the j of the r c military institute sitrepthe journal of the royal canadian military institute rcmi...

The Journal of The royal Canadian MiliTary insTiTuTe

RCMISITREP

founded 1890

Inside this IssueWorld War I Dental Parade:The Royal Canadian Dental Corps

November–December 2015 Volume 75, Number 6

www.rcmi.org @rcmiHQ

Navigating Dark Waters by John C Thompson ........................................................ 3

The Future of Racial Profiling In Canada: Bill C-51 and Hereditary Guilt by Christopher Abbott ....................................... 7

The Case against Regularizing Canada’s Irregulars by Paul Pryce ...................... 11

The Royal Canadian Dental Corps: A Century of Service by BGen (ret’d) Victor J. Lanctis .....................................12

Response to Terrorism: A Vicious Cycle? by Tannuva Akbar ............................. 14

— 18THBATTALIONCEF.WORDPRESS.COM

royal Canadian MiliTary insTiTuTefounded 1890

Patron

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D.

Governor General of Canada

Vice Patrons

The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, OC, OOnt Lieutenant Governor of Ontario

The Honourable Kathleen Wynne, MPPPremier of Ontario

General Jonathan Vance, CMM, MSC, CD Chief of Defence Staff

His Worship, John Tory Mayor of Toronto

Officers & Directors

HCol Gilbert W. Taylor—President LCdr/Dr. Michael J. Hoare, CD—First Vice President Col W. Allan Methven, CD–—Second Vice President

LCol Donald R. Fisher, CD—Director BGen Paul A. Hayes, OMM, CD—Director

Capt Stewart C. Kellock, MOM, OStJ, CD—Director LCol C. Edward Rayment, CD—Director Capt Rodney W. J. Seyffert, CD—Director

Capt John E. Thompson, CD—Director

PasT PresidenT

LCol James R. Breithaupt, KStJ, CD, QC

honoraries

Col (ret’d) John Clarry, MBE, ED, CD, QCHonorary President

HLGen Richard Rohmer, OC, CMM, DFC, O.Ont, KStJ, OL, Legion d’Honneur, QC

Honorary Vice PresidentLCol (ret’d) Bruce W. Savage, CD

Honorary CuratorDr. J. L. Granatstein, OC, FRSC

Dr. Desmond Morton, OC Honorary Historians Mr. Arthur Manvell Honorary Librarian

LCol J. Roy Weir , CD, AdeC, QC Honorary Solicitor

honorary ChaPlains

Maj The Rev Gillian Federico, CD LCdr The Rev J. David Mulholland Capt The Rev Mark L. Sargent, CD

General Manager

Mr. Michael T. Jones

Chair, Security Studies/Editor, Sitrep Col (ret’d) Chris Corrigan, CD, MA

Vice-Chair, Security Studies/Editor, Members’ News

Mr. Eric S. Morse

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From the Editor’s Desk

Copyright © 2015 RCMI ISSN 0316-5620 SITREP may be fully reproduced in whole or in part for academic research or institutional purposes, provided that the author’s and the institute’s copyright is acknowledged. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute or its members.

The past year has seen this journal examine a variety of issues:

• Our continuing role in the fight against the Islamic State• Fourth Generation warfare• The need for gender analysis in Canadian security operations• Canada Customs, now CBSA, the oldest law enforcement arm of the Canadian

government• Why after 14 years of international assistance and aid the governments of Iraq

and Afghanistan remain on the cusp of collapse and cannot provide the rule of law and counter IS and the Taliban

• Bad practices in military procurement• The security threat caused by the collapse of financial markets in Europe - the

bailout of Greece—and China• The EU’s challenge posed by the largest migration of refugees fleeing conflict

and economic migrants since WW2• The need to examine foreign policy with respect to the Asia-Pacific• The challenge of home grown terrorists

For 2016 we need to gird ourselves for the increasing reality that our secular society may need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize that religion is playing an increasing role in politics in the majority of troubled regions of the world. Citing a recent Spectator editorial “Public safety before election promises: There are worse things than a broken election promise…the government must ensure the refugee commitment is kept, but in an intelligent way that balances humanitarian interests with national security. That means the year-end target must be set aside.”

Our own resident terrorism expert and media analyst John C. Thompson posits in a world menaced by significant population growth, environmental stresses and urbanization, all connected with bewildering speed, that the old habits of thinking about security and stability are going to be a liability. In so doing he puts into context the world situation at year’s end.

Christopher Abbott comments on the 2015 Anti-terrorism Act Bill C-51 and racial profiling—an ongoing public safety versus civil liberties issue especially with respect to ‘carding’, a contentious issue in many of our cities. He posits that this will lead to greater discretion being given to law enforcement officials, given the preconception that terrorists are Muslim and/or Arab, and that the use of racial profiling will increase.

Paul Pryce examines the role of Special Forces—irregular troops—in the context of a pre-election Conservative promise, prophetic given recent IS attacks in Paris, Ankara, Sinai and the downing of the Russian airliner, that would expand the ranks of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM).

BGen (ret’d) Victor Lanctis, the Colonel Commandant of the Royal Canadian Dental Corps and non-resident RCMI member, examines the fascinating history of the Corps on the occasion of its centennial.

Tannuva Akbar explores homegrown terrorism, radicalization and ISIS. With the passage of this momentous year and with the expectation of a

2016 that will be replete with further security challenges, I extend my very best wishes for a safe, peaceful and prosperous New Year!Sincerely,

Colonel Chris Corrigan (retired) CD, MA Editor and Chair of Security Studies

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The production of SITREP is made possible in part by the generosity of the Langley Bequest, which is made in honour of Major Arthur J Langley CD

and Lt (N/S) Edith F Groundwater Langley

Navigating Dark Watersby John C Thompson

John Thompson, a long-time Member of RCMI and a prolific contributor to Sitrep, spent 30 years with the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies (CISS) and the Mackenzie Institute. He is internationally recognized as an expert security and terrorism analyst and is a frequent media commentator.

The dark web, terrorism, hacktivists, intruding drones, transnational organized crime—a dizzying array of problems are growing but these are only the froth of a

growing wave of instability. The order we knew in past decades is no longer assured.

In a world menaced by significant population growth, environmental stresses, urbanization; and which yet remains connected and mobile like never before, ideas and causes are appearing and morphing with bewildering speed. In the com-ing years, old habits of thinking about security and stability are going to be a liability.

Forward to the Past

Two problems are going to seize many institutions like a mugger lunging out of an alley: First, thinking that the forms of conflict in a post-Westphalian World will prevail over non-state threats is going to be dangerous. The nation-state is becoming weaker than ever compared to non-state actors. The difference is that while conventional military and police organizations represent significant force, they represent in-creasingly little applicable force.

Secondly, in a world where national authority matters less and less, every institution of any kind is going to have to stop thinking the armed authorities of government (and even the rule of law) can protect them. Corporations, universities, political parties, and every other collective social entity must increasingly look to their own protection.

The kinetic threats offered by bombs, blades and bul-lets will still be just as plentiful, but non-kinetic threats to reputation, business continuity and everything else will be just as profound. In a world where so much virtual capability represents real wealth, virtual threats emerged to plunder or wreak it—or hide behind it—thus causing real damage. The illusion that cybernetic damage does no real harm must be discarded.

Societies where government did not have a monopoly on force, and where institutions had to protect themselves have been seen before—back before the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648. In the centuries between the end of the Roman

Empire and the rise of the modern state, violence was usually perpetrated by non-state actors. Merchant cartels, insurgents, bands of religious zealots, unemployed soldiers, pirates and bandits, clans, mercenary contractors, independent city states and troublesome nobles all vied to make life ‘colourful’.1 The 21st Century looks to be just as varied and colourful and all of must look to our own personal defences.

An Intense World

The world is getting crowded; median population es-timates from the UN for 2050 see 9.6 billion people on the planet by that year.2 Even as the mean population is aging, the sheer inertia of human population growth continues to add numbers especially in Africa and the Middle East.

By 2014, according to the UN, 54 percent of humanity was living in urban centres; the figure should reach 66 per-cent by 2050. Worse, the number of cities with populations of over 10 million people is growing rapidly. In 1970 there were three such cities, currently there are 28 and there should be 41 in another 15 years. In 1970 there were 141 cities with a population of one to ten million people, now there are 460.3

So far as security threats go, densely packed crowded cities have always presented a major problem from the stews of the Subura of ancient Rome to the Lyari neighbourhood of today’s Karachi. For conventional militaries, the old open battlefields in deserts, grasslands and farms will become rare, and fighting in urban areas is enormously expensive in terms of resources, supplies and collateral damage. For police and paramilitaries, densely crowded areas dominated by a hostile entity—such as a street-gang, criminal cartel or political mi-litia—have always been a particularly challenging situation.

Humanity is becoming more connected.4 Cell-phone and internet coverage is rapidly growing in even some of the poorest cities on Earth. By the end of 2015, there should be some 3.2 billion internet users around the world—with 2 billion of them in the developing world. World-wide, the number of cell-phone subscriptions has almost reached 7 billion. These technologies have given significant command and control capabilities to various armed local parties that made them almost as responsive and resilient as conventional military communications architectures. Modern connectivity also has made the likes of Somali militiamen, Jamaican Posses and Pakistani Jihadis self-organizing in confrontations with

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formal armed forces.5

The incentive to violence is already becoming more complex. We are already having difficulty feeding and pro-viding fresh water for much of humanity, and the problem is going to grow every year. Throughout history fear of food shortages (rather than famine) has been a major source of political turbulence: Keeping the Roman mob fed was the major concern of the Emperors, and the global spike in food prices did more to kick off the so-called Arab Spring than any other single factor.6

When people are afraid, fear can be compounded by the opportunistic. The methods for creating, inciting and sustaining radical ideologies are widely understood. Political organization, revolutionary theory and totalitarian propagan-da techniques have outlived Lenin and Hitler, and become a grab-bag of tactics which anybody with a cause can utilize without adopting the political philosophies that 20th Century totalitarians proposed.

Al Qaeda and its successors, particularly the Islamic State, have successfully blended traditional religious/cultural practices and modern communications with these ideolog-ically-derived techniques to create a powerful engine for recruiting and conditioning partisans to engage in violence. Where they have led, others will follow. Currently ISIS/Daesh can recruit and condition new supporters with a speed that the Marxists and Anarchists of the 1970s could never have matched.

Terrorism is inherently political, but politics themselves have become far more confused. The proliferation of modern communications technologies has meant that any conspiracy buff or person given to cognitive dissonance has a means to reach an audience, and a ready audience of people willing to self-select their media choices to validate their own beliefs. The Internet’s promise of a new age of freedom from propaganda has given way to something else as humanity seems to be mak-ing a shift from the information age to the disinformation age.7

This trend has interacted with the post-modernist ‘in-tellectual’ climate that arose in the 1960s to further muddle contemporary discourse; both help to create new tensions along numerous fault-lines within our societies. All opinions are supposedly valid—unless they contradict the assumed values of the Neo-Totalitarianism referred to as ‘Political Correctness’.

This new Neo-Totalitarianism is the result of the emer-gence of Post-Modernist thinking in the 1960s and 1970s which allowed for other forms of destructive thought. There was a systemic re-evaluation of the entire Western value system and an attack on its history. The problem is that in-tellectual evolutions have real consequences—as two World Wars and the evolution of Nazism, Marxism-Leninism and other creeds clearly demonstrate.8 Westerners have seen an attempt to pull up the roots of our own society and replace it with any notion of the moment and the harm this has caused is incalculable.

In short with the onset of the Internet, it might be said that never before have people known so little about so much, or been prepared to be swayed so easily. The day of the dem-agogue is on us.

At the same time, Post-Modernism allowed for the creation of political/managerial elites which self-alienated themselves from older values, but which are entrenched throughout the Western World and have become dangerously self-destructive.9 A growing rejection—fuelled by anxiety over illegal immigration, poor economic performances, Isla-mism, and the behaviours of many of today’s financial elites —is gathering in Europe and the United States with Nativist movements like the Tea Party, the English Defence League, generation identitaire and others.

In defence of most of these Nativist movements, they seek a return to more normative political practices and ethical leadership within older constitutional frameworks. They have so far stayed well clear of violence, but are not likely to long tolerate violence or repression being visited on them.

To be truly dangerous, a demagogue needs guns, money and political support.

Weaponry has become cheap and abundant, particularly the ubiquitous AK-47 and the related set of infantry arms manufactured since the USSR introduced them early in the 1950s. The AK-47 is so simple to use even a chimpanzee can fire one (to say nothing of the African “soldiers” who gave one to a chimp in a memorable you-tube clip). The rifle is murderous at close range, cheap and at least 75 million have been produced so far although the weapon is now being copied by numerous private actors. Matched against efforts to curb the international trade in small arms is a growing industry for the illegal manufacture of firearms—where even a small machine shop can easily turn out significant numbers of copies of police and military designs with little effort.

While American’s political elites might be—tellingly —focused on domestic gun control (and the US is truly a heavily armed society), the entire world is awash in more guns than ever before. The supply of high explosives might be closely monitored, but any trained bomb-maker knows what can be done with a few household chemicals in the correct proportions.

Modern terrorist groups also have seamlessly fused with organized crime for some decades. The biggest clandestine money-makers are narcotics trafficking and people smuggling, and it is hard to think of any major contemporary insurgent movement that is not involved in either.10 The relationship goes both ways; the Sicilian Mafia has turned to terrorism at times to inhibit the Italian justice system and a Sri Lankan underworld extortionist, Villupiliai Prabhakaran, created one of the world’s most innovative terrorist groups—the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.11

For many years terrorist groups and insurgents used narcotics trafficking directed towards their targeted society to draw easy money from that society and simultaneously

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contribute to the erosion of its social fabric. People smuggling accomplishes the same end with the net benefit that the insur-gent can also place his supporters inside the targeted society as a charge on their rolls for social benefits, but also as agents for his cause. 12 Terrorists drawing support from émigré commu-nities is an old story, but the Tamil Tigers’ deliberate creation of a diaspora so that they could feed on it was a new story in the 1990s. This is also a strategy for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The internet has provided more ways of generating and moving money than we ever imagined before, and the clan-destine means of doing so are plentiful—particularly thanks to the emergence of the Dark Web of sites and connections normally hidden to the public. Some transactions are not all that shadowy; one of the recently leaked files from the NSA (another telling point about security these days) discusses some use of on-line gaming environments by several terrorist groups for training. They have also be known to use avatars in games like Second Life to communicate and the virtual economy of on-line games can actually be used to move real money around with little notice from officialdom.

Of course, if guns are easy to acquire, offensive cyber-netic abilities are even easier. Basic vandalism on web-sites and denial of service attacks are being joined by increasingly sophisticated attacks—often seemingly designed by nation states. However, techniques can be deliberately farmed out for use by non-state actors, giving the nation state whose resources developed them almost complete deniability.13 The other problem is that—for the moment—cybernetic warfare is not seen as much more than vandalism writ large and not directly lethal. Yet it still destroys invested time, money and effort, and may in future directly destroy lives. We need to see the malevolence in cybernetic warfare for what it is.

The techniques of activism have also become widely known… so much so that the remnants of the old Radical Left are still lurching around the political landscape, defined not so much by their ideology as by their activity. Protest can be undertaken for its own sake, largely to self-validate, while the purpose or the expressed goals behind a protest movement are often ill-formed or even largely unarticulated. The pro-testors who flock to international gatherings like a G-8/G-20 conference don’t need a purpose, they just need a venue.14

This places all manner of successful institutions at in-creased risk. A resource company need not be polluting to find itself subjected to simultaneous cyber-attack, violent protest and explosive vandalism; it is merely enough that the com-pany might someday pollute. Appearance has become reality, accusation is truth, and denial is confirmation. The question might not be ‘Why are they doing this?’, so much as it might be ‘Who is putting them up to this and how can I stop it?’

To compound matters, the world’s swelling population and the ruthless efficiencies demanded of modern production are leading to increased unemployment and under-employ-ment. The old saying that the Devil finds work for idle hands is a historical truism: There are enough examples from around

the world in recent decades of what can happen when the young are educated and find that opportunities are few and far between. Eric Hoffer pointed out that those who are most likely to be attracted to a radical ideology are the ‘new poor’, who have diminished expectations and someone to blame for it.15 Prosperity, upwards social mobility and a middle class lifestyle are incredible instruments of social stability, and we endanger these at our peril.

Concurrently, unemployment and diminished expec-tations are placing increased stress on government welfare systems that were designed as temporary aids to the disad-vantaged; but it is hard to think of any Western nation that doesn’t have some element of its population that is now on permanent assistance. Meeting these obligations is a drain on all other government functions, which makes the exercise of a government’s authority become weaker rather than stron-ger. Likewise the tax load necessary to finance assistance is a further detriment to prosperity and the middle class in a vicious circle.

Strategic Concerns

Besides the problems of resources, population increase and political instability, the 21st Century is going to be defined by even more rapid technological development than was the case for the last two hundred years. The 19th Century might be most defined by the steam revolution, and the 20th by the electronics revolution—at present the world is in the throes of three related technological revolutions: Life sciences (bio-en-gineering and genetics); robotics, and nanotechnology.

Every major new technology has two sides to it —one of threat and one of opportunity. Steam power revolution-ized travel and trade, and made possible larger and faster concentrations of armies than ever before—the warning of Shiloh, Königgrätz and Sedan in 1860-1870 was that battles like Verdun, the Somme and Ypres were possible in the future. Computers originated as calculation machines for artillery and missile ballistics and now have universal application.

It is impossible to predict how our current revolutions might impact us, but we may have enormous new benefits in medicine and food production, while making more fiendish biological weapons than any that came before. Robotic weap-ons systems are already being designed, but so far everyone is heeding the warning of the ‘Terminator’ movies and the threshold for unregulated armed artificial intelligences has not—yet—been crossed. Nanotechnology offers fresh miracles in every aspect of our technology, but a cloud of self-repli-cating dissemblers turning a city full of humans into goo is also possible.

We should remember, more urgently than ever, that the new technology and all of its potentials is not necessarily at the command of the nation state. The appearance of en-hanced, genetically targeted smallpox or hummingbird-sized hunter-killer robots might be at the behest of secretive private actors.


As new technologies mature, the possibility of another Dreadnought paradigm becomes possible—as new technolo-gies are suddenly combined in revolutionary new manner the balance of power could suddenly shift. We know full well from the last 500 years that changes in that balance are punctuat-ed and accented by wars; but this is also old-thinking about conventional balances of forces. One hundred years hence historians might remark on the 9/11 attack and similar events as the debut of a new paradigm of power, and the inability of the Nation State to be able to accurately bring its substantive strength to bear against the ephemeral and fleeting strength of an nebulous ideology matched to terrorists, hackers, activists and gangsters.

War in the coming decades might not only be hard to recognize, it might be unrecognizable. Could it be a competing series of genetically enhanced plagues? Tiny groups of Special Forces hired to utilize robotic weapons to hunt a few individ-uals in a feud over control of a major corporation? Might it be the systemic murder of key scientists? Might it be more of the pointless, amorphous sprawling sporadic violence we already see at the heart of some major cities as gangs, terrorists and political militias squabble without end? If a nuclear weapon detonates in the heart of a major city, will we even know who put it there, and why?

Could we see—for example—strawberry growers in Mexico hire mercenaries to put a bio-toxin in Chilean product to increase their own market share? Could an oil company engage environmentalists to begin protests against a rival’s assets (Canadians should bear in mind this may have already happened to us)? Could a university’s key scientific break-through immediately put its research team in mortal jeopardy?

Just because the nuclear prohibition has lasted for 70 years, there is no reason to believe it will last another 70, especially given the deal that was just worked up with the Mullahs of Iran. The other great inhibitor on conflict in the last seven decades was the technological, industrial, financial and military might of the United States—now much decayed. What the next 70 years will bring is anyone’s guess. One of the world’s leading strategists, Colin S. Grey, warned that predicting wars is a very inexact discipline, except that it is always safe to predict that there will be wars.16

Again, what kinds of wars will these be—tit for tat sin-gular nuclear exchanges? Will ballistic missile defence become the new must-have defence technology? Will we see genocide conducted in the usual age-old way of driving the loser out into the wilderness to die of exposure and deprivation (which in a world short on food and water may be more salient then ever)? Will Hollywood’s nightmare vision of a wasteland populated by autonomous deadly robots be realized?

At the other end of the spectrum, we are already catching glimmers of hackers stealing information on key personnel, systemic harassment and intimidation by activists and sab-otage as non-state entities go after particular companies or institutions. Yet these attacks might go after key economic

assets that are vital to an entire nation state, yet the act is prompted by a non-state rival, private citizens or a terrorist group. Constant warfare that strives not to appear unlike warfare and yet that is its nature and intent.

There are other concerns, Samuel Huntingdon’s Clash of Civilizations thesis was widely disputed when it came out as a magazine article in 1995 and a book in 1996, but there has been no better road-map to many of the emerging supra-cultural conflicts and rivalries around the world.17 More or less at the same time, Benjamin R. Barber’s Jihad vs McWorld gave a rival idea that imperiled senses of identity in an increasingly glo-balized world was also producing conflict.18 One can wonder about the irony of the extensive porn collection Osama Bin Laden had on his computer when he was killed; was he more fascinated or repulsed by it? Whose thesis—Huntingdon’s or Barber’s—does this validate?

As the world gets more crowded and the impression that resources are growing short intensifies, then these oth-er themes may take on a sharper edge and a more pointed urgency. Notwithstanding Gray’s warning, we can predict that warfare can occur but our 19th and 20th Century ways of thinking about it are going to be a handicap. Warfare is no longer the exclusive business of the state, and our weak and weary national governments are going to need all the help they can muster… but don’t expect them to rally to your defence against all the warriors who might be coming after you.

There is the old Chinese and Scottish curse “May you live in interesting times”—and times are going to become very interesting.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute

or its members.

Notes

1 see Martin van Crevald, The Transformation of War, New York The Free Press, 1991. 2 Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division, Concise Report on the World Population Situation 2014; United Nations, New York, 20143 Pg 17., Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision; United Nations New York, 20154 Figures from International Telecommunications Union; “ICT Facts and Figures”; Geneva, May 20155 see David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla, Oxford, 20136 ‘Food prices and the Arab Spring: Let them eat baklava’; The Economist, March 17th, 2012 and Steve Baragona; ‘2011 Food Prices Helped Trigger Arab Spring’, Voice of America, December 13, 2011, 7:00 PM.7 See David J. Rothkopf; ‘The Disinformation Age’, Foreign Policy, No. 114 (Spring 1999), pp 82-86. Among other articles on the web on the subject are Mark Lee Hunter, ‘News credibility in an age of disinformation’ at gijn.org, posted September 8 2014 and Clifford D. May, ‘The Disinformation Age’, posted at www.nationalreview December 12, 2013.8 The history of intellectual life can make for the driest reading, Norman Cantor’s The American Century: Varieties of Culture in Modern Times (Harper Collins, New York 1997) is especially useful here.9 The first clear warning came from Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (W.W. Norton, New York, 1996), now the warnings are coming thick and fast from leading academics like Angelo Codevilla

??

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(see ‘America’s Ruling Class —and the Perils of Revolution’, the American Spec-tator, July-August 2010), Thomas Dye, Jeffrey Folks, Robert Reich and Thomas Sowell.10 One especially comprehensive survey on terrorist involvement in narcotics is “A Global Overview Of Narcotics-Funded Terrorist And Other Extremist Groups”, A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the Department of Defense May 2002.11 See C.H.S. Jayewardene and H. Jayewardene; The Battle for Eelam (Otta-wa, Crimcare, 1987) and Kirithie Abeyeskera; The Underworld of Sex, Crime and Drugs; (Columbo, Lakehouse, 1991).12 Elsie Gonzalez, ‘The Nexus between Human Trafficking and Terrorism/Organized Crime: Combating Human Trafficking By Creating a Cooperative Law Enforcement System’, Seaton Hall, May 1st, 2013; the author also did extensive

work for 15 years on the Tamil Tiger apparatus in Canada.13 ‘Cyberwar: The Threat from the Internet’, The Economist, July 1st, 201014 The author has been amid many protests and riots over the years, his field notes from the 2010 G-20 Conference in Toronto can be found at “Amidst the G-20 Protests”, Sitrep, the Journal of the Royal Canadian Military Institute, July-August 2010, Volume 70, Number 4.15 Eric Hoffer, the True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Move-ments, 1951, Harper, New York; Part 2. Pp 26-2716 Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 200517 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and Schuster, 199618 Benjamin R. Barber; Jihad vs McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World; Ballentine, 1995

Dark Waters cont’d

The Future of Racial Profiling In Canada: Bill C-51 and Hereditary Guiltby Christopher Abbott

Christopher Abbott is a Political Science specialist at the University of To-ronto. Upon completion of his HBA in 2015, Christopher intends to pursue a PhD in International Relations/International Law. Christopher also recently completed a Junior Research Fellowship at the NATO Council of Canada.

Malicious generalizations about Islam have become the last acceptable form of denigration of foreign culture in the West; what is said about the Muslim mind, or character, or religion, or culture as a whole cannot now be said in mainstream discussion about Africans, Jews, or other Orientals, or Asians.1

In the aftermath of September 11th, Western nations have concentrated national security efforts toward defeating ideologically-driven violence. Though the War on Terror

tends to be viewed synonymously with military endeavors in Middle Eastern countries, the fact remains that 9/11 has also altered Canada’s domestic domain. Canada’s Anti-terrorism Act, 2001, for example, created new terrorism offences, gave law enforcement officers greater discretionary power, and made the prevention of terrorism a top national security priority. With greater discretion, a new directive, and the implicit consent of many Canadians, policy makers and law enforcement officials began “advocating for the racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims as the means towards greater national security.”2 Indeed, the practice of racial profiling – long con-demned due to its inefficiency and adverse affects on targeted communities – became a politically convenient panacea for terrorism.

Proponents of racial profiling tend to emphasize the efficient use of limited resources, the deterrence factor, and the notion that ‘it just makes sense’. However, as I will show below, the arguments in favor of racial profiling are uncon-vincing and widely refuted. Though the literature on racial profiling tends to discredit the practice, the first argument of

this paper concerns the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, also known as Bill C-51, and the expansion of discretionary power given to law enforcement officials and the government. In partic-ular, I argue that the introduction of Bill C-51 will serve to increase the discretionary power of law enforcement officers by lowering the threshold for preventive arrest. Further, the greater discretion given to law enforcement officials, coupled with a ubiquitous preconception that terrorists are Muslim and/or Arab, will increase the use of racial profiling.

For many Canadians, however, increasing the use of racial profiling is not an issue. Indeed, some may argue that a greater reliance on racial profiling in the name of national security is justified. This brings me to the second argument of this paper: Not only is racial profiling inefficient, it could have disastrous effects at the state level, as well as societal and individual level. At the state level, an increase in racial profiling may undermine the Charter by stomping on equality rights as outlined in section 15. At the societal level, racial profiling may further stigmatize the Muslim and Arab communities, institu-tionalize racism, and degrade multiculturalism in Canada. At the individual level, racial profiling and discrimination could lead to serious physical, psychological, and financial harm.

What is Racial Profiling?

Though the term racial profiling is defined differently by different organizations, it typically refers the substitution of race, ethnicity, religion and/or national origin, or a combina-tion of these, as a proxy for risk.3 In a more nuanced fashion, the Ontario Human Rights Commission defines racial profil-ing as “any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection that relies on stereotypes about race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin rather than on reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or different treatment.”4


Locating examples of racial profiling in Canada prior to 9/11 is no difficult task. Besides the illegitimate use of racial pro-filing to stop and harass African-Canadian motorists (“Driving-While-Black”), the practice was also employed during World War II. Indeed, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, both the Canadian and American government ordered the internment of all persons of Japanese ancestry, subsequently seizing their liberty based on their ethnic background.5

Though the use of racial profiling in the post-9/11 con-text has never been formally institutionalized within Canada, there are several factors that lend credence to its existence. First, the rhetoric used by politicians in the wake of Septem-ber 11 may serve to legitimize and encourage racial profiling among law enforcement officials. For example, Major-General Lewis Mackenzie, security advisor to former Ontario Premier Mike Harris, suggested “it would be criminally negligent if Air Canada did not engage in racial profiling.”6 Second, a multi-tude of high profile cases suggest racial profiling exists within Canada’s War on Terror. Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen from Syria with a degree at McGill University and the University of Quebec, was arrested at JFK International Airport after the RCMP provided inaccurate information about Arar to American authorities. With no basis, the RCMP described Mr. Arar as an “Islamic Extremist” with ties to Al Qaeda, leading to his deportation to Syria, where he was tortured and imprisoned for one year.7 While scholars and journalists have expressed outrage about this incident and the consequences of racial profiling, a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar has also acknowledged that racial profiling may have played a role. Finally, Reem Bahdi, a Professor at the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Law, contends that “the lack of explicit endorsement of racial profiling in the anti-terrorism legislation does not mean that racial profiling does not take place in Canada.”8 In fact, Bahdi argues, “the silence of the legislature regarding the practice, at best, fails to effectively check racial profiling and, at worst, creates opportunities for racial profiling.”9

Does it Work?

Proponents of racial profiling tend to rely on three ar-guments: the efficient use of limited resources, the deterrence factor, and the notion that ‘it just makes sense’.10 Regarding the efficient use of limited resources, proponents often rely on (skewed) statistics to show that certain segments of the population commit the said crime disproportionately more than other segments of the population. Accordingly, it would be efficient to focus limited money and manpower on this segment. Applied to the War on Terror, this argument has led law enforcement to focus on Muslims and persons of Middle Eastern appearance or origin. Nevertheless, Daniel Moeckli notices two major flaws in this argument. First is the issue of “over-broadness”; that is, “the overwhelming majority of those who are Muslim have, of course nothing to do with terror-ism.”11 By focusing resources on Muslim and Arab persons, a

large percentage of these resources will be wasted on Muslims and Arabs who have no affiliation with terrorism. Second is the issue of “under-inclusion”; that is, “profiles based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion are also under-inclusive in that they will lead law enforcement agents to miss a range of potential terrorists who do not fit the profile.”12 The recent massacre at a Church in Charleston, South Carolina illustrates how focusing solely on Islamic extremism led, in part, to law enforcement agents missing other terrorists. Dylann Roof, a white male who frequently wore flags from apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, was arrested in June 2015 after shooting and killing nine African-Americans, in order to incite a ‘race war’.13 Though Roof frequently posted on white supremacist websites and was outwardly racist, a Caucasian teenager from South Carolina does not fit the profile designed to catch terrorists.

The second argument used by proponents of racial pro-filing is that it acts as a deterrent. As the argument goes, simply knowing that you are subject to greater scrutiny and surveil-lance will deter you from participating in terrorist activities. Though a lack of data makes supporting this claim as difficult as refuting it, there are two flaws underlying this argument. The first flaw concerns the type of criminals law enforcement officials are trying to deter. While deterrence may work when the potential criminal fears capture and prosecution, “such concerns are less relevant to someone willing or eager to die for their cause.”14 Thus, truly committed terrorists, such as those who carried out the 9/11 attacks, may not be deterred. The second issue with this argument is that simply shifting resources to deter one segment of the population necessi-tates shifting resources away from other segments. Indeed, nonprofiled groups will detect lower costs of offending, and consequently commit more crimes.15

The third and most often cited argument is that ‘it just makes sense’. For instance, Sharon Reddick argues that airport security agents should be targeting Arabs and Muslims be-cause “the majority of terrorists come from Arab countries, are between the ages of seventeen and forty, and they are Muslim extremists.”16 Thus, for Reddick and other proponents, the 9/11 attacks could have been avoided if protection against terror-ism was put before “good manners and respect for everyone.” 17 One over-arching counter-argument stands in the face of Reddick’s opinion; namely, profile evasion. As Alexander notes, “the use of racial profiling in terrorism assumes that terrorists come primarily in certain shapes and sizes.”18 Thus, be studying and knowing what law enforcement officials are looking for, terrorists “carefully alter or tailor their behavior/appearance,” along with their documents, to avoid suspicion.19

Bill C-51: An Expansion of Discretion and The Use of Racial Profiling

Made possible due to escalating fears surrounding foreign terrorists organizations—namely, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—and lone-wolf attacks on domestic

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soil—namely the shootings on Parliament Hill in October 2014—the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, was loosely designed to give the Canadian security establishment greater means to defeat terrorism. Fraught with controversy, Bill C-51 has been heavily criticized for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the expansion preventive arrest powers.

Though the Anti-terrorism Act, 2001, contains provisions for preventive arrest, the new legislation “will further lower the threshold of preventive arrest and detention, increasing the risk that entirely innocent people will be swept up on mere suspicion.”20 Previously, law enforcement agencies were permitted to arrest someone if they suspected that a terrorist attack will be carried out. Moreover, an arrest could be made if that arrest was necessary to prevent the carrying out of a terrorist activity.21 However, under Bill C-51, “will be carried out” has been substituted with “may be carried out,” (empha-sis added) while “necessary to prevent” terrorist activity has been substituted with “likely to prevent” terrorist activity.22 As Roach and Forcese observe, “the recurring use of ‘may’ in Bill C-51 seems designed to require only the demonstration of a possibility rather than a probability of the terrorism offense occurring.”

Intuitively, a lower threshold could potentially pave the way for increased racial profiling. This is largely due to the preconceptions that many people hold about Muslims, Arabs, and the identity of terrorists. In a 2003 poll, 48 per cent of Canadians approved of racially profiling Muslims and Arabs, despite the fact that their civil liberties would be called into question.23 Further, according to a poll conducted by Angus Reid in 2013, Canadians’ feelings toward Muslims are lower than any other religious group. In fact, while all other religions were regarded unfavorably by less than 30 per cent of Canadians, 54 per cent of Canadians held an unfavorable view of Islam.24 The common stereotype associating Arabs and Muslims to terrorism is ultimately a result of the way in which the mass media framed 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror. Framing theory emphasizes the ability of the media to “delineate other people’s reality, highlighting one interpre-tation while de-emphasizing a less favored one.”25 Further, by applying certain frames, the media, implicitly or explicitly, identifies the main causes and responsible agents.26 One com-monly cited example of how the media frames terrorism was a cartoon published by The Globe and Mail on Father’s Day in 2003. In the cartoon, “an Arab man with stereotypical features gleefully receives a belt of explosives from his young son.”27

Given the way in which the media associates Muslim and Arabs with terrorism, it is no wonder that law enforcement officials, as humans, have commonly resorted to this tactic. However, Bill C-51 and the expansion of discretionary power will likely lead to an unprecedented level of unchecked racial profiling. As Reem Bahdi eloquently notes, “When decision makers operate against a backdrop of ingrained, but often unconscious stereotypes, they are likely to filter and interpret facts or events through the lens of stereotypes rather than by

making an individual and rational assessment based on the particular facts of a given case.”

The Cost and Consequences of Racial Profiling

As discussed above, there is no hard evidence that racial profiling ‘works’ as intended. However, there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that racial profiling can be damaging to the Canadian state, to Muslim and Arab com-munities, and to Muslim and Arab individuals.

To begin with, greater discretionary power leaves law enforcement officials with the ability to arrest Muslim and Arab individuals due to their religion, ethnicity and/or country of origin. Indeed, relying on racial profiles is at odds with the Canadian Charter, particularly section 15(1): “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without dis-crimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”28 At first glance, it is evident that the use of racial profiling infringes on the principle of non-discrimination. However, under section 1 of the Charter, colloquially referred to as the reasonable limits clause, the government may argue that the discretion given to law enforcement officers to prevent terrorist attacks is “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”29 Employing the Oakes test30, the government would have no problem proving that the objective to prevent future terrorist attacks is both substantial and pressing. However, defending the proportionality of racial profiling may prove to be more difficult. To be sure, even if the government could prove that racial profiling is rationally connected to preventing terrorism, there is no question that this practice will irreparably damage the right of non-discrimination. Furthermore, as was shown above, there is no evidence that racial profiling ‘works’, and thus is cannot be justified as a proportional measure. Nev-ertheless, the fact that Bill C-51 has expanded discretionary power will likely lead to greater reliance on racially profiling Muslims and Arabs. Moreover, I argue that the complete dis-regard for Charter rights, ‘in the name of national security’, will increasingly undermine the supremacy of the Charter in particular, and of the rule of law in general.

Another consequence arising from racial profiling is the stigmatization of Muslims and Arabs, the institutionalization of racism, and the degradation of a multicultural society. Those in favor of racial profiling may believe that innocent members of targeted communities have nothing to fear, as they will be exonerated upon investigation. However, this type of think-ing may serve to reinforce the stigma placed on Arabs and Muslims. For example, if a law enforcement officer arrests an innocent Muslim individual based on a racial preconception, a White individual who witnesses this arrest will likely never know that this Muslim individual was innocent. Instead, see-ing this Muslim individual arrested will increase the likelihood that this White individual will think of Muslims as terrorists.


The consequence is a positive feedback loop that will leave Canadian citizens and law enforcement officials comfortable with these prejudices, and thus “determinations of risk [will] become even more inextricably linked with stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims so that the Arabness and Muslimness itself becomes a substitute for risk.”31 By exposing a segment of the population to unwarranted racism and a great degree of vulnerability, the multicultural identity of Canada is at risk.

Infringing upon section 15 rights and leaving Muslims and Arabs vulnerable to racism ultimately culminates at the individual level. Indeed, individuals wrongly identified as terrorists suffer irrevocable harm. For example, since the enactment of the Anti-terrorist Act, 2001, the Office of the Su-perintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has been tasked with providing a list of individuals or organizations suspected of engaging in terrorist activities to financial institutions.32 Encouraging the blatant use of racial profiling, financial in-stitutions are advised to “regard with suspicion not only the people whose names are actually on the list, but also anyone whose name resembles the name of a listed person.”33 Of course, the majority of individuals with the last name Hussein are not terrorists. Nevertheless, Liban Hussein, a Somali immigrant and a resident of Ottawa, was added to Canada’s list of terrorist entities and subsequently had his financial account frozen. Hussein was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, but lost his house and business in the process.34

The psychological impacts stemming from prejudice and racism loom large. According to Robert Carter, “Racial discrimination can cause people to suffer psychological dis-tress such as clinical depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, or personality disorders.”35 However, the effect of racial discrim-ination does not stop at the deterioration of mental health; studies show that racial discrimination affects mental health, which contributes to lower economic, social, and political status.36 In other words, racial profiling and its negative ex-ternalities can impoverish, socially exclude, and politically disempower targeted groups.

Conclusion

As was illustrated above, the usefulness of racial profil-ing, in terms of efficiency and deterrence, is largely baseless. Beyond this paper, the scholarly consensus is that racial pro-filing is not an effective tool for combating crime. Moreover, the potential consequences of racial profiling can be grave; it may undermine the Charter, act to further stigmatize Muslim and Arab communities, and cause an immense amount of psychological, physical, and financial misery.

Nevertheless, the Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, will only serve to increase the use of racial profiling by giving law en-forcement officers greater autonomy over preventive arrests. However, law enforcement officials should not be singled out and shamed for these preconceptions. Due to the way the media has framed 9/11 and the War on Terror, a majority of Canadians associate terrorism with Muslims and Arabs.

Due to the expansion of discretionary power, however, racial profiling may only decline in concert with public opinion and political support. Whereas profiling that affects a majority of Canadians would suffer from political pressure, profiling that targets marginal groups, such as Muslim and Arab com-munities, will remain politically convenient until the public condemns this brutal practice. As Justice Robert Jackson historically argued, “guilt is personal and not inheritable.”37


or its members.

Authorities

Alexander, Daktari A. “Should Profiling be used to Prevent Terrorism?” in Crimi-nologists on Terrorism and homeland security, edited by Brian Frost, Jack Greene and James Lynch, 300-322. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, section 17. Bah, Abu. “Racial Profiling and the War on Terror: Changing Trends and Perspec-tives.” Ethnic Studies Review 29.1 (2006): 76-100.Bahdi, Reem. “No Exit – Racial Profiling and Canada’s War Against Terrorism.” Osgood Hall Law Journal 41.2/3 (2003): 293-317.Bahdi, Reem, Olanyi Parsons and Tom Sandborn. “Racial Profiling: B.C. Civil Liberties Association Position Paper.” Racial Profiling: A Special BCCLA Report on Racial Profiling in Canada, edited by Richard Marcuse, 31-54. 2010. Carter, Robert. “Racism and Psychological and Emotional Injury.” The Counseling Psychologist 35.1 (2007): 13-105.Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 1 and s. 15(1).Choudhry, Sujit. “Protecting Equality in the Face of Terror: Ethnic and Racial Profiling and s.15 of the Charter.” In The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s anti-terrorism Bill, edited by Ronald Daniels, Patrick Macklem and Kent Roach, 367-381. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar. “Report of Events Relating to Maher Arar.” Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2010.Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c C-46, section 83.2(2).Geddes, John. “Canadian anti-Muslim sentiment is rising, disturbing new poll reveals.” Maclean’s, October 3, 2013. Accessed August 15, 2015. Http://www.macleans.ca/politics/land-of-intolerance/.Haggerty, Kevin and Amber Gazso. “Seeing Beyond the Ruins: Surveillance as a Response to Terrorist Threats.” The Canadian Journal of Sociology 30.2 (2005): 169-187.Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). Moeckli, Daniel. “Terrorist Profiling and the Importance of a Proactive Approach to Human Rights Protection.” Racial Profiling: A Special BCCLA Report on Racial Profiling in Canada, edited by Richard Marcuse, 99-122. 2010.Ontario Human Rights Commission. “Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling.” Accessed August 15, 2015. Http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/paying-price-hu-man-cost-racial-profiling/what-racial-profiling.Papacharissi, Zizi and Maria de Fatima Oliveira. “News Frames Terrorism: A Comparative Analysis of Frames Employed in Terrorism Coverage in US and UK Newspapers.” Press and Politics 3.1 (2008): 52-74.Reddick, Sharon. “Point: The Case for Profiling.” International Social Science Review 79.3/4 (2004): 154-156.Robles, Frances, Jason Horowitz and Shaila Dewan. “Dylann Roof, Suspect in Charleston Shooting, Flew the Flags of White Power.” The New York Times, June 18, 2015. Accessed August 16, 2015. Http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/on-facebook-dylann-roof-charleston-suspect-wears-symbols-of-white-supremacy.html.Ruby, Clayton and Nader Hasan. “Canada’s ‘Anti Terrorism’ Bill C-51: A Legal Primer, Expands the Powers of Canada’s Spy Agency, Allows Arrest on Mere Suspicion.” Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, February 7, 2015. Accessed August 15, 2015. Http://www.globalresearch.ca/canadas-antiterrorism-bill-c-51-a-legal-primer-expands-the-powers-of-canadas-spy-agency-allows-arrest-on-mere-suspicion/5436727.Said, Edward. Covering Islam. New York, NY: Vintage, 1997.

Continued on page 16

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The Case against Regularizing Canada’s Irregularsby Paul Pryce

Paul Pryce is a Research Analyst at the NATO Association of Canada (formerly the Atlantic Council of Canada) where he is part of the Canadian Forces Program. He is also Political Advisor to the Consul General of Japan in Calgary. This is his third contribution to SITREP, the first being in Issue #1, Jan-Feb 2014, “Pursuing Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea”, the second being in Issue #1, Jan-Feb 2015, “Operation Barkhane: Is France Ready for Fourth-Generation Warfare?”

During the recent 2015 federal election campaign in Canada, the second longest to date in the 148 years since Confederation, national defence issues did not

feature prominently. Although there some clashes among the party leaders about Operation Impact, the Canadian contribu-tion to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), military matters like the Royal Canadian Navy’s long wait for new vessels or the replacement of Canada’s aging CF-18 Hornet fighter jets remained off the agenda. However, an interesting proposal was made at a Conservative Party cam-paign event in Regina on 26 September 2015, which deserves further attention in the aftermath of the election.

Jason Kenney, who most recently served as Canada’s Minister of National Defence, announced that the Conserva-tives, if re-elected, would expand the ranks of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) by 35% over the next seven years, bringing the total strength to almost 2,600 personnel by 2022.1 Setting the stage for such an expanded recruitment of Special Forces personnel would cost $75 million over the next four years and retention beyond that period would cost an estimated $50 million each year, according to the proposal.

CANSOFCOM is currently comprised of five main units. Joint Task Force 2 (JTF-2) and the Canadian Special Opera-tions Regiment (CSOR) are well known, while Canadians may be less familiar with 427 Special Operations Aviation Squad-ron (427 SOAS) or the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit (CJIRU), which is based in Kingston and Trenton. The recruitment of an additional 665 soldiers to CANSOFCOM would have likely expanded the ranks of these five existing units rather than serving as the catalyst for the establishment of a sixth. Had the proposed expansion of CANSOFCOM been tied to the creation of a Canadian Marine Commando Regiment (MRC), this would have been an opportunity for the Conservative government to deliver on a promise laid down in the Canada First Defence Strategy in 2006. It would have also closed a capability gap for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Specifically, Canada lacks marine infantry and so responsibility for boarding actions has generally fallen to volunteers from Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) crews, while infantry units from the Canadian Army have trained on beach assaults.

However, the Kenney announcement did not include a commitment to establish an MCR that could take up the

responsibility for boarding actions, beach assaults, and other related tasks. As such, it is likely the additional personnel was intended for JTF-2, CSOR, and CANSOFCOM support for these two units. This is concerning as it seems to suggest that the American military establishment’s enthusiasm for the use of Special Forces may have also found favour among some Canadian policymakers as well. This notion of Special Forces as the ‘weapon of first resort’ for the United States military is perhaps most clearly reflected in the February 2012 statement by Admiral William H. McRaven, at the time commanding officer of the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), that he wished to see 12,000 Special Forces personnel deployed permanently in hot spots around the world.2 A year later, now retired US Admiral James Stavridis, wrote in his final days as Supreme Allied Commander Europe of his vision for a new strategic triad – replacing the conventional Army, Navy, and Air Force with Special Forces, hackers, and drones.3

Such proposals are problematic because they ignore the distinction between regular and irregular troops. Reg-ular troops, which comprise the vast majority of personnel available to CAF and other militaries, can be used in a variety of roles both on and off the battlefield. In particular, CAF personnel are well-trained and well-equipped to fulfil any mission which might arise in the coming years, whether it be a state-building exercise, counter-insurgency operations, peace-keeping, humanitarian relief, or some combination thereof. Although the term ‘adaptive dispersed operations’ (ADO) is currently in vogue among Canadian defence planners, CAF is prepared to fight the so-called ‘Three Block War’. A con-cept developed by US Marine Corps General Charles Krulak in the 1990s and popularized in Canada by retired General Rick Hillier during his service as Chief of Defence Staff. The Three Block War envisions military personnel engaging not only in combat operations and counter-terrorism in the field but also civil-military relations and humanitarian assistance.4 This oftentimes requires the commitment of robust numbers of regular troops, such as was seen during the US’ 2007 troop surge in Iraq.5

Special Forces, on the other hand, are irregular troops best suited to asymmetric warfare. JTF-2 and CSOR are not simply highly trained infantry—a kind of PPCLI Plus. Avoid-ing large-scale combat, Special Forces function best as small, nimble teams that can pursue hit-and-run engagements and are not well-suited to the humanitarian or civil-military tasks expected of regular troops fighting the Three Block War. How Special Forces fit into ADO, meanwhile, is not clear as the details of this doctrine are worked out. CANSOFCOM cer-tainly has a vital role to play in preserving national security and promoting Canadian interests, but it seems inconsistent



BGen (ret’d) Victor J. Lanctis MB, SBStJ, CD, BA, DDS, MFICD, FADI, FPFA is a former Director General of the Canadian Forces Dental Services as well as a Past President of the International College of Dentists. He is currently serving as Colonel Commandant of the Royal Canadian Dental Corps. BGen (ret’d) Lanctis has been a non-resident member of RCMI for well over two decades and has made his home in Ottawa since retiring from the CAF in 1996.

The Royal Canadian Dental Corps: A Century of Service by BGen (ret’d) Victor J. Lanctis MB, SBStJ, CD, BA, DDS, MFICD, FADI, FPFA

Just a few short months ago, the Royal Canadian Dental Corps marked its centennial with an extensive program of activities and events taking place across the country

and including, among other noteworthy undertakings, an im-pressive Royal Banner presentation and retrospective exhibit at the Canadian War Museum, a dental Guard of Honor and memorial ceremony at the National Cenotaph, a magnificent gala at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, and the publication of a splendid commemorative volume highlighting major happen-ings and achievements over the first 100 years of its history.

The origins of Canada’s Dental Corps can be traced back to the Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1902, where

two civilian dentists, Dr. David Baird of Ottawa and Dr. Eugene Lemieux of Montreal, volunteered their services in response to alarming reports of poor oral health among the troops that seriously undermined recruitment efforts and caused sig-nificant problems in the field. Word of that sad sit-uation soon attracted the attention of leaders of the newly established Cana-dian Dental Association (CDA) who immediately lobbied authorities for a more formal dental pres-ence within the Canadian military. As a result, on 1 July 1904, a general order was issued, creating what was essentially a militia contingent of 18 dental surgeons assigned to the Army Medical Corps.

When WWI was declared in August 1914, it was realized that a more robust dental capability was needed to deal with increasing oral health issues affecting the build-up of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Overseas. On 13 May 1915,

thanks again to repeated and determined interventions by the CDA, a full-fledged Canadian Army Dental Corps (CADC) was formally authorized and established as a separate corps within the Canadian Army. The first military dental clinic in the British Empire was opened at the Exhibition Grounds in Toronto the following month!

Upon demobilization, units of the CADC were disband-ed and, until 1939, the Dental Corps became little more than a few dental officers dispersed within units of the Medical Corps. With the dark clouds of WWII looming on the hori-zon, the CDA again pressed the Federal Government of the day into accepting a new proposal designed to replace the CADC with an autonomous organization to be renamed the Canadian Dental Corps (CDC), to more accurately reflect its tri-service obligations. The CDC indeed provided dental services throughout Canada in support of recruitment and training, to the United Kingdom for RCAF and Army training camps, to North Africa, Sicily and Italy, as well as in support the Normandy invasion and across northwest Europe. With the introduction of the Mobile Dental Van (quite ironically, a welcome respite from harsh field conditions for many a combat-weary soldier!), Dental Corps personnel were able to provide comprehensive dental treatment closer to the front lines than any other nation. The use of dental records to identify war casualties and confirm the identity of fraud-ulent enrollees and deserters became an additional role for the Dental Corps, which was also one of the first professional military bodies to employ women, as dental assistants, when the Canadian Women’s Army Corps was formed in 1941. A news story appearing in the Armed Forces magazine Maple Leaf at the time described it best:

“Canada’s Dental Corps is second to none in any army in the world in personnel, equipment and operation. These pro-fessional men and their assistants have been through the mill from Caen, Vaucelles, Falaise and the long run across France, Belgium into Holland and finally the Nijmegen salient. They take the latest in dental attention to the fighting men and know what it’s like to work under shell and mortar fire. Throughout the Canadian push in Europe, they’ve handled the Canucks, English, Yanks, Czechs, Dutch, Belgians, Poles, civilians and many others. They’ve made and repaired enough false teeth to keep a nation chewing and kept many a good set fit for hardtack! They handle battle casualties of a dental nature either on the spot or through medical channels, for every operator is familiar with the surgical method of dealing with facial injuries”.

In January 1947, the Canadian Dental Corps was granted a Royal Warrant by His Majesty King George VI in recognition of its exceptional wartime service and thus became the Royal Canadian Dental Corps (RCDC).

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Active participation in the Korean War (1950–1957) further cemented the RCDC’s well-deserved reputation as a professional organization second to none, and notable contributions during the Cold War in Europe (1951-1993) as well as in support of United Nations Forces in the Middle

East and in Cyprus during the period of 1956 to 1994 fully consolidated that status.

In addition to fulfilling its primary clinical treatment and rehabilitation mission for CAF members at home and abroad, the Dental Corps (known as the Canadian Forces Dental Services (CFDS) in 1969, as a result of unification) has been recognized for its active part in a wide spectrum of national assistance roles, including support during natural disasters (floods, forest fires, ice storms, etc.), aid to civil power operations such as the Oka Crisis, humanitarian and outreach activities on behalf of refugees and indigenous people, and in other situations where timely and effective help was critically needed. More recently, it has been praised within the interna-tional medico-legal community for its forensic identification capabilities, as a core element of the Canadian Forces Forensic Odontology Response Team (CF FORT), which has partici-

pated in forensic operations with RCMP or NATO partners to identify casualties of aviation disasters such as the Swis-sAir and FirstAir crashes, of earthquake victims in Haiti and of other similar tragedies where medical and dental teams worked together to complete autopsies and post-mortem

examinations and accurately chart human remains. The re-cent identification of Private Albert Laubenstein, a WWII soldier who was killed during the Battle of Kapelsche Veer in the Netherlands in 1945, is another tangible example of Dental Corps commitment in this very specialized field.

Maintaining close ties with the profession at large, the RCDC has been acknowl-edged as a key contributor in all aspects of organized dentistry on the local, pro-vincial, national and interna-tional levels, where its high-ly trained and experienced personnel continue to play dominant roles. Today, with its coveted royal designation fully restored in recognition of noteworthy contributions to operational support and reconstruction efforts in So-malia, Bosnia, the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and most notably Afghanistan where it assumed an import-ant mentoring and continu-ing education role and, along with the CDA, assisted in

establishing an Afghan dental association, the RCDC contin-ues to garner accolades and commendations from the highest quarters, both domestically and internationally, as one of the most competent and respected military dental organizations in the world.

A relatively small but mighty battle-hardened and oper-ationally-focused organization made up of much more than your average ‘drillers and fillers’, the Royal Canadian Dental Corps is capable and ready to resolutely march forward into the next challenging century with well-deserved pride and well-tested confidence.

‘Sanitas in Ore’


or its members.

World War Two: Dental treatment in the field

— VICTOR J. LANCTIS COLLEC TION


Tannuva Akbar is a recent graduate and earned her Masters of Art degree from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Her interests are focused on counter terrorism, deradicalization and financial intelligence. Currently she is working as a Compliance Analyst at the AML/ATF business unit for Manulife Financial.

Response to Terrorism: A Vicious Cycle?by Tannuva Akbar

(Editor’s comment—This article was submitted before the latest attacks: Paris, November 14th, Ankara, Sinai and the downing of the Russian airliner all claimed by IS. It answers her rhetorical question of ‘where’s the next attack?’)

After the incidents in Ottawa, Sydney and Paris, one cannot help but think, where’s the next attack? The threat of terrorism has spread like an epidemic and

the brutal truth is there’s no safe place on earth anymore. All these sporadic events have raised so many questions in general civilians’ minds. One question that I have been struggling with is has the approach of the West to countering terrorism caused an increase in terrorism? Do we truly understand why these attacks are occurring in developed and very safe and secure Western cities? After 9/11 it was hoped that we would never experience future catastrophic terrorist attacks. The govern-ments around the world have been very active in deterring any future attacks. But I want to go back to some underlying questions before I start analyz-ing policy recommendations. Are we doing anything wrong in responding to these attacks? How agile and prepared are we to deal with new emerging threats such as ISIS and most importantly, are there any faults and incongruences about the Western responses to fight these new threats? What are the gaps between our responses and policy implications? I think these are important questions to ask before we begin analysis on homegrown terrorism, radicalization or ISIS for that matter.

To keep the scope very focused, let me touch on a few examples to demonstrate how the West’s anti- terrorism efforts may not bring the best result because of how we have reacted to certain measures. First, the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) movement in Germa-ny—an organization dedicated to restricting immigration. Is it a productive or counter-productive to what we are trying to achieve? “No sharia law in Europe!”—as banners like this fly freely at a PEGIDA march in Dresden, Germany, one cannot help but wonder whether these organizations are crossing the line between patriotism, nationalism and anti-secularism?

What are the consequences of anti- immigration and anti-Is-lamism sentiment? Although the German leaders condemn the xenophobia associated with the PEGIDA movement, the growing support for it is dangerous and can be fuelling the tension even further. Xenophobia fuels the Neo-Nazi Aryan movement that is still is present in Germany. Movements such as PEGIDA and anti-immigration laws in Europe may have long –term impacts on societies and the policy makers and leaders of the world needs to assess the their policy implication more carefully.

Another example of how we act might not be received in good faith is the event in Boko Haram that took place right after the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015. Many jour-nalists and media had alluded to the fact that Paris received overwhelming attention from the West where in the same

week 2000 people were killed by the terrorist organization—Boko Haram. The asymmetric treatment by the West towards the Boko Haram was noticed worldwide. The West was ac-cused by the media of having ignored the attack in Nigeria and showed stronger support for #jesuisCharlie. Perhaps it is time for the leaders to understand that every action and inaction leads to a conse-

quence and every terrorist attacks deserve the same degree of attention and criticism.

Another way our image in the world has diminished is by lacking our assistance in the humanitarian efforts. For exam-ple, the efforts made by the U.S. and Europe to accommodate the Syrian refugee influx has been very minimal in comparison with those made by Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The Obama administration has decided to take action very strategically in this crisis given the complexities driven from the Assad regime and the US led airstrikes to destroy ISIS. Nevertheless, the asymmetric attention and treatment to this refugee crisis may trigger growing tensions and anger towards the West. Being the largest resettlement program in the world, the U.S. has settled only 121 Syrians since 2011.1 Similarly, with few exceptions, most EU members including UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland are mostly concerned with shutting their borders than accepting Syrian refugees. We want to isolate ourselves from the terrorist threats by closing our borders and not helping refugees but would that really help? Can we still be saved from homegrown terrorism?

With respect to homegrown terrorism, former Prime Minister Harper and Defence Minister Jason Kenney have

—IRISH MIRROR

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said, homegrown terrorism in Canada is a reality now. After the deadly attack on Canadian soil on Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo, it is fair to assume that Canada is not immune to terrorist threats that have been spreading around the globe. The nature and dynamics of terrorism has shifted with the rise of technology and social media and we need understand and adjust to these threats accordingly. According to former CSIS agent Michel Ju-neau-Katsuya, the targets are now normal people and terrorist groups such as ISIS are recruiting people from the privacy of the nation’s homes. Therefore, our strategy needs to be pri-oritized to increase greater awareness about radicalization, foreign fighters, psychology and internet etc. among general public to fight homegrown terrorism. One great examples of such effort is the Kanishka Project-which was created in 2011 to “invest in research on pressing questions for Canada on terrorism and counter-terrorism, such as preventing and countering violent extremism.”2 At the same time, the same rule applies to Canada, the way we portray ourselves and the way we have dealt with terrorist attacks. Recently, there has been widespread controversy about the Bill C-51 and as the debate unfolds we can see there are pros and cons for the bill.3 The notion of fighting terrorism while protecting individual freedom and civil liberty has been exposed to widespread crit-icism.4 It might be wise to focus on the roots of the problems than trying to handle it on the surface level. Emphasis on de-radicalization, education and mental health on a community level can contribute effectively to understand the core of the problem. As the world-renowned political scientist and activist Noam Chomsky argued “while mass surveillance has been ineffective in stopping terrorism, programs like the global U.S. drone war have helped spread it to areas all around the world.”5 With regards to terrorist threats in Canada, we can definitely take lessons from this statement.

It is very difficult to find a ‘one size fits all’ solution for these increasing terrorist threats in today’s world. The matter in which the West has been executing the anti-terrorist cam-paign may aggravate the situation even more. That is not to say that we should not take harsher measures to deter any terrorist organizations but perhaps minimize risk by being increasingly sensitive to how we are being viewed in the greater world.


or its members.

Notes

1 Eleanor Acer, “Human Rights First” The Guardian, Last accessed April 2, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/02/america-syr-ia-refugee-resettlement-do-better-now2 “Kanishka Project” Public Safety Canada, last modified February 10, 2015. http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/r-nd-flght-182/knshk/index-eng.aspx3 “With support from Liberals, Conservatives pass controversial an-ti-terror bill” CTV News, last modified May 6, 2015. http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/with-support-from-liberals-conservatives-pass-controversial-anti-ter-

ror-bill-1.23624324 “Bill C-51 poses a serious threat to free expression in Canada” Canadian Journalists For Free Expression, Last modified April 14, 2015. https://cjfe.org/blog/bill-c-51-serious-threat-free-expression-canada5 “Chomsky on Snowden & Why NSA Surveillance Doesn’t Stop Terror While the U.S. Drone War Creates It” Democracy Now, last modified 3 March, 2015. http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/3/chomsky_on_snowden_why_nsa_surveillance.

Irregulars: cont’d from page 11

with Canada’s recent missions abroad, such as the significant state-building efforts in Afghanistan, to pursue a serious ex-pansion in Special Forces units.

Alternatively, the proposal to expand CANSOFCOM may have been based not only on an understanding of the regular/irregular troop distinction but also a willful rejection of it. Like Adm Stavridis’ ‘new strategic triad’, this is prob-lematic because it reflects a fundamental shift in American foreign policy toward deniable operations and promotion of what could be styled ‘shadow war’. For example, when a wave of cyber-attacks paralyzed the Estonian economy in 2007, accusations were initially levelled against the Russian Federa-tion. Since then, there remains ample debate as to whether the denial-of-service attacks were perpetrated by domestic actors, non-state actors in Russia, the Russian government itself, or some other entity entirely.6 The advancement of American or Canadian foreign policy objectives via irregulars – whether they be Special Forces, cyber warfare units, or drones – would allow for considerable uncertainty in any future conflicts as to who the aggressors were.

Furthermore, this reliance upon Special Forces reflects a decidedly unilateral approach to defence policy. Whereas mounting operations with the traditional strategic triad has tended to require state actors like the US to undertake at least some token efforts to gain the support of the United Nations, some other international body, or a ‘coalition of the willing’, the new triad proposed by Stavridis would largely discourage such entreaties. After all, one of the principal advantages of Stavridis’ triad, aside from limiting the exposure of American military personnel to the dangers of combat, is surprise. If the advantage of surprise is to be preserved, it would be less desirable for American officials to present proposals for mil-itary intervention to such bodies as the UN Security Council or the North Atlantic Council.

As such, the proposed new strategic triad runs the risk of undermining the stability of the international system. No longer constrained by public opinion or multilateralism, the United States and other countries seeking to harness the advantages of Stavridis’ triad would be less accountable for their actions on the international stage. While this would not necessarily mean a return to the multipolar world of the early 20th century, it would contribute to a kind of Hobbesian anarchy—‘the war of all against all’, where every other actor



Irregulars—continued from page 15

Schnuck, Peter, Karin Martin and Jack Glaser. “Racial Profiling.” In Debates on U.S. Immigration, edited by Judith Gans, Elaine Replogle and Daniel Tichenor, 401-509. Sage Publications, 2012.

Notes

1 Edward Said, Covering Islam (New York: Vintage, 1997), p. xxi.2 Reem Bahdi, “No Exit – Racial Profiling and Canada’s War Against Terrorism,” Osgood Hall Law Journal 41.2/3 (2003): 293. 3 Reem Bahdi et al., “Racial Profiling: B.C. Civil Liberties Association Position Paper,” in Racial Profiling: A Special BCCLA Report on Racial Profiling in Canada, ed. Richard Marcuse (2010), 32.4 Ontario Human Rights Commission, “Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling,” 2003. 5 Abu Bah, “Racial Profiling and The War on Terror: Changing trends and perspectives,” Ethnic Studies Review 29.1 (2006): 80.6 Sujit Choudhry, “Protecting equality in the face of terror: ethnic and racial profiling and s.15 of the Charter,” in The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s anti-terrorism Bill, ed. Patrick Macklem and Kent Roach (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 367.7 Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, “Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar,” (Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2006), 9-13.8 Bahdi, “No Exit,” 297. 9 Ibid.10 Racial profiling ‘works’ if it can be proved that the legitimate aim (capturing and preventing criminal activity) outweighs the potential negative externalities of difference in treatment. 11 Daniel Moeckli, “Terrorist profiling and the importance of a proactive approach to human rights protection,” in Racial Profiling: A Special BCCLA Report on Racial Profiling in Canada ed. Richard Marcuse (2010), 107.12 Ibid.13 Frances Robles et al., “Dylann Roof, Suspect in Charleston Shooting, Flew the Flags of White Power,” The New York Times, June 18, 2015, accessed August 16, 2015.14 Kevin Haggerty and Amber Gazso, “Seeing beyond the ruins: Surveil-

Profiling: cont’d from page 16

in the international system is to be distrusted and could very well present a security threat.

The current role of CANSOFCOM within Canadian foreign and defence policy should be maintained. Units like JTF-2 and CSOR have unique skills that are best utilized fulfilling specialized functions on the battlefield, including special reconnaissance, hostage rescue, and counter-terror-ism. Trying to regularize Canada’s irregulars would very likely prove disastrous and undermine the capacity for CAF to contribute meaningfully to future multilateral operations. Thinking creatively about the future of CANSOFCOM and the Canadian military as a whole is commendable, and a deeper discussion on the future of CAF on the campaign trail would have been of enormous benefit. Hopefully that conversation

lance as a response to terrorist threats,” Canadian Journal of Sociology 30.2 (2005): 181. 15 Peter Schnuck et al., “Racial Profiling,” in Debates on US Immigration ed. Judith Gans et al. (Sage Publications, 2012), 503. 16 Sharon Reddick, “Point: The case for profiling,” International Social Science Review 79.3/4 (2004): 154. 17 Ibid, 155.18 A. Daktari Alexander, “Should Profiling be used to Prevent Terrorism?” in Criminologists on terrorism and homeland security ed. Brian Frost et al., (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 312.19 Bahdi, “Racial Profiling,” 39.20 Clayton Ruby and Nader Hasan, “Canada’s ‘Anti Terrorism’ Bill C-51: A Legal Primer, Expands the Powers of Canada’s Spy Agency, Allows Arrest on Mere Suspicion,” Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives (2015), accessed August 16, 2015.21 Criminal Code, R.S.C., 1985, c C-46, section 83.2(2).22 Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, s. 17. 23 Bahdi, “Racial Profiling,” 35. 24 John Geddes, “Canadian anti-Muslim sentiment is rising, disturbing new poll reveals,” Maclean’s, October 3, 2013, accessed August 15, 2015. 25 Zidi Papacharissi and Maria de Fatima Oliveira, “News Frames Terror-ism: A comparative analysis of frames employed in terrorism coverage in US and UK newspapers,” Press and Politics 13.1 (2008): 54.26 Ibid.27 Bahdi, “No exit,” 305.28 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 15(1). 29 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 1. 30 The Oakes test is an analysis of s.1 of the Charter that allows limita-tions on the rights and freedoms if it can be “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”31 Bahdi, “No exit,” 309. 32 Ibid, 301. 33 Ibid.34 Ibid, 310.35 Robert Carter, “Racism and Psychological and Emotional Injury,” The Counseling Psychologist 35.1 (2007): 16.36 Ibid, 14. 37 Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944).

will not be postponed much longer.


or its members.

Notes

1 Nathan Liewicki. “Kenney pledges expansion of Canada’s special forces” Regina Leader-Post, 28 September 20152 Eric Schmitt et al, “Admiral seeks freer hand in deployment of elite forc-es” New York Times, 12 February 20123 James Stavridis, “The New Triad” Foreign Policy, 20 June 20134 Charles Krulak, “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War” Marines, January 19995 United States Institute of Peace, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – a New Approach, December 20066 Charles Clover, “Kremlin-backed group behind Estonia cyber blitz” Financial Times, 11 March 2009

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