Canada's Conscience Pay-Outs to Islamists

"In the aftermath of Sepember 11, 2001, Slahi was again arrested in Mauritania at the behest of the United States."

"He was kidnapped and transported against his will on a CIA-orchestrated rendition plane to Jordan, where he was interrogated and tortured for eight months, before being rendered to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and then onwards to Guantanamo Bay."

$35-Million lawsuit Statement of Claim

 

"Canadians need to understand this is a Canadian story."

"Without Canada I'd never have been kidnapped. Without Canada I'd never have [been] tortured."

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Mauritanian

 

"You provide information, which results in someone's detention."

"And then even though you're not the party detaining them -- you're not the one waterboarding them -- when you receive that information back from torture and you act on it, you're justifying it."

Jody Brown, lawyer represent Slahi 

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who wrote a best-selling book about his experiences in the U.S. military prison, is shown in October 2016, after he was reunited with his family in his native Mauritania. He was detained for 14 years and is now suing the Canadian government for its alleged role in his detention. (AFP/Getty Images)

 

That the United States has enemies is indisputable. The sole global power that is the United States of America, for good or for ill, involves itself in foreign conflicts, has collegial relations with some, and is clearly antagonistic toward others. At a time when radical Islam became a threat to be reckoned with, rising in Saudi Arabia among Wahhabist extremists and military arms of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as terrorist groups fostered by the Islamic Republic of Iran, all of which considered the West and the U.S. in particular, enemies of Islam, it isn't surprising that symbolic structures of that global power were targeted for destruction and thousands of innocent lives were lost.

The al-Qaeda-originated plan to attack the World Trade Centers in New York and the Pentagon, along with a failed passenger flight meant for Washington but ending up in a Pennsylvania field, was a product of Saudi Arabia. Where the official Islamist sect of Wahhabism gave impetus to Osama bin Laden's terror group that carried out the surprise attacks of 9/11. An event that saw great celebration in parts of the Islamic world, and brought shock and horror to the world of the West. Little wonder that horror of vibrant, hateful terrorism made the world take notice of violent, deadly Islamist terrorism.

There can have been little surprise anywhere that the U.S. set out on a mission to stop further atrocities being committed by al-Qaeda, and in the process sought those who might have been involved in the attacks, along with others who took inspiration from it, and went on to commit other, similar mass murders. Suspicion under such circumstances would naturally fall on all young Muslim men in the freshness of the horrifying deaths of almost three thousand innocent people who happened to be working in the targeted buildings.

In the past, Canada agreed to settle lawsuits brought by Muslim men held under suspicion and incarcerated and tortured because of perceived links to Islamist terrorist groups. The lawsuits contended that Canadian investigative authorities had erred in collaborating with their Intelligence partners in other countries, most notably the United States at a time when it was locating men suspected of links with terror, rounding them up and incarcerating them under special emergency provisions beyond normal law and justice.

Now, a man who had lived in Montreal for close to two months has filed a $35-million lawsuit against the government of Canada for its part in the alleged claim of responsibility for his incarceration for 14 years in Guantanamo prison. That it was Canada's 'contribution' to intelligence-gathering that implicated him as a possible terrorist leading to his imprisonment and torture. National security and intelligence agencies have the responsibility to investigate potential threats and identify them for the purpose of thwarting attacks.

In so doing, exchanging information with a collegial power, an action considered normal cooperation by those agencies with the responsibility to be alert and prevent violent attacks that had become increasingly common throughout Europe and North America, by Islamists dedicated to wreaking havoc, destruction and death purportedly doing the will of Islam where the Koran identifies non-Muslim countries as countries of 'war', considering Islamic nations to be countries of 'peace'. An inversion in fact, which justifies Islamic nations warring on non-Muslim countries to bring 'peace'; aka Islam to them.

Authorities with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police began questioning Sllahi about ties to Ahmed Ressam, the millennium bomber who had planned an attack on Los Angeles airport. The link between the two was superficial; attendance at the same Montreal mosque. The Federal Court of Canada ruled that Slahi was not entitled to intelligence documents as being neither a citizen nor subject to legal proceedings in Canada.

Because of the surveillance he was under in Canada, he decided to return to West Africa where he was arrested in Senegal and interrogated there by American officials. When he was released from prison in 2015 he was ordered restricted to movement within Mauritania. It was not until 2020 he was able to leave the country. Guantanamo filings for his interrogation were based on a telephone conversation thought to be coded. According to Mostafa Farooq of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the perceived Canadian complicity in Slahi's detainment and torture was a result of Islamophobia,

Given the circumstances, the horrendous events of 9/11, the terrorist attacks in the U.K., in Spain, in France and elsewhere, it is little wonder that young Muslim men were viewed with suspicion. All the more so that many young Muslim men living in Europe and North America saw fit to answer the call to Islamist jihad, travelling to the Middle East to join terrorist groups fighting against the West. The cautionary principle to know your enemy does lead to stereotyping inevitably. On the other hand, some of Islam's faithful distinguished themselves as jihadists; little wonder they were singled out for special attention; the circumstances and the times demanded it.

This Nov. 30, 2017 photo shows former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi speaking about his experiences under CIA interrogation via video from his home in Mauritania to an anti-torture group in Raleigh, NC. (AP Photo/Emery Dalesio)