Canadian police and intelligence agents say they foiled a “series of terrorist attacks” by a group that had obtained three tons of explosive fertilizer–more than the amount used in the Oklahoma City bombings–to attack targets in Ontario.

Twelve men–described as “mainly Canadian citizens” –and five juveniles were arrested in a series of raids Friday night at locations in the outlying suburbs of Toronto in enclaves for immigrant groups in Canada. The men, all with Arabic names, were mostly in their 20s. ~The Washington Post

The Canucks did well. The Canadians managed to succeed where our “staunch” allies in Iraq, Britain and Spain, signally failed, namely in protecting their own countries from attack in this here post-9/11 world. London and Madrid instead made sure that Basra and Nasiriyah were somewhat well in hand (though these days Basra is looking pretty shaky) while their capitals were rocked with bomb blasts. You can expect that the usual suspects, especially the Canadian refugees who have set themselves up in this country as ardent warmongers (Frum, Krauthammer), will berate the Canadians for every weakness, both imagined and real. They will use the episode not as an occasion to give the Canadians their due respect as competent allies in the fight against al-Qaeda but as one more opportunity to belittle our northern neighbours (whose lack of militancy far more offends the neocons than their form of social democracy). They will exploit the foiled attacks (which have been directed at them because of their alliance with us, and not because of their “freedom”) as more proof that “we are at war” (which, as a matter of law, we are not) and, of course, they will somehow use it as yet another justification for remaining in Iraq indefinitely.