We have just honoured Canadian men and women who have and are serving in our armed forces. Unhappily, this year’s Remembrance Day was marked by feelings of uncertainty as well as pride and sorrow. Two of our soldiers, Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo were killed because they wore the uniform of our armed forces. And two young Canadians on our own soil killed them.
The political question is whether these were acts of terrorism or were triggered by some other grievance. Different countries define terrorism differently – depending upon their history and form of government. In 1992 the UN defined terrorism as:
“An anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct targets of violence are not the main targets.” The U.S. has three definitions – one for each of Defense, FBI and State departments. Personally, I prefer the 1974 British Government definition: “terrorism is the use of violence for political ends, and includes any use of violence for the purpose of putting the public, or any section of the public, in fear.”
When one looks at the actions of these two tragic figures – one using an automobile and the other a single shot hunting rifle, one has to question if these were terrorist attacks. One could argue that their actions were not much different from those, which happened in the Ecole Polytechnique and Dawson College massacres or the deadly shootings of our RCMP officers in Mayerthorpe and Moncton.
In all of these instances, these young men had rejected their families, friends and our society and had become ‘lone wolves.’ They were adrift, marginalized, insecure and angry. What seems to have distinguished Martin Rouleau and Michael Zahaf-Bibeau from the others is that they had found a cause. Unfortunately it was a deadly one. Rather than joining a “Peacenik cult” as had so many disaffected youths during the Vietnam War era, they joined a group of radical authoritarian nationalists (a.k.a. fascists) who are driven by religious zeal. We have seen this before.
The idea that those who join ISIS will weary of their conversion within two years, as societal experts theorize, will do us no good. The power of the Internet will guarantee a steady stream of new converts. We can talk all we want about beefing up security services around Parliament Hill, disrobing our off duty military, and recruiting imams as CSIS informants. This is window dressing.
We have no option, I fear, but to destroy ISIS as we destroyed fascism in Europe.
The western coalition’s own terrorist measures in the “shock and awe,” of invading Iraq started this mess. President Obama’s abandonment of this fractured country created the same vacuum of political instability and economic crisis that spawned Hitler’s reign of terror.
Maybe we don’t have to go to war as we did in 1939. But mission creep has started and we have as yet found no satisfactory help for the most disaffected and lost youth in our own country who have chosen ISIS as the salvation for their lonely suffering. Dropping bombs on Germany didn’t win that war. Neither will our current efforts.
Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
