Ceeb Airs Views of a Lawyer Who Defends Terrorists and a Law Prof Re the, Ahem, Nuances of Prosecuting Young'Uns Who Run Off to Wage Jihad

It's all very "complicated," you see:

There are two ways to define terrorist activity, explained John Norris, a criminal defence lawyer who has represented Omar Khadr and Raed Jaser, accused of plotting to sabotage a Via passenger train. 

"One is to be a group that has been listed as such by the Canadian government; the other is to be part a group in which at least one of their activities is engaging in terrorist activity," Norris said. 

Prosecuting the first kind of case, in which evidence proves membership in a government-listed terrorist entity, is straightforward. Verifying the latter beyond a reasonable doubt is when things gets muddy. 

"We still have enormous problems trying to secure war-crimes convictions out of Rwanda, a conflict that happened a couple decades ago," University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese said. 

"Now, imagine trying to secure convictions out of an active war zone." 

Forcese, who also blogs about national security, calls it a "square peg, round hole" problem in which policymakers try to squeeze a "foreign fighter phenomenon" into a terrorism law. 

"Terrorism is a narrowly defined concept. Not every foreign fighter is going to satisfy those elements," he said. 

Public Safety Canada currently designates 53 groups as terrorist entities, including Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and ISIS, which was listed in 2012 under a different name.
 But there are political complications to "deciding which insurgencies we like and which we don't like," Norris said. 

Today's allies may become tomorrow's foes.

On the other hand, anyone waging jihad anywhere in the world at any time is ipso facto a foe, no?