Quote:
"I can tell you that all of the circumstances that led to the London transit bombings, to take one example, are resident here now in Canada," he said.
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And one of the most significant similarities would be the fact that we, like Britain (and unlike most nations with a substantial immigrant population), now have a military presence in the region. He's using circular reasoning there, essentially saying we should continue have a presence in Afghanistan because there's a threat of attack on Canadian soil because we have a presence in Afghanistan.
I'm not saying that there would be no threat of terrorism in Canada if we were to pull out of Afghanistan, and more to the point, I don't think that the threat of terrorism is just cause to pull out of Afghanistan. But the reality is that Canada is probably more at risk now--and will continue to be at risk in the future--as a result of our presence. Though I'm not really surprised that the head of CSIS would neglect to mention that.
The debate over whether we should continue to have a presence in Afghanistan should be centered around whether we have any sort of moral responsibility to continue, and whether we can effectively contribute to a positive outcome in the conflict. If the answer to both those questions is yes, then we should continue in Afghanistan. As far as I'm concerned, whether or not there's a threat of terrorist attacks here is irrelevant.