Canada Foils Homegrown Al Qaeda Wannabes

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police got their men, again, 17 of them. These alleged homegrown terrorists had three tons of ammonium nitrate in 25-kilo bags, three times the amount American homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring many times that number. About 400 officers were involved in the secret operation, many of whom had to sign the Official Secrets Act before moving into action. This is the kind of action that works in fighting terror.

Canada has infuriated American conservatives for being soft on terror, but the truth is much different. Canada is effective on terror and doesn’t seem to have to trample over the rights of its citizens in the process, neither accomplishment having been achieved by Washington. According to the news magazine Maclean’s “Canadian teens who were spending their time on websites promoting anti-Western sentiment were being watched from cyberspace by Canadian investigators who bided their time as they waited for words to turn into action. Those investigators soon unravelled a sinister plan to detonate three tonnes of explosive material on unsuspecting civilians in and around Canada's most populous city -- an investigation that culminated Friday in 17 high-profile arrests.”

Like the London Underground bombers, these 17 didn't sneak into the country last week. They are Canadian residents and many are citizens. Maclean’s also quoted Canadian government official as saying, “Most of them went through the school system here. They’re not just off the plane. So there will be some questioning going on. The big issue is going to be societal, that’s clear.”

Teenagers in developed societies rebel and have done since Marlon Brando and James Dean were young actors. Hippies, punks, gangsta rappers are the more benign incarnations of teenage rebellion, and if left to its own devices, it usually burns itself out to produce sufficient accountants and mid-level managers for the next generation. Islamic extremism and related terrorism are a more virulent form of the disease of post-adolescence but are the same thing. Finding identity in a grand cause, whether Islam, communism or fascism (the Hitler Youth), is one way to cope. What is annoying is the indifference to the death and suffering of others – teenagers are self-absorbed, but few are sadistic. Perhaps, the parents here have failed.

Much more is going to come out as these men are tried, and one must stress that they have not been convicted. They remain, under Canadian law, innocent until a jury says otherwise. And if nothing else, that seems like a Canada worth fighting for. That said, the RCMP appears to have found a winning formula in the war on terror. This alleged plot was not uncovered by random searches, national ID cards or drone aircraft. It was stopped by good police work, which at the end of the day is human intelligence of the highest caliber. Observe, infiltrate and arrest works, and establishing a police state won’t. One hopes the White House was watching.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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