Islamist Jihad

"Yes, I think it's safe to say that there are cases of revocation of passports involving people who've gone to Syria and Iraq already. I just don't want to get into the numbers, but multiple cases."
"We are not by any means the leading contributor of foreign fighters to Syria, even though the dozens that are there and the 130 that are abroad (with other extremist groups) is a disturbing number for all Canadians. But we want to ensure that Canada's good name is not besmirched by these people any more than it already has been and that Canadians are protected."
"When law enforcement and security agencies provide us with that evidence [Canadian intending to use passports to travel abroad for terrorism], as they have done, we are able to act. [That action has so far been taken] in multiple cases."
"I can't really get into how may (or) how many are under consideration right now. These are operational matters and security matters and we don't comment on them in detail, but this is a power that exists and that is being used."
Canadian Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham march in Raqqah, Syria. (The Associated Press / Militant Website

- See more at: http://news.nationalpost.com/canadian-isis-fighter-abu-turaab-identified-as-mohammed-ali/#sthash.rL9A1P4N.dpuf

So far, Canada has had to deal with a number of discoveries that have been alarmingly disconcerting; the reality that within the Canadian population, inclusive of people who have been born in Canada, educated in Canada, taking advantage of all the freedoms guaranteed them by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with counterparts not born in Canada, but having arrived as refugees or immigrants take advantage of the same freedoms and opportunities, using those freedoms and opportunities to plan mounting attacks within Canada, or abroad.

Those shocking events have led authorities in security and intelligence to keep a close eye on individuals who have one striking element of their lives in common: their religion. It is from among Muslims living in Canada that an internal threat to peace and security exists, with young Muslims appearing to respond to recruiting messages of jihad as an obligation to their faith. Violent jihad has demonstrated effectively just how deeply the faithful feel about the jihadi portion of their faith.

And the level of depraved violence and the wide scope of its victims, its geographic appeal and commitment through the dispersed ummah of Muslims from various backgrounds migrating throughout Europe, North America, Asia and Australia now presents from among their demographics a threat to global peace and security. Even if, as claimed, those violent psychopaths represent a minuscule proportion of the entire Muslim population worldwide, their number is significant.

Significant as well is the large number of Muslims who while not themselves taking part in jihad, seem to feel that the actions of jihadists, particularly against the West and Western symbols is justified, since Islam calls specifically for conflict against the Jews and the Infidels, and this belief is instilled deeply within the consciousness of Muslims steeped in the values of Islam. In the very countries of the geography where Islam emanated from, there is reluctance to halt the lethal new brand of jihad, even while it is creating rivers of blood.

In the Middle East, threateningly violent terrorist groups have a level of legitimacy among some nations who go out of their way to incite them to violence, having funded them for that very purpose. Countries of Europe, none of which would ever consider themselves racist in character, have opened their doors to immigration by Muslims, offering haven and freedoms not available in their countries of origin. The expectation being that Muslims would integrate into the prevailing culture.

But Muslims do not integrate; they maintain their culture, their religion, their separatedness and their values and in turn expect the welcoming countries to respect all of that while withholding their own respect for the indigenous cultural values. Going so far as to demand equal value be recognized for their own Islamic law, Sharia, and striving for the transference of the maximum culture to the status of minimal interference in their lives, imposing instead an insistence of isolation necessary for the preservation of their religious dictates.

Some countries have responded with making it a civic offence to wear identity-blunting face-covering, others refuse to permit Islamic spires to proliferate on the landscape, and others still have removed jihad-spouting imams back to their origins. Great Britain has seen the necessity to withdraw the privilege of citizenship from those conspiring to terrorism, and Canada has recognized a similar need, while the United States has conducted lethal attacks abroad on those with citizenship who present as a leading danger to all civilized norms.

With the Government of Canada invalidating the passports of Canadians involving themselves in extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, including some who have never left the country but had intentions of doing so to take part in fanatical jihad, without the valid passport to permit reentry to Canada, those individuals will find themselves unable to return. The infamous Egyptian-Canadian Khadr family's jihadi credentials and exploits should have merited them being stripped of citizenship.

They continue to have contempt for the society in which they live, having returned from the paradise that Afghanistan represented to them, and where in Canada they take advantage of all the social welfare opportunities unavailable in paradise. The latest revelations of a 23-year-old from Mississauga, Ontario living in Raqqa, Syria, jesting on the appeal of playing soccer with the severed heads of American journalists merits being left without recourse to return.

He, in any event, was scornful of the very idea that he was still Canadian, considering himself to have found his niche in life as an Islamist State terrorist which has given true meaning to this life. Speaking to the United Nations Security Council on Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird spoke of the Medieval ideology that the ISIL/ISIS/IS militias represent as a "terrorist army" for whom the response must be to "...reject their nihilistic world view wherever we find it."