Heed warnings of homegrown terrorism plots
Source: barrier examiner
Posted By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Posted 18 mins ago
I t now appears inevitable we're going to suffer terrorist attacks on our own soil by radical Islamists.
And that these attacks probably won't be carried out by foreigners, but by young, second-and- third-generation Canadians who have grown up hating their own country.
When it happens, we won't be able to say we weren't warned.
On Tuesday, Richard Fadden, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told a Commons committee that CSIS has more than 200 Canadians -- not foreigners -- under surveillance for suspected terrorist links, some playing leadership roles in terrorist organizations abroad.
"I'm not suggesting they are the equivalent of Osama bin Laden, but they have acquired positions of influence and leadership," Fadden said.
This on the heels of warnings from David Harris, CSIS's former top strategic planner, in an interview with QMI Agency Tuesday that "the thinking at the highest levels of our intelligence community" is there are now several homegrown terrorist groups operating in Canada, similar to the Toronto 18.
In ongoing trials, alleged members of that group have been accused of plotting to use truck bombs to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange, a military base and the Toronto office of CSIS and to behead the prime minister.
Harris, now director of the international and terrorist intelligence program at Insignis Strategic Research in Ottawa, also warned our government and police agencies could be infiltrated by Islamist terrorists because of an unwillingness to conduct thorough background checks, for fear of being labelled as racists in a country that prides itself on tolerance.
Even more alarming than these warnings, plus the growing number of attempted terrorist attacks on North America, is how little attention we're paying to them.
Fadden testified before the Commons' public safety committee, which is focused -- some might say obsessed -- on whether Canadian government and military officials handed over detainees to Afghanistan's security forces, knowing they'd be tortured.
It's an important issue. But as Toronto radio journalist Arlene Bynon of AM640 wisely observed in the wake of interviewing Harris on Sunday, it's almost as if in Canada we believe the allegations of detainee abuse trump our very real domestic security concerns.
In fact, the two issues aren't mutually exclusive. But we've focused almost exclusively on the torture allegations in Afghanistan at the expense of how to prevent terrorist attacks in Canada.
We already know, not just from CSIS, we are incredibly vulnerable. Part of the reason is we are a democracy and our respect for individual rights often conflicts, legitimately, with security concerns.
But Auditor General Sheila Fraser has warned repeatedly that Canada has lost track of tens of thousands of failed refugee claimants who have been ordered deported -- some of them terrorists.
The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has warned repeatedly our airports, harbours, the Great Lakes and many U.S. border crossings are disaster areas from a security standpoint -- under-inspected, understaffed, under-equipped.
Three years after 9/11, a politically bipartisan U. S commission of inquiry issued a chilling, book-length report on the massive security and intelligence failures that led to one of the most horrible days in American history.
The way we're going, one day, soon, we may be reading an equally chilling account of what went wrong in the wake of another devastating terrorist attack.
Only this time, on our soil.
Posted By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Posted 18 mins ago
I t now appears inevitable we're going to suffer terrorist attacks on our own soil by radical Islamists.
And that these attacks probably won't be carried out by foreigners, but by young, second-and- third-generation Canadians who have grown up hating their own country.
When it happens, we won't be able to say we weren't warned.
On Tuesday, Richard Fadden, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told a Commons committee that CSIS has more than 200 Canadians -- not foreigners -- under surveillance for suspected terrorist links, some playing leadership roles in terrorist organizations abroad.
"I'm not suggesting they are the equivalent of Osama bin Laden, but they have acquired positions of influence and leadership," Fadden said.
This on the heels of warnings from David Harris, CSIS's former top strategic planner, in an interview with QMI Agency Tuesday that "the thinking at the highest levels of our intelligence community" is there are now several homegrown terrorist groups operating in Canada, similar to the Toronto 18.
In ongoing trials, alleged members of that group have been accused of plotting to use truck bombs to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange, a military base and the Toronto office of CSIS and to behead the prime minister.
Harris, now director of the international and terrorist intelligence program at Insignis Strategic Research in Ottawa, also warned our government and police agencies could be infiltrated by Islamist terrorists because of an unwillingness to conduct thorough background checks, for fear of being labelled as racists in a country that prides itself on tolerance.
Even more alarming than these warnings, plus the growing number of attempted terrorist attacks on North America, is how little attention we're paying to them.
Fadden testified before the Commons' public safety committee, which is focused -- some might say obsessed -- on whether Canadian government and military officials handed over detainees to Afghanistan's security forces, knowing they'd be tortured.
It's an important issue. But as Toronto radio journalist Arlene Bynon of AM640 wisely observed in the wake of interviewing Harris on Sunday, it's almost as if in Canada we believe the allegations of detainee abuse trump our very real domestic security concerns.
In fact, the two issues aren't mutually exclusive. But we've focused almost exclusively on the torture allegations in Afghanistan at the expense of how to prevent terrorist attacks in Canada.
We already know, not just from CSIS, we are incredibly vulnerable. Part of the reason is we are a democracy and our respect for individual rights often conflicts, legitimately, with security concerns.
But Auditor General Sheila Fraser has warned repeatedly that Canada has lost track of tens of thousands of failed refugee claimants who have been ordered deported -- some of them terrorists.
The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has warned repeatedly our airports, harbours, the Great Lakes and many U.S. border crossings are disaster areas from a security standpoint -- under-inspected, understaffed, under-equipped.
Three years after 9/11, a politically bipartisan U. S commission of inquiry issued a chilling, book-length report on the massive security and intelligence failures that led to one of the most horrible days in American history.
The way we're going, one day, soon, we may be reading an equally chilling account of what went wrong in the wake of another devastating terrorist attack.
Only this time, on our soil.
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