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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
November 17, 2002
Threat assessment
A great deal of attention was granted by the Canadian media this last week to an audiotape purporting to carry the voice of Osama bin Laden. This was because the voice explicitly named Canada on a short list of national targets for terror strikes. It came as a surprise to many because the received view in the Canadian government is that there is no serious threat to Canada; and indeed John Manley was quick to reassure there is no "imminent" threat. Our government has trapped itself not merely by abandoning all pretence to maintaining a serious military force or domestic security agencies but by investing instead in a profoundly illusory assessment of its risk. They think -- often sincerely so far as I can make out -- that Canada is the less likely to be hit the less effort we make to disturb any Islamist cells that may be "sleeping" here. Our prime minister for instance has consistently told the House of Commons he is aware of no specific domestic terrorist threat even while CSIS continues to advise him that a considerable number of Al Qaeda Hezbollah Hamas and other Islamist operatives have exploited Canada's extremely lax immigration controls. He continues to allow Hezbollah and other Islamist activists to raise money openly in Canadian mosques ostensibly for "charitable purposes". Canada is almost alone among Western countries in failing to go after these people root and branch; not even the "left" European governments maintain a position so fatuous. To our government's way of thinking the real risk is not that terrorists will strike in Canada but that by striking a U.S. target from a safe Canadian base they will get us into big trouble with the Americans. To the Liberal Party and the constituency it represents -- that 40 per cent of the general population which associates peace with appeasement and has aesthetic objections to military and police -- it goes without saying that the best defence is a display of harmlessness. I am reminded of the idiot smile I once saw painted on the face of a nice white progressive person on College Street in Toronto who suddenly found himself surrounded by young punks of a race he was not expecting. The smile was intended to communicate: "I like you people I hope you like me too." What it in fact communicated to them was an attractive pant-wetting fear. We are dealing with psychopaths -- organized in terror cells on an international scale and armed increasingly with we-don't-know-what. The response to them is that idiot smile: "You wouldn't hurt me would you? I'm such a nice guy." And yet we're stuck in the crosshairs because of the Americans . We cannot afford to have our border with the States closed for this would necessarily involve the destruction of the Canadian economy. Therefore we also appease the U.S. making little token gestures such as a few snipers to Afghanistan or a frigate in the Gulf or a promise (on which we will deliver proportionately) to pay more attention to arrivals at our airports. When push comes to shove we support them doggedly at the United Nations; when the pressure comes off Jean Chretien returns to his whimsically anti-American musings. The voice on the tape called that bluff last week. We are in the crosshairs supposedly in return for that small under-equipped but brave and well-trained corps of Princess Pats we sent to help liberate Afghanistan (and who return to find the government is making cutbacks even to their kitchen supplies). But that is not the real reason. Since the government is incapable of telling you the truth let me tell you. In the moments leading to and from the release of that audiotape the CIA was able to detect a large increase in traffic between Internet servers at suspicious locations. For the last two weeks it has monitored the highest volume of likely Islamist traffic since it began to listen. Security services in Germany France Britain Italy Australia and the U.S. are on hyper-alert from fresh evidence in each country that large-scale attacks will be attempted in the near future. There are emergency preparations for civil defence and medical facilities. The broadcast of that tape was not a "clue" but the very signal to prepare and launch new strikes. And the countries listed were the countries in which the strikes will be attempted. Even the timing and motivation is explained -- on the tape itself. The current offensive is a last-ditch attempt to run interference for the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The so-called "experts" who claim it was not Osama speaking because he did not make his traditional distance from Iraq's "secular" regime have missed the point: the very omission was an acknowledgement that they are now in alliance. The threat to Canada is real it is immediate and it is the more substantial because like Bali we offer plentiful opportunities for the sucker punch. Example: terrorists intent on truck-bombing any major federal building in Washington DC must contend with concrete roadblocks displaced main entrances and substantial armed patrols on the approaching streets. Those wishing to take down the Peace Tower in Ottawa may comparatively drive right in. Ditto for any major public edifice in Canada any large place of public assembly. Years of budget cuts have left us without the means even to cobble together a serious domestic security response. In the political fallout after a major terror hit on Canada we will be compelled to turn to the United States for emergency resources. And yet against this background our government looks at polls. They find consistently that their own constituency -- a large enough block to guarantee an easy majority in Parliament against a split opposition -- is actually opposed to defence or security spending. (It is the reason why Paul Martin isn't interested in the security threat either -- he is cut from the same cloth as the rest of them.) Even as pure political tactic this is blind. It is a gutless response that leaves the government itself exposed to the recoil of the "morning after". For when Canada takes its hit the Liberals' own constituency will change its views quite literally overnight. This is precisely what happened in Australia on the morning after the Bali bombing in which Australians were killed on a scale proportionate to Americans on the morning of 9/11/01. There is still an appeasement constituency in Australia; but it is very small. The rest of the population is now thoroughly acquainted with the fact there is a war on. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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