Newsletter November 2007 #70

Table of Contents:

Editor's Remarks

It seems to be a virtually unanimous opinion from professional counter-terror officers across the board in dozens of different nations that their political masters and the populations they defend will not take the threat of the Jihad movement seriously once more until we get badly gored by another major attack. That such an attack will occur someday is a statistical certainty and there have been some close calls already.

We've said it often before and will do so again: The problem in counter-terrorism is that we get spoiled when things are going well: Success = Complacency = Vulnerability. There are also the attributed remarks of the Red Army Faction founder Ulrike Meinhof to her police captors: "We have to be lucky only once in a while, you need to be lucky all the time."

The bad news, which comes wrapped as most welcome good news, is that the Western World's counter-terror efforts are doing well ņ regardless of the labours of sundry domestic entities to derail them. If one thinks about it, the primary focus of al Qaeda and the Jihadists is centred on Iraq and Afghanistan, not on our own nations. Instead, the worst they have been able to achieve since 9/11 has been less severe, and for every success like the Madrid or London 7/7 bombings, a dozen other plots failed to mature and were disrupted by police.

So far so good--and that's the problem. In the meantime we have the Jihad movement's political fronts, fellow travelers and useful idiots all gnawing away at our defences. When do we go after them? Not until we get badly hit, and that really is only a matter of time.

-- JT

Extra-legality in Counter-Terror

Almost every aspect of our responses to terrorism is subjected to inquiry and dissection these days--except one. Is it right to use violence outside of the law against domestic terrorism, and if so, what are the advantages and what are the potential penalties?

It is somewhat disturbing to think about the various euphemisms and evasions that have been employed to cover something ugly over the past century. While 'special action' was a deliberate misdirection employed for a lot of Maoist, Nazi and Soviet atrocities, 'extralegal' at least infers that something is outside of the law and is therefore questionable... and that questions won't always be answered.

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Hope Rides Alone

I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground. I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods. My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking lives from others.

I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again... and yet, I too, am just a boy... my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead. I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid... because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there.

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Fellow Travellers & Useful Idiots

These days, we are constantly enjoined to reduce, re-use and recycle. The campaign must be working, most of us tend feel guilty every time a glass container or some cardboard goes in the trash instead of a blue box. Far be it from us to deny the spirit of the times. In a contribution to the spirit of recycling, there are some terms from the Cold War that ought to be brought back today for use in coping with the Islamicist threat. Considering what the stakes are, it is not only time to re-use the terms 'fellow traveller' and 'useful idiot', but to also remember what these are.

In the Cold War sense, 'Fellow Traveller' referred to that galaxy of Non-Marxist Leninist Communists, socialists, self-styled "progressives" and others who broadly agreed with the stated Communist cause and who worked to further it, but were not themselves members of the Communist Party.

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Worth Repeating:
Salute the Danish Flag

In 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark.  But in 1978 - even in Copenhagen, one didn't see Muslim immigrants. The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism - one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 - a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time. The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies - it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism. How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets - all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite?

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Alexander Mackenzie's Bookshelf

A Banned Book and Samizdat Press

In the old Soviet Bloc, various dissidents would evade the official government censors through what became known as the Samizdat Press. Those who had received forbidden literature (usually poetry, essays and novels deemed dangerous by the authorities) would ėself-publishî copies of what they had and clandestinely distribute them. Today, we have scanners and the internet. Given the various lush Saudi funding sources available to shut down and intimidate those who write and speak about the Jihad movement, it seems time for a return to the tradition of Samizdat.

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Those who have sworn to serve their country in the Armed Forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and to the maintenance of peace.

War makes everyone indecently naked. The essence of everyone is spread out on the palm of fate in three days for all to see: Either you are a man and a soldier or you have gotten male characteristics through a misunderstanding.

And this must seem awfully familiar to the Canadian troops in Afghanistan...

So long as we can gain success, the interference of politicians in military matters can be resisted; but on the first disaster they press upon us like a pack of hungry wolves.

The Mackenzie Institute

The Institute was formed in 1986 to provide research and comment on such diverse subjects as terrorism, organized crime, political extremism, propaganda, conflict and other such matters. It does not shy away from controversy.

The Institute holds to the proposition that our democratic institutions need to be defended and enhanced, and works to do what it can to protect the stability of Canadian society.

Those who support its purposes are invited to become Friends of the Institute, and those who contribute $60 (or more) to it, receive its publications for the next twelve months.

John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca