Book on Canadian terror will keep you up at night
A review of Cold Terror: How Canada nurtures and exports terrorism around the world by Stewart Bell
John C. Thompson - May 3, 2004
It is hard to be critical of a book when you know the courage, craft and skill of the author; and know that he is dead-accurate in his research and assessments. Stewart Bell started to stake out terrorism as a special interest as a reporter for the National Post in 1999; it is a measure of his work that he soon started to receive more hate mail and death threats from the supporters of terrorist groups inside Canada than the rest of the hard-charging journalists in the Post newsroom.
His research has also taken him under mortar fire in Afghanistan in the besieged city of Jaffna, to the edge of a frenzied Palestinian lynch mob, and to places one would not expect a specialist on terrorism to visit--corner stores, high school auditoriums and quiet offices inside Canada's major cities. Yet these are places where terrorism can now be found in Canada. And we let it happen.
Bell outlines how a vast community of Tamil refugees inside Canada--many of whom are here fraudulently--are controlled by the front groups of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Bell details how legitimate business activities and coercion raise money from this community that has been used to buy explosives to kill hundreds of civilians in Sri Lanka. Jihadists from Hezbollah use Canada to raise money and buy equipment, but also are planning for attacks here.
He interviewed captured al Qaeda members in prison and members of the notorious Khadr family (whom Bell first brought to our attention through his articles in the Post), and notes how they love to live in Canada--yet have no sympathy with our values and aspirations. Fundamentally, we are a nice place to visit, but when the 'revolution' comes, we will have to change, not the terrorists. In the meantime, we are not supposed to question their ideals (although their contempt for ours is boundless) or interfere with their activities.
Bell's expertise in mapping out terrorism in Canada has left him with an impressive array of documents (though, sadly, his book has no footnotes). He always was assiduous in acquiring court documents and filing access to information requests, but his many hard-hitting pieces have also left a trail of brown envelopes from impressed Canadian police officers and security agents. They know Bell is not afraid to address the root of our problem.
Canada has become a willing haven for international terrorists because of "a political leadership unwilling to take a stand and secure Canadians and their allies from the violent whims of the world's assorted radicals, fundamentalists and extremists." Bell reminds us about how Paul Martin ignored the advice of CSIS and the RCMP to attend a gala event hosted by the Tamil Tigers, and how Jean Chretien helped spring Ahmed Said Khadr (a close confidant of Osama bin Laden) from a Pakistani prison.
Vote-chasing Canadian politicians have refused to end the terrorists' abuses of our refugee system, made it too difficult to deport key terrorist leaders and even helped provide funding and government access to some terrorist groups. Bell reminds us that we are running out of time to fix these problems and need to start taking serious action.
Cold Terror is a slender book, but it builds on some impressive reportage and adds more detail for those who consult Bell's previous columns in the course of their own research. It also reads very well on its own, but you should be cautioned about saving it for bedtime reading: First, his writing style makes it easy to remain engaged in the text; but reflecting on the points he raises make it too easy to become enraged with our slack system and contemptible political leadership.
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