Last week witnessed the hit-and-run killing of a Canadian soldier in a Quebec town by Martin Couture-Rouleau, and the shooting death of the War Memorial guard on Parliament Hill in Ottawa by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Both attackers were recent converts to Islam. Both were among 90 people being tracked by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on suspicion of planning to join jihadists in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Both recently had their passports confiscated, forcing them to turn their frustrations against local military targets. In all the subsequent media hysteria, no one has dared say the obvious: these deaths would not have occurred without the Conservative Party's loud and aggressive war agenda targeting Muslim countries during the past eight years under Canada's Christian Zionist Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Crazies? Perhaps. Both showed signs of mental imbalance in recent months. Isolated incidents? Unfortunately, not. Only last month, the first Canadian jihadist death occurred in Syria, a Somali Canadian Mohamed was killed in Syria, fighting for the new ‘caliphate', one of as many as 70 Canadian jihadists. And Zehaf-Bibeau's actions on Parliament Hill apparently inspired New Yorker Zale Thompson to attack a group of police officers with a hatchet the next day. Thompson was also considered troubled, and a convert to Islam. CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti said “the event was the violent expression of an extremist ideology promoted by terrorist groups with global followings. That something like this would happen in a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu shows the long reach of these ideologies.” But just a minute. Canada has spent the last 13 years preening itself as a nation at war. Stephen Harper snatched the reins of government in 2006 and rushed ahead with an even more aggressive military policy in Afghanistan and then in virtually any Muslim country the US was currently opposed to (Libya, Mali, Syria, Iraq). Al-Farouk Khaki, head of the secularist Muslim Canadian Congress and one of Canada's most outspoken anti-Islamists, warned shortly after Harper came to power in 2006, “Canadians need to wake up and realise the recipe offered by George Bush and Tony Blair, and now being adopted by Stephen Harper, has only led to an increase in terrorism fuelled by the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.” Why is this so difficult to understand? People who identify with those on the other end of Canadian bombs and bullets inevitably will consider attacking the military responsible for that violence. To give them their due, Couture-Rouleau and Zehaf-Bibeau were not targeting civilians. Even the latter's 20 scattered shots in the parliament building were directed against the politicians responsible for sending the soldiers to Iraq. The Canadian military, once respected as a force against fascism and then promoting peacekeeping following WWII, has been turned into a plaything of US imperial strategists, occupying Afghanistan and now going back into Iraq with the sole purpose of bombing and killing Iraqis. Yes, some of whom are no doubt IS supporters, but who can tell from 5,000 feet? Canada did not experienced Muslim-inspired violence prior to 9/11. In 2006, Canadian counter-terrorism forces arrested 18 terrorists (dubbed the “Toronto 18”) inspired by Al-Qaeda, intending to explode a truck-bomb. (The group was infiltrated and monitored by police agents). Harper had just been elected, and despite the shoddy evidence, the trial set the stage for his rule. He welcomed Canada's first Israeli military attache, the fruit of the Canadian-Israeli public security cooperation “partnership” which he signed in 2008. Canada's image as conciliator on the world stage disappeared almost overnight. Particularly embarrassing was the refusal of UN Security Council members to appoint Canada in 2010 to a temporary seat. Harper's pro-Israeli bias culminated in a parliamentary junket to Israel in January 2014 composed of 208 Canadians including Harper, 21 rabbis, a handful of evangelical Christians and Jewish Defense League Canada official Julius Suraski. (The FIB labelled the JDL “violent extremist” in 2000.) He has no shame, as confirmed in his loud support for the Israeli invasions of Gaza in 2009 and 2014. The result of all this? In 2013, two alleged plots by Muslims were foiled. And now these latest ‘isolated' incidents. It's almost as if Harper intended these tragedies. According to Robert Pape and James Feldman's 2010 Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, based on US Defense Department estimates, while there were only 20 suicide attacks around the world in 2000, and only one (against the USS Cole) against Americans, in 2009 there were 300 suicide attacks, 270 of which were anti-American (and since 2006, anti-Canadian). An intriguing footnote to Zehaf-Bibeau's actions is the fact that his father was Libyan-Canadian businessman Bulgasem Zehaf, who joined US-backed jihadists to overthrow Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Such blowback is also seen in the fate of Somali-Canadian Mohamed, a young jihadist who actually made it to Syria a few months ago, only to die there. Youths such as Mohamed are denounced as misguided and naïve. But they are really just responding to the West's cynical call to overthrow the Syrian government, a decades-old Western policy and still the goal of the US government, despite President Bashar Al-Assad being the main force resisting IS. All of these incidents can be seen as part of an emerging pattern of terrorist acts not just in Canada, but throughout the West: homegrown zealots, often disaffected young men who have embraced radical Islam and act alone, or without evidence of direct aid from foreign jihadist groups. Harper asserted that the attacks were inspired by an earlier call from the Islamic State to kill Canadians and foreigners from other nations battling the movement's advance in Syria and Iraq. Well, yes. Given that Canada is committed to killing IS members, it is hard to blame IS for calling on its supporters to kill Canadian soldiers. Does that make IS guilty of murder, in as much as they are acting in self-defence? Or does it make Harper guilty of murder for attacking IS in the first place? There are lonely, sane voices in Canada. One is Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who stated recently: “The 2003 Iraq war was waged on false pretences and flawed intelligence. It was a mission that destabilised the region, sowed further conflict, cost our allies $3 trillion, and cost thousands of people their lives. The world is still dealing with the consequences of that mistake.” Before the attacks, he criticised Harper's latest foreign policy fiasco-in-the-making: “Once again [Harper] relied on rhetoric rather than facts and information. He has no plan, he has not justified his case for going to war in Iraq.” In defiance of the attacks and surge of support “for our troops”, major protests were coordinated across Canada October 25-26 by the Canadian Peace Alliance—in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, London, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver: “No to US and Canadian Troops in Iraq and Bombing of Iraq and Syria!” No one questions the tragedy of the deaths of the two soldiers, but rather the tragedy of why they died so senselessly, because of the wrong-headed policies of the prime minister. The next election is 2015, and Harper is not wasting any time. Before the mourning for the hapless soldier-victims had ended, he announced that plans for increasing security surveillance powers of CSIS and the RCMP would increase, and plans to kill more Iraqis would proceed apace. What would be a more sensible policy for the Canadian government in dealing with the seemingly unending cycle of violence? Airstrikes against IS militants (and anyone else who happens to be in the vicinity) do nothing to address the root causes that gave birth to IS. Instead of flooding the region with arms (as at present), world leaders need to cut off funding sources and all arms supplies. Most important, Canada and the West must invest massively in humanitarian and development aid. The UN has registered over three million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, and over nine million Syrians in need within the country. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) insists there are alternatives to either ‘doing nothing' or plunging Canada into new military initiatives in the Middle East, but they require courage and intelligence. It is vital to talk to all parties, to recognise popular groups in the region, and encourage moderate voices. The situation reminds us of earlier acts of political violence and their consequences. Malcolm X tried to “wake up” Americans after the assassination of President Kennedy when he called it a case of “chickens coming home to roost,” a result of a “climate of hate” fostered by a violent US regularly overthrowing governments and assassinating progressive leaders. It is also reminiscent of the Madrid train bombing in 2004 (though that was genuine terrorism, where 191 civilians died). Al-Qaeda warned that worse would follow unless Spain withdrew its troops from Iraq. Spaniards were already against the troop deployment and threw the conservative Partido Popular out of office three days later. Canada's next election is in 2015. Will Canadians “wake up”, and have the same resolve as the Spaniards?
