We're wimps
OUR COUNTRY POSTURES BUT IT ISN'T REALLY TAKEN SERIOUSLY, WRITES PETER WORTHINGTON
By PETER WORTHINGTON, TORONTO SUN
WHAT A WIMPY country Canada has become -- and that's putting it gently. When Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel sent Mossad to track down and eliminate the assassins.
It wasn't "law," but it sure was "justice." Rough justice.
When Libya sponsored terrorism and gave sanctuary to terrorists, U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1986 unleashed F-111 fighter jets to attack Col. Khadaffy -- which persuaded the tyrant to cool such behaviour.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush took action against terrorism (while Canada urged restraint).
20 YEARS, THEN NOTHING
After the bomb on Air India flight 182 killed some 320 Canadians in 1985, Canada waited 20 years -- then found the accused "Not Guilty."
This is not to say that Canada should have emulated Mossad and gone after the perpetrators, but a 20-year hiatus resulting in a "not-guilty" verdict is an obscenity of another sort.
Platitudes about "law" being more important than "justice" don't wash in this case.
Twenty years later and a trial of almost two years and a not-guilty verdict that cost $125 million-plus is outrageous and scandalous.
So what went wrong? Why was the Crown's case against Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik so weak?
The answer: Feuding between CSIS and the RCMP.
In 1985 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had replaced the RCMP Security Service, which was deemed to have discredited itself with "dirty tricks," barn burnings in Quebec and such.
This was largely a fabricated scandal, with several simultaneous inquiries to discredit the Mounties. When it was learned that RCMP Security had been surreptitiously checking mail and bugging suspects for some 40 years, the government and others were horrified.
The fact that RCMP clandestine surveillance wasn't used to hinder careers or discredit people was ignored - and from my viewpoint showed impressive restraint and discretion.
They were trying to protect the nation.
When CSIS was formed, the greatest threat to Canada was Soviet subversion. People like me, who tended to trust RCMP Security (which was never allowed to prosecute and convict a single Soviet agent since the Gouzenko days) felt CSIS would be pathetically vulnerable to KGB penetration.
CSIS recruited bilingual university graduates. It takes little imagination to realize it'd be easier for the Soviets to penetrate CSIS than RCMP Security, whose members had to go through the rigorous boot camp training.
Put bluntly, the RCMP didn't trust CSIS.
And CSIS elite tended to feel superior to RCMP "horsemen." There was little mutual confidence.
RCMP friends have told me they were reluctant to use evidence gathered by CSIS at trials because CSIS didn't necessarily abide by rules and defence lawyers could more easily get it thrown out.
CSIS, too, was reluctant to share information with the RCMP -- hence the destruction of almost 75% of the taped interviews and evidence in the Air India case.
CSIS supposedly had a mole inside the Sikh terror group, but pulled him out during the planning of the bomb because it didn't want him implicated. True or not, this indicates a mind-set.
CSIS WAS INEPT
The RCMP Security Service was always better than it is given credit for. It was politics that prevented prosecutions and convictions of spies.
In those early days, CSIS was inept -- except for the RCMP Security types who switched services. That may help explain some of what went wrong in this fiasco of a trial.
Now there are calls for an inquiry.
What's the point? How many Canadian inquiries have ever amounted to much? The Somalia Inquiry was called off when it embarrassed the government.
In Canada, inquiries are often a means of diffusing attention and distracting criticism.
It all adds up to the reality that we really are a wimpy country that postures but isn't taken seriously.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/03/18/964889-sun.html
Normally when I post a news story I do just that and don't comment...However this time I feel the urge to say a few words.
After reading the article above I am left agreeing completely with Peter Worthington's view of how "fluffy" Canada has become.
We have, it seems, come to a place in the modern world were we (the Canadian public) believe that its BAD to fight wars.
The ending of life regardless of the reason is too horrible a thing to contemplate, and so, must never happen.
This is the worst kind of wishful thinking.
We (the Canadian public) hold ourselves morrally superior to the United States...Despite the fact that they have given us a near-perfect security umbrella for so many years and are the only reason that we have not yet been attacked in the current conflict (insert method of choice here)
A recent event in my life served to illustrate this quite literally...Coffee with my cousin Katie ( a monthly ritual in my world) Katie is as different from me as, say, apples and potato chips.
She is a delight to be with, offering her older cousin (Katie is 24) a glimps into the world of dance, street festivals (she majored in dance at university and is now trying very hard to make a career out of what she enjoyes doing more than anything in the world) and the youth culture of today.
As we sit in an Avante Gard coffee shop along the "strip" in the Beaches area of Toronto, we discuss many things both family oriented and other.
The talk eventually turnes to war, as she is as interested in my world as I am in hers.
During the couse of the conversation I ask her; "Katie, what do you think of the the United States invading Iraq?"
"Oohhh that George Bush," she says, with passion aflame in her pretty green eyes and her slim dancer's body springing erect with indignation, "He's so stupid!"
More shocked than anything I asked her why she thought so?
"Well...He just goes around invading whomever he pleases! Imagine if he decided to invade us!" (I'm now paraphrazing somewhat)
When I explain to her that it is unlikely to happen as Canadian society is not suffering at the hands of a psycotic dictator and his ruthless extended family, she insists that no matter the what it was wrong and he shouldn't have been allowed to do it. (invade)
Eventually we went on to a different topic, she stubbornly stuck on the wrongness of violence directed at evil people. Me shaking my head and hoping like hell she never has to find out that she's wrong.
As she continued to speak about the things that are important to her I wondered what will happen to the Katies of the country when (not if) we are attacked.
How many Katies will be buried because the Government of the day lacks the will to stand up to the Canadian pulic and, more importantly, the Canadian press, and tell them what needs to be done...That this Garden of Eden we live in is every bit as vulnerable as the United States is...And will, eventually be struck at, the same as everyone else has been.
I look at Katie, who looks so cute and cuddly, sitting in a comfy overstuffed chair next to a fireplace in the trendy coffe shop we're presently inhabiting, and wonder how many more times I'll be able to have coffee with my cousin in peace...Before
IT comes...
A famous person from 19th century America (Ben Franklin I believe) said that the Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots, as freedom isn't ever free...
In Canada we seem to have forgotten...
Slim