Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The reckoning continues

by Aaron Wherry on Friday, April 24, 2009 1:09pm - 24 Comments

Andrew Mitrovica traces the tale of Canada and the 9/11 terrorists.

Today, in the aftermath of Napolitano’s grating comments, Harper and some of his cabinet members who once condemned Canada as a “soft spot” for terror, have been busy instructing their man in Washington to disabuse the Obama administration of the notion that Canada was or remains a soft spot for terrorists.

In other words, Harper has mobilized the diplomatic and political machinery at his disposal to try to finally shatter a frustrating myth that senior members of his government once enthusiastically promoted.

Tags: 9/11, Andrew Mitrovica, Barack Obama, Canada, Janet Napolitano, Stephen Harper, Stockwell Day, terrorism, terrorist

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DisplacedCanadian

Anything for political gain. Harpie, you’re doing a heck of a job.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

One unexpected bonus of Obama’s ascension is that the Canadian right no longer gets to kiss the Americans’ feet at every opportunity.

http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

What examples do you have of the Canadian right kissing American feet? Many on the right share an ideology with right wingers around the world but there is no particular devotion to America. If anyone is kissing feet here, it is the left. A perfect example of this was a couple of days ago when Libs were getting wet with anticipation that Iggy was meeting with Holbrooke and Frank.

If Canada is just now trying to disabuse the Americans of their belief that terrorists are coming through Canada, I fear it is already too late. Sometimes erroneous ideas come to be accepted as fact, which is what I think has happened here, and no matter what others try to do people will continue to believe the b.s.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

What examples . . . well, lessee, oh, and there’s that guy, right, and then our own f**king Prime Minister.

Also, if you’d bothered following Wherry’s link, you’d have found:

“Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day (who would later be appointed to cabinet by Prime Minister Stephen Harper) seized upon Cannistraro’s story as unimpeachable evidence that Canada was, in fact, a “soft spot” for terrorism and he called on the Liberal government to immediately undertake an overhaul of Canada’s immigration and security policy.”

Of course this could just be an extension of standard right-wing b.s., the kind that actually wants more terror attacks so as to justify the war on terror, Islamophobia, etc., but actually I think it’s just knee-jerk contempt for Canada from the Reformers / CRAP / Cons.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Um, minus the unreadable red ink.

Critical Reasoning

The red ink was appropriate, given the unusual level of anger in your comment.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

If only there were a soft blue for when I’m feeling well disposed towards Harper.

I have to hand it to him, he’s come a long way; but he was once as unpatriotic as Frum and Steyn. (Memo to my right-wing comrades, if not to CR: spare me the line about “sometimes you have to grossly insult your country to help it”: there’s an unmistakable glee about the way the Canadian hard right likes to attack Canada, just as there often is in the American hard left when it talks about America. My blood boils when I think of my country being mocked and kicked by its own citizens.)
nd

I like your parallel with the US hard left. I mean, Canada is basically a country where left-wing ideals have prevailed over the long run, with the right wing systemically removed from power and influence. The reverse is true in the US. So no wonder that the hard right in Canada, and the hard left in the US, feel a tremendous amount of disaffection with the status of their respective countries.

Wandering

“there’s an unmistakable glee about the way the Canadian hard right likes to attack Canada”

Even more galling when it comes from undeniable mediocrities like Steyn and Frum, who’ve never produced anything of worth in their entire lives. I hope both of them discover the world of fiction writing one of these days, because that is their true calling.

nd

I don’t mind David Frum. If anything I even kind of like him. He’s personable. His views are grounded in a worldview that, while it differs from mine, is ideologically coherent. Plus he’s smart as a whip.

Steyn, on the other hand, is a moron.
Wandering

“Plus he’s smart as a whip.”

We don’t need smart. What we need is wise.

nd

Wet with anticipation over meeting the chairman of the House Finance Committee and the President’s Special Advisor on Af-Pak? Yeah, I mean…why would Ignatieff even wanna meet those guys? What a waste of time.

Wandering

I love retrospective like this. It’s the minimum from journalism these days.

Let’s have another go; say an examination of Mark Steyn’s body of work…
Sisyphus

It’s probably just me, but is there a vaguely related aspect to this story ? ….

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/21/pulitzer/index.html?ref=fp6

If not, it’s at least interesting.

Maggie’s Farmboy

Why all the focus on the 9/11 plot confusion? What about the deeper “truth”?

It is true that we were once pretty soft on terror, no?

If not, are we saying that the introduction of the Anti-terrorism Act and listing the Tamil Tigers were unnecessary? Or are we saying these were appropriate responses to hererofore unknown terrorism?

You see what I’m getting at?

We didn’t prevent Air India, and our handling of the millenium plot did not exactly inspire confidence. Politicians regularly curried favour with groups linked to terrorist organizations.

So, yes, Ms. Napolitano was wrong to let Mr. Macdonald put words into her mouth which suggested that the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada.

But is the premise that we were once pretty soft on terror false?

Discuss.

Sean Stokholm

I suppose the question might be if we were any “softer” than the Americans. Air India is interesting, because our failure in that case was as much to do with intelligence and policing incompetence as our potential “softness” – not unlike some of the evidence that suggests 9/11 may well have been prevented with more formidable/capable intelligence and policing organization.

While we’re musing about stuff, I for one am finding the very word ‘terrorist’ has been rendered so generic and encompassing as to be increasingly useless as a focus of discussing policy and judging the efficacy of security measures. But that’s just me!

John.K

No, it’s not just you.

Wandering

It is true that we were once pretty soft on terror, no?

Compared to the acts of terror that routinely occur elsewhere, I’m not sure that can be born out by evidence. We shouldn’t be complacent (and we don’t seem to be anymore), but neither should we be looking to solve problems that don’t exist which distracts us from the problems we should be dealing with.

For instance, why the heck is the American Embassy located in the heart of Ottawa? They should move that juicy terror target out into the suburbs, preferably right next door to Pierre Poilevre’s house.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I dunno that we’re softer on terror than the Americans. We don’t obsess about it 24/7 but that has little to do with our effectiveness. CSIS foiled the Toronto plot completely — thanks in large part to the willingness of the two informers to trust the security services, the result (I’d say) of our having avoided jingoism.

Fighting terror is a question of intelligence, pure and simple. And in that field ideology matters a lot: look at how the Brits were able to maintain spy networks behind the Iron Curtain, because their agents believed in British ideals. No Al-Qaeda henchman in Pakistan is going to spy for us, but domestically recruitment of Islamic terrorists will be compromised as long as the Muslim community feels happy and secure in Canada — one reason xenophobia à la Steyn / Shaidle is actually a big security threat to us. So I think our anti-terror strategy is working OK.

Nonetheless, I doubt there’s much that can be done to prevent attacks, if they’re masterminded by people like Mohammed Atta. Mainly, I think both we and the Americans have just been lucky that Mohammed Attas are not a dime a dozen within Al-Qaeda.

Jenn

Well said, Jack!

Jenn

“Ms. Napolitano was wrong to let Mr. Macdonald put words into her mouth which suggested that the 9/11 terrorists came from Canada.”

Did you watch the thing? How about read the transcript? Anything? Any first hand knowledge at all?

Re: the Air India thing. Disgraceful I grant you, however that is looking with my modern understanding of what some people will do. We didn’t know that before Air India.

Re: the Millenium bomber. There is some suggestion that Canadian officials sent a warning to the U.S. on this idiot, but I don’t know how reliable that information is. However, I expect neither do you, so that might be ONE example, and it might not.

And basing the entire premise on one example, well, that just means the U.S. is soft on American-born terrorists. After all, there was that Oklahoma bombing, and what about the Unibomber? Hey, I have TWO examples!! It’s a hotbed of terrorists down there! :)

Jenn

Excellent link, thanks, Sis. And no, it’s not just you. How can we expect the Americans to know the truth when their own televised news media tie themselves into knots to prevent truth from leaking out?

Maggie’s Farmboy

Hmmm.

Well I guess that when Human Rights Watch tells you to that you are letting the Tamil Tigers run wild in your country, and you are not Sri Lanka, you may reasonably conclude that you could be doing a bit more to deal with terrorist, extremists, or whatever shorthand makes you comfortable.

Check out their report on Tiger “fundraising” in the Canadian Tamil community.

None of this is to say that the US hasn’t had its failures, or that we need to adopt PATRIOT Act style measures. We just need to recognize that this wrongheaded notion has some nuggets of truth in it.