Just Who Is Joshua Boyle?

I don't get it. A guy takes his wife, pregnant with their first child, backpacking through a Taliban controlled part of Afghanistan. They were on a mission, he says, to help, "the most neglected minority group in the world, those ordinary villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan."

What did Joshua Boyle imagine might and probably would happen as he traipsed around ministering to these ordinary villagers deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan? What more probable outcome was there than that they would probably be kidnapped and possibly executed by the insurgents controlling the area? Res ipsa loquitor, the thing speaks for itself.

Boyle didn't provide specific details, but said the "stupidity and evil of the Haqqani network's kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping ordinary villagers in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter, martyr Boyle, as retaliation for my repeated refusal to accept an offer that the criminal miscreants of the Haqqani network had made to me."

Boyle wasn't aware of the "evil of the Haqqani network"? Did that take him by surprise? Did he think that, as a self-described "pilgrim" he and his wife were untouchable? Did he not know that, like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Haqqani was a mujaheddin in league with the CIA during the Russian occupation in the 70s and afterwards a client of the princes, emirs and sheikhs of the Gulf States (or, as I like to call them, Canada's Middle Eastern allies)?

I'm sorry but I have a little trouble with our government's gushy elation at this guy's return.

"Today, we join the Boyle family in rejoicing over the long-awaited return to Canada of their loved ones," the ministry said in a statement that asked for privacy for the family.

Rejoice? This is a tragedy, an obscenity.  I think his in-laws are right on this call.

Coleman (the wife) is from Stewartstown, Pa. In an interview with ABC News on Friday, her father, Jim Coleman, said he is angry at Boyle for taking her to Afghanistan.

"Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me, and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable," he said.

This guy, Josh, set his family up. He set up his wife to be kidnapped, raped and held captive. He set up his first child to be murdered by his captors. Then he went ahead and had three more kids, all of them born into captivity with the very real prospect of dying in captivity.

After the rescue, a change in itinerary was reportedly required, at the behest of Joshua Boyle.

Jim Coleman said Friday he didn't understand why, according to reports, Boyle didn't let his family leave on a U.S. military plane. Coleman said if he saw an American aircraft, he'd be "running for it."

Boyle's father said his son was philosophically opposed to an initial plan that would have involved the plane landing at Bagram, Afghanistan, where the U.S. has held detainees for years without charge during its battles against the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.

The plane instead was routed to Islamabad, Pakistan. They later travelled to England before continuing on to Canada.

A pilgrim? No, Josh, you're just a pompous dick who got his wife raped and his child murdered.