Talk:Ahmed Khadr

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Former good article nomineeAhmed Khadr was a History good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 9, 2008Good article nomineeNot listed



Untitled[edit]

"Khadr immigrated to Canada from Egypt in 1997." doesn't sound right.iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 22:07, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Apparently I wrote that originally. I must have meant 1977, because I was working from CBC sources, probably this timeline, which claims 1977. --Saforrest 20:49, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes[edit]

Wanted to address some recent changes, because while the family may dispute them - I'd be interested in why they were removed entirely.

In 2001, Khadr and his family attended the wedding of bin Laden's son, Muhammad, a friendly gesture which bin Laden reciprocated when he later attended the wedding of Khadr's daughter Zaynab. - all sources indicate this is true, no? In fact it gets mentioned often, whenever the papers talk about the Khadrs - I can't think of any reason we shouldn't explain the incident.
Khadr was killed in South Waziristan on 2 October 2003 when the Pakistani army launched a counter-terrorism operation against the East Turkestan Islamic Movement's presence on the Afghan border. - right now has been reduced to the place and date, I think the context is important - even if the wording is fixed, so that readers know if he was shot, killed by a bomb being dropped on a house, run over by a truck, killed by a criminal, by an army, etc.
"an associate of Osama bin Laden", while I agree "terrorist leader" might be disputed or incorrect - isn't it fair to address the fact that the Khadr family *were* associates of bin Laden? We wouldn't have an article on this man if he were just a computer engineer in an NGO, he is notable and newsworthy because of his connection to UBL.
In addition, the section on the Mahdi Army I believe should be left in, though perhaps re-worded. It is important that the information exists, even if it is simply "fear-mongering" or "jumping to conclusions" by the National Post - we should still say that the National Post reported it, not that it's true.

Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 01:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Well to answer you Q's I say:

- UBL may have attended my wedding but no one from my family ever attended his sons wedding.

- We did not belong or live amongs the ETIM, and so it would seem strang for the Pakistani army to launch an attack ment for them on the house that had my father. As for the way he was killed, we know there was a fire fight as well as air missiles.

- We were acquaintances, but never associates of UBL, and that is where the misconceptions accrue.

- The section about the Mahdi Army has no truth to it, and so I did not see a reason to keep it.

(Zaynab Khadr 04:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Alright, well I think it's important to address the points the media accuses, even if it's to say "The National Post reported that..., a charge which is disputed by the family who point out that...". People come to the article because they've heard the charges in the media, so if there's absolutely no mention here, they'll assume the article is either incomplete or whitewashed - it is much better to address each point the media has levelled against the family. As for the firefight, was it the Pakistani Army? ISI? Unknown? Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 23:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well I guess you have a point, I don't like all the lies and I can't respond to all of them, but I'd like to see thier sources first. As for the firefight, it was the Pakistani army + personal from the US army, I remember my brother Abdulkareem clearly saying he could see and hear some Americans.

(Zaynab Khadr 15:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Letter by A.S. Khadr?[edit]

http://clearinghouse.infovlad.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=457&stc=1&d=1200652963

From around 1999. Anybody recognize the signature?

209.121.88.198 (talk) 10:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HCI/Sudan/Truck[edit]

This article (admittedly quite biased) alleges that the Sudanese Zawahiri-follower involved with the Embassy Bombing and living with the Khadr family at the time he purchased a truck used in the bombing...was actually either a "suitor" or married to Zaynab at the time. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 22:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discrepency[edit]

Michael Scheuer's book "Through Our Enemy's Eyes" (pp. 217) lists an "August 29, 2000" arrest of ASK by ISI forces in relation to the embassy bombing. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 20:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

arts[edit]

1. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) Chretien questions Bhutto about jailed Canadian : Khadr, an aid worker, is suspected of bombings Bob Cox; The Record; Jan 15, 1996; pg. B.3; 2. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) Canadian charged in bomb attack By Theresa Boyle Toronto Star; Toronto Star; Jan 5, 1996; pg. A.20; 3. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) Bombing suspect pins `last hope' on Chretien `I am a hostage,' Canadian held in Pakistan attack tells The Star By Michelle Huang SPECIAL TO THE STAR; Toronto Star; Dec 30, 1995; pg. A.1; 4. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) Ontario man said to be only bombing suspect Toronto Star; Dec 18, 1995; pg. A.13; 5. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) Canadian held in Pakistan bombing Relief worker arrested after blast kills 16 at Egyptian embassy By Theresa Boyle Toronto Star; Toronto Star; Dec 15, 1995; pg. A.1; 6. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) WORLD DIGEST The Hamilton Spectator; May 4, 1992; pg. A.3; 7. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) Worker seeks aid for Afghan kids Bill Taylor Toronto Star; Toronto Star; Oct 10, 1989; pg. A.2; 8. Preview (Abstract/Citation) Full Text (No Photos) 'Pretty toys' maiming Afghan kids Soviet troops disguise mines Canadian says Jack Cahill Toronto Star; Toronto Star; Sep 25, 1986; pg. A.15; Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 22:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Errors of fact[edit]

"On August 29 [2000] Pakistani security officials arrested Abdel Rahman al-Kanadi for his role in the EIJ's 1995 bombing of Egypt's embassy in Pakistan. When arrested, al-Kanadi carried a Canadian passport and was chief of the NGO Human Concern International's office in Peshawar. Mahjub and al-Kanadi are being held pending possible extradition to Egypt", excerpted from Michael Scheuer's "Through Our Enemies' Eyes" (page 217)...seems to be rubbish. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 01:41, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Random leads[edit]

Hasan Mahsum may have also been killed in the attack Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 07:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Fail[edit]

  • After a couple of days of thought, I have reluctantly decided to fail the GA nom, further comments here. Ling.Nut (talkWP:3IAR) 06:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Errors[edit]

On page 66, Ghost Plane mistakenly identifies ASK as a "Syrian-Canadian". Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 07:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Financial Times names him as Ilyas al-Kanadi Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 22:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CTV can't tell their arse from a hole in the ground, and similarly can't tell 3/1 from 1/3, and reported that he was born on January 3, not March 1.(Passchier, Lorraine. CTV, "Links to global terror surface in Canada", October 10, 2001) Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 20:24, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stewart Bell, who should know better, calls him "Abderraouf Khadr" in the index to his 2005 "Martyr's Oath" book. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 19:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Introduction[edit]

This is one of the poorest and most tedious of the Wikipedia introductions I have ever read on Wikipedia and contains so much unnecessary information, whereas an introduction should be basic resumé of an individual. This introduction deserves a complete rewrite concentrating on just who Ahmed Said Khadr is. As for pro and con subjective ideas, for example whether he liked or disliked Canada and what politicians thought about him is totally out of place. Proabbly these can be discussed further down I guess. werldwayd (talk) 03:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to clean it up some - but I think the fact his "legacy" is hotly disputed in Canada - which is all he's really known for, that he is a hot-button issue, has to be dealt with on some level. Let me know what else needs cleaning up, btw use {{Intro-too long}} in the future for this kind of thing - it's more specific for uninvolved readers to come contribute and help. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 04:07, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally an introduction should be a resume of the individual with a minimum of quotations and subjective opinions, or references to substantiate these allegations or defense of the individual. The ontro spends too much time on alleged opinions, and totally loses th focus it needs to have, whereas his body of work as well as his death in a firefight get just a vague and almost insignificant one or two sentences. I simply don't have the time to do this immense work myself on this page. I sympathized so much with his son Abdulkareem Khadr who I saw in one of the rallies when he came in his wheelchair to take part in a rally for his detained brother's defense and expressed. So I exprssed a kind word or two to him personally, and that's the reason I wanted to clean-up his page to make it real worthy of this fine young gentleman that I saw. This seemed to have angered you based on your message on my page after just a few necessary edits and removal of what I thought was an insignificant rabit story that didn't stick and had no relevance whatsoever, or so I thought. I can just imagine what would happen if I tried to clean-up this particular article that is hundred times more complex and thorny than that one which was just straightforward really. So I express my misgivings of how stuffed this article is. How much stuffed? Take this single fact in "His Charitable Works" section: Quote: Around 1990, Ahmed found The Adventures of Tintin, a favourite book of his childhood, at an Islamabad marketplace and purchased it for his children.[16] Unquote... So? He bought a book in a marketplace. What does it have to do with his charity work, where this utterly out-of-the-blue sentence is inserted. Just how signifucant its purchase is for the Khadr story? I digress.. and leave it to more patient editors to tackle it so that it becomes worthy of a true encyclopedic and neutral article that it should be werldwayd (talk) 06:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem with removing large chunks, for example the rabbit story on Abdulkareem's page, is that it leaves only the "negative" aspects - for example you proposed that we should change (paraphrase) "as a child, Abdulkareem once hung off the leg of Zawahiri, begging him to play with him and let him touch his gun" to "Abdulkareem has met the leaders of al-Qaeda" - see how it suddenly got much more sinister? If we are writing a biography of a person, why are we including the fact "He hated Jews" but leaving out the fact "He was drawn towards Buddhism in his later years" - is it relevant to understanding somebody to know which religion he died? Yet we err on the side of providing too much detail, rather than too little - so long as the extraneous information we are leaving in does not represent libel, fringe theories or contain specific harm. Is Ahmed Khadr's favourite childhood book relevant? As relevant as his meeting Zawahiri as the two volunteered as the same charity hospital? They weren't meeting to swap ideas for killing puppies, they were just volunteering at the same local hospital - is it relevant who else he met there? Most, if not all, of what exists about Khadr is innuendo - "he was a close friend of X" - how close is close? Should this article clarify how he knew these people, or just say "He was friends with Zawahiri"? It seems to me better to always give the exact information (for example, "He worked in the same hospital as Zawahiri") and let readers draw their own conclusions whether they were friends, colleagues, comrades or buddies - rather than saying "He was friends/colleagues/comrades/buddies with al-Qaeda leaders". If you can make a list of the words in the article you find objectionable, we can start examining each one, see which ones should truly be tossed and replaced. Thank you. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 06:41, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clean-up, re-write, etc etc.[edit]

I think this has been mentioned before, but the introduction is far too lengthy. I think two paragraphs would suffice - can we not incorporate the other two into the text somehow? The fourth paragraph is particularly important and needs to be retained, but I question the necessity of the third - it's essentially made up of material from elsewhere in the article - how much do we really need to reveal about him initially? Are there guidelines or policies pertinent to this?

Also, it appears that a large proportion of data about his early life is sourved from only one (or at the most, two) different locations. In fact, the entirety of the "early life" section has only ONE source for its extremely comprehensive biography. I presume this kind of information is quite difficult to find - even online - but does anyone know of any other reliable sources we could use? I'm probably just being pedantic. I'm new here - at least, new to editing - so I'm just trying to get into the spirit of things! :)

ALSO, pt ii: I ALSO feel there's a lot of extraneous material here. Is the following:

"Around 1990, Ahmed found The Adventures of Tintin, a favourite book of his childhood, at an Islamabad marketplace and purchased it for his children."

...really something that belongs on Wikipedia? I mean, it's highly unlikely anyone who might come across this page would know the man personally, so superficial litlte "tidbits" like this are really pretty useless. Someone want to join me in cleaning this place up? Just contact me on my talk page, yeah? Don't worry about being "too late", I'll be at uni for the next 4-5 years so I'll be visiting this site regularly. Cheers :D Psychonavigation (talk) 03:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, here's an article on Ahmed that is concise, detailed and expunged of superfluous trivia. I'm not suggesting we trash the present page THAT much, but let it be an inspiration of sorts. http://en.allexperts.com/e/a/ab/abdurahman_khadr.htm ... Psychonavigation (talk) 03:44, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is a mirror of the Wikipedia article on Abdurahman Khadr, written by the same authors who wrote this article. It's not about Ahmed at all. Sherurcij (speaker for the dead) 03:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember writing the above at all. Strange... I must have left it logged in. :S Psychonavigation (talk) 10:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

While this article presents both sides (relief worker vs. ranking member of al-Qaeda), it seems to give too much weight to the former. There is very little information given to the argument that his charity work was largely a front. In fact, that bit is only mentioned once, and as part of a quote box. It also doesn't mention how he sent his sons to al-Qaeda training camps, or how at least two of them ended up at Guantanamo Bay. Additionally, the Khadr family's ties to Osama bin Laden doesn't seem to be sufficiently expressed. While living with bin Laden's family, the Khadr children became friends with bin Laden's children. According to Guantanamo's Child, the Khadr's were frequent visitors at bin Laden's compound to the dismay of many others there, and they didn't just "move into Nazim Jihad", they began construction on a house there. While Ahmed was back in Canada fundraising during the construction of the house, he asked bin Laden to keep watch over his troublesome son, Abdurahman Khadr (62), but just two days later, the compound was evacuated and bin Laden did not give their family the option to join him (63). This sort of information seems relevant to the article. Lara 02:12, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am inserting a bias tag onto the page. It is obvious that the article is heavily biased towards his role as a humanitarian worker and neglects many aspects of his involvement with Al-Qaeda. I'd also like to point out that Zaynab Khadr, the eldest daughter of Ahmed Khadr, made significant edits between August 6 2007 and August 7 2007, and there are numerous edits by suspicious editors from Canada/Middle East region. Please see User:Zaynab Khadr. It is despicable that family members of deceased subjects can paint a rose-colored portrait with impunity and go unnoticed for years when both sides clearly need to be balanced. Cyanhat (talk) 03:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Cyanhat:, @Indubitably:, both of you voiced concerns that the article hasn't focussed enough on the details of Khadr's role in al Qaeda... Have I got that right? Are you raising this concern because you are aware of RS that actually cover those details, that we haven't yet covered?
Please consider the possibility that Khadr may not have actually played a role in al Qaeda, after all.
While US officials, and third party commentators who represent themselves as counter-terrorism experts, often call him an "al Qaeda facilitator", a "al Qaeda financier", and an "al Qaeda lieutenant", I am not aware of any of those sources ever offering any of the details you claim we aren't covering.
I suggest there may be two main explanations: (1) US intelligence officials actually could unambiguously and reliably document these claims, but aren't doing so because they want to protect their secret methods, secret sources; or (2) the claims are largely or entirely innuendo, demonization, part of the post-911 hysterical over-reaction to the fear of muslim terrorism.
I suggest that, if intelligence officials could document an al Qaeda career, but won't publish meaningful details, in order to preserve other secrets, then any speculation on our part, about what they might say, is unverifiable, and has no place in this article.
Revenue Canada continued to allow his charity to issue charitable receipts for donations into at least 2001. If US intelligence officials actually had meaningful intelligence he had a solid association with al Qaeda, pre-911, they absolutely should have shared it with their Canadian opposite numbers. If Canadian intelligence officials had reason to believe he was associated with terrorism, his charity should have been stripped of charitable status. I see this as a strong reason to doubt he had a meaningful association with al Qaeda, or terrorism, prior to 9-11.
With regard to Zaynab Khadr's eleven edits to this article... The last ten seem like largely innocuous copy-editing to me. I'll list them, in chronological order: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [[11].
The first edit from the Zaynab Khadr ID, from 2007, is a long complicated one, with some elements that would not comply with WP:COI. In particular, that edit removed a section of the article entitled Ahmed Khadr#Khadr and the Mahdi Army.
I am not going to look up what WP:COI said, in 2007. In 2007 policy about repeating innuendo from primary sources was less stringent.
Ahmed Khadr#Khadr and the Mahdi Army, removed by Zaynab Khadr, as part of this edit
material Zaynab Khadr excised in 2007 2019 comments about policy compliance
An article in the July 13 2006 National Post reports that the SITE Institute identifies Khadr as the founder of an Afghan group called the Mahdi Army.[1] The SITE Institute claims they acquired this information by translating Arabic language video, and associated postings, from password protected al-Hesbah and al-Ekhlaas forums Islamic web-sites.
  • How reliable is SITE?
  • I can't find the National Post article. It is not online, I can't find any mirrors, and it seems the wayback machine didn't archive it.
The National Post repeats a passage about the Mahdi Army that the SITE Institute asserts it translated from these sites: "Brother Abu Abdurahman Al Kanadi, may Allah have mercy on his soul, a.k.a. Ahmed Said Khadr, used to be in charge of it, but he was killed by the Pakistani army in October, 2003, in the area of southern Waziristan,"

So, the National Post isn't claiming this assertion is correct, only that SITE translated the claims from Islamic sites.

The National Post acknowledges that it can't confirm the SITE Institute claims. But it reports that the claims are consistent with information it has acquired from Canadian security officials. It quotes an affidavit RCMP Sgt. Konrad Shourie wrote last year:

"I believe that the entire [Khadr] family is affiliated with al-Qaeda and has participated in some form or another with these criminal extremist elements."

Sergeant Shourie did write an affadavit that asserted all members of the Khadr family should be under suspicion. When he wrote it the youngest siblings were barely teenagers, and Zaynab's daughter was around Kindergarten age.

Without citing a source the National Post reported:

"The RCMP says Khadr was 'tasked' by Osama bin Laden to form a militia in 2001, and in 2003 was ordered to organize 'attacks against U.S. and coalition forces' near the Afghan border."

I think that the National Post did not cite a source was significant.

In addition, the Zaynab Khadr ID removed characterizing Ahmed Khadr as "an al-Qaeda leader and an associate of Osama bin Laden" from the article's first paragraph. They replaced it with a passage describing him a teacher and a humanitarian worker. Personally, I agree that the lead should not characterize him as an al Qaeda member, or a terrorist, without attribution. He never had a trial, and intelligence officials have never offered any substantiating details. Personally, it seems these are allegations, not facts.
In another paragraph the Zaynab Khadr ID amended the date Ahmed Khadr arrived in the region. That is innocuous. They amended "Khadr travelled there, and met bin Laden" to "Khadr travelled there". The additional clause ", and met bin Laden" is demonization. In 1983 bin Laden was just on of the thousands of Afghan Arabs. We aren't listing any other Afghan Arabs he may have met. Further, US intelligence officials routinely conflate a meeting with Osama bin Laden with a successful recruiting. Fouad al Rabia, for instance, met bin Laden when he was on a humanitarian mission to Afghanistan. US intelligence officials kept on characterizing casual introductions as successful recruiting in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
In the edit the Zaynab Khadr ID added an unreferenced paragraph about the Khadr charity. This was not an attempt to deceive. In 2007 this was a forgiveable mistake. People with a first hand knowledge of an event don't understand that their first hand knowledge doesn't count, can't be used, because they are not reliable sources. If this paragraph were to remain in the article it would require RS. FWIW, I think there are RS that talk about the charity. I am going to repeat, I do not see this edit as an attempt to deceive.
Similarly the ZK ID removed a brief paragraph about the Khadr family attending the wedding of one of bin Laden's sons.
Cyanhat, you wrote that it was "despicable" that ZK made edits that went "unnoticed for years". I think you overlooked the discussion at #Recent changes. Her first edit, the only one that was not innocuous, was noticed, almost right away.
I just checked. FWIW, I wrote the section on the Mahdi Army. I was inexperienced then, and our standards were much looser. There was no BLP in 2006, for instance. I wouldn't write that section today. And I couldn't write a replacement, that complied with today's standards, because the reference is no longer available. Geo Swan (talk) 02:08, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Unless WP policy went off the rails in the past however many years, your opinion about the intent behind someone else's edits isn't relevant. And, in fact, their intent itself isn't relevant. Does the content violate today's policy? If so, remove it. What do the sources say? Are the sources reliable? These are the relevant questions. I haven't read this article in over seven years, so I don't remember the details, and I don't care enough now to research it. What I know is WP has unreasonable bias and this thread is a decent representation of why. Indubitably (Talk) 14:24, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

Ahmad Khedr Al-Bagshi أحمد خضر البقشي[edit]

Ahmad Khedr Al-Bakshi (1991-10-22) Is a junior student at KFUPM - CIM.

      • Copyright to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Collage of Industrial Management***Bold text — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahmad412 (talkcontribs) 18:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate digression - this article is not the place to promote his management theories and career. Delete irrelevant content.Parkwells (talk) 14:58, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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IP contributor 156.204.216.47...[edit]

156.204.216.47's edit incorrectly asserts that Ahmed's son Omar Khadr "was released in 2015." That is highly misleading. He was give bail, with many restrictions, on his travel, where he could live, who he could meet; he had a curfew imposed on him; he was restricted from using computers or smartphones. So I reverted it.

Further, since Omar Khadr has his own article, details of his case belong there. Duplicating them here serves as an opportunity for errors to creep in, when the two pages say different things. Geo Swan (talk) 23:04, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • 156.204.216.47 reverted me, with another bad edit. They, apparently do not understand the difference between parole, and bail. As I wrote, above, this level of detail really doesn't belong here, anyhow. It really belongs in Omar Khadr's article.
What is the difference between being released on parole, and being released on bail. Being released on bail is rare for individuals who have already been convicted, as Omar Khadr had been. Usually bail is granted to suspects, prior to their trial, when they are not considered a flight risk. Omar Khadr was granted bail as he appealed his charges in the US justice system.
Omar Khadr was eligible for parole. And, if he had applied for bail parole, and been released on bail parole, he would have had conditions on his release, similar to the conditions imposed upon him when he was granted bail. The enormous difference between his bail and if he had been released on parole is that, on parole, the remaining years of his sentence would tick away, day by day. If he had been granted parole, he would have finished his sentence last year.
However, on bail, his sentence stopped ticking. Prior to the recent judicial ruling, he had just as many days of his sentence left to serve as he had the day his bail was first granted. This is a very important distinction.
One of the reasons the judge ruled his sentence had been served was that the US judicial system had completely failed to move on his appeal of his charges. Geo Swan (talk) 23:30, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Addressing your initial post, information about his son has been in this article for years and were not duplicated by me. My simple, minor edit served only to correct a mistake found within the article (he was repatriated to Canada in 2012, not 2013) which you conveniently made no mention of while reverting it multiple times.
Furthermore, Omar Khadr being released in 2015 is actually a correct assertion, regardless of how you'd like to spin things to make it seem "misleading." Since only general details of Ahmed Khadr's son was mentioned in the article, I decided to keep it that way, but since you insist, I specified he was "released on parole" which I trust would address your concern. Thank you for clarifying the difference between parole/bail, I didn't notice that mistake, but I reject your characterization of my edit as being "bad" and find that you could have resolved this dispute in a more efficient way. 156.204.216.47 (talk) 23:41, 26 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please be more careful. I didn't check his repatriation date, prior to the first time I reverted you. I did check, prior to the second time I reverted you, and you were correct, he was finally repatriated in September 2012. So, the second time I reverted you, I left 2012. So, no, I did not revert this date "multiple times".
  • The whole lead section is problematic, and should be rewritten. In the course of that rewrite mention of his children should probably be reduced. Geo Swan (talk) 00:14, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • P.S., in the interests of accountability, I strongly encourage you to create a wiki-ID of your own, and use it, exclusively, when you work on WMF projects. Geo Swan (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, it was only one time, I didn't notice because I saw the edit "undone" more than once and assumed it was the entire edit. Relatively speaking, I am not a very active editor on Wikipedia only editing every now and then, but appreciate your advice nonetheless. 156.204.216.47 (talk) 00:40, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Questionable assertions[edit]

The lead section of this article contains questionable assertions.

Relying on the Canadian Free Press[edit]

The third paragraph of the lead section currently states: "The Canadian government had considered him to be that country's highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda." The reference to this assertion, however, is not to a Canadian goverment site, it is to the Canadian Free Press. As references go, the Canadian Free Press is relatively reckless. Is it too biased to be used as a reference? In my opinion, no, provided it is properly attributed.

Now the 4th paragraph of the Canadian Free Press article says: "Her father, the late ahmed Said Khadr, officially identified as Canada's highest-ranking member of al Qaeda, was sprung from a Pakistani prison when former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien successfully intervened on his behalf through then Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto."

Well, how trustworthy is this paragraph? The second half, that claims "was sprung from a Pakistani prison when former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien successfully intervened on his behalf" -- this is frequently repeated on anti-muslim hate sites. It isn't true. Chretien did bring up Khadr's detetion with the Pakistani PM. This is something he had an absolute obligation to do, under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadian citizens are entitled to a fair trial, when charged with a crime, in Canada. And Canada has reciprocal agreements with most countries, including Pakistan, that we will give their citizens fair trials, and they will give Canadians fair trials. There is no reason to doubt Chretien's account. What Chretien said he said was (quoting from memory): "Please comply with the rule of law. Don't hold a Canadian citizen in extrajudicial detention. If you have evidence he committed a crime, by all means lay charges against him, give him a fair trial, and, if he is convicted, give him a prison sentence. But, if you don't have evidence he committed a crime, you should let him go."

If Bhutto's Government didn't charge him, didn't try him, and instead, let him go, I suggest this should be interpreted as a sign Pakistani Justice officials had not been able to assemble a case against Khadr, even though they had held him for a year, and had all that time to gather evidence. The shocking right-wing claim that Chretien would intervene for someone he knew or suspected was a terrorist -- why would he do that?

Given that the CFP got the Chretien part totally wrong I suggest we not trust their assertion that he had been "officially identified" as a member of al Qaeda.

I am going to wait a reasonable period of time, for comments, and then rewrite that passage. Geo Swan (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

distancing[edit]

The lead described Khadr as an Egyptian citizen. We saw the same thing with Ben Johnson, a Canadian who was born in Jamaica. When he was likely to win an Olympic medal, Canadian sources described him as a Canadian. A couple of days after he won his Olympic Gold Medal, those same newspapers who were happy to pump up National pride by calling him a Canadian, started, instead, to call him a Jamaican.

Khadr was born in Egypt, grew up in Egypt, but came to Canada to go to University, married a Canadian citizen, and became a Canadian citizen himself. He spent almost his entire adult life as a Canadian. In Afghanistan he was widely known as al Kanadi, ie. "the Canadian", not al Masri, "the Egyptian".

I also amended a passage that said, without attribution, that he had ties with terrorism. When I first started contributing to the wikipedia there was an excellent wikidocument on how to contribute material, without bias, offered the example of a passage like "Hitler was evil". It explained that even an opinion like that, almost universally shared, should be attributed. It should instead say something like, "Philosopher Hannah Arendt, the author of The banality of evil, said Hitler was evil."

So, I amended that as well. Geo Swan (talk) 00:34, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]