Him Again?

This is a Canadian. A young man who grew up in Canada, attended Canadian schools, yet was indoctrinated into terrorism. How does this happen? Well, infiltration into Canadian society by people with an underhanded mission, a very dark and dangerous mission. Presumably, such things don't happen with a young person's parents in complete ignorance of what their son is about. Presumably, the parents were well aware of what was happening.

It was not through the course of an ordinary school day in an ordinary Canadian high school that this young man and others like him, including his brother, encountered the shadowy figures intent on recruiting fresh blood toward the mission to wreak fear, havoc and murder in the name of holy jihad. These stealthy, yet assured approaches took place at Muslim social gatherings, at mosques, with enablers singling out those youth whom they felt presented as most vulnerable to their message.

A message of quite a distinct character. To harbour, as a Canadian youth whose religious tenets were handily re-interpreted by ideological fanatics to accept duty as a sacrificial warrior for Islam. To uphold the values and the honour of Islamism, as distinct from Islam. To join company in training camps abroad in Afghanistan where al-Qaeda recruits learn all the basics of jihad, from fomenting distrust and violence to executing strangers.

So there sits an unhappy Mohammed Jabarah, a still-youthful 26 years of age, convicted of terrorism in an American court and imprisoned there to serve a life sentence for planning to bomb U.S. and Israeli embassies in South-east Asia. The plan collapsed, saving the lives of the target victims. Mohammed Jabarah fled to Oman, but was arrested, and brought to North America by Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers, then turned over to the U.S. Justice Department.

Mr. Jabarah has seen fit to file a lawsuit against U.S. Justice and prison officials. They are to blame for his depression, as well as other health complaints he is claiming to be suffering from. He, at least, is alive, to complain. Had his mission been successful, the many lives the plotted bombings would have taken, the families affected, would have been legion, and no official entity for them to complain to.

The cause of his ill health, poor man? The malevolence of federal officials who have undertaken to torture him by withholding letters from his family. Which deviously troubling circumstance caused a "sense of disconnection between my family", thus triggering his medical troubles. Summary execution would have forestalled such a tragedy.

Of this is the sum of his complaint, the cause of his purported symptoms of respiratory difficulties, chest pain, shortness of breath, insomnia, anxiety and depression, there is a cure. He might not like it entirely, but he would be cured. The question could be put to him - to put him out of his unendurable misery.

Capital punishment is still practised in the United States. Although Canada does not approve. Nor do I. Ask me if I approve of a youth growing up in lovely St.Catharines ,Ontario, attending and graduating from a Canadian high school, and choosing to devote himself to the cause of terror.