Symposium: Terror From The North

Patrick Grady, an economic consultant from Ottawa and the author of Royal Canadian Jihad, a novel about Islamic terrorists in Canada, which prefigured the recent Toronto bomb plot. Michael Marzolini, Chairman and CEO of POLLARA Strategic Public Opinion & Market Research, which he founded in 1985. For twelve years he served as chief pollster and strategist to the Prime Minister of Canada, and has managed or advised a total of 410 election campaigns in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland, Germany and Ukraine. Prior to that he was media pollster for the CTV Television Network, and in 1988 became the first pollster in the world to predict a national election with a 0.0% margin of error. Michael lives primarily in Toronto, and holds the Canadian Peacekeeping medal for military service to his country, as well as the Queen's Jubilee Medal for public service. and Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation. He has been closely monitoring the developments surrounding the Toronto 17 case. FP: Rachel Marsden, Stewart Bell, Patrick Grady, Michael Marzolini, and Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Symposium. Rachel Marsden, let’s begin with you. Tell us in general what this Toronto 17 case is about and what you think its significance is. Marsden: In early June, Canadian authorities raided and charged 17 Muslim males in Canada with various terrorism related offenses. The suspects allegedly planned to attack government and civilian targets in Southern Ontario, and had taken steps to acquire bomb-making components, including a makeshift detonator and three tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer—-a single ton of which was used in the Oklahoma City Bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. If some of the allegations are true, the arrests averted what could have been the largest terrorist attack in North America since 9/11. At the initial police press conference, the “variety of backgrounds” of the suspects was emphasized. The fact that they were all Muslims was conveniently omitted. Many Canadians still don’t understand why these members of the ‘religion of peace’ would want to harm Canadians—particularly here in Ontario where, in the name of “multiculturalism”, you can live in one of various cultural ghettos and never have to fully integrate with the rest of Canadian society. In fact, we encourage it. The Ontario government is so accommodating of people who aren’t keen on adopting Canadian values that it even flirted with the idea of sanctioning oppressive Sharia law. On the op-ed pages, a former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister has whined “why us”? Yeah go figure—the plots allegedly involved an attack on the far-left Canadian Broadcast Corporation which, ironically, has always taken great pains not to apply the “terrorist” label to people who blow stuff up. And there’s nothing to suggest that the suspects planned to exempt all leftist politicians from an alleged attack on parliament. That must be a real downer for liberals, after all their terrorist butt-kissing. Muslim fanatics, from Osama bin Laden to Mullah Dadullah, have been saying they want to kill Canadians for years. Unlike liberals, these guys are generally pretty good on the follow through. So why do some of our “enlightened” friends still refuse to believe them? FP: Stewart Bell, what is your take? The “enlightened” Canadian establishment dealt with this terror phenomenon pretty strangely, no? What’s Canada’s problem? Bell: Two points. First of all, the suspects did indeed come from a variety of backgrounds in the sense that two were born in Somalia, one is an Afghan, several are from Pakistan, one is Jamaican and there are a few converts. If you look at their profiles, you also see a range of experience - some were university students, others were juvis and gang bangers. Having said that, it’s clear there was a deliberate strategy to avoid identifying them as Muslims at the RCMP news conference. I think the reason may have had more to do with strategic thinking than political correctness. The RCMP and CSIS can't do their jobs properly unless they improve their relationship with the various Canadian Muslim communities. That relationship has been awful to date (not necessarily the fault of counter-terrorists, since imams like Aly Hindy and like-minded lobby groups have done their best to make sure Muslims think the worst of CSIS and the RCMP). But the point is, if they are going to protect Canada from the next plot to behead the infidel Wawa Goose or whatever, they need to get more Muslims on side, and they are afraid if they identify the suspects by their religion, it will set them back. And who can blame them for thinking that way, since they are already accused by the Canadian press of racial profiling and picking on Muslims in their CT efforts. I think the police strategy was don’t say Muslim, knowing that someone else would do it for them, which is exactly what happened. And you will notice that the CSIS representative at the news conference did manage to say they were "inspired by Al Qaeda," which says just about all you need to know. http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23461 [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on July 21, 2006]

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