http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/545 INFILTRATION PROJECTS TERRORISTS' POWER by George Jonas NATIONAL POST September 3, 2003 I'm not impressed by the allegation that student pilot Anwar ur Rehman Mohammed overflew a nuclear facility. So did other student pilots. It would be hard not to overfly the Darlington power station if one trains at the Durham Flight Centre and other flight schools in the region. The nuclear facility is marked on government-printed aviation charts; it's between the visual flight rules (VFR) call-up points "Ajax" and "Fairport" on the eastern edge of the Toronto Terminal flight control zone. Pilots routinely use it as a landmark. I'm impressed by the allegation that Mr. Mohammed, along with several other Muslim "students" from Pakistan and India, was enrolled in a bogus business school and extended a six-month student visa into a three-year stay. As evidence of the authorities contention that he was here for a nefarious purpose, this is more to the point. All pilots may overfly landmarks printed on aviation charts, but all pilots don't enroll in bogus business schools using expired student visas. The arrest last month of 20 men suspected of being members of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell showed a welcome loss of innocence. It underscored a dawning recognition on the part of Canada's immigration and security authorities that infiltration is the principal way in which terrorism attempts to project its power to our shores. It's a basic rule of warfare that belligerents must find a way to project their power to the enemy. It's as true for terrorist armies as for conventional ones. It applies to Osama bin Laden as much as to the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers. The forces of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, or the Baath Party have no trouble projecting their power within their regions. They can organize street riots against moderate Muslim governments, or intifadas against Israel. They can fire Katyusha rockets from the Beeka Valley into some kibbutzim in Galilee. Their suicide bombers can drive to Beirut barracks or Tel Aviv discotheques. They can destroy UN buildings or Shiite mosques in Baghdad. But Middle East terrorists are limited in their ability to project their power against homeland America, Canada, or Europe. Their armies can't invade, their navies can't blockade, their air forces can't bomb the Great Satan and its allies. Terrorists have no armies, navies, or air forces to speak of. They lack long-range delivery systems. Katyushas fired in Lebanon may wreak havoc in Israeli schoolyards, but they can't reach London, Toronto, or New York. The forces of terrorism can't break through the West's perimeter defences -- but this is a mixed blessing. If a belligerent can't project its power from outside the enemy's perimeters, it will concentrate on projecting it from inside by employing "fifth columns" -- i.e., agents who live among the population disguised as visitors, students, or residents. Whether or not the men detained last month will turn out to be al-Qaeda "moles" -- they must be presumed innocent, obviously, until proven guilty -- sleeper agents for terrorist cells would behave much like this group of men. Hailing mainly from Pakistan's Punjabi province, they're alleged to have entered Canada as students between January, 1998, and Sept. 5, 2001, using fake papers and claiming to attend a bogus business college. Fifth columnists may well infiltrate by such methods. It's salutary that Canada's immigration and security authorities have begun to track down and detain such people, charging or deporting them when appropriate. It's even more salutary that the government has shown, so far, no sign of being intimidated by the usual charges of anti-Muslim bias and racism, though such charges were quick in coming. Tarek Fatah, host of Muslim Chronicle, a current affairs show on CTS Television, sounded a typical note when he told Canadian Press that the detainees had been racially profiled by "rogue" RCMP officers. "I think it is the duty of Prime Minister [Jean] Chrétien and his Cabinet," Mr. Fatah was quoted as saying, "to launch an investigation and find out who is responsible for picking up innocent students and depriving them of their freedom." Interesting. Since no one has seen the evidence so far, Mr. Fatah cannot possibly know that the detainees are innocent -- unless he's privy to a list of all Muslim terrorists in the world (in which case the RCMP ought to become curious about him). In any event, whatever the detainees may be, they're certainly not innocent students, considering the school they claim to have attended hasn't existed since 2001. Possibly they're only guilty of immigration fraud, not terrorism, which is a substantial difference, though still a crime. Immigration fraud or terrorism, we have the choice of drawing the right conclusions from the incident or the wrong ones. The wrong conclusions were exemplified by a CBC commentator who expressed horror over the fact that Mr. Mohammed could overfly the Darlington nuclear plant -- and suggested that all flights over such installations ought to be restricted. But confiscating airspace from pilots does little for Canada's security. It's like confiscating nail clippers from passengers. The threat doesn't come from training flights over Darlington, but from fifth columnists. It's illegal aliens who pose a threat -- less if they're old ladies, obviously, more if they're young men, and most if they're Muslim fake-students attending bogus schools. Such men are "racially profiled" as choice recruits, not by us, but by al-Qaeda. They're a potential threat, whether flying over nuclear plants or delivering pizzas. © Copyright 2003 National Post
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
