FACING UP TO OUR FIFTH COLUMN
by George Jonas
National Post
December 9, 2005

About four years ago I wrote that Middle East terrorists are
limited in their ability to project their power against America or Europe.
They haven't the armies to invade, the navies to blockade, or the air
forces to bomb the great Satan or its allies. Terrorists have no means to
break through the West's perimeter defenses.

Except this is a mixed blessing. If a belligerent can't project its
power from outside the enemy's perimeters, it will concentrate on
projecting it from inside by employing "fifth columns" ­ that is, saboteurs
or agents who live among the population disguised as visitors, students, or
residents. While weak and vulnerable countries had to fear their neighbours
across the border, I wrote, we had to fear our neighbours down the street.

This suggestion didn't require prophetic powers even before 9/11.
Writing it after 9/11, as I did, amounted to little more than stating the
obvious. My mild observation was nevertheless greeted with outrage in
"progressive" circles. Had they been able to string together the words, my
critics might have accused me of being a xenophobic boor let loose in the
temple of liberalism to trample on delicate multicultural sensibilities,
with my heavy boots of paranoia leaving unseemly scuff marks on the
tranquil surface of Canada's cultural mosaic. Lacking the vocabulary and
the verve, however, they contented themselves with calling me a
hate-monger.

Then came Madrid, then London. Commuter trains, subways, and buses
were blown up in acts of wanton and random violence, leaving hundreds of
maimed and dead, or widowed and orphaned. The perpetrators were our
neighbours down the street. Some we knew by sight, some we had often said
hello to, some had even stopped to pass the time of day with us. They were
Muslims, but not necessarily immigrants. Some British- or Spanish-born
terrorists didn't even have a Middle East background. They weren't Muslims
from the cradle. They were converts to Islam.

Daniel Pipes, the noted scholar and commentator, recently published
two lists of converts either convicted of, or suspected and charged with,
terrorism or terrorist-support activities in the West. Of course, not all
converts to Islam become terrorists. Even among those who embrace a version
of militant Islam, terrorists are a minority. As Prof. Pipes writes: "Many
converts engage in jihad in such places as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya,
and Kashmir, generally acting more like soldiers than terrorists." (Pipes
adds, though, that: "Those who go to Iraq or the Palestinian Authority, in
contrast, are rank terrorists.")

But ­ as I've written before ­ terrorism isn't labour-intensive. It
doesn't require many terrorists to cause a lot of harm. In an activity
where 19 suicidal maniacs armed wit box cutters can, in the space of a few
hours, destroy three aircraft, erase two landmark buildings in New York,
heavily damage the seat of America's military might in Washington, and
extinguish the lives some 3000 civilians, the estimate that only 3% of all
converts become terrorists (the figure quoted in a French study after the
London bombings) doesn't sound very reassuring.

What can we do about fifth columnists, whether convert or native,
immigrant or home-grown? In a free society, only so much, the most
important of which is to make sure that we remain a free society. Even so,
exercising some vigilance isn't inimical to freedom. Cleaning house once in
a while can be very salutary.

Testing new laws, such as America's Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA), may be useful, if only to discover where a US jury
is likely to draw a line when it comes to secretly gathered evidence. A
Florida prosecutor got a hint the other day in the case of Professor Sami
al-Arian, charged with 17 counts of aiding Palestinian terrorists to kill
and maim Israelis through suicide bombings. The evidence was based on
secret intelligence, and the jury promptly threw out eight counts,
remaining deadlocked on the other nine. The prosecution is licking its
wounds, pondering what to do next.

Meanwhile, the United Nations celebrated the anniversary of its own
November 29, 1947, partition vote which created Israel. It did so by
letting Palestinians display a map WITHOUT Israel. UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan has, on past occasions, described the same anniversary as "a day
of mourning and a day of grief." Subversion? An astute mail sorter once
wrote "try UN Headquarters" on an envelop addressed to The Fifth Column,
Manhattan.

©National Post

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