We continue our interview with Khizr Khan, one of the country’s best-known Gold Star family members. Khan famously spoke out against Trump at last year’s Democratic National Convention and now reflects on the war that took his son Humayun’s life, the 2003 Iraq War. Capt. Humayun Khan died while fending off a suicide bomber outside the gate of his troop’s Army compound.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Our guest, Gold Star father Khizr Khan, for the hour, his son killed in action in Iraq in 2004. In your book, Khizr Khan, An American Family, you write, “‘You know I’m against [this] war,’ I told Humayun. He creased his mouth into a tight smile, nodded. ‘I know.'” What are your thoughts about the Iraq War?
KHIZR KHAN: I was — this is nothing new. This is nothing secret. I had been against that. There’s a reason for that. I know some history of that part of the world, centuries-old history, the conflicts that have existed there. For my nation, for my country, to get involved in that, I was with the people that had disagreed with that. There was no American interest to be served there. That war had not served — we are proven right — American interest. We could foresee that involvement in that part of the world with American blood and treasure will be a mistake. I was vocal about it at home, outside. I remain vocal about that.
So I shared that with Humayun, and he knew that, because he used to hear us speak that this is not going to serve our nation and its interest. But here it was. And his response was to me, he called “Baba,” which is equivalent to “father,” and he said, “Baba, you know that I’m a military officer. I am going there to protect my men and women. I am responsible for them, and I don’t think on the political line. That is Washington’s decision. We, members of the armed forces, serve and obey the orders that are given to us by our seniors. And my task, I see it,…