Canada’s approach to fighting terrorism

Re “The price of ‘nice’ for Canada,” Opinion, June 8

I agree to a certain extent with Jonah Goldberg’s criticism of Canadian foreign policy. However, Goldberg ignores an important implication of Canada’s successful law enforcement operation.

Canada seems to have demonstrated to the United States that privacy and national security concerns can be balanced while successfully preventing terrorist attacks.

Surely Goldberg has read the 9/11 commission’s report on the failure of the U.S. government to prevent the horrific event, but he writes, “I’m sure the next time Islamists set out to chop off lawmakers’ heads ... they’ll keep in mind how nice you were about all this.”

If being nice means stopping terror suspects before they act, and giving them a public trial, then as an American and a patriot, I hope that the U.S. can be as nice -- and successful -- as Canada.

NILAY VORA

Cambridge, England

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If Goldberg had paid any attention at all to Canadian affairs other than to buy into stereotypes, he would have realized that the capture of 17 suspected terrorists was accomplished in part with the assistance of the Muslim community in the Toronto area.

Indeed, leading Muslim clerics in Canada have in the past come out strongly against terrorism, and the community has expressed a willingness to assist authorities in the future.

If we Canadians were as ignorant of terrorist threats as Goldberg suggests, how does he explain the fact that Canada’s security agencies had tracked the movements of these suspects for nearly two years and then actually acted when it appeared these suspects were preparing to strike?

I don’t expect he has a response to that.

LYLE RICHARDSON

Charlottetown, Canada

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Goldberg warns Canadians that being too nice by encouraging multiculturalism will invite terrorism. He says that neglecting to identify the suspected terrorists’ religion invites trouble.

We Americans may be too nice as well. Nobody emphasized the religion of our own homegrown terrorists, Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

Did this overdone “niceness” somehow contribute to our own woes? Would we be safer if we had publicized our own homegrown terrorists’ religion?

CLARA WATSON

Garden Grove