Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said today that Wednesday’s attack on Parliament Hill “will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts, and those of our national security agencies.”
REESE ERLICH, rerlich at pacbell.net
Erlich said today: “The killing of the Canadian soldier in Ottawa yesterday was a tragic, criminal act. We don’t know the motives of the killer. But the Canadian and U.S. governments are already using the incident to instill fear and justify further military aggression in Iraq and Syria.” Erlich is an award winning foreign correspondent and author of the new book, Inside Syria: the Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect (foreword by Noam Chomsky). He also wrote “10 Myths About Obama’s Latest War.” One of his previous books is Conversations With Terrorists. See from Oct. 7: “Canada at war: Vote to launch combat mission against ISIS passes 157-134 in House of Commons.”
SHAHID MAHMOOD, shahid at drawnconclusions.com
Mahmood, who lives in Toronto, was an editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a leading national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate. He just wrote a piece titled “Harper and Malala” (not yet published) which notes that on Wednesday, Harper was to have two events in Toronto with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, but they were cancelled after the shooting. See: “Harper cancels Malala citizenship event in wake of shooting.”
Says Mahmood: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dragged Canada into an asymmetrical war with ISIS. This only ensures future Canadian casualties — brought about from a misguided foreign policy. At Malala’s citizenship ceremony Prime Minister Harper was going to publicly commit over $100 million to the Global Partnership for Education — an organization that Malala supports. Prime Minister Harper postponed Malala’s ceremony in the wake of the shootings on Parliament Hill. This was a missed opportunity for making a powerful statement to radicalized fundamentalists worldwide.” See a recent interview with Malala on NBC.com in Philadelphia — “Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai to Obama: Stop Arming the World” — in which she recounts speaking with President Obama: “I said instead of sending guns, send books. Instead of sending weapons, send teachers.”
BEAU GROSSCUP, bgrosscup at csuchico.edu
Grosscup is author of several books on terrorism including The Newest Explosions of Terrorism and Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethics of Aerial Bombardment. He said today: “These events are being labeled ‘Canada’s 9/11,’ which means that any debate over how to deal with terrorism is largely over in Canada. As in the U.S. after its 9/11, the Canadian political right (Harper et al) and the Canadian National Security State with strong ties to the U.S. NSS, now has the upper hand in the central democratic debate over balancing civil liberties and public safety. They obviously want to swing the pendulum even further toward the ‘security fix’ at the expense of individual rights in both Canada and, given U.S.-Canada geo-political ties, even further in the U.S. Meanwhile, further evidence that there is no ‘security fix’ to terrorism is abundant for all who want to see.
“The same day the attack on the Canadian Parliament (said by U.S. security experts to be inadequately ‘secure’) occurred…another individual compromised White House security just weeks after its security was ‘fixed’ once again. In both countries, neither government nor corporate media are encouraging Canadian or U.S. citizens to question this militarized approach to terrorism. Nor are Canadians being encouraged to ask the ‘why’ of these two latest attacks beyond ‘those crazy Muslims hate us for our freedoms.’ It’s as if ‘peace-loving’ Canada’s decision to wage a brutal war on Afghanistan and now ISIS has no connection to the ‘why’ of these attacks.”