Teen Terrorists

"The phenomenon of domestic radicalization has made it more likely that CSIS will come into contact with an increasing number of young people, as youth are often the target of radicalization efforts, particularly with regards to recruitment via the Internet", according to the latest report by the Security Intelligence Review Committee. 

The Committee has brainstormed a ubiquitous problem in Western society and come to the conclusion that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service should flag reports about minors who have been recruited by the jihadist ideology inspired by al-Qaeda.  Young Muslims seeking adventure.  Electrified by the opportunities to contest Western ideas of confronting a radical religious force.

A policy, it has been suggested, is long overdue as well on when and whether to share gleaned information relating to youth radicalization, young men buying into the jihadist ideology, with foreign intelligence agencies who partner with Canada.  The Committee had concluded that CSIS has not developed a concise approval process for information sharing when it comes to radicalized minors.

And we all know how the public feels about minors being involved in conflicts.  We have the dreary tale of the Khadr family, with Ahmed Khadr dragging his young sons off to Afghanistan to learn how to engage in violent combat with the enemy.  That enemy, needless to say, being none other than the Western forces among whom they lived in Canada as landed immigrants, sharing in the beneficence of a democratic, liberal, social-welfare society.

Which, of course they spurned for its degraded values, its inability to recognize the imperative of surrendering to the one true religion, whose verities surpassed all other, earlier versions that the Almighty handed down in his ineffable wisdom to the craven masses of humanity created in a brief moment of godly conceit.

And because those primitive creatures, though imbued with a certain level of reason overlaid with emotion are so fallible, particularly when they are male and young and restive, they are obviously and anxiously receptive to radicalization, which is to say, eager to accept the invitation to become intimately involved in planning for martyrdom attacks against other living human beings, to sweep them into the realm of the dead.

Apart from the Khadrs and those like them, some of whose activities are known and tracked, others popping up from time to time, there are, for example, Somalian youth who have evaded the potential of becoming ordinary Canadian citizens, pursuing ordinary Canadian aspirations, and who have chosen instead to return to Africa to join Al Shabaab.

And of course, this is Canada.  Where minors, particularly of foreign descent, particularly visible minorities, particularly those whose inherited culture and whose heritage sets them apart from the mainstream of Canadian life, must be treated with sensitivity.  For no one wants to be accused of discriminating against anyone who may appear different. 

CSIS has been admonished, in the process, to act with discretion, even while it develops a protocol for handling these sensitive issues.  It should be "pausing" in the investigation of youths suspected of having passed over to the dark side of jihad.  To look closely and intensively at its method of interrogations; young people best interviewed in the presence of their parents, for example.

"There will be greater and more lethal potential risks that cannot be fully managed or mitigated, and CSIS must be prepared to handle the consequences."  Sounds ominous.  We are not assured.