ANTHONY FUREY FUREY: Canada needs jihadist strategy

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2015/01/20150117-065956.html


Is Canada at war? Here’s what Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in response to the Charlie Hebdo shootings: “The international jihadist movement has declared war. They have declared war on anybody who does not think and act exactly as they wish they would think and act."

One would imagine that includes Canada. We suffered the October attacks on Parliament Hill and in Quebec. We know that there are around 80 terror suspects in Canada being tracked by CSIS. Our intel knows of more than 100 Canadians fighting jihad abroad.

Then there’s John Maguire, the Ottawa man who left to fight with the Islamic State. He reportedly died this week, but in December released a video calling on Canadian Muslims to radicalize - either join the Islamic State or commit homegrown attacks.

He stated: “The more bombs you drop on our people, the more Muslims will realize and understand that today, waging jihad against the West and its allies around the world is beyond a shadow of the doubt a religious obligation binding upon every Muslim.”

So the prime minister says it’s war and guys trying to kill us are yelling on the megaphone that we’re at war. Then it looks like we’re at war. Albeit in a non-traditional, non-state actor sense.

Yet what are we doing about it? Has Parliament sufficiently acknowledged this? Are they drafting a plan in response?

While the Harper / Mulcair / Trudeau hugfest back in October was cute in a “if question period was a Hugh Grant movie” kind of way, it does nothing to combat jihadists.

Newt Gingrich, writing in the Wall Street Journal Friday, noted “Ad hoc responses to attacks have failed to stop the growing threat. We remain vulnerable to a catastrophic attack (or series of smaller attacks) that would have dark and profound consequences for the American people and for freedom around the world. The U.S. and its allies must now design a strategy to match a global movement of radical Islamists who sincerely want to destroy Western civilization.”

The former Speaker of the House then calls for congressional hearings that include assessing the global threat, detailing country-by-country issues, tracking funding sources and studying domestic radicalization.

Canada must do the same. We need a strategy to address the international jihadist movement that has declared war on us.

We already have much of the information in piecemeal: the public safety and national security committee talking to experts; RCMP and CSIS reports on homegrown radicals; think-tank studies on the global scene, etc.

But our parliamentarians need to put these together, agree on what it all means and develop a game plan to respond to it.
At a time when the refrain of the day is “evidence-based policy” there’s very little evidence being applied to how we assess the jihadist movement.

This needs to be a 2015 campaign issue. And it’s clearly a wedge issue that Stephen Harper can win on.

Trudeau has been absent from this debate and keeping a low profile. I initially typed “noticeably absent” but then deleted the phrase because the truth is few people actually have noticed.

Why? Because while Trudeau is a charming placeholder for opponents of Harper to throw their support at, no one actually considers him a credible mind when it comes to issues of substance.
Regardless of who delivers it, substance is what’s needed in this search for a strategy.