captain Patrick McCarthy at Khadr's sentencing---a transcript of which is available here. Capt. McCarthy had served as Staff Judge Advocate General for JTF-GTMO and, in that capacity, had dealt with Khadr a lot. He came away favorably impressed with him---believing he was not especially radical, acted as a constructive presence in the detention camps---a voice Capt. McCarthy could talk to about problems between the detainees and the guard force---and that he had probably been greatly influenced by his family in his activities in Afghanistan. Capt. McCarthy came away with the impression that that Khadr was rehabilitatable. I know Capt. McCarthy slightly and don't consider him in any sense a softy. His word carries a lot of weight with me, actually, and his willingness to testify as a defense witness for Khadr means a lot. This is not to say that Jocelyn is wrong. He isn't: Khadr is a confessed murderer and terrorist. But the story is at least a little more complicated than that. He was very young at the time of those actions, and his actions since suggest some growth. I urge readers to consider both Jocelyn's points and Capt. McCarthy's.