Other People's Wars - Caledonia Wake Up Call

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Other Peoples’ Wars – Chapter OneCanada is connected with the rest of the world; it is our market, our supplier, and ourvacation site. We have citizens who have come from virtually every nation on the planet.As a result, this means that problems elsewhere in the world are our problems too. Theyare not something we can ignore. Additionally, as a trading nation with a cosmopolitanpopulation, we have a responsibility to other nations. We owe them security andprotection from internal problems, and this is a responsibility that sovereign nations oweeach other.Notwithstanding the desires and fond beliefs of some of our citizenry, the rest of theWorld does not necessarily love us, for Canada is a Western nation and a part of whatsome might consider as the “Anglo Saxon Mafia”. While many Canadians may feel thatour purported reputation as Peacekeepers (a fantasy that does not withstand objectivescrutiny) or as a multicultural country may exempt us from hatred by others, we remain ademocratic society with the same background and vitality as other Western nations. Thisvitality has attracted spiteful and envious hatred.Also, as may be apparent in an examination of the nature and motivation of terrorism,being a tolerant and cosmopolitan society does not mitigate against risk. In fact, it ismore likely to increase it. While Canada is capable of generating some terrorism of itsown, the most severe danger has been imported as potential terrorists and terroristsupporters creep in almost unnoticed with the tide of newcomers arriving here every year.If there is one lesson to learn from the attacks of September 11 th , 2001, it is thatinstability on the other side of the world can be a problem for stable sovereign nations.This also means that our security and stability are dependent upon the security andstability of other countries and regions; it is in our best interests to look after theirinterests.Since the end of the Cold War, the most dangerous conflicts around the world havebeen internal ones. The State vs. State violence that most Canadians think of as “war”has become rare, and is replaced almost entirely with conflicts where one of more of theparticipants are non-state actors such as guerrillas, tribal militias, armed political factions,vigilantes, mobs, organized criminal societies, and terrorists.These forces, trivial and remote though they may seem, are at once both a problem inthemselves, and a symptom of other problems. Nor are they necessarily small and weak.If left to their own devices they can generate civil conflicts that can kill hundreds ofthousands of people, destabilize whole regions, and bankrupt nations. With intimidationof officials and police and the money from illegal enterprises such as narcotics ordiamond smuggling, for example, they can corrupt institutions, buy weapons andequipment, and sustain themselves for decades -- often long after the conditions thatcreated them have gone.More to the point for Canada, these non-state actors have moved into our country totake advantages of opportunities we present to them. The members of some groups comehere when the price on their heads is too high at home. Others come to generate newfollowers among their countrymen and co-religionists from home, or to define andenforce a new system of beliefs among them. Canada can be a market for the black orgray market activities that feed their movements; to collect money openly and legally, orto quietly live until the time is right to resume the struggle.2
Other Peoples’ Wars – Chapter OneThe Failure of DefinitionTerrorism is just one form of violent human behavior. It has escaped easy definition bythe UN, as well as by governments. While most North Americans can recognize that thehijacking of an aircraft by armed militants, or the bombing of an office by some shadowygroup, as “terrorism”, nothing is ever quite what it seems, and the problem of identifyingterrorism remains.The distinguished American analyst Walter Laqueur, in the first paragraph of The NewTerrorism, begins by mentioning that terrorism is violence, but not all violence isterrorism. 1 He goes on to say that terrorism is difficult to define precisely, but should notbe mixed up with activities undertaken in the course of civil war, banditry, or guerrillawarfare. Unfortunately, terrorism is often undertaken by those who hope to provoke acivil war, or plan to pay for their terrorism through the use of banditry. Moreover, manyguerrilla movements arose out of terrorism and still practice it.Bruce Hoffman, a former director of research on terrorism at RAND, and one of theformidable scholars and intellects at the University of Saint Andrew’s Centre ofTerrorism and Political Violence, has also grown reluctant to define terrorism. However,he does settle on the admittedly imprecise description of terrorism as “violence – orequally important, the threat of violence – used and directed in pursuit of, or in serviceof, a political aim.” 2 However, almost all violence committed by groups of people (and,arguable, even by some individuals) is political in nature, except for straightforwardcriminal activity in pursuit of profit, and even this distinction is often inaccurate.Dozens of other commentators have likewise failed to adequately describe terrorism.“Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non -combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine state agents, usually toinfluence an audience.” 3[Terrorism is] “A term used to describe the method or theory behind the methodwhereby an organized group or party seeks to achieve its avowed aims chiefly throughthe systemic use of violence. Terroristic acts are directed against persons who asindividual agents or representatives of authority interfere with the consummation of theobjectives of such a group.” 4“The phenomenon of terrorism can be defined as a strategy whereby violence is used toproduce certain effects in a group of people so as to attain some political ends.” 5There have been other definitions of terrorism – many of which contribute to theproblem. During the French Revolution, Robespierre opined that terrorism was an“emanation of virtue.” Marxist theorists have been able to rationalize terrorism as an1 Walter Laqueur; The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction; Oxford UniversityPress; New York; 19992 Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism , Victor Gollancz, London, 1998. pg. 153 Terrorist Group Profiles 1988; US Government Printing Office, pg. vii.4 Edwin R.A. Sidigman, ed. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol.. 13, Macmillan co., New York, 1934.5 Naunihal Singh, The World of Terrorism; South Asia Publishers, New Delhi, 1988.3
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Appendix: A List of Canadian Terror
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Mahjoub, Mohamed Zeki. A Toronto ar
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