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There’s a powerful impulse to do something after two soldiers have been slaughtered and a gunman has marauded through some of the most sacred spaces of our democracy.

And as I argued here just a few hours before Michael Zehaf-Bibeau went on his rampage, the Harper government may have a political incentive to be seen to be acting against terrorism at a time when its economic program has gone limp.

But it’s also worthwhile to step back and ask ourselves whether we really need to do much more than we’re already doing.

I think we can all agree that men with guns shouldn’t be permitted to charge through the Hall of Honour on caucus day. But the Harper government is going way beyond that — giving the police more power, giving our intelligence agencies more scope, sending our military planes and personnel into the thick of a Middle Eastern war in Iraq and Syria.

Let’s start with the domestic threat.

There was plenty of journalistic folderol two weeks ago about Canadians “losing their innocence”. The truth is that terrorism has been part of Canadian life at least as far back as 1868, when Thomas D’Arcy McGee was murdered by an Irish Catholic Fenian extremist as he returned to his Sparks Street home from a late-night parliamentary debate.

In the 1920s, the “Sons of Freedom” used arson and bombs to attack other Doukhobors. In 1966, someone attacked the Cuban embassy in Ottawa with a bazooka — one of a dozen similar terrorist attacks relating to Cuba in that era.

In the 1960s, we also had the FLQ, of course.

And in 1985, most terrible of all, 329 innocent people, most of them Canadians, died in the explosion of Air India Flight 182.

Our recent experience with terrorism also needs to be put in the context of the routine carnage in Canadian life. The murders of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent were terrible. But it is no disrespect to point out that, statistically, they represent no more than a blip in a country where we routinely lose 550 to 600 people a year to homicide.

I am not being entirely mischievous when I point out that we have a significantly larger problem of aboriginal women being murdered in this country — something which the Harper government has assured us should be a matter for existing criminal law.

If those 15,000 foreign Islamic State volunteers go scooting out of Syria and Iraq — some of them in our direction — that will be a problem. No doubt about it. But it is not at all clear that bombing them now all the way over there actually addresses it.

It’s never going to be easy to catch lone-wolf terrorists before they strike. None of what the government is suggesting now seems likely to change that. And the expanded police and intelligence state we erected after September 11 already seems capable of catching and convicting the mostly low-grade terrorist conspiracies springing up in our midst.

Admittedly, what is happening in Syria and Iraq under the banner of Islamic State seems a lot more threatening, if also much more distant. But how much of a threat does it pose to us here at home?

In one of the most extensive studies of the Islamic State publicly available, the counter-terrorism expert Richard Barrett has noted that there is no evidence it has established any training or planning for terrorist strikes outside Iraq and Syria. What it does is encourage sympathizers in the West to commit isolated outrages like those recently perpetrated here and in Australia.

Indeed, unlike al-Qaida, Islamic State is preoccupied closer to home. It is trying to be much more than a terrorist organization. It is trying to seize, control, defend and administer territory — to become a state in fact as well as in name. It is attempting to do these things in extremely exigent conditions, leaving few resources and little energy for terrorizing the rest of the world.

The enemies at its door include Bashar Assad’s Syrian state, rival Syrian militias such as the al Nusra Front, the government of Iraq, numerous armed Kurdish factions, a variety of Shi’ite militias and recently the American-led coalition, of which Canada is now a part. This is not to mention that at least some of the people under Islamic State’s direct control are presumably unenthusiastic about its policies of murder and rapine.

The U.S. estimates Islamic State’s fighting force at about 30,000 men. Consider now that the United Nations estimates that 15,000 outsiders have flooded into the region as volunteers. Those outsiders may be helpful — but imagine the social tensions they create, not to mention the logistics of managing them all.

Islamic State gets a lot of its revenue from oil production. But that comes from facilities that need to be maintained by technicians and engineers who were among the first to flee. And they need to sell their product at discounted rates … to whom? To the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Kurds, the Turks — to the enemies that surround them. Not exactly a sustainable fiscal plan.

Islamic State’s flame is burning brightly now, but it could just as soon consume itself as burn those around it.

If, as a result if its future failures, those 15,000 outside Islamic State volunteers go scooting out of Syria and Iraq — some of them in our direction — that will be a problem. No doubt about it. But it is not at all clear that bombing them now all the way over there actually addresses it.

It is in the very nature of terrorism that it works by creating fears disproportionate to its power to create actual physical harm.

If we run around acting out our fears with extravagant counter-measures, we give the terrorists an unearned victory — and ourselves an undeserved burden.

Follow Paul Adams on Twitter @padams29

Paul Adams is associate professor of journalism at Carleton and has taught political science at the University of Manitoba. He is a veteran of the CBC, the Globe and Mail and EKOS Research. His book Power Trap explores the dilemma of Canada’s opposition parties.

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