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The value of teamwork

The arrests in Canada should be seen as a show of success of the international community working together to fight terrorism.

By EDITORIAL
Published June 8, 2006

While the political debate in this country focused on immigration and looked to the south, a more ominous drama with catastrophic potential quietly played out to the north. The emerging details about an alleged terrorist plot in Canada underscore the importance of sharing law enforcement intelligence around the world and the folly of the notion that building walls makes us safer.

This is an investigation that has emphasized patience over grabbing headlines and cooperation over turf protection. The arrests of a dozen adults and five juveniles in and around Toronto over the weekend was the result of some two years of painstaking detective work, from old-fashioned surveillance to more sophisticated tracking of Internet chat rooms and e-mail. The Los Angeles Times reported that what began as separate investigations into groups of militant Muslim men connected by radical rhetoric on the Internet morphed into a coordinated effort involving seven countries, including the United States. At one point, it appears both Canadian and American authorities were monitoring two Atlanta men, who were arrested this spring and had been in direct contact with some of the Canadians. Published reports on Wednesday traced a possible connection to Great Britain, where two others were arrested. This is the kind of investigative teamwork required to combat terrorism that knows no boundaries.

For Americans, the plot described by investigators is all too familiar. The Canadian group sought to acquire three tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer - three times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. The Toronto Star reported that investigators intercepted the order for the fertilizer and arranged to have a harmless powder delivered by truck. Terrorists do not have to hijack airplanes to bring down buildings and spread fear.

There will be the talking heads and politicians who will try to use the Canadian arrests in the ongoing immigration debate in the United States. Canada has welcomed immigrants from the Middle East and elsewhere with open arms, and the northern U.S. border is far more open than the Mexican border. Since the arrests, the United States has tightened border crossings and security procedures at the nearly 90 ports along the border. That is prudent, but the lesson should not be about building walls, rounding up 11-million illegal immigrants or profiling Muslim men.

The message is that terrorism threats can fester from within, fueled by isolation in the neighborhood and loose connections with the angry and the hateful around the world in virtual relationships. These were Canadian residents who attracted little attention in unassuming jobs, and there has been no reported connection to al-Qaida or other organized terrorist group. Canada is hardly a melting pot, and it does not have the religious or ethnic tensions that were exposed by the London terrorist attacks last July.

Yet the bomb-making material allegedly sought by a relatively small group could have triggered one of the largest, deadliest terrorist attacks on this continent. Even as the investigation continues, the raid outside Toronto rates as one of the most successful antiterrorist operations. It underscores the importance of fighting terrorism with smart, methodical intelligence-gathering in a coordinated, multinational effort that targets specific threats. In the long run, those efforts will be more successful than building walls along the border and rounding up everyone who doesn't have their papers in order.

[Last modified June 8, 2006, 05:52:40]