Juno News - October 29, 2019Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was Canada’s enemy as well
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Summary
The death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi got me thinking about the last time we were in a very similar situation, in 2011, when a president, a different president, made a similar announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. special forces.
Transcript
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watching the American president announced the death of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi got
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me thinking about the last time we were in a very similar situation. It was 2011 and it was a
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president, a different president, Barack Obama, making a similar announcement that Osama bin
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Laden had been killed by U.S. special forces. What a sight, what a scene to see as people poured into
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the streets of Times Square or ran out in front of the White House to chant USA, USA and celebrate
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the fact that one of America's major enemies had been killed. There were only two live sporting
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events that happened that Monday evening. One was a Major League Baseball game and the other was
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Monday Night Raw, a wrestling event, and you could watch as the crowds at those events slowly learned
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about it and started their chance. In the baseball game, the mood took over. There's a really
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interesting sports documentary about that whole evening. It was fascinating to see. And at the end
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of wrestling, to see John Cena make the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
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We have caught and compromised to a permanent end, Osama bin Laden.
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A real coming together for the United States and a real celebratory feeling. Now, Abubakar al-Baghdadi
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did not unleash the sort of havoc that 9-11 unleashed on home soil in the United States,
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but I still think there should be a similar mood happening right now, not just in the United States,
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but in Canada as well. Some people are talking about this as if it's an abstract issue, a Middle
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Eastern issue, just a sort of broad terrorism issue, and you can lump it in and file it in there
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with that bigger category. Hold on a second, I say. Abubakar al-Baghdadi was an enemy of Canada.
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He was an enemy to Canadians, and he unleashed havoc here. Just the other day, the day after the
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federal election was the fifth anniversary of the shooting death of Corporal Nathan Cirillo,
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the reservist who was killed at the National War Monument, October 22nd, 2014. The killer,
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an ISIS terrorist, went on to storm the Parliament buildings. He managed to get to the hallway,
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separating where the Conservatives, the government at the time under Stephen Harper, and the NDP were
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meeting. They were having their regular weekly caucus meetings. Were it not for security forces
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killing this ISIS terrorist? Well, he could have continued in his carnage. Now, the young man was
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mentally ill. The young man was an addict. He had problems in his life. We're being told that quite a
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lot in the news coverage. He was also an Islamic convert who fully committed to ISIS, who talked
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about it with others, who was very aware of what Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was saying and said, sign me up.
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I want to be a part of this. Now, this all happened around the same time that al-Baghdadi, he had proclaimed in
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June that ISIS, the Islamic State, was the new caliphate, and he was the caliph. And he called on people,
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attack the West. And when he made his calls for attack, he identified specific countries by name,
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including Canada. This is a guy who said, attack Canada, and people took him up on his word. So we've got that,
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and then we've also got the fact that hundreds of people in Canada, Canadian citizens, went abroad to Iraq
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and Syria and elsewhere to join up with ISIS, to fight on that cause. Some of them were killed on
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the battlefield. Some of them are there right now in prisons, rotting away. Others are trying to come
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back to Canada. Some of them, dozens of them, 60, 70, 80 by various different counts, have returned home.
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They are walking around freely on Canadian soil. And we are having quite a fractious debate right now
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about what to do with those individuals. So Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he is not just this
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this sort of academic notion about terrorism. It's not something that's just happening over there on the
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other side of the world that concerns them. It's not just about the United States. This is about Canada.
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Baghdadi was an enemy of Canada as well. And now he has been killed. And we should celebrate that.