This is no time for us to panic
TERROR THREAT IS REAL, BUT OUR DEFENCES ARE UP TO THE TASK
Back in 2005, the historian, political commentator, and all-around scourge of Islam Daniel Pipes started something he called the “stupid terrorists club” — a periodically updated catalogue of the idiotic things wannabe terrorists got up to.
From Mohammed Salameh, who tried to get back the $400 deposit on the truck rental he used to try blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, to Vancouver’s John Nuttall, who almost died in 2015 after accidentally lacing samosas with the strychnine he was using to kill ants, Pipes has kept a running tally of the behaviour that regularly exposes self-styled jihadis as laughable incompetents.
We can add Aaron Driver to the club. Driver is the ISIL sympathizer who was killed Wednesday by the RCMP in Strathroy, Ont., almost certainly preventing him from carrying out a terrorist attack. Driver was no unknown — he was under a peace bond that forbade him from using a cellphone or a computer. Yet he nevertheless found the means to record a “martyrdom” video, in which he threatens Canada, pledges allegiance to ISIL and rails against the West.
The video itself looks like an SNL parody of bad terrorist videos. His face covered in a balaclava, Driver speaks in a stilted fashion, his eyes darting repeatedly to the left as he tries to read the script he couldn’t be bothered memorizing. At one point, he’s even interrupted by a cat that wanders into the frame.
Aside from just the kicks of making fun of guys like this, Pipes had a couple of serious points to make. First, that terrorists are, almost by definition, not that bright. Second, that because they are blinded by hatred and ideological contempt, they tend to think we’re not that bright and so they routinely take foolish risks, assuming they won’t get caught. The upshot for Pipes is that because these guys are mostly clowns who are more likely to blow themselves up by accident than they are to actually cause mayhem and panic, we’re all a little bit safer.
Aaron Driver is a particular species of stupid terrorist — a loner social radical who became Islamicized, not an adherent of Islam who became radicalized. He was the typical self-radicalized lone wolf — basically an alienated, disaffected young man who found community and meaning in a sort of pidgin Islamic jihad.
The unspoken corollary of the Pipes line is that what keeps us safe from terror is, to a large extent, simple luck. The problem is there are plenty of disaffected young men around, and a lot of them engage in more or less the same alienated rantings as Driver — praising Allah, railing against Canada and the West and making vague threats.
But as Lorne Dawson, a Waterloo sociologist who had interviewed Driver, pointed out to John Geddes for Maclean’s, there’s not much you can conclude based on what people are saying. Talk is cheap, we can’t monitor everyone, and sometimes your luck runs out.
That’s pretty much what happened on Oct. 22, 2014, when Michael Zehaf-Bibeau murdered Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial, stormed Parliament Hill, and died cowering behind a pillar in Centre Block.
Shocking as the attack was, the reaction among many denizens of the parliamentary precinct was more resignation than it was surprise. Something like ZehafBibeau’s mad dash had long been expected, and lots of people were just relieved that in the grand scheme of things he simply wasn’t a very good terrorist. It could easily have been a lot worse.
And one day, it will be. Eventually the law of large numbers is going to bite, and some disaffected loser is going to get his hands on an assault rifle, figure out how to make pressure cooker bombs without getting caught, or make effective use of one of the umpteen instruments of mass murder and mayhem the Internet will teach you to make in your basement, given access to a hardware store or well-stocked pharmacy. And maybe because he’s less stupid than most, or maybe just because we can’t track everyone suspicious, he’s going to hurt or kill a lot of Canadians.
How we react will be an enormous test of our national character and our faith in our security services, our political leadership and our institutions.
If we treat the events surrounding the takedown of Aaron Driver as a test-run, there’s every reason for optimism. The RCMP did their jobs well and, notwithstanding the politicking over Bill C-51, the evidence suggests that they have the tools they need to continue to do so. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has been serious and forceful about his responsibilities. There continues to be widespread confidence in our brand of multiculturalism.
But what if Driver had managed to pull off a successful attack causing multiple casualties, or what happens when someone finally does?
The answer, horribly cliched as it may be, is that Canadians should keep calm and carry on. The Canadian model is working well, certainly much better than it is in the U.S. or in parts of Europe.
Of course we should learn from any obvious mistakes and adjust our protocols accordingly. But we should also guard against confusing bad luck with bad institutions, and it would be an enormous mistake to panic in the face of a successful terror attack. The last thing we want to do is reward stupidity that got lucky with more stupidity.
HOW WE REACT WILL BE A TEST OF OUR NATIONAL CHARACTER.