Posted on 08/08/2003 2:32:17 PM PDT by rickmichaels
A recently disclosed plot revealed al-Qaeda had selected an American target in Canada to announce its return to North American soil. A story in Canada's national newspaper, The National Post, said al-Qaeda terrorists were plotting to attack the American embassy in Ottawa before a tip from Syrian intelligence led to the terrorists' arrest. Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst who served until recently on the National Security Council and is now a fellow at the Brookings Institute, confirmed the plot's existence.
Ironically, the revelation of the Ottawa embassy plot occurred during a disturbing development in Canada's War on Terror.
The matter concerns a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, an Ottawa engineer, who was arrested in New York last September and deported to Syria. Arar, a suspected terrorist, was returning to Canada from Tunisia when the arrest occurred. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had provided information to American authorities that led to the Syrian-Canadian's detention and deportation, a fact confirmed by both U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Paul Cellucci, America's ambassador to Canada. Powell said the RCMP had indicated Arar was connected to al-Qaeda, while Cellucci confirmed the deportee was the subject of a joint Canadian-American investigation before his arrest. Moreover, American authorities also claim the RCMP asked them to deport Arar because it didn't want him back in Canada.
However, anti-American forces in Canada's Liberal government are outraged that the United States deported a Canadian citizen, carrying a Canadian passport, to another country. And they are even angrier that the RCMP facilitated his removal from North America without first getting clearance from proper government channels. Wayne Easter, the Liberal cabinet minister responsible for the RCMP, even went so far as to call the Mounties who passed on the information "rogue elements."
Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien was also furious with the deportation and has personally intervened in the matter. He sent a personal representative to Syria with a letter for President Bashar Assad asking that Arar be freed. Arar's wife, who denies her husband is a terrorist, also received a letter from Chretien.
Amnesty International and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have also gotten in on the act. They have called for an inquiry into the RCMP. Amnesty claims the RCMP had Arar deported to a country with an abysmal human rights record where, according one human rights group, he has been tortured. CAIR wants the RCMP investigated for depriving a Canadian citizen of his civil rights.
But Stockwell Day, the foreign affairs critic for the conservative Canadian Alliance party, says an inquiry should be held into the Liberal government instead. Like many other Canadians, Day, speaking with more common sense, wants to know why the Liberals want someone back in Canada, whom its own security forces wanted deported.
Day's inquiry could also serve to answer the most serious question about this matter: why is there such a dangerous disconnection between the Liberals and Canada's security services?
One American official partially answered the question when he said Canadian anti-terrorism forces working in the trenches don't believe the higher-ups in government take the terrorist threat in Canada serious enough. Chretien proved that himself when, immediately after 9/11, he announced there were no terrorist cells in Canada. Again, a Canadian security agency, this time the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, had to go behind his back to the media to set the record straight. It informed the country 50 different terrorist groups were operating within Canada's borders, a fact it had already imparted several times to the prime minister. A vindictive Chretien responded by slashing CSIS's budget for contradicting and embarrassing him in front of the nation.
The other part to the answer is that the Liberals are Canada's party of multiculturalism. They fear losing the ethnic votes they need to stay in power, if certain groups become too offended by the War on Terror's security measures. As a result, the Liberals were very slow to outlaw Hezbollah, for example, and still refuse to proscribe the Tamil Tigers, because Canada has the largest Tamil population in the world (about 200,00) outside of Sri Lanka. To Liberals, power has always mattered most. Principle is secondary.
Realizing this, elements in Canada's security agencies may often feel forced to operate in a gray area, and even bypass their own government, as in the Arar case, if they are to ensure Canadians' security. It seems they simply don't trust the Liberals. And with the recent Ottawa embassy plot, the bombing in Jakarta and al-Qaeda threatening to strike again, that just might be a wise policy.
Smart move.
Prairie
It seems to me that any concern the United States has about terrorist activity in Canada is pretty much a waste of time and energy -- terrorists have already shown that there isn't much to deter them from carrying out attacks right here in the United States.
The Canadian immigration and refugee policies are more lax even than the USA's. Couple that with a government that underfunds and undercuts the security forces and you have an ideal base or sanctuary from which to plan & stage attacks against targets in the USA.
It is unlikely any significant terrorist group will hit a Canadian target, as that might rouse the Canadian public enough to cause the government to take effective action.
The RCMP and Canadian military are good allies; there just aren't very many of them.
This statement would have been accurate before the mid-20th century, but let's face it -- physical proximity to a terrorist target isn't necessary anymore. A terrorist attack against the U.S. is just as likely to be planned and staged in Hamburg or Cairo as in Montreal.
The 9-11 hijackers didn't see it that way. They came to the U.S. months and years ahead of time to get oriented, conduct detailed planning & coordination, and do rehearsals & dry runs at the airports and on the planes they were going to hijack. The embassy bombers in Africa had set up in the neighborhoods of their targets for months prior in order to do the same type of preparations. For practical reasons, it is much better to be close to your target and recent experience shows that is how terrorists normally operate.
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