Passport of Convenience: Canadian Citizenship and Canadians Who Endorse Terror
You have heard of "flags of convenience" for ships; well, Canada has become the "passport of convenience" for the Muslim terrorist thugs of this world, for their widows and for their children -- especially if one needs medical care. This is the family which has already "lost" and had to replace the odd passport, as I have reported previously.
Ahmed Said Khadr came to Canada from Egypt in 1977, married a Palestinian, Maha, and began a family here. But the Khadrs moved to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, and took a walk on the dark side.
They befriended Osama bin Laden, yet denied links with terror. They lived with bin Laden in Afghanistan. They raised money in Canada from hard-working, law-abiding Muslims and others who believed they were aiding Afghan orphans. They had their sons trained in Al Qaeda camps to handle guns and explosives. They encouraged them to become martyrs for Islam, even suicide bombers. They nursed their hatred for Americans.
In 2001, in a grotesque family get-together, they celebrated with "smiling, laughing" when Al Qaeda-comandeered jets slammed into the World Trade Center and other sites, killing 3,000, including 23 Canadians.
Yet even today, years after leaving Canada and five months after Ahmed was killed in a battle with Pakistani troops after being identified as an Al Qaeda founder and financer, Maha finds her Canadian citizenship handy.
Incredibly, from Pakistan, she is pressing Ottawa to issue her and her children new passports so they can roam the world armed with their extremist views. One son, Abdul Karim, was paralyzed in the battle in Pakistan that killed his father; another, Abdullah, is hiding in Pakistan; and a third, Omar, is in the American detention centre in Cuba as an "enemy combatant." A daughter, Zaynab, is with the mother.
"We are an Al Qaeda family," a fourth son, Abdurahman, flatly told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. this week. And he admitted to the Star he had been "lying to everyone up until this point" about his role in the saga.
[. . . . ] While Abdurahman [in Canada] now condemns Al Qaeda as "bad people," the same cannot be said of his mother and sister who admire the 9/11 terrorists for wanting "to hit the American government where it will hurt."
And that raises a tricky question for Canadian diplomacy. What to do with the unreformed members of this Al Qaeda family? Should they be stripped of their citizenship? Barred from re-entering Canada? Should Canadian passports be documents of convenience for friends and admirers of the world's most wanted terrorist?
The short answer must be: No.
As Canadian citizens, they cannot be stripped of their citizenship on a whim. [What about for cause? NJC] Nor should they be prevented from coming "home," where their links to terror can be probed. But Ottawa, in the midst of a war on terror, would be irresponsible to issue them passports to travel where they wish.
If any of the Khadr clan do arrive in Canada, they should be immediately detained until our security services can ensure they pose no threat to the public. Osama bin Laden admirers who hate Americans and back suicide bombers must not be waved through immigration with a nod and a smile.
My Commentary:
Why allow traitors to the West to return to Canada at all? Should Canadians' taxes pay for the medical needs of paralyzed Karim Khadr? They have been in Pakistan--or in the border region with Afghanistan--for years--part of Bin Ladin's Al Qaeda.
When are Canadians going to start demanding a higher standard of conduct of its foreign born, naturalized citizens--a worthiness to be Canadian and to teach their offspring Canadian values of tolerance and non-violence?
When are Canadians going to force their government to stop allowing the Canadian passport to be one of convenience -- one to be brought out only when Canada's services are needed? To be claimed when they need a new passport -- or medical care -- or old-age pensions -- or, as in the case of Mama Khadr, when they are widowed and can batten on Canadian taxpayers for the social services benefits that accrue to a Canadian widow and her child Karim who is now disabled?
Let the Bin Ladins support Mama, daughter, her husband (another terrorist?) and assorted offspring. Let the Bin Ladins and Al Qaeda provide medical care in the hospitals of Pakistan. They have been warring for Al Qaeda in Pakistan/Afghanistan -- or bringing up their children to do so. The daughter stated that she was happy about what the murder of Americans on 9/11. These are not Canadians! NJC
How many Muslims in Canada have you heard publicly denouncing the terrorist attacks on the United States or terrorism in the Middle East?
Members of Toronto's Muslim community say that new revelations about the Khadrs have caused them to turn their backs on the militant Islamist Canadians, whose ranks include a rogue son who says he left the fold to become a U.S. spy.
[. . . .] These new admissions have shattered the faith of friends and family who have long wanted to see the Khadrs as good Muslims who left Canada years ago to help Afghan widows.
"I feel betrayed," said Aly Hindy, a Toronto Muslim leader and long-time family friend. "For the first time, now I feel that CSIS was right," he told The Globe. "They are not wrong every time. This time, I was wrong and they were right."
Mr. Hindy has frequently complained that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has wrongly targeted the Khadrs, among other local Muslims. But his remarks are not even the most scathing indictment of the family.
Fatmah Elsamnah, Abdurahman Khadr's mother-in-law, told The Globe yesterday she would not let her own blood relatives back in her Scarborough house. [. . . .]
Nor would she let her own grandson Abdurahman come back. "If he's going to be like that, he's not my grandson any more," she said.
Which side is she on, then? The part of the family which supports Al Qaeda? Or Abdurahman who claims--and we do not know whether he is lying--that he now wants to be a good Canadian? What, exactly, is she saying? Is she a traitor to Canada? NJC
He left her house only three days ago, for places unknown, [. . . .]
Mr. Khadr has admitted to lying in the past, but now says he is coming clean with "the real story." Incredible as it is, it's an altogether more plausible version of events than he told reporters when he first returned to Canada last fall.
[. . . .] After being separated from his family in the fall of 2001 in Afghanistan, he was captured by the Northern Alliance and handed to U.S. forces.
He was asked if whether he would go to work for them and did. [. . . . He] took a series of U.S. intelligence agents around Kabul, showing them where the al-Qaeda safe houses were.
[. . . .] He developed a crush on his female CIA handler -- "She became really dear to my heart" -- who persuaded him to go underground as a mole at the military prison run by the U.S. at its Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
[. . . .] The CIA then gave him a course in undercover work and a fake Moroccan passport, and sent him off to infiltrate a Bosnian mosque.
[. . . .] Mr. Khadr came home last fall to Toronto to appear at a news conference that he now admits was mostly lies. He could not be reached by The Globe yesterday.
[. . . .] In Pakistan, Mr. Khadr's sister Zaynab told the CBC that if her brother "did something, I'd be ashamed of him. Because Islamically you're not allowed to co-operate with the enemy, it will cost you your life."
One of the Khadr brothers remains a prisoner in Cuba, another is being hunted as a terror suspect in Pakistan and a third is recovering from gunshot wounds sustained in the raid that killed their father. Their sister and mother are living free in that country.
Who is Justice Minister Irwin Cotler trying to deceive? Canadian voters or the U.S. government? More likely, both.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. State Department uttered a public warning that Canada had become a significant hub of operations in the vast and lucrative people-smuggling trade.
It certainly had the ring of truth; apart from the recent memory of rusty Chinese fishing boats landing dozens of would-be illegal immigrants on Canada's west coast, the office of the auditor general has also detailed the appalling laxity of the country's immigration and refugee handling procedure.
Thanks to the constipated nature of the system, poorly documented refugee claimants are released into Canadian society for as long as two years, pending hearings to establish their status.
Many simply disappear. Auditor General Sheila Fraser stated in one of her reports that 36,000 illegal aliens were unaccounted for, including several dozen suspected war criminals.
Many Canadians were horrified. And, so, Cotler promises a review of the Criminal Code to toughen people-smuggling laws and the establishment of an RCMP human-trafficking investigative team.
This is a smokescreen, pure and simple.
We Already Have Sufficient Ammunition in the Revised Immigration Act
Under Sections 118 and 119 of the revised Immigration Act, proclaimed not long after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the maximum penalties for people-smugglers are fines up to $1 million, life imprisonment -- or both.
How exactly does Cotler think he's going to toughen the regulations?
Nothing Happens When Illegals are Caught
And even when Canada catches people, not much happens. In 2001 -- less than a month after 9/11 -- two Windsor men were caught trying to smuggle four of their compatriots into the United Staates. They got just six months, with credit for time served. . . .
Of course, the ringleaders, the so-called snakeheads and the Russian organized crime bosses, remain forever out of Canada's reach.
How -- Without Enough Money and Funding?
[. . . Setting] up a specialized RCMP unit, is equally risible, since the RCMP, the Immigration Service and the Canada Customs are all undermanned and under-resourced.
If significant funds are allocated to one project, it is at the expense of another. [. . . .]
After 9/11, each agency got more money; the RCMP's $1.2-billion budget -- less now in real terms than in 1990 -- was boosted by $200 million.
Yet in fall 2003, it was cut back $21 million, while CCRA lost $22 million and immigration $14 million -- a total of $67 million, even as the $250-million sponsorship scandal was delivering millions of dollars to Liberal-friendly ad agencies.
Suggestions: [. . . . ]
- The refugee process must be reformed so that undocumented people can no longer be allowed to roam the country unsupervised;
Cops Bogged Down in Red Tape and Paperwork -- Crooks Have Had a Field Day for Years
By cutting the RCMP budget and by plowing $1-billion--that's ONE BILLION DOLLARS--into the gun registry black hole, has the federal government exacerbated this reign of crime and crooks?
*** Why do all the crooks have guns while the farmers and duck hunters have to go through the gun registry hoops?
I have a relative who told me that he has to belong to some kind of gun club in order to have his gun. I do know that at age 12, he wrote away for and took a safe gun handling course; this guy was already safety conscious -- as a kid.
*** So why are the Liberals bothering with his ilk,those who have proven to be worthy gun owners -- and not with the real danger?
My guess is pork and patronage. The gun registry went to ex-Premier Frank McKenna's Mirimichi riding and home area, along with the Renous Federal Penitentiary. McKenna is the same guy who was interviewed or at least given much face time by our JC when, it appeared, JC was deciding who would be his successor. (That was also approximately the time when Brian Tobin of Newfoundland left federal politics -- not having received JC's imprimatur to be the next head of the pork and patronage party and PM -- scuttlebutt had it.) Now, Frank McKenna is on the Board of Directors of the Liberal Asper family's CanWest Global empire -- which is important only in that it allows us to follow the political old boys network through blood system of the Liberal power elite. Today I heard that he wants to get back into politics (pork and patronage of a more direct kind, I suspect).
*** Why are the federal Liberals and the Canadian Justice System coddling criminals who have no fear of our "justice"?
*** Is it a make-work project for the "poor" criminals' taxpayer-funded lawyers?
Look in my archives for what was being paid to the family members of Rapudiman Singh Malik (in court -- BC trial over Air India bombing ) who worked in the accused lawyer's offices. This is a man whose wife has something like THREE MILLION dollars in business/property/bank and who knows what else that Malik "sold" to her--I forget the details--while Canadian taxpayers funded his legal defense in BC over the Air India bombing. (See an update for more information about Canadian taxpayers' money wasted on the Rapudiman Singh Malik trial -- which I hope to post. )
*** Does anyone think touchy-feely and airy-fairy social programs such as are being advocated by do-gooders actually work?
The proponents of these programs seem to be soft-hearted--actually soft-headed / wooly-thinking--and their-hearts-go-out-to-these-criminals because they've had deprived backgrounds--types. Would the programs work with the hardened, street-wise thugs so active in the Toronto--and other--areas?
The community programs to get kids involved in healthy activities, I suspect, work with the average kid who is not evil. The difference is that he/she has not been brought up amid depravity -- with guns, drugs, and thugs. He/she might be devilish and get in with the wrong crowd, be rebellious, be answering a dare or trying to be accepted as part of a group and to show guts -- but he is not evil at bottom. I have the greatest sympathy for the good parents who want any programs that will help to send these kids in the right direction.
I also know that you cannot turn the products of some homes right. I happen to be acquainted with a few -- one a kid who was "bad" when he was a kid; the Hells Angels sent him to the bottom of the St. Lawrence River in concrete because he also made a devious--at least more devious than was tolerated--Hells Angel. Let's be realistic.
*** Why has information concerning gun crime from certain immigrant groups and from Canadian terrorists come out just recently?
How much comes from the teachings in certain immigrant families such as the Khadrs -- and how many more families like them are there? How many are drug families? This has been building for years and the government has always put it on the back burner -- just as they don't want terrorists found in Canada; it wouldn't look good for the party that touts our wonderful diversity and that multiculturalism is the soul of Canada.
*** Is this why those with Canadian passports seem to be caught outside the country?
*** Why can our Liberal government not even find mass killers who, by a lawful decision, need deportation?
*** Why is our Liberal government not willing to publish their names and faces?
Note, members of the government are only talking about publicizing their names as of Mar. 9, 04 -- not actually doing something about the situation. Perhaps a Canadian television program like American Justice would enable them to find most of them in a week.
*** Whose side is the Liberal government on? Is this why Canada is known worldwide by terrorists and crooks alike as a safe haven despite government protestations to the contrary.
I remember reading about a Hong Kong police sergeant who immigrated to Canada in the 1970's with something like $3-million American dollars, if memory serves. There was some outcry--else I would not remember it--but our government, Liberal then, too, sided with this guy who could never have made that amount legitimately as a Hong Kong policeman, whatever his rank, prior to his entry. He was reported to have been the recipient of "gifts" -- as were the members of our Canadian embassy staff much more recently. (See Feb. 25 to March 1 posts.) Perhaps Grannie Pong was operating, even then? For more information on this and our imported criminal gangs and Chinese triads -- and how they have managed to enter Canada, check Monday, March 01, 2004 -- Several New Excerpts: Ex-PM, Jean Chretien, and His High-Powered Business Associates
Our security and policing agencies are bogged down in red tape and paperwork while the crooks have had a field day for years.
*** Is it possible that by cutting the RCMP budget and by plowing $1 billion into the gun registry black hole, the Federal government has had its head in the sand? -- Deliberately? Another instance of much motion--or the appearance of it--but little sense?
*** Do you really think our policing agencies / security agencies are unable to find mass killers who need deportation -- or is it that our Liberal government members are unwilling to put out their names and faces? -- Multicult votes count -- as Paul Martin well knows.
If the Canadian government were sincere in doing something about crime and the security situation in Canada, they would bring back to the RCMP officers like Cpl. Read and Sgt. Stenhouse, men who have been dismissed -- knowledgeable men but men who, perhaps know too much. We wouldn't want to get too serious, now, would we? NJC
[. . . Rick McIntosh] believes living in Toronto is becoming more dangerous than living in an American city.
"It's a myth that we're safer in Canada, in Toronto, than in the States. We're not," insists McIntosh, president of the Toronto Police Association. "It's a total myth."
[. . . McIntosh says] we stand more of a chance than our American neighbours do of having our car stolen or our home broken into. . .
[According] to Statistics Canada, there were about 30% more break-ins and motor vehicle thefts per capita in Canada than there were in the U.S. in 2000.
[. . . . ] In the States, most of the violent crime occurs in the city ghettos. Stay out of those areas, he contends, and there's little risk of harm. But here, gun crime has plagued virtually every part of the city.
[. . . There is a list of the areas in which there are problems: Scarborough, downtown, Regent Park, Jane and Falstaff, Etobicoke flats.
[. . . In] the States, they write off one area of the city but for the rest of the working public [. . . . Is it the case that ] many of Toronto's recent homicides have been gang related. If we're not involved with that kind of criminal element, then we having nothing to fear. Or do we?
[. . . . ] In a recent Ipsos-Reid poll, 15% of Torontonians said they had been a victim of crime in the past two years, with one quarter of them saying they had been personally injured or assaulted.
And while crime rates appear to be heading down, the experts tell us that only a limited number of the crimes Canadians suffer are actually being reported to the police. The Ipsos-Reid study found just two-thirds of victims reported the crime, compared to 76% in 1992. Another study found that just two-thirds of Canadian break-and-enters and one half of vehicle thefts were reported, while police were called in only one-third of the assaults.
[. . . . We] reassure ourselves that American murder rates are still three times that of our own. [. . . . ]
Home invasions, drive-by shootings, weapon detectors in schools -- we were convinced that such American travesties would never travel north. And then suddenly here they were.
[. . . . We] stubbornly cling to our old view of ourselves, eyes wide shut, cleaving to the mirage that our streets are still safe. . . .
It's a blind complacency that worries the police union boss. [. . . . ]
"It doesn't take 20 years to become Detroit. And we're heading there. We're heading there fast," he warns. "We're going down this slippery slope and we won't be able to stop it pretty soon."
This is sad. Canadian taxes pay for THIS? I was checking for where I could watch and hear the Conservative Party of Canada debate on Sunday (March 7, 04) and this is what I noted:
When I was trying to locate an alternate to CPAC, I went to various media/news sites -- CTV, CanWest Global, and then CBC. What was on the CBC site was instructive.
In their list of interviews/discussions with political candidates, it appears that Stephen Harper was never interviewed and that the interview with Belinda Stronach received larger font size than that with Tony Clement. Why? Just listen to the CBC and you'll get the picture. They're playing Paul Martin's card on the scary West as epitomized by Mr. Harper.
At I searched the National Post Site using these words, "conservative party of canada, debate, March 07, 04" and there was nothing/zero/zip!
News Junkie believes that no subject should be outside the realm of debate in a democratic society. ... To Stimulate Debate in Canada: News, ... in enforcing party unity, and ... Conservative leadership contest yesterday, sowing doubts about opponent Stephen Harper's ability to unify the party...
This is a misreading of my actual words -- as though I were negative about Stephen Harper. I am not! Be careful of what a mindless machine picks up from your site -- or what those who support a particular candidate can (pay to?) make appear in a database. What this search picked up is part of a sentence from my post, Concerning Belinda Stronach: What is Missing -- in Emphasis, in Policy? , Mar. 3, 04 and there is much missing. Scroll down or link and find out. I do not like this kind of thing; it distorts the intent of what I have written -- but I suppose it is politics as usual in Canada. NJC
It is a tale told by an idiot
Full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
Thanks to William Shakespeare, who had a certain je ne sais quoi -- would you not agree? Could the following have the makings of a "best seller" once a thorough investigation is completed? NJC
Hear No Evil, See No Evil
*** It is very important to note that funding for RCMP manpower and investigations--which might actually uncover the trail of $$$, the Liberals who were involved, and the nitty-gritty of Liberal Sponsorship/ Adscam/ Slush Funds--has not been allocated. NJC ***
[English]
Sponsorship Program
Hon. Grant Hill (Leader of the Opposition, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has now admitted publicly that the Liberal Party of Canada received hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars, dirty money I might add, through ad scam. For the past seven years the Liberals have campaigned with this dirty money. Why did the Prime Minister permit Public Works to be used as a vehicle to launder money for the 1997 and 2000 elections?
Hon. Stephen Owen (Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am not sure exactly what the member is referring to, but there are four processes underway. There is a judicial independent inquiry; the public accounts committee, which they are well aware of; RCMP investigations; and a special council for recovery. Rather than make accusations, the hon. member should put evidence before these processes to make sure that, as we have insisted, the truth comes out.
Hon. Grant Hill (Leader of the Opposition, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says he will not spend all this dirty money, in fact he will give it back. That is a little bit like a bank robber, when he is caught, saying, “If I give the money back, will you let me go?” Would the Prime Minister explain why the sponsorship program was used to funnel money into Liberal coffers for the 1997 and 2000 elections? Why was that?
Hon. Jacques Saada (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to my colleague that before he makes allegations he should check the facts.
The Liberal Party of Canada has decided to conduct an internal audit into the sources of financing for our party, which by the way no other party has tried to do so far, even though we have invited them to do so.
The facts are going to speak. There is a legal council in charge of getting to the money wherever it has gone, and there is a commission of investigation in place which is charged with finding out what the facts are. I would suggest my colleague should wait and see what the facts are before talking.
Hon. Grant Hill (Leader of the Opposition, CPC): Mr. Speaker, no other party has to do it because no other party took the money.
[Translation]
Not only did the Liberal Party receive this dirty money, but cabinet ministers also received donations: the current Minister of Industry, the Minister of Social Development and the President of the Privy Council, to name but a few. Will the Prime Minister ask them to pay back this money; yes or no?
Hon. Jacques Saada (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am having a hard time understanding why my colleague keeps on talking about dirty money when there is not an ounce of evidence. This is a purely gratuitous allegation. I do not see any basis for his claim.
What I propose is extremely simple: instead of throwing around accusations that only serve to smear reputations, if there are documents or facts to present, then he should put them on the table and we will consider them. Until then he should stop throwing mud just for the sake of it.
OTTAWA -- Canada's efforts to help stamp out sex slavery and human trafficking will flop without more financial muscle and stronger immigration policies, critics say. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, calling the trade a "scourge on humanity," unveiled a 10-point plan yesterday to hunt down and punish those who prey on vulnerable and poor young women and girls.
He announced a new RCMP unit to investigate cases at home and abroad and a Criminal Code review to establish a new offence for human traffickers.
[. . . No] new funding was announced [. . . .]
Conservative MP Betty Hinton embraced any move to tackle sex slavery, but suggested Cotler's plan will amount to "pre-election gobbledygook" if it's not backed up with cold cash.
[. . . .]"The RCMP in Calgary, for example, have done their best, but they are very frustrated like other detachments across the country when they find something happening and they don't have the resources to follow through on it."
Lax immigration policies, including one that allows women to enter Canada as "exotic dancers," must be tightened [. . . .].
A report last year labelled Canada as a "destination" for people trafficked into prostitution and forced labor, with victims coming primarily from China, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Russia, Korea and Eastern Europe.
MONTREAL - She is barely 17 and the story she recounted in court yesterday about selling sex to Quebec City radio host Robert Gillet was revolting. [. . . . ]
She spoke haltingly and required frequent prompting by Crown prosecutor Genevieve Lacroix. But there was more than enough scandalous detail to fuel what has been the burning story in the capital since police announced the dismantling of a teenaged prostitution ring in December, 2002.
[. . . . ] What is not in question is that the teenaged witness, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, has led a troubled life. In 2001, at age 14, she ran away from her Quebec City home to Montreal, where she said she earned as much as $5,000 a week, working as a prostitute and performing live sex shows on the Internet.
At times during her testimony, she seemed traumatized, crying often and at one point early on asking Ms. Lacroix whether her father had left the packed courtroom.
But at other times she was matter-of-fact about her prostitution. "I used the money to spoil myself," she testified, saying she bought clothing, food and sometimes drugs such as cocaine and marijuana, with her earnings. [. . . . ]
There is more -- involving her father's call to youth-protection officials, a detention center, then a group home, another girl living there and through her to Georges Radwanli, a Quebec City businessman, thence to Jean Francois Guay and to Mr. Gillet.
I must point out that she is being portrayed as a compulsive liar and these men are still alleged to have committed crimes. NJC
