Canadian Politics Today

https://globalnews.ca/news/4528417/canadian-isis-fighter-captured-in-northern-syria-speaks-out/

This guy was raised in Canada from the age of 7.  He joined ISIS in 2014 and was prominent in recruiting others, posting bloody and gory videos of beheadings and burnings, he was a sniper and also boasted of playing soccer with severed heads.  He married and ISIS bride (also a Canadian who had left to join ISIS) after a 30 min meeting.

His online posts were taunting, at times gruesome. He posted photos of ISIS executions and talked about playing soccer with severed heads. As ISIS was throwing homosexuals off rooftops, he said they should be killed. Following the October 2014 terror attacks in Quebec and Ontario, he gloated and called for more.

In one of his many social media posts after joining ISIS, Ali said he wasn’t Canadian anymore.

Now he says:

“I’m just tired of everything,” he told Global News, which interviewed him last weekend at a facility run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed fighters who control the country’s northeast.

Yeah, I feel for him - all that blood & gore, beheading, burning people alive, selling young girls for ISIS fighters to ****, playing soccer with severed heads.......it's just so......"tiring".   

This is his explanation for why he joined ISIS:

Maybe because he “wasn’t mature enough,” he felt lost, depressed and “stopped going to classes, stopped showing up for tests,” he said.

Apparently no one prepared him for being a teenager? 

And what happens the next time he feels a little depressed and doesn't feel like going to work?  Back to ISIS?  Bomb a metro?  Open fire in a restaurant?

 

Ali worked in northern Alberta to raise money for a plane ticket to Turkey.

I did wonder when I read this if he was working in Fort Mac?  There's a particularly passionate and fierce group of Islamists up there.

I also think he's already getting set up to receive his $10 million:

Kurdish authorities want Ottawa to take back Ali and at least a dozen other Canadian ISIS fighters, women and children they are holding. But Ali said Canadian officials had not visited him, or even spoken with him on the phone.

^^^ That's his $10 million payout right there. ^^^

I don't agree with this.  He publicly renounced his Canadian citizenship.  He purposely raised money to join ISIS and fight against the West.  He joined in on all the brutality, even marrying an ISIS bride and now sits back wondering "Why isn't Canada helping me?"

I don't understand this.  i don't understand how some can support this by saying, "Well, he says he's sorry and that he loves Canada now." welcome him back and hand him a cheque for $10 million.

The Canadian Government better get on this.  They better start getting some legislation in so the RCMP can deal with these mofos.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4533170/canadian-isis-fighters-rcmp-police/

This is ridiculous:

Wesley Wark, a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa who also specializes in national security, said that while Canada has experienced a relatively small number of cases of individuals travelling to join ISIS, that matter of evidence is one of the main factors that can challenge prosecutions.

“Any prosecution in a Canadian court will have to depend on made-in-Canada evidence, collected by the RCMP,” he said.

“It cannot depend on so-called third-party information, whether from allies like the U.S., or from conflict states themselves. Such evidence would either not be allowed to be presented or would be inadmissible. It cannot depend on CSIS or CSE information, which would not be available in open court. So the challenge for Canada is to come up with an evidentiary basis that can withstand the adversarial judicial system, itself important to democratic justice. That challenge is not insurmountable, just difficult.”

These people cannot claim they "made a mistake" or a wrong decision in leaving to fight for ISIS.  They knew full well what ISIS is, what it stands for and what it is doing.  They chose to join and participate in barbarity.  You don't get a "do-over" from that.

I understand that getting "actual" evidence from a war zone is incredibly difficult, if not impossible.

But we CAN prove these people left the country to go fight for ISIS.  We KNOW what ISIS is and what its about.

Why can't we charge them with treason? I wish Rue was around more.  He knows more about this.

Khadr was paid $10 million for having his rights violated in custody, not because he was a "child" terrorist.

This guy is already setting himself up for the same money grab by complaining about Canada's not bringing him back immediately when he requested it.

Some of you think that these returning fighters won't get a payout because they are adults, but that's not why Khadr was paid out.

That's true.  He's a Canadian of convenience.  He hated & wanted to bomb the country but now is in trouble and wants to come back.  Justin says a Canadian is a Canadian so we should follow the law whatever it is.  Not because I give a crap about what happens to him, but because nobody wants to pay out money to him.

Khadr was paid $10 million for having his rights violated in custody, not because he was a "child" terrorist.

I think part of the rights violation is that he was a child when he was apprehended, left in the custody of the US and tortured.  We are signatories to some agreements around the way we treat child soldiers; locking them up and throwing away the key isn't one of the "approved" methods. 

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2017/07/04/deal-for-khadr-acknowledges-violations-of-rights-editorial.html

This guy wasn't a kid, hasn't been left for years and by his own words, isn't being tortured.  The two cases are not the same. 

That's true.  He's a Canadian of convenience.  He hated & wanted to bomb the country but now is in trouble and wants to come back.  Justin says a Canadian is a Canadian so we should follow the law whatever it is.  Not because I give a crap about what happens to him, but because nobody wants to pay out money to him.

I think he should come back and be charged and go to jail.  Just as we reserve the right to send foreign nationals who break our laws back to their own country, we should have to accept back Canadians who engage in criminal behavior abroad.

What about his wife and kids?  I don't think she should get a pass either, but if they are having trouble finding charges for him, how mich harder for her? 

Charged with what?  And with what evidence can we convict him?  It's not like we can comb crime scene for forensic evidence or interview witnesses.

Unless the act of traveling abroad to join a group like ISIS (or "extreme tourism", as the Liberals like to call it) is in itself a crime, I think we're kind of SOL.  Last time we had a tread about "extreme tourists", I think we learned that there's very little the government can do beyond give them the "we're watching you" scowl and ask them to attend the deradicalization day-care program Ralph has been working on.

 -k

Yup, and I think that is the problem that should be addressed.   

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/‘i’m-going-to-die-here’-wives-of-isis-fighters-want-to-return-home-to-canada/ar-BBOdWll?ocid=spartandhp

I don't believe these women when they say they had no idea what ISIS was up to when they went over there. 

She said she stayed at home and was unaware of the atrocities ISIS was committing as it sought to force its rigid version of Islamic law on the population.

And they are also setting themselves up for mega-bucks payments when they get back:

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore.”
“It’s not fair. We come from one of the best countries in the world and we’re suffering. Why?
“I’m so tired of this.”

Absolutely no personal responsibility taken - in their minds, it's all Canada's fault that they are suffering.  They say over and over again in this article that they have done nothing to deserve this treatment. 

He said the government’s reluctance could be the result of concerns they might not face arrest if returned to Canada due to the challenges the RCMP faces in building cases against those active in overseas terror groups.

Canada also lacks the resources to put returnees under constant surveillance and does not have sufficient rehabilitation programs for them, he said. The Liberal government may also fear the political fallout of repatriating Canadians who were involved in ISIS.

So basically, our options are:

1. Leave them there until we figure out how to deal with them, which opens up the door to millions and millions of dollars in compensation.
2. Bring them home and turn them loose in the streets.

Either way, we lose.  Either money or Canadian lives.  But either way, Canadians lose.