Canada will not kill off Canadian jihadis who fought for ISIS to keep them from ever re-entering Canada.
That might not surprise most Canadians but what makes it notable is that the U.S., Britain, France, Australia and perhaps others intend to hunt down and execute their own nationals who joined ISIS in Syria.
Even the interviewer seemed surprised at the answer Rory Stewart, the U.K. minister of international development, gave about how Britain should deal with citizens who chose to leave the country to join ISIS.
"I'm afraid we have to be serious about the fact these people are a serious danger to us, and unfortunately the only way of dealing with them will be, in almost every case, to kill them," Stewart told BBC Radio's John Pienaar last month.
Stewart, a former diplomat, continued: "These are people who are executing people … who have held women and children hostage, who are torturing and murdering, trying, by violence, to impose their will. Our response has to be, when somebody does that, I'm afraid, to deal with that."
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The Sunday Times reports that Britain's Special Air Service, SAS, has been given a "kill list" of British jihadis, including notorious ISIS recruiter and convert Sally Jones, and a dozen others with British university degrees in technical fields such as electronics.
"They're not just talking about it," said Christian Leuprecht, an expert on terrorism and security at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont. "Australia is another country that's taken the same approach — that they would prefer that those individuals who've been identified as foreign fighters not return home."
France, too, is working to eradicate its jihadis overseas. A Wall Street Journal investigation published in May quoted French and Iraqi officials describing French special forces co-operating with Iraqi units to hunt down and kill French jihadis.
The federal government doesn't seem to know what to do other than issue assurances they'll try to keep an eye on any of the 200 to 240 Canadian jihadis who went to the Middle East to join ISIS.
Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said his department's job is ensuring foreign fighters don't become a threat.
"We will make sure that we put every type of resource into place so Canadians are well protected," he told a crowd at the Halifax International Security Forum on Friday.
18 comments:
After WWII many Nazis came to Canada and 'disappeared' into the remote regions of the country.
Perhaps this is the future for the defeated ISIS supporters?
The Nazis that came generally kept a low profile knowing their cause was a lost one.
With ISIS the cause will never be over unless we make it so.
TB
That's definitely the dilemma we face, TB. These foreign fighters have been exposed to an astonishingly brutal and fiercely radical ideology in Syria and Iraq. We've had no shortage of examples of mass mayhem undertaken by ISIS sympathizers in Europe and elsewhere. How do we secure ourselves against returned Canadian jihadis doing the same thing on the streets of our cities?
Our allies are treating their jihadi nationals as rabid dogs that must be put down. That sounds terrible but what if they're right?
I am reminded of a passage in The Art of War about not pressing a desperate foe too hard. While killing some of the “rabid dogs” may be necessary, leaving open the option of capturing and/or rehabilitating them is, I think, a far better idea, if only to avoid the situation where we’ve made it clear that their only option is to try and go out in a blaze of glory taking out as many of their enemies as they can. Always leave them an out, or at least a perceived one.
So Britain, France and Australia are willing to impose extrajudicial capital punishment against their own citizens?! Those countries have all rejected capital punishment, even for mass murder, treason, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Britain for crying out loud wouldn't lay a kid glove on a monster like Pinochet! And now they want to deploy the SAS as a death squad?!
Something's not right in these countries. France, I can understand - they've already abandoned normal democratic freedoms. Police there no longer need a judge's approval to search your person, place or things, place you under house arrest or shut down your place of worship. But Britain and Australia, WTF?
Cap
I understand your point, BJB, but I'm troubled by the claim that Canada has no de-radicalization programme. I'm more troubled by the suggestion that there's little evidence such programmes work. If that's true then we have to weigh the risk returning Jihadis pose to the public versus the execution option.
Cap, I seem to recall the SAS playing executioner before. I don't recall many prisoners taken when the SAS stormed the Iranian embassy in London.
Five of the six hostage takers were topped. The sixth, who hid himself amidst the hostages was captured.
A similar "shoot to kill" approach was used by many special forces for retaking jetliners that had been seized.
Both of those situations are, obviously, matters of tactical necessity. I raise them merely to point out that western nations are quite prepared to execute bad guys where that's deemed necessary.
The argument for killing jihadi nationalists, as I understand it, is also grounded in "necessity." That's debatable or I'd like to imagine it is.
Like the "necessity" of groping, sexually assaulting, raping women, raping young girls, and raping young boys. It is nothing but a sick world run by sick men.
Really, Anon? You can't do better than that?
Mound, there is a reason I said perceived. I don’t know what’s involved in de-radicalization, but I doubt it is really much different then deprogramming from cults and the like, so I doubt it would take much effort to create such a program. And really, the main point is getting these guys off the battlefield and into custody. If offering the fig leaf that they may one day be able to return to society helps in that, so much the better. If we can’t actually deprogram them… we still have them locked up. That puts the level of risk at acceptable to me.
Also, “shoot to kill” missions in storming planes or embassies is a whole lot different then sending the SAS or other special forces out as death squads to target and kill specific named people. The embassy/plane missions are a function of their training where they are to “neutralize" the hostage-takers as quickly as possible to avoid giving them the chance to kill their hostages. (Also pretty sure they only send in the special forces once other means to solve the situation more peacefully have failed, not as the immediate go-to option.) Granted in practice that results in few survivors amongst the hostage takers, but it still isn’t like they are given “kill lists” and then sent off to cross out the names, which is what this sounds like.
Tell it like it is.
Lock them up for what, BJB? For how long? Do we have some extra judicial power, as they have in the States, to hold somebody indefinitely without charge or trial? We would have to suspend Habeas Corpus one of the fundamental rights enshrined in Magna Carta. That would also directly run afoul of sections 7 through 11 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are a constitutional, i.e. liberal democracy. There's always the "notwistanding clause" but I'm not confident the SCC would uphold its exercise in this situation. Who knows, I could be wrong.
I don’t know the specifics, but given we’re calling them jihadis, I assume they have committed some kind of crimes? Similar to the war crimes we’re accusing their compatriots of? Otherwise, if they have done nothing illegal and committed no crimes of any kind, why are we so worried that we’re contemplating murdering them all? I rather think our terrorism statutes should give us more than enough leeway to lock them up and/or keep them under close supervision indefinitely if need be, or at least as long as they are deemed a threat. Either they are terrorists and/or war criminals and we can deal with them as such, or they are apparently innocent of such crimes, which makes calling for the extra-judicial killing of them look even worse.
In a hostage-taking you have an urgent situation of clear and imminent peril where strict compliance with the law may be demonstrably impossible. In other words, there's a situation where necessity would justify breaking the law, but only to an extent proportional to the threat, which in a hostage-taking may include homicide.
I don't see necessity being made out in a "kill list" scenario where special forces are being sent to execute suspects as they find them, without any evidence of clear and imminent peril. Especially when the suspects could be arrested and tried ìf and when they came home.
Cap
Canada has no de-radicalization programme. I'm more troubled by the suggestion that there's little evidence such programmes work!!
If that is so then why do we try to normalise prisoners to re introduce them to society?
Why not just throw away the key?
Cap, I seem to recall the SAS playing executioner before. I don't recall many prisoners taken when the SAS stormed the Iranian embassy in London.
The SAS killed a bunch of people waving swords and replica guns!
Possibly a warranted use for special forces.
Using special forces to go out to foreign countries to execute people without trial is murder.
TB
Here's another complication. What happens to a government that perhaps allows one back on the street only to have that individual rent a van and plow into a crowd at some festival? Do you imagine the public would say, "Oh well, they tried. At least they upheld the presumption of innocence."? Like it or not we can expect to read headlines about Jihadi John or Jihadi Fred planting bombs, running down pedestrians, firing assault weapons into crowds for years to come. It's like Colin Powell's Pottery Barn line. You broke it, you own it.
As France has shown, the public will support the erosion of civil liberties as long as they think it'll only affect "criminals" and "terrorists." As Herr Goering famously remarked:
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
The Americans, Aussies, Brits and French are being conned by their own governments. The loss of liberties is aimed at people in general, not only the "terrorists."
Cap
Understanding that we're not going to send out any Canadian death squads, I hope there aren't any members of the Canadian Forces or other Canadian public officials in the vicinity when the SAS, US Special Forces, Aussie SAS etc. encounter any Canadian ex-pats who've teamed up with the jihadis. We could end up with some heavy legal bills and survivor-benefit settlements.
Extra judicial killings by any country are very wrong. It is a slippery slope, especially for countries that value human life very little, like the US. Criminals of any kind should be brought to trial.
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