In Wake Of Paris Attacks, All Those Pro-Bombing, Anti-Muslim Drums Are Beating As Loud As Ever Again

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Less than two weeks after millions of Canadians celebrated the swearing in of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister and all of his promises to bring us closer together as a people and restore Canada’s place in the world as more of a peacemaker than a warrior, we have one of the worst terrorist attacks ISIS has pulled off yet in Paris, France.

Canadian Prime Minister and then federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau speaks at a National Islamic Convention.

In the wake of those murderous attacks, it appears that at least some would have us tumble back to where we were before Trudeau’s Liberals took the mantle from a Stephen Harper government that made a practice of playing on fear and driving wedges of intolerance between people.

Within hours of the November 13^th Paris attacks, there was Rona Ambrose, who proved through her roles, first as Harper’s Minister of Environment and later as Minister of Health, to be one of the most ill-informed and incompetent persons to sit in a federal cabinet in decades, and who now serves as the Conservative’s interim leader, urging Trudeau to deep-six his promise to end Canada’s participation in bombing raids over Iraq and Syria.

There appears to be no ‘Plan B’ for Ambrose and her ilk. Just keep bombing, even though a growing number of military experts say it is doing little to neutralize the bad guys (as they’ve proved, once again, with the scale attacks they are still able to pull off in places like Lebanon and France) then respond to the attacks by bombing more.

Then we have those using these latest attacks to defend Harper’s draconian anti-terrorist law other measures that have compromised the rights and freedoms of all of us going back to 9/11. To which I say that if we have to go on randomly surveilling people and making everyone from toddlers to their grandparents take off their shoes and undergo full body scans at airports –  if that’s any indication of how little our security forces know who they are looking for, maybe we really do have something to worried about.

Finally, we have Ambrose and others calling radio talk shows and posting letters and  petitions on Facebook, insisting that the new Trudeau government re-think its plan to make Canada home to up to 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of this year.

Apparently there’s no getting away from at least some of us suspecting that almost anyone from a country like Syria  and happens to be Muslim must be a terrorist, or at least a friend or relative of one. Next thing we’ll have is a petition calling on the new government to adopt Harper’s plan to set up a “barbaric cultural practices snitch line.”

But why wait for a snitch line when you can simply throw a bottle filled with flaming liquid through the window of a Mosque like one or more self-anointed patriots did in Peterborough, Ontario in the hours after news broke about the Paris attacks.

Someone sent me a note about this terrible incident this past weekend and when I opened up the pages of Monday, November 16^th  edition The Globe and Mail, there was a story about it with a headline reading; ‘Police treating fire set at Peterborough mosque as hate crime.’

A fire ruled to be deliberate and set after the Paris attacks at a Mosque in Peterborough, Ontario is being investigated by police as a hate crime.

According to reports in the Peterborough area media, the good news is that people both inside and outside the community are responding generously to a petition, asking for donations to help pay for the Mosque’s  restoration.

In the Niagara, Ontario City of St. Catharines, where a Mosque was once vandalized following the attacks on the U.S. Pentagon  World Trade towers a decade and a half ago, members of the Muslim community released a statement following this November 13^th’s Paris attacks as well as terrorist attacks the days before in Beirut and Baghdad that reads as follows – “The Islamic Society of St. Catharines (ISSC), a registered Canadian charity located in St. Catharines Ontario,  condemns the horrific and despicable terrorist attacks on the innocent lives in Paris taking place on November 13th.” 

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims of terrorism and political violence across the world – but especially this week with the victims in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad. The ISSC, condemns these horrific crimes in the strongest terms possible. Our thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of those killed and injured and with all of France. There is no justification of any kind for such criminal acts.”

This November 16^th, I had a phone conversation with Ezeldin Ebadalla, a member of the Muslim community in St. Catharines, who expressed his desire and the desire of the Muslim community to see a greater coming together of Muslims and non-Muslims in ways that forge a lasting friendship and understanding.

Let’s hope that the majority of Canadians embrace that desire and apply whatever push and support is needed to ensure the new Trudeau government follows through on its promises to retire our fighters from the bombing campaign and to safely offer our country as a new home to Syrian refugees.

To do otherwise, plays into the hands of the bad guys who use who are known to use acts of hostility toward Muslims as a powerful recruitment tool.

For those interested in making a donation to the Muslim community in the Peterborough, Ontario area to repair the smoke and fire damage to their Mosque, click on –  https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/4144T7 .

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