All matters Canadian / Canada

[Rex Brynen]

I was having a coffee (double-double, of course) with the guys from AQ in Tim Horton's today, and caught the following headline in the Globe and Mail:

U.S. senators blast Canadian border security

Claiming Canada has more terrorist organizations than any other country, a U.S. senate hearing has demanded upgrades to the shared border....

The Tamil Tiger guys didn't agree, which started a big fight with the PKK/Kongra-Gel contingent. Who knows, eh?

[SWJED]

I was having a coffee (double-double, of course) with the guys from AQ in Tim Horton's today, and caught the following headline in the Globe and Mail:

The Tamil Tiger guys didn't agree, which started a big fight with the PKK/Kongra-Gel contingent. Who knows, eh?

... the surveillance video that the HSD guys sent us clearly showed it wasn't a double-double.

Looking through our biometric data we aren't even sure you are really Rex Brynen .

[SWJED]

Excepting the quote of Sen Salazar of Colorado - here is what the story was about:

American senators are demanding security upgrades at the Canadian border after a U.S. government report said it would be easy to smuggle dangerous material into the United States.

The independent Government Accountability Office sent investigators to test how easily they could transfer large red duffel bags at four unguarded and unmonitored spots along the more than eight thousand kilometres of U.S.-Canada border.

The G.A.O., the investigative arm of Congress, described in a 13-page report delivered to Congress Thursday how easily they were able to penetrate the border at several spots.

The report claims that shows how easy it would be to bring in radioactive material and other contraband...

[Jedburgh]

...The G.A.O., the investigative arm of Congress, described in a 13-page report delivered to Congress Thursday how easily they were able to penetrate the border at several spots....

Here's the 27 Sep 07 GAO report:

Border Security: Security Vulnerabilities at Unmanned and Unmonitored U.S. Border Locations

....On the U.S.–Canada border, GAO found state roads close to the border that CBP did not appear to man or monitor. In some of these locations, the proximity of the road to the border allowed investigators to cross without being challenged by law enforcement, successfully simulating the cross-border movement of radioactive materials or other contraband into the United States from Canada. In one location on the northern border, the U.S. Border Patrol was alerted to GAO activities through the tip of an alert citizen. However, the responding U.S. Border Patrol agents were not able to locate GAO investigators. Also on the northern border, GAO investigators located several ports of entry that had posted daytime hours and were unmanned overnight......

[AdamG]

As a spinoff of this thread ( http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=3530 )

Second pipeline explosion bears marks of sabotage, RCMP say
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

The latest occurrence ruptured a pipeline in northeastern British Columbia, causing the escape of dangerous hydrogen sulphide gas and raising tensions in a region where intense resource activity is under way.

The first attempt to sabotage an EnCana gas pipeline occurred Saturday night, about 50 kilometres south of Dawson Creek, and the RCMP reported that damage from the second blast, at a nearby location, was discovered Thursday morning.


I read this and think "ELF", but then again ...

Five missing Afghan students turn up in Canada
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...5.wafghans1015

SEATTLE — Five Afghan students studying in Washington have fled to Canada, U.S. customs officials said Wednesday.

The five men, age 30 or younger, are master's students of public administration at Kabul University, but were on a three-month study visa to complete their theses at the University of Washington. Most had previously worked for the Afghanistan government.

[Jedburgh]

....I read this and think "ELF", but then again ...

Five missing Afghan students turn up in Canada
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...5.wafghans1015

Lets try and avoid unsubstantiated linkages and alarmist conjecture. Wouldn't want SWJ to turn into WND.

The kids visas ran out and they went up north to try and obtain refugee status in a nearby location where becoming a "refugee" is much easier than here in the US. Do you blame them in not wanting to go back to Afghanistan? Canada is struggling with the broader issue, and the past few years have seen a steady increase in those seeking such status, with an numbers rising about 30% over last year in the first nine months this year. Hell, they had nearly 4,000 refugee claims just in September.

Interestingly enough, already this year Mexico has become the the largest single annual source of refugee claimants since the Canucks starting tracking the issue.

If you're looking to make linkages (not related to the pipeline incident, though), there is a thriving two-way drug trade with a diverse multinational group of players on our northern border - ecstasy and MJ from Canada to US, and cocaine from US to Canada.

Then there's MS-13, which is usually thought of as a problem domestically here in the US, and more significantly south of the border, is present and active in their usual spread of illegal activities in Canada as well.

Although I'm now guilty of unsubstantiated conjecture, I don't feel that I'm too far off the mark when I say that someone with access to make the study could probably end making a substantive link between the increased US security focus on our southern border with the surge of refugee seekers - and related illegal activity - Canada is now receiving. If that is the case, then unless our northern neighbors make some serious adjustments, the situation is only going to get worse for them, as (despite certain parties' claims to the contrary) our border and internal security measures targeting the entire spectrum of illegal immigration continue to tighten up.

[AdamG]

Lets try and avoid unsubstantiated linkages and alarmist conjecture. Wouldn't want SWJ to turn into WND.

Golly. Ok, I'll articulate my unsubstantiated conjecture better: Canada's got a problem, eh.

29 Sep 2008 ... ‘Fundamentalists spreading harsh ideology in Canada’.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-9-2008_pg7_58

Quebec man's Web messages urge Al-Qa'ida to attack Canada
Praises bin Laden and blasts Ottawa for sending troops to Afghanistan and Iraq
STEWART BELL, Canwest News Service
Published: 10 hours ago
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazett...8-5ec3712b2e30
A Quebec man has posted messages on the Internet encouraging Al-Qa'ida to attack Canada, the latest in a series of similar sentiments that are worrying counterterrorism officials.

The author of the messages, who uses the pseudonym Altar, praised terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and asked why Al-Qa'ida was focusing its efforts only on Europe instead of Canada.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/toron...l-trial-begins

Although I'm now guilty of unsubstantiated conjecture,

Yup.

[Jedburgh]

Adam,

The conjecture I referred to was the linkage of the Afghan students with the pipeline blast. Your linked articles did not touch on either subject.

The first:

....what shocked her on arrival in Canada was her discovery of circles of indoctrination where women are veiled even inside their own houses, with ramifications in the Middle East, Pakistan, Iran, Europe and the United States. Imams trained in fundamentalist ideology, sent on missions and paid by foreigners, spread a radical Islam aiming at isolating Muslims from their host society. Messages call for jihad and to hate the agnostics, Jews, moderate Muslims, and Christians.....

As an aside, I found it interesting that she links problems with the fundies to her perception of the rise of the evangelical right in the US and problems emerging from that issue.

In any case, problems within some immigrant communities (as well as some non-immigrant groups brought together simply by a shared radical ideology or other common bond) is an issue that also exists in certain communities here in the US, and has long been of concern to LE. And its not just radical Islam from whatever locus of origin - there's always the old example of the Irish-American community's support for the IRA, as well as current issues such as clots of White Supremacists and their militia camps in isolated areas, or certain Hispanic communities and the gang problem that migrates with them from state to state. Each is a unique security problem in its own context, but we always have to take care not to assume broader, more complex linkages and to look for the evidence.

The second linked story was simply a tale of a guy posting a rant on the 'net. The short story had a lot of alarmist spin, but little substantive context.

The final article, regarding the trial, was closer to the point - but the two year old disruption and rolling up of a terrorist cell is still not related to the incident of the Afghan students, nor does it support even a weak supposition that those students may be linked to terrorism.

Again, they crossed the border, reported to the Canadian authorities and were prepared to attend a detention review hearing before the Immigration Review Board. They didn't "disappear" - but they did know exactly what they were going to do prior to arriving in WA for their classes.

These five haven't been the only ones. Over the past couple of years it has become pretty obvious that young, educated Afghans are aware of the potential value of obtaining subsidized travel to the US on student visas, then bolting to Canada to take advantage of their more lenient policies. ACIE has lost a few out of host homes much farther from the border than WA. The ones that concern me aren't the ones that turn up in Canada looking to obtain refugee status (the majority), but the ones that just disappear off the radar entirely......

Regards,

Ted