dialamah

I don't think there's a way to do that - even if an interview was designed by experts, people determined to do so would figure out how to answer the questions so as not to get 'caught'. I think the solution to identifying terrorists has more to do with identifying the risk factors and then examining the person's environment to find out if any of those factors exist. And it would have to be extended beyond the immigration system; a terrorist planning an attack could just as easily enter the country on a visitor visa or a student visa. But then, there are home-grown terrorists; I think this is more common than people who come here to be terrorists. Even if we were successful at identifying people at the border who are (or would become) terrorists, how do we do the same for people who are born here? And in Canada, which is the greater threat to Canadians - terrorists or cancer? Terrorists or wife-beaters? Terrorists or gang-members? Terrorists or illegal border-crossers? Should a large amount of tax money and government effort go into preventing a relatively rare phenomena or could that money be better spent on programs that would save more lives and have a better chance of success?

I wonder of that will always be true, or if it matters in the long run. Crop failures, drought, conflict over water, starvation and disease will make the UN definition of 'refugee' irrelevant to the people that have the ability to find a place that may allow them and their families to stay alive. I won't be around to see it, about which I'm both disappointed and relieved, but I personally do not think Canada will survive as a separate country, and I don't think there's much we can do about that. I think the immediate move of the States will be to simply take us over, as a 'friendly' invader, or not, because in some ways we are best placed to offer survival to humans and having our resources would allow the States to maintain power in the world. I don't know what will happen in Europe, but given their proximity to the places which will suffer the most, I don't think it will be pretty. I believe that the world will look very, very different in 200 years time. Of course, I may be 100% wrong - I hope I am. If I'm not, I hope the lessons we could learn stay with humans and that we do create a better, more humane society and a sustainable world. Saw a comment the other day about what to call the generation being born now - a suggestion was "Generation Fucked".

A child should absolutely be permitted to leave or change their religion, and at any age - though I'd assume they'd have to old enough to get to their preferred place of worship, or stay home alone. In my opinion, forcing a child to adhere to a particular religion will create unneeded drama and ill-will between parent and child, and runs the risk of permanently alienating the child from the parent's preferred religion. Allowing them the freedom to choose or to explore other options keeps communication open and makes it easier for the child to return to the parent's religion. If God truly knows what is in a person's heart, attendance or non-attendance at a particular religion should be irrelevant.. A non-believer attending because they're 'forced' to do so isn't going to save them from God's judgement, and a believer exploring their relationship with God through various avenues isn't going to consign them to hell. Forced 'religion' isn't for God's benefit, in my opinion. It's for the benefit of the man-made institution of religion, which requires membership for purposes of wealth and power, as opposed to the saving of souls.

I'm only talking about people's initial decision to start moving in search of a place to live. In the case of climate refugees, they'll decide when the place they're at becomes too inhospitable, and they'll decide when to start looking for other places. That is something we have no control over, nor do our governments. We only have control over what we do if/when they get to our borders. Ain't it funny how often people try to do just that though.

Yet, you dismissed that part of the Environics survey in which Muslims confirmed that was exactly their mind set, becuse some of them went to Mosque more.

Fair enough.

Don't be silly, then. Thanks, I missed that in the Islam thread. I suppose you think I haunt that thread, eh? I'm only here so much lately cause I'm home sick, lack energy to do much and have time to spare. Well, I don't see "moderate Westerners" all over the world declare against the war on Islam statements of Trump, the leader of one of the world's superpowers. Some do, for sure - and some support him while the vast majority are just silent. I imagine that the same can be said of this Imam. And if you yourself aren't willing to stand up against those who counsel war with Islam, why should you expect any Muslim to stand up against people counseling war with the West? Anyway, I condemn this guy just as much as I condemn anyone who chooses to use propaganda to foment hate against an entire group of people. If I had my way, I'd have him arrested and rehabilitated - but I guess that's up to Jerusalem authorities.

Indeed it is. This sounds reasonable to me, but I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to matter of law. It also sounds time-consuming and expensive, and given that terrorists are relatively rare, is it going to be a priority for the government? Quite often, we can't get government action on things that are of much more immediate threat to Canadians - such as effectively enforced no-contact laws on abusive men. Would it be fair then for the families of innocent people killed in other lands by US/Canadian soldiers to sue the soldiers they believed responsible for those deaths? Leaving aside whether Khadr did/did not actually kill anyone or how old he was, he was in a conflict situation. It seems odd to me that he'd be such a special case that he could be successfully sued for killing someone in that conflict? Conflict is conflict; each side believes they are right, and the other side is wrong - suing anyone for 'wrongful' death in those situations makes no sense to me. Although if it were widely implemented, with the State (US, Russia, Syria, whoever) having to pay on behalf of it's soldiers, I suppose it would add to the cost of war and maybe we'd stop having so many? Which would not have applied in Khadr's case, as he's not a foriegn national, correct? Yeah - every time someone's solution is "send them back to where they came from" I wonder what makes them so sure they'd be accepted back where they came from. Perhaps we need another Australia to send all the 'unwanted' to. Funny how that prison outpost became a place millions of people love to visit/live. It kind of reminds me of places where people cross roads unsafely - the municipality knows about it, and they ticket people if they catch them - but they often don't actually do anything till someone, or a couple of someones, get killed - then they'll put a crosswalk in, or a fence that prevents people from crossing. The fact is that terrorism, in Canada, is still pretty rare. If/until that changes, the cost will be considered too high. I agree that he was never rehabilitated, but to me he comes across as remorseful. Why do you feel differently?

Silly girl. Of the two of us, who has gone out of their way to acknowledge and agree with the others' POV in the last couple of hours? Did they now? You don't provide a site, and I couldn't find anything on Google - I even checked the Religion of Peace website, no luck. So, I regard this statement with considerable skepticism. Anyway, why wouldn't you believe them? Probably the same reason you've dismissed the 300 Islamic leaders signing an anti-terror statement; one supports your view of Muslims as 'evil', and the other does not.

Seems to me both union and companies are guilty of that 'good vs. bad' propaganda. Do you really think it's all one way?

"I disagree because it's nonsense" isn't an argument. So, you are out of cogent arguments. I win!

Yes, they move .... it's not like we can stop them from moving from wherever they are, eh? We can try to stop them at the border, assuming we have the resources to do so. But at some point, if there's enough movement, we'll lose. I thought conservatives support the right of people to make decisions independent of government intervention. No? Anywhere is better than the shifting illogic of conservative ideology.

Out of cogent arguments already?

Right - when its your side killing innocent civilians it's a shrug. If it's the other side killing innocent civilians, it's a war crime. Why are your innocent civilians more important and more deserving of life than any other ones? This is ridiculous, of course - just as ridiculous as an Imam or ISIS leader saying that the West is at war with Islam. It's an extremist propaganda statement, whatever side you are on.

Sure, you can doubt the government in this, why not? And you can wish there were more effective ways of dealing with exremism/terrorism than we currently have, both in preventing it and dealing with Canadians who go down that path; I certainly do. I agree the warning signs of the Khadr family ought to have been taken more seriously and that some kind of intervention may have saved some lives - and $10.5 million bucks.

Yes, and nice Western non-Muslims build drones that drop armaments on innocent civilians in far-off lands. I know we're not at all willing to hold our own accountable for the innocent people they kill off the battlefield, but if we did, should we also hold the makers of the weapons accountable as murderers? Does that make sense to you? I mean, I'm all for that, personally - but I can see it's not actually realistic.

I didn't 'spout it as "fact". I said "he'd likely have gotten more". The qualifying word likely indicates that this isn't a fact at all, but a possibility - albeit a strong possibility. Perhaps more careful reading of what I actually post would help. In any case, the government ultimately decided the prospect of having to pay more in a court-ordered settlement made the 10.5 million an attractive option. You can say they should have played it out to the bitter end, and maybe you'd be right. On the other hand, what if you were wrong and the courts determined a settlement of two or three times that much? Would that have somehow lessened your dissatisfaction with the outcome? Or would you have all the same arguments you do now, plus a lot more money paid out?

Ok, how would you change it? Remove the right of due process for Canadians generally? Or for people who fight in wars? What would be your solution to this problem? How could you make it effective, fair, and reduce, as much as possible, the possibility of someone being unjustly punished? Or even being convicted in a Kangaroo court, or being tortured till they confessed to what they didn't do? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I do think maybe tweaking the law on treason would be a better approach than changing the rights of Canadian citizens to due process. Not that I have any idea of what our laws on treason look like. Yes I agree it can be nearly impossible to know what happens in the midst of battle. Which is exactly why it's possible that Khadr didn't kill anyone.

No, but if the government had waited till the court got that far, he'd likely have gotten more. Would that have been better?

Oh, I agree with this by the way - Canada definitely needs to address the issue of extremism/terrorism by Canadian citizens at home and abroad. Should this apply to mercenaries? Hmmmm ....

There isn't a law that pays Canadians to engage in terrorist activities, and Khadr was not paid for doing that. That's a strawman argument. The law that got him money was the the one that the government failed to follow - the law that promises Canadian citizens due process, presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. Is that a faulty law? Living in a country that upholds it's own laws sounds better to me than living in a country that doesn't. If Canada isn't going to do that, then what's the difference between them and an Islamic-ruled country? It has nothing to do with treating terrorists with 'kid gloves'. It has to do with our own responsibility to live up to our own standards. We did not due that in Khadr's case, and he got 10.5 million dollars for it.

He was never charged with treason; perhaps that would have been a better option than what our government did do. Perhaps repatriating him, as a 16-year-old and as the US asked us to do, and then immediately charging him with treason would have been a clearer, more honest and imo, a more effective means of having him locked up for life, and not paying him 10 5. million dollars. At least a charge of treason would be more straightforward; the evidence that he may not have been responsible for the death of Speers could be ignored. Whether a minor can be charged with treason is the question I have. It seems the government is remarkably unwilling to use that - even with adults returning from fighting with ISIS. What the government chose to do, however, is ignore Canada's laws and leave him in Guantanamo, allow him to be tortured and essentially deprive him of the rights he's entitled to as a Canadian citizen. We either defend Canada's laws, or we do not. Yes, that would be good. If one removed the "emotion" and analyzed the actual "facts" of his case, they'd consider his youth and the statement of the soldiers who actually captured him - that there is a possibility he wasn't the one who threw the grenade that killed Speer and blinded the other guy. They'd also remove the 'emotion' and ask themselves if Canada should or should not be expected to uphold our own laws.

Actually, I agree with this - the Khadrs were, as a family, pretty extreme. What a shame we couldn't or didn't do more, sooner, to discourage them. Just think, if we had a proactive and effective method of identifying potential extremists/terrorists, instead of our current reactive, hand-wringing we do now, this entire situation might not have come about. I do tend to choose compassion over hard-line condemnation, that's true. But also, I think it's important to uphold Canada's laws which tend to focus on human rights regardless of the human in question: in Khadr's case, we did not as evidenced by losing several court decisions. How some people can be so willing to simply throw our own laws out the window because they don't like an individual's religion or politics is beyond me. Might as well live in an Islamic country, if that's where Canada is headed.

Right, so - "He's never renounced terrorism" ... upon being presented with proof that he has renounced terrorism "No, he didn't!" And you wonder why I think you you will accept only information that demonizes Muslims, either as individuals or as a group.

How is *my* difference of opinion taking away *your* rights and freedoms, exactly, such that you need to use insulting language? So, you think armed conflict is the way to resolve different viewpoints? That seems a little over-the-top to me. People actually did use armed conflict in order to gain collective bargaining rights - something that was hailed as a boon to the common working man at the time. It seems to me that the desire to eliminate unions is not to benefit the common working man, but to benefit the elites who gain money, not through their hard work, but simply by sitting back and earning money off the people who actually do the hard work. Now, if your argument is that unions can go overboard and that there needs to be more collaboration between unions and companies, instead of confrontation, I'd probably agree with you. Still unions provide enough benefits for workers that I do not wish to see them eliminated - even if a strike action sometimes inconveniences me.