alpha mike fox: Security and Terrorism

Showing posts with label Security and Terrorism. Show all posts

Is Canada prepared to go to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked?

Given heated anti-Israel rhetoric emanating from Iran’s leadership, it may be well to ask whether Canada might sign a mutual agreement that would oblige it to go to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked? As a strong believer that Israel has a right to exist, I’d welcome such a pact.

“The steps that we’re taking today are in fact bringing our countries closer together, and they are also allowing us to further build on a strong foundation of co-operation that will build tangible results, not just to our two militaries, but to Canada and Israel more broadly.”

– MP Peter MacKay
Defence Minister

A mutual-defence agreement, apparently, is not at all farfetched, for, as reported by the National Post, “Canada and Israel are about to complete a number of defence co-operation agreements that will significantly tighten military bonds between the two countries as tensions grow over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” And Defence Minister Peter MacKay refused on Wednesday to rule out such an agreement.

Under the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has dropped all pretence of neutrality in Arab-Israeli dealings. And, as it’s become clear through positions taken at the United Nations and elsewhere, Canada is an Israeli ally. The Conservative government, in fact, has been criticized here and abroad for its unambiguous pro-Israel policy.

With war between Israel and Iran becoming a real possibility—the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency released a report last week detailing Iran’s alleged efforts to build a nuclear arsenal—Israel’s allies need to take tangible steps to confirm their support of the Middle East’s only Western-style democracy. It’s nice to see Canada front and centre in this regard, as Mr. MacKay seems set to cement the bi-lateral relationship with the mortar of international defence co-operation agreements.

Mr. MacKay and his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, said in Ottawa they expect to complete negotiations by the end of the year.

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Will Obama’s declaration that America’s war in Iraq will end in 2011 help his re-election prospects?

During his run for president of the United States, Barack Obama pledged “to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end.” Friday, the president confirmed his promise with an announcement that he will pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of this year. This fulfills one of the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement (SFA) with Iraq.

Over 4,400 American military lives have been lost since the Iraq war started in 2003, and the war has already cost the Americans over $806-billion.

According to the Huffington Post, there were reports the administration was looking for ways to renegotiate the SFA with the Iraqi government so as to prolong U.S. presence in that country. Such reports were troubling to many who had supported the Democrats in 2008—at least in part—because of Obama’s pledge to end the war.

Apparently, Americans and the Iraqis wanted to keep up to about 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the Dec. 31 deadline, despite their public protestations to the contrary. Negotiations were prompted by: (a) the Iraqis’ hope for more help in providing internal stability; and (b) the Americans’ fear of further encroachment by Iran. But the Iraq government faced opposition to the idea from Shia groups and Iraqi nationalists, and discussions over the precise number of and legal immunity for troops that would stay behind were stumbling blocks in the negotiations.

Of the 41,000 troops the Americans now have stationed in Iraq, only 4,000 to 5,000 security contractors will remain in the country after Dec. 31. This would end an occupation that, at its height in 2006, saw some 170,000 U.S. soldiers in that country.

The cost in American lives and treasure has been high, with over 4,400 American military lives having been lost since the war started in March, 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush launched the U.S.’s “Shock And Awe” invasion of Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have also been killed. And, according to a study by Amy Belasco, Specialist in U.S. Defense Policy and Budget, released last March, the war had already cost the Americans $806-billion.

Many pundits are convinced President Obama would not have been elected president had it not been for the Iraq War. His victory in the presidential primary elections was owed in no small part to support from his party’s antiwar wing—Hillary Clinton had become tainted by her vote for the invasion and he campaigned to bring the troops home. Now the debate will be over whether the president’s announcement will help him in next year’s election.

The Iraq promise kept and recent foreign policy victories—bin Laden’s and Gaddafi’s deaths—will no doubt play a role in the 2012 election; however, with the American economy in such poor shape and without much hope it will improve over the next 12 months, voters are likely to remember Bill Clinton’s now famous phrase, “It’s the economy stupid,” which seemed to resonate so well with them during his successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H. W. Bush.

I agree with Glen Bolger—a Republican pollster whose firm is working for former governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign—who said, “The election is much more about Americans losing their jobs than about Gaddafi losing his head.” And I’d say much the same about the president’s latest Iraq announcement.

How will Paul Martin remember Gaddafi?

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin (L) shakes hands with Libyan Leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi (R) in his tent in a military compound in Tripoli, Libya.
Dec. 19, 2004
Louie Palu/The Globe and Mail

The death of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi seems to have been greeted with cheers—or at least satisfaction—by our political leaders, including interim Liberal leader Bob Rae.

The Liberal party’s website had this to say, “Ridding Libya of Moammar Qaddafi and his tyrannical regime is but the first step on a long road to transparency, accountability and democracy for the Libyan population.”

This is in quite some contrast to how Paul Martin praised the late dictator and anti-Semite, calling him a ‘‘philosophical man with a sense of history.’’ In the above photograph, the former prime minister glad-hands Moammar Gadhafi in his tent on a military compound in Tripoli on Dec. 19, 2004. And, apparently, a friendship formed between the two men, as evidenced by this quote from Gaddafi, the Jew-hater and defender-protector-instigator of international terrorism:

‘‘On a personal level, we [Martin and Gaddafi] have gained a quite personal friendship. We are friends not just because he is the Prime Minister of Canada but we shall always be friends, even if he is not the Prime Minister.’’

Martin never publicly disclaimed that such friendship existed, at least, not that I can find.

So a former Liberal leader said Gaddafi was a ‘‘philosophical man with a sense of history’’ and the current leader says he was leader of a “tyrannical regime.” I wonder which of these views more accurately reflects the nature of the relationship Grits believe Canada should have had with Muammar Gaddafi?

Just asking.

Excluding image, © Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

I’ll not shed a tear over Anwar al-Awlaki loss of his Fifth Amendment right to due process

When American citizens take up arms against their country, they apparently cease to receive the judicial protections normally accorded citizens of that democracy. As aptly put in today’s National Post’s editorial, “Citizenship is not an immunity card against reprisal for those who commit acts of war, or assist others in so doing, against their governments.”

We are, of course, referring to the recent killing in Yemen of Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured), the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, by missile fire from a drone believed to be operated by the CIA.

Many of us applauded when President Obama announced that U.S. clandestine forces had assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But some see this as being different because al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico; he was not a foreign national like bin Laden. And they believe he deserved to be treated like any other American citizen, that is, he had a Fifth Amendment right to due process.

According to a report in The Washington Post, his assignation had been sanctioned by a secret memorandum written by the U.S. Justice Department. The memorandum came after a review by senior administration lawyers, who considered the legal issues raised by the extra-judicial targeting of a U.S. citizen. There was a general consensus, apparently, regarding the legality of al-Awlaki’s killing.

Some Americans already believe too many of their countrymen too easily allow their rights to be sacrificed on the alter of national security and offer too little protest when extra-judicial actions are taken by the state where al-Qaeda and Islamist Extremist terrorism are concerned. How must they be feeling now that they’ve reached the point where a president can order the pre-emptive killing of U.S. citizens overseas as a counterterrorism measure?

This fact, I suppose, should give us all a sense of discomfort, especially when rapists and pedophiles of the worst kind along with serial killers have their constitutional rights protected at great expense and with great danger to law enforcement officers, yet traitors can apparently be executed by presidential edict.

But should I care? Is this a real injustice?

Notwithstanding my sense of unease at the foregoing, I acknowledge we are living with a world order that does not fit easily with many of our traditional legal norms. Our battlefields are not always the traditional ones we once knew, such as those in the Second World War or even those in Iraq or Afghanistan where the enemy seldom wore military uniforms and often passed off themselves as innocent civilians.

Anwar al-Awlaki was an enemy of the United States in every respect. He was a senior leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He has been connected to three recent attacks against the United States. U.S. officials say his e-mails inspired accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan. al-Awlaki helped plan the failed Underwear Bomb attack, and was part of the plot to bring down cargo planes with explosives inside computer printers.

The current war we wage against al-Qaeda, and Islamist Extremist terrorism in general, is more alike a “hot” version of the Cold War between the West and the communist world. Our enemies don’t were uniforms and have co-opted many of our own citizens and are using them against us.

Every nation has a right of self-defence, a right well established under international law. And it is prudent for us to provide our government officials and armed forces the protection of a legal umbrella under which they can execute appropriate responses to this imminent danger in which we who live in Western democracies find ourselves.

When citizens take up arms against their country and/or its allies, they should be deemed to have denounced their citizenship and all the rights and privileges that go with it. So I’ll not shed a tear over Anwar al-Awlaki loss of his Fifth Amendment right to due process. We still have a firm hold on the moral high-ground in our war with Islamist Extremist terrorism.

Will Americans ever trust us again?

The Americans are again musing about building a fence along parts of our mutual border as well as deploying various high-tech surveillance systems. Apparently, some officials in the American Customs and Border Protection Agency believe this will make America safer from terrorism. They’ll never ever forget Ahmed Ressam—who they arrested in 2000, trying to cross into Washington State from British Columbia on a mission to bomb Los Angeles International Airport—and there are Americans who still believe mistakenly some of the 9/11 plane hijackers entered the United States from Canada.

Americans have every right to do so, of course, they can build walls, fences, ditches, moats to their hearts’ content. But one can’t help wondering if this isn’t just another symptom of their apparent helplessness, making them feel that they have to do something. So they believe sealing themselves in—when a far more imminent threat seems to be coming from within the United States itself—will help keep them more secure.

Today, there’s a New York Times report that a U.S. drone attack killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim preacher, this morning in Yemen. al-Awlaki was a leading figure in Al Qaeda in Yemen, and was known to have immense influence within that terrorist group.

Other recent threats-from-within have been well publicized:

A 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus, a graduate of Northeastern University no less, has been charged with planning terrorist attacks against key buildings in Washington. He allegedly planned to attack the buildings with explosives on model airplanes, and to cut down evacuees with gunfire and grenades as they left the buildings.
U.S. citizen Mohamed Osman Mohamud tried Last Christmas to blow up a truck bomb while Portland, Oregon’s Pioneer Courthouse Square was packed with thousands of people.
U.S. citizens, Major Nidal Malik Hasan and Private Naser Abdo, both of the United States Army, planned attacks on Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan killing 13 and wounding 30. Abdo, fortunately, was arrested before he could act.

Thank the Lord none of these maniacs were Canadians—we’d never have heard the end of it and wait times at the U.S.-Canadian border would have become unbearable. And, at least, one U.S. Congressman would have called for an all-out invasion of our country.

The Americans have enormous internal security problems and have nothing short of a real war in progress on their southern border—tens of thousands of casualties have already been suffered—yet some have time to plan a fence between themselves and Canada.

Go figure.