As most people must know, we recently had two terrorist incidents in Canada. On Oct. 20 a uniformed warrant officer in the Canadian Forces was deliberately run down and killed with a car. On Oct. 22 a young reservist was shot in the back and killed as he formed part of a ceremonial guard at the National War Memorial. The perpetrator then ran into the Parliament Buildings where he injured an unarmed security guard who tried to stop him. Both perpetrators were killed within minutes of their crime. On investigation both proved to have been native-born Canadians who were "radicalized" converts to Islam.
On most social and political issues I am a flaming liberal by Canadian standards, and bear in mind that Canadian conservatives are generally flaming liberals by American standards. Nevertheless, I am a hard liner on the issue of terrorism.
I think the government should criminalize any expression of support for violent behaviour such as beheading or blowing up buildings and also any endorsement of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS. To give a concrete example, a long time ago I saw a photo of a demonstration in the UK with a sign which proclaimed BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM. As far as I am concerned, that should be grounds for a couple of months in the slammer followed by surveillance for as long as the authorities deem it necessary,
As for ISIS itself I think it can only be defeated by stamping it flat, as flat as we stamped the Nazis and the Japanese in World War II. This will not be done merely by aerial bombing. It seems President Obama hopes to persuade mid-East nations to send troops, but so far no one has stepped up to the plate except for the Kurds who were already under attack. Who is he going to get? The Turks? The Saudis??? I would not expect much from surrogate troops like these. In the long run the western nations may have to send in their crack units. I don't know much about American military history. For the Brits that would mean the SAS, the Royal Marine Commando and the Royal Gurkha Rifles.
On most social and political issues I am a flaming liberal by Canadian standards, and bear in mind that Canadian conservatives are generally flaming liberals by American standards. Nevertheless, I am a hard liner on the issue of terrorism.
I think the government should criminalize any expression of support for violent behaviour such as beheading or blowing up buildings and also any endorsement of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS. To give a concrete example, a long time ago I saw a photo of a demonstration in the UK with a sign which proclaimed BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT ISLAM. As far as I am concerned, that should be grounds for a couple of months in the slammer followed by surveillance for as long as the authorities deem it necessary,
As for ISIS itself I think it can only be defeated by stamping it flat, as flat as we stamped the Nazis and the Japanese in World War II. This will not be done merely by aerial bombing. It seems President Obama hopes to persuade mid-East nations to send troops, but so far no one has stepped up to the plate except for the Kurds who were already under attack. Who is he going to get? The Turks? The Saudis??? I would not expect much from surrogate troops like these. In the long run the western nations may have to send in their crack units. I don't know much about American military history. For the Brits that would mean the SAS, the Royal Marine Commando and the Royal Gurkha Rifles.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
