Quit hemming and hawing over Hezbollah (David Frum vs the Chrétien Liberals)

National Post ^ | December 11 2002 | David Frum

[knighthawk]

James Traficant, the former congressman from Youngstown, Ohio, now a prisoner in a federal penitentiary, got his start in national politics when the FBI videotaped him taking a US$163,000 bribe from a local mobster in 1983. At his trial, Traficant explained that he had been conducting a personal sting investigation into mob corruption. He was acquitted and elected to Congress the following year.

Traficant built his political career on the insight that some people will believe anything. And the Chrétien Liberals follow the same rule.

Last week, the National Post reported that the government had almost, nearly, just about, getting there any second, made up its mind to ban Hezbollah fundraising in Canada. The Chrétienites, it seems, had been badly embarrassed by a pair of speeches that Hezbollah's chief, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, delivered in Lebanon at the end of November. In one, broadcast on Lebanese television, Nasrallah said, "I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don't be shy about it." In the other, he promised a global terror campaign by Hezbollah itself. "[W]e will act everywhere in the world."

This is the same Nasrallah by the way that Prime Minister Chrétien encountered at the Francophonie summit in Beirut in October. At the time, Chrétien shrugged off Nasrallah's presence. "I didn't know. I didn't meet him. He was invited by the Lebanese government."

After these latest threats, Chrétien's ho-humming suddenly looked less like indifference -- and much more like appeasement, or even complicity. And so on Dec. 4, the Liberals started speaking from a new set of talking points. They were, they said, going to shut down Hezbollah's operations in Canada soon, maybe in just a few weeks. They had delayed doing so before because of "ongoing intelligence activities against operatives of the Lebanese-based terrorist group in Canada, senior government officials say."

Yes, you heard that right: The reason the Liberals have not stopped Hezbollah fundraising in Canada is that they were running a sting operation!

Unfortunately, not all members of the government got word of this new excuse. Over at the Department of Foreign Affairs, they are still repeating Bill Graham's "Hitler built the autobahns" argument: Hezbollah may be a terror organization, but it's a terror organization that provides social services as part of its terror recruitment project, so it can't be all bad.

Meanwhile, Elinor Caplan, who in her tenure as minister of citizenship and immigration was thus the single person most directly responsible for Canada's reputation as a haven for terrorists, has suddenly remembered that her heavily Jewish riding is a natural target for Hezbollah's murderers. (It was Hezbollah, remember, backed by the government of Iran, that attacked the Jewish cultural centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, murdering 87 people and wounding 200 more.) So suddenly, after 12 months of silence, Caplan has reinvented herself from terror-coddler into anti-terror warrior.

Nimbly done Elinor!

The Liberal Party of Canada has for decades been a wonder of the political world -- tightly disciplined, militantly unprincipled. Liberal Cabinets have unswervingly adhered to Viscount Melbourne's 175 year old advice to his ministers: "It doesn't matter what damn lie we tell, so long as we all tell the same damn lie."

But 9/11 has indeed changed everything -- even the Liberal party. The fabled discipline is cracking. The voters are hearing too many different lies from too may different people -- and the truth is becoming ever more apparent and ever more shameful.

The truth is that for the Chrétien government, the crassest domestic political considerations have regularly taken priority over national security. John Manley, for example, may pose for publicity shots with U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge. But his Ottawa South riding is home to many Muslim immigrants (it's just down the road from the home of Zulf Khalfan, the man who reminded me of Salman Rushdie's fate in the letters column last week). And so Mr. Manley has for 11 months opposed a Hezbollah ban -- and Prime Minister Chrétien's eagerness to keep Mr. Manley's leadership campaign alive against Paul Martin may explain why Mr. Chrétien opposed the ban too.

Even now, we can doubt whether the ban is truly coming -- and how much it will mean if it does come. Outlawing a terror group is only the first step in an effective anti-terror strategy. Next there must be vigorous investigations of its activities, the prosecution and jailing or deporting of those people caught violating the ban, sharing of information with allies, and outreach efforts to the immigrant communities to persuade them not to shelter suspicious persons. Will these steps be taken? There is little reason for optimism. This government's attitude toward the war on terror resembles the attitude of a sluggish pupil toward an exam: The only thing it has worked hard at is figuring out the minimum effort it can get away with.

It has endangered the security of the entire continent -- and disgraced the good name of the people of Canada. This is Chrétien's real legacy, and it won't get any prettier no matter how many lanes of highway he repaves before retirement.

[knighthawk]

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