Just days after hammering out the supposed last chapter of the long standing softwood lumber dispute between our two countries, the Bush State Department headed by Condoleeza Rice has accused Canada of being a terrorist “safe haven”. This is familiar and false bad-mouthing of Canada, since many very-conservative media figureheads in the States made inaccurate claims as to Canada’s involvement in the 9/11 terrorist hijackings years ago. Many Americans to this day still believe that some of the hijackers came to the States via Canada even though they landed directly. Even someone like Newt Gingrich who should have known better, still had the facts wrong years after the hijackings. Fewer Americans likely remember the thousands of Americans that Canada took in for days after they were stranded when their their jets had been diverted to the NWT, Newfoundland and Labrador, and elsewhere.
From the National Post canada.com:
According to the Country Report on Terrorism for 2005:
- There were 11,000 separate terror attacks around the world in 2005, killing 14,600 people. This contrasts to 208 terrorist attacks that caused 625 deaths in 2003, and 3,168 attacks that caused 1,907 deaths and 6,704 injuries in 2004.
- At least 30 per cent of all terrorist incidents last year occurred in Iraq, as did 55 per cent of related fatalities, about 8,300 people.
- Fifty-six Americans were killed in terrorist acts, 47 of them in Iraq.
Yet the report doesn’t suggest Iraq is harboring terrorists, like Canada apparently does. When was the last time an IED was set off by the road side in Prince Edward Island, eh? Just what garbage is Rice trying to pull? Is calling your closest ally a terrorist “safe haven” because of “liberal immigration policies” any way to foster goodwill between our law enforcement services? And I thought conservatives were above bashing foreign governments that do a “worse” job than they do in their own country and controlled territories. Ambassador Wilkins almost blew a gasket when Paul Martin suggested the USA should be doing more for the environment [especially funny since Martin's record wasn't much better than Bush's].
It’s no wonder that the Canadian Embassy in Washington resorts to websites like Connect2Canada.com and CanadianAlly.com to help fight the mis-information being spread by Washington’s administration. The American people can’t rely on their own State Department to give an accurate depiction of life in Canada! Thank goodness most Americans have access to the Internet, and thus the truth if they want it. And for the moment at least they don’t need a new passport just to get back into their own country after they visit Canada.
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M@ | 30-Apr-06 at 8:12 pm | Permalink
Peter McKay to Condi, April 13, 2006: “I’ve always been a fan of yours.”
Peter McKay to self, April 30, 2006: “Crap.”
Saskboy | 30-Apr-06 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
I’m sure Harper and all are thrilled with being labeled “liberal” too. Ha!
B-) | 30-Apr-06 at 9:41 pm | Permalink
It has me wondering if Bushboy & Co are working with the Harper to brainwash Canucks into thinking that the Harper is as liberal as the Liberals. A lot of Canadians watch US TV and news.
Saskboy | 30-Apr-06 at 10:19 pm | Permalink
B-) it’s probably just that the report was started back when the Liberals were still in power, and nobody bother to tell anyone writing the report that Canada’s government had changed in January :-D
scruffydan | 01-May-06 at 1:45 am | Permalink
sure there are terrorists in Canada, but ill let you in on a little secret…
there are terrorists in the USA. That’s right the USA harbors terrorists. I think its about time we invade them.
M@ | 01-May-06 at 7:47 pm | Permalink
Scruffydan -
While it’s an attractive prospect to bring our neighbours to the south some real democracy — like elections that aren’t fixed and representatives who aren’t in the pockets of lobbyists — we’ve seen with the New Orleans situation that the rebuilding situation would be a nightmare. I hate to be pessimistic, but I just don’t see how to make it work.
Luckily the nuclear option is still on the table, right?
caught 'em! | 03-Jun-06 at 12:53 pm | Permalink
Can you honestly state that Canada is NOT a terrorist haven?
Saskboy | 03-Jun-06 at 1:51 pm | Permalink
Yes I can Caught ‘Em. Todays events don’t change that either. You’re blowing it way out of proportion. A moderately sized group of whack jobs were stupid and tipped the authorities off as to their deadly plan of destruction. That happens every year, except the usual suspects are biker gangs, or other gangs that kill hundreds of people every year. The total terrorist deaths in the country from the past 5 years totals likely less than a dozen. If it were a haven, don’t you think we’d have heard of a successful attack in the past year.
You’re being played by CSIS and the Cons. who want to pour money into a resource that already has about as much as it needs here.
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy » Blog Archive » Kill those mosquitoes & Terrorists | 03-Jun-06 at 3:38 pm | Permalink
[...] Let us go back one month to a story brought to you by the US right wing government. “Canada is a haven for terrorism,” they said, and CSIS who has jobs that rely on the public being willing to spend money on forgeign and domestic threat intelligence, eagerly agreed in the media. That should be a clue, because the only time CSIS wants to be in the media, is when it serves their goals personally, not necessarily all Canadians. Did Superman want his identity and methods revealed, and to stir up a media fuss when the bad guys were underground? I think not. The real good guys don’t like media attention, they only like busting the bad guys and having the resources to do so. Today a group of about 20 homicidal male idiots, likely manipulated by a few pursuasive adult terrorists, were caught in Ontario trying to assemble a large fertilizer bomb with an unstated target(s) in mind. Were these youths and adults terrorists? Most certainly they were. Does the presence of 18 arrested Fundamental-Islamic terrorists in Canada, the Khader family, and a mistaken arrest of Maher Arar make Canada a terrorist haven? No, it is not proof of Canada being a terrorist haven. Canada has problems with our immigration system allowing some people who are criminals to slip in without detection, but that doesn’t mean our immigration system is broken. {It’s broken for entierly different reasons.} Our immigration system needs more resources and also to process the obviously non-threatening immigrating grandparents and spouses of landed immigrants more quickly, so we can focus on keeping out criminals. Stop deporting families with Canadian children, and start deporting only drug dealers, gun runners, war criminals, legitimate suspects of terrorism, and mosquitoes. [...]