The heart of the Canadian capital was traumatized and placed in emergency police lockdown on Wednesday after a gunman fatally wounded a soldier guarding the National War Memorial, entered the nearby Parliament building and fired multiple times before he was shot and killed.
It was the second deadly assault on a uniformed member of Canada’s armed forces in three days. While the motive was unclear, the Ottawa attack heightened fears that Canada, a strong ally of the United States, had been targeted in an organized terrorist plot.
(New York Times, October 22, 2014)
Frankly, reaction in Canada to one lunatic opening fire and killing one soldier is every bit as hysterical as reaction in the United States to one Ebola victim traveling here and infecting two healthcare nurses.
I feel obliged to repeat my wonder that such attacks are so relatively rare. Not to mention my oft-stated and abiding fear that only God will help if/when al-Qaeda deploys not a lone wolf, but packs of wolves to open fire at airports, shopping malls, and/or sports stadiums in the United States (a la Westgate shopping mall in Kenya).
(“Lone-Wolf Gunman Terrorizes LAX,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 5, 2013)
Alas, that the New York Stock Exchange plummeted over 200 points on news about this shooting up in Canada shows just how little it takes to terrorize us these days. Although, to be fair, news about Beyoncé’s ugly new wig, which makes her look like a Blonde Bettie Page wannabe, could’ve had the same effect.
In any event, it behooves all Western countries to expect such lone-wolf shootings to become as common as school shootings are in the United States. But they must react to them as the local crimes they are, instead of propagating such hysteria about global terrorism that you’d think Daesh (aka ISIS/ISIL) terrorists did in Canada today what they’ve been doing in Iraq/Syria for months. More to the point, notwithstanding the misguided backlash Snowden’s NSA disclosures have wrought, they must allow their respective intelligence services to use all means necessary to surveil and apprehend the would-be terrorists amongst us before they act out their jihadist fantasies. Otherwise, we will terrorize ourselves to death if we keep reacting to every terrorist-inspired shooting as if it were another 9/11.
Yet:
It must be understood that no matter their collective resolve, there’s absolutely nothing our governments can do to prevent such attacks. That Americans reacted yesterday as if those explosions went off in Washington or New York should compel Westerners to focus on calming our collective nerves, instead of fretting about (or worse, trying to figure out) the motivation for and timing of terrorist attacks by Islamic fanatics.
(“7/7 Terror Attacks in London,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 8, 2005)
Meanwhile, it’s hardly reassuring that President Obama felt compelled to inform the world that he rang Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper within hours to express condolences on behalf of the American people, and to pledge U.S. solidarity with Canada. Really? All this just because one misguided fool got dressed in terrorist garb and opened fire near the Parliament building in Ottawa? And who cares if he was shouting Allahu Akbar…? He was still nothing more than one crazed, suicidal nincompoop.
Which is why reacting, reflexively, as if this were an international incident only feeds into al-Qaeda and Daesh’s terrorizing propaganda about having sleeper cells in every Western country just lying in wait for orders to strike.
Apropos of which, again, God/Allah help us if/when, instead of the lone wolf, al-Qaeda/Daesh launches coordinated attacks on numerous sites with terrorist cells comprised of packs of wolves….
Related commentaries:
Lone wolf…
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Wednesday, at 6:11 p.m.
Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.