Large Fierce Mammal

In its ascension, the organization known to the west as ISIS successfully branded itself an unstoppable juggernaut, defiance of which promised a terrible retribution that included such horrors as having your immolation or decapitation broadcast to the world in surprisingly professional “official” releases.

Take a nasty looking knife and cut a bound man’s head off with it, you and he may be the only ones who know it ever happened. Even he’ll probably forget about it pretty quickly. But if you’re a front man for an aspiring world power, and do it in a slickly shot and edited shit show made for worldwide distribution, all a bloodthirsty goblin need do is master an acting role that includes a convincingly tough sales pitch. The dick of your posse’s street cred gets longer, at least in the minds of those prone to soiling themselves in the face of a barking dog.

Right John?

Remember Jihadi John? Who doesn’t? He liked to talk tough while wearing a mask and beheading bound western hostages in carefully scripted and edited murder/torture porn vignettes that were supposed to make us all just surrender immediately because … what? The worst was yet to come? He was right. A drone blew his ass up in 2015, a death that came upon him sadly, too slow, too late, and not up close enough.

So now that the royal yacht of the ISIS “caliphate” remains afloat solely due to the steady lightening of its weight from the rats jumping off of it, Canada’s government ensures its place among the ranks of the touchy feely and forgetfully forgiving by wondering what to do about those among the rats now coming “home” in search of their safe space.

A CBC article from the present week includes:

“Complicating the problem is an ongoing disagreement over how many jihadi returnees are in Canada.

“Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told the House this week that ‘the number of returnees is in the order of 60.’ Others question why that number has remained the same for 18 months, rather than increasing as ISIS sinks and its foreign recruits jump ship.

“Goodale said fighters who return are not given a free pass but remain under surveillance if they are deemed a threat, and efforts are made to prosecute them if it can be proven they acted illegally.

“‘In almost every case we will want to be collecting evidence particularly from the battlefield to be able to prosecute, if that is possible under the criminal code,’ he told CBC News Network’s Power & Politics on Thursday.

“There are two things most experts can agree on however: There are too many people involved in jihadi ideology for all of them to be surveilled round the clock (emphasis added); and the government has been unable to piece together evidence for prosecutions in more than a fraction of cases.”

We recently spoke of Camp-X. The official website dedicated to preservation of its history contains this little Truth:

“The SOE knew that for every 100 missions scheduled to take place, only 5% would be successful. Should this be considered a failure? Not at all; just the fact that the Allies had so many agents working simultaneously behind enemy lines meant that the Germans had to devote entire departments of high ranking, intelligent, German officers dedicating their entire war effort to tracking down every single Allied Agent which of course was an impossibility.” ~ The History of Camp-X — What Was Camp-X?

An excellent and proven strategy to be sure, and taught right here by people who would have laughed themselves senseless at the mere thought of a nation whose security forces are taxed keeping track of “60” possibles. Even more so at the concept of voluntary “interventions” that seem modelled more on couple counselling than they are actions on behalf of national security.

The aforementioned CBC article quotes retired Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analyst Phil Gurski, author of Western Foreign Fighters, in his reservations on this let them in, keep an eye on them even though we really can’t, try to deradicalize them if they’re interested and failing that, try to collect evidence of past wrongdoing so we can, maybe, prosecute them someday, approach:

‘He says he’d like to see the government make greater efforts to hold returnees to account for their crimes.

“‘I want to know: What did you do while you were over there? And if I have to run a human source against you — meaning, put an agent on your case — to get that evidence then so be it.

“Because the mere fact that you left the country to join ISIS is a criminal offence.'”

In that last sentence, Gurski is referring to the Canadian Anti-terrorism Act. Here’s an overview (emphasis added as deemed necessary).

Adopted by Parliament following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) amended the Criminal Code, the Official Secrets Act, the Canada Evidence Act, the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act and a number of other Acts. It also enacted the Charities Registration (Security Information) Act. It was not a stand-alone Act, but rather an amending statute. The ATA formed a key component of the Government’s Anti-terrorism Plan, which had four objectives:

• to prevent terrorists from getting into Canada and protect Canadians from terrorist acts;
• to activate tools to identify, prosecute, convict and punish terrorists;
• to keep the Canada-U.S. border secure and a contributor to economic security; and
• to work with the international community to bring terrorists to justice and address the root causes of violence.

The ATA reflected a commitment to the safety of all Canadians and strengthened Canada’s ability to meet its international obligations, while respecting Canadian values and the rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter). Canada’s enactment of the ATA paralleled actions taken by its international partners. However, it was a made-in-Canada solution to address terrorism.

Ah yes. A “… made in Canada solution to address terrorism.” And again I hear the veterans of the SOE laugh. Those words meant something else when they said them.

Veterinarians who have to provide emergency medical care to traumatically injured Dogs are familiar with a phenomenon that causes even the most dangerously violent of them to be surprisingly docile — until strength and original propensities are restored. In short, even an “educational beat down”, or EBD, isn’t always educational enough, and this must be the mantra for all who are called to observe and decide on just how much of the lesson has been absorbed.

There is a lot here that reminds me of a Noël Coward composition called Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans. Written and performed while the War was still on, it’s said that Winston Churchill himself enjoyed it so much that when he heard it performed in person, he called for several encores.

In the wake of World War II, there was much concern in Britain at the propensity to equate German with Nazi. This should not come as any surprise. Families on both sides of the conflict, if it can be regarded as such a simple example of polarity, sent their boys off to war with every hope of success. The reality set in when invasion forces occupied homelands. When bombs began to rain day and night on those same families, slowly changing sides until the indomitable became the ravaged. If you were in Britain during the blitz, it would have been hard to find charity in your heart for the shredded and bloodied denizens of the once gloriously indomitable Fatherland.

Some among the victors would come to learn the lesson of their generation. Efforts were bent toward rooting out of the directly guilty. Time bestowed forgiveness to the rest, save for those whose wounds would forever include an inability to even tolerate German being spoken in their presence. But the lesson of that generation appears lost if the Canadian government shenanigans recounted above are anything to go by.

Now over to the good Mr. Coward to sing us out. The video doesn’t include all the lyrics, so we’ve provided them below in their entirety for those who like to sing along.

Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans

Noel Coward (1943

Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans
When our victory is ultimately won,
It was just those nasty Nazis
Who persuaded them to fight,
And their Beethoven and Bach
Are really far worse than their bite!

Let’s be meek to them
And turn the other cheek to them,
And try to bring out their latent sense of fun.
Let’s give them full air parity
And treat the rats with charity
But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun!

We must be kind,
And with an open mind
We must endeavour to find a way
To let the German know that, when the war is over
They are not the ones who’ll have to pay.

We must be sweet,
And tactful and discreet,
And when they’ve suffered defeat
We mustn’t let them feel upset,
Or ever get the feeling
That we’re cross with them or hate them,
Our future policy must be to reinstate them.

Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans
When we’ve definitely got them on the run.
Let us treat them very kindly
As we would a valued friend;
We might send them some Bishop’s
As a form of lease and lend.

Let’s be sweet to them,
And day by day repeat to them
That sterilization simply isn’t done.
Let’s help the dirty swine again
To occupy the Rhine again,
But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun!

We must be just
And win their love and trust,
And in addition we must be wise,
And ask the conquered lands
To join our hands to aid them,
That would be a wonderful surprise!

For many years
They’ve been in floods of tears,
Because the poor little dears
Have been so wronged,
And only longed
To cheat the world,
Deplete the world,
And beat the world to blazes;
This is the moment when we ought to sing their praises!

Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans,
For you can’t deprive a gangster of his gun!
Though they’ve been a little naughty
To the Czechs and Poles and Dutch,
I don’t suppose those countries
Really minded very much.

Let’s be free with them
And share the BBC with them,
We mustn’t prevent them basking in the sun.
Let’s soften their defeat again
And build their blasted fleet again,
But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun!

Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans
When the age of peace and plenty has begun.
We must send them steel and oil and coal
And everything they need,
For their peaceable intentions
Can be always guaranteed!

Let’s employ with them
A sort of “stength through joy” with them,
They’re better than us at honest manly fun.
Let’s let them feel they’re swell again
And bomb us all to hell again,
But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun!