Canada's axis of evil

Editorial

The newest axis of evil: Iran, Syria and .... Canada? It may seem a stretch from the way Canadians like to think of ourselves, but reports suggest this country is one of the foremost centres of operation for one of the world's foremost terrorist organizations. Hezbollah, according to media reports last week, runs a successful money laundering operation and material collection business here.

The reports of terror operations in Canada are not entirely new. Before Mohammed Hussein al-Husseini, a Hezbollah agent, was deported from Canada in 1994, he apparently sang like a canary to Canadian officials, though why he was so forthcoming and what secrets he kept are not known.

The ultimate goal of Hezbollah ("The party of God") is the destruction of the Jewish state. This is neither surprising, nor particularly original. There have been plenty of terrorist organizations with the same objective. Its strategy, however, may be more successful than that of other groups, including the arguably very effective PLO.

Hezbollah has a triangulated approach to destroying Israel. Unlike the PLO, which seems to think it will destroy the Zionist dream by wearing down the Israeli people through relentless attacks on civilians, Hezbollah has a grander scheme. The Shiite fundamentalists who operate Hezbollah see dead Israelis (and Americans, and others) as merely a fortuitous byproduct of their killing. The real goal is to terrorize Israel to the point where it reacts with force, hopefully (in Hezbollah's plan) bringing official response from neighboring Arab states, resulting in a full-scale war in which Israel is ultimately defeated.

That long-term strategy was apparently on the minds of Vancouver-based Hezbollah members whose conversations were taped by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). According to a report in the National Post, Hezbollah operatives congratulated each other for their successes – not for the terrorism they fomented, but for the handy byproduct, which was to provoke an Israeli response.

The reports also indicated that a Vancouver Hezbollah member approached a local company, seeking to purchase "any equipment used to blow up rocks."
Hezbollah, one of the most prolific killers of Israelis and Americans, was formed in Lebanon in 1982 and obtains most of its funding from the Iranian and Syrian governments. CSIS reports say Hezbollah operatives in the Middle East send "shopping lists" to Canada where their colleagues amass the items and ship them abroad. Vancouver is said to be one of the locations where these Canadian operatives live and "shop."

In addition to supplies, videotapes of Canadian infrastructure were reportedly prepared and sent to Hezbollah, presumably in preparation for some sort of terror attacks on this country.

As these details come to light, countless new questions should be raised.
Canada's prime minister attended a meeting last month that was also attended by the Hezbollah leader and refused to condemn the terrorist group's actions.

Has Jean Chrétien been informed of Hezbollah's activities in Canada or even read about them in the newspaper? One would hope the leader of our national government would be ahead of the average newspaper reader on this learning curve. These CSIS reports about Hezbollah reached the Canadian public as a result of a barely related American judicial matter. If we, almost by chance, found out this much information, what else should we know? More to the point, what should the prime minister know and what is he doing with the information CSIS has gathered for him?

If we have a security intelligence service unearthing details about extensive terrorist activities in our borders, is it not incumbent on our elected officials to act on that information?

If Canadian banks have been used to launder money used for terrorist activities, does that not indicate a failure on the banks' part to remain aware of potential abuses? Are there standardized methods for flagging unusual or suspicious transfers within the Canadian banking system?

Most significantly, Canada's new anti-terrorism law does not single out Hezbollah as a banned terrorist organization because, according to Ottawa, there is a political wing and a military wing of Hezbollah and this distinction should be recognized.

One last question, then: Would the purchase of explosives "used to blow up rocks" constitute a "political" activity or a "military" one?

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