Terrorism-To-Go Advisory System

Rob Nicholson's communications team set Foreign Affairs bureaucrats a quota of producing three terrorism-related statements per week for minister Rob Nicholson to make to the media. 
They were to be crafted from an event reported by the news media. 

"One Foreign Affairs bureaucrat, who spoke to CBC News on condition of anonymity, said: "We're not making a special effort to fulfil this odd request."

What a bunch of slackers. 

Here's 6 terrorism-related news reports from just the past 24 hours :

1) Inquisitr, July 23 : Lafayette Movie Theater Shooting: Terrorism Fears Raised After Six Shot In Louisiana Theater

Old white guy starts shooting spree 20 minutes into the movie Trainwreck

2) Intercept, July 22 : Why Wasn't Dylann Roof Charged With Terrorism?

Dylann Roof, the white 21-year-old man who allegedly gunned down nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17 in order to "start a race war" not charged with domestic terrorism.

3) Truthdig, July 22 : Israel Brands Rock-Throwing at Moving Vehicles as Terrorism; Charge Could Carry Up to 20 Years in Prison

"Tolerance toward terrorists ends today. A stone-thrower is a terrorist and only a fitting punishment can serve as a deterrent and just punishment,” Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said"

4) Guardian, July 23 : Canada's controversial terrorism law criticised by UN human rights group

5) CBC, July 22 : Bureaucrats told to provide Rob Nicholson 3 terrorism-related statements a week

6) Ricochet, July 22 : Why the Harper government flatters Saudi Arabia’s tyrants

“The honourable minister [Mackay] expressed his appreciation for the major leading role played by the kingdom on the international arena,” wrote Prince Saud. “He emphasized Canada’s desire to develop relations with the kingdom in all fields.”

OK so admittedly that last one doesn't have the word terrorism right in its header like the others but just add this handy graph and you're good to go :

There ya go, Rob. You're welcome.

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Glenn Greenwald and the Pentagon commit sociology

Glenn Greenwald took something of a shit-kicking in Canada in some media quarters last week for his column: 
CANADA, AT WAR FOR 13 YEARS, SHOCKED THAT ‘A TERRORIST’ ATTACKED ITS SOLDIERS


Published after two Canadian soldiers were mowed down by car in Quebec on Monday but prior to another being shot at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday, the piece was 
misconstrued as a justification of terrorism instead of the explanation for it.

At his talk in Ottawa three days ago, Mr Greenwald points out his explanation is based on a ten year old Pentagon report written for then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Transcript :

"There is this remarkable, remarkable 2004 report that was commissioned by the George Bush Pentagon run by Donald Rumsfeld and it was given to the Defense Task Force. And the question that Donald Rumsfeld commissioned that task force to ask was - What is ultimately the cause of terrorism? Why are there so many people in the world that want to do violence to the United States and you can go online and read it. 

It seemed as though what I wrote this week or what I said in interviews was somehow controversial.  It isn't - it is self-evident.

The report in 2004 concluded this; this is what it said. It said  :  "The key cause of terrorism aimed at Americans is quote "American direct intervention in the Muslim world."  It then identified three different policies that comprise this direct intervention. 

One is support for the region's worst tyrants - giving economic aid and drowning in weapons the regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.   

Secondly was steadfast support for Israel which is viewed as enabling all sorts of aggression in that part of the world.  

And third was actual wars and occupations, principally the invasion of Afghanistan. 

Canada plays a role in all of those policies.   

And what the report concluded - and this is not me saying this, this is an actual quote - it repudiated the US government's statements to its own citizenry in the wake of 9/11 about why the 9/11 attack happened, why terrorism happens.This is what it concluded, quote : "Muslims do not quote hate our freedoms unquote but rather they hate our policies." 

It is so tempting, so tempting, to see ourselves as victims, as pure and innocent victims.  It is. We all want to see ourselves that way - we get to emancipate ourselves from any kind of responsibility or culpability or guilt. It's really tempting to say when our societies are attacked rather than our societies doing the attacking that the reason it happens is because there's this extremist religion in the world - or an extremist version of a religion - that's just unbearably hateful and irrationally savage and they just want to do violence for its own sake - "they hate us for our freedoms". That just simply isn't the case and I think it is our responsibility as citizens and certainly as journalists to make certain that the dialogue isn't comfortable or flattering. That shouldn't be the goal; the goal should be to make it as rational and fact-based as possible so that we're not actually susceptible to manipulation."

It's appalling - and does not speak well for our various 'freedoms' or our ability to resist being manipulated by our government - that this ten year old Pentagon research report on the causes of terrorism is still considered controversial anywhere in Canada.

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Hornets and guns

I used to argue that however unattractive their other attributes, and some of these other attributes are exceedingly unattractive, the conservative libertarian right has an important sentry watchdog role to play in our society that benefits the rest of us - their eyes constantly scanning the distant horizon for any sign of the slightest infringement on what it pleases them to call their rights. 
Lately I've come to realize that to many of them, those precious rights are just gun rights. They really really like their guns. Guns in a good way, guns in a bad way - doesn't much matter - they get really excited about guns either way. 
Liberty minus the guns - not so much. Guns instead of liberty is pretty much ok with them as long as the people taking it away have even bigger guns and don't touch their guns. It's a fetish.

One afternoon on my deck in the sunshine, some neighbours were having a beer and the conversation turned to security vs freedom because we were about to get our first police detachment on the island.
"We don't need police," said one young guy, "if something goes wrong we handle it ourselves. Whoever is best suited to deal with it at the time deals with it."
I nodded.
"Okay," responded another to my nod. "Supposing a really big guy with a really big gun walks into your house and says 'I live here now'  - what are you going to do about it?"
"I'll run out into the street and yell a really big guy has taken over my house," I said.

This is where we are now. Harper walked into our House in the winter of 2005/6 and, with the added twist of assistance from our national police in the middle of an election, he has taken it over. He lives there now and we don't. Somehow we don't run out into the street much over it.

This is also the position the Mideast found itself in after WWI when western powers divided up the Arab world into nation states and installed tyrants beholden to their interests to run them. When people ran out into the streets three decades later to protest it, we crushed them.  We're still doing it and now we're dealing with the blowback..

On Monday, a fucked up Canadian with mental health issues waited around for two hours for his chance to run over two Canadian soldiers with a car, killing Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent.
On Tuesday Canada sent six C-18 Hornets to bomb Iraq.
Yesterday another fucked up Canadian with mental health issues and a long gun shot and killed a Canadian soldier, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, at the war memorial in Ottawa before somehow breaching House security and being shot in turn himself by the sergeant-at-arms. One guy with a gun shot another guy with a gun. 
Are these three events in any way related? We don't know yet but ...

Minus the CBC, whose coverage was mostly admirable, a lot of the media predictably played along with ramping up the terror meme to laughable extremes.   [h/t CC for following media shots]

They're happy now because they will be in charge of managing a magical news cycle combining their love of gun stories with assuring Canadians of the absolute necessity of the further clawing back of our civil liberties. Now is never the time ...

Steve is already talking about cracking down on terror threats and a new act with increased police surveillance powers - powers that will undoubtedly be used on Canadians with :

“grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism.”

Or as the RCMP put it in 2010 when they included First Nations in that grouping :

"grievances based upon notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First nations' resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and distribution of wealth etc."

Harper says Canada will not be intimidated by the actions of this week. Neither should we stand for being intimidated by the actions of the guy who took over our House.

Trapped in a Whirlpool : Now is not the time ...

Disaffected Lib : It's what fascists do.

Politics and its Discontents : Something we should all keep in mind.

Linda McQuaig : Is it too early to ask for a sane conversation about terrorism?
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Khorasan Group : First there was Mothra ...

Both Syria and Iraq have requested the US not to bomb the shit out of them over ISIS, a group posing no imminent threat to the US, so pretty much the only way Nobel Peace Prize President BamBam could justify doing so would be on the grounds of US self-defence and 3...2...1... voilà ... 

BamBam : “Once again, it must be clear to anyone who would plot against America and try to do Americans harm that we will not tolerate safe havens for terrorists who threaten our people.”

And just like that ISIS is sidelined by the newest biggest worstest previously unknown group in the history of the world EVAH - Khorasanus Rex!

However, the following day, after the story had worked its magical justification for bombing Syria ...

Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain at The Intercept : THE FAKE TERROR THREAT USED TO JUSTIFY BOMBING SYRIA

Democracy Now interview with Murtaza Hussain : How the U.S. Concocted a Terror Threat to Justify Syria Strikes, and the Corporate Media Went Along

Chris Hedges : Becoming Hezbollah's Air Force

"In endless war it does not matter whom we fight. Endless war is not about winning battles or promoting a cause. It is an end in itself. In George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” Oceania is at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia. The alliance then suddenly is reversed. Eurasia becomes an ally of Oceania and Eastasia is the enemy. The point is not who is being fought. The point is maintaining a state of fear and the mass mobilization of the public. War and national security are used to justify the surrender of citizenship, the crushing of dissent and expanding the powers of the state. The point is war itself. And if the American state, once a sworn enemy of Hezbollah, gives air cover to Hezbollah fighters in Syria, the goals of endless war remain gloriously untouched."

h/t Waterbaby for Intercept link      h/t Intercept for NBC tweets.
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Counter-terrorism - Which colour-code are you?

The G&M, the Star, and Vancouver Observer all carried stories yesterday about environmentalists being understandably pissed at being lumped in with white supremacists among the listed "issue-based" terrorist threats in Canada's new counter-terrorism strategy released on Thursday,  Building Resilience Against Terrorism :

"...domestic extremism that is “based on grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism."

Gosh that list sounds familiar. 

Wait! Not only have I read it before - I've blogged it before. 
It's from the Integrated Security Unit Joint Intelligence Group's Intelligence Assessment for the 2010 G8 summit, written back in June 2009. From page 6  :

"The 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville ... will likely be subject to actions taken by criminal extremists motivated by a variety of radical ideologies. These ideologies may include variants of anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, nihilism, socialism and/or communism. These ideologies may also include notions of racial supremacy and white power ... 

"The important commonality is that these ideologies ... place these individuals and/or organizations at odds with the status quo and the current distribution of power in society. 

In addition to these generally held tenets, a variety of grievances exist: These grievances are based upon notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First nations'(sic) resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and distribution of wealth etc."

And you all remember how well that summit security assessment worked out.

Notable that this new public list of potential terrorist threats leaves off any reference to First Nations.

Vancouver Observer :

"Public Safety spokesperson Lisa Filipps ... explained that the agency does not keep a list of domestic issue-based terrorist groups, and said the counter-terrorism strategy is not meant to target those using legal means to further their causes."

So I guess that means they've torn up the lists of people mentioned on Page 15 of the the JIG Intelligence Report, then, does it?

"The segment to follow will provide a list of investigative subjects, persons of interest, and their associates. In the following section, a specific profile sheet will be supplied for each subject according the criteria established. The profiles will be divided and color-coded into three distinct categories: Suspect (Red); Person of Interest (Orange); and Associate (Yellow).  

And is this still going on? Yes it is :

RCMP records suggest that the reconnaissance continues. Report logs indicate at least 29 incidents of police surveillance between the end of the G20 summit and April 2011 — more than nine months after world leaders departed Toronto.

Look, nobody expects our government not to track and compile lists of people and groups it considers likely to blow things up, and most of this "new" strategy focuses on those. But in its determination to bash through the Enbridge Gateway tarsands-to-tankers pipeline regardless of what Canadians think about it, this government has repeatedly referred to environmentalists as "radicals" and "adversaries" and "foreign-funded socialists".

How far is that from being a Suspect (Red), a Person of Interest (Orange), or an Associate (Yellow)?
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And now a word from our sponsors ...

Knock, knock. You Mr Smith? Delivery. Sign here please.

Whoa! Massive box! But there must be some mistake - I didn't order anything.

You are Mr Smith, apartment 1A...

Yes, but ...

No worries, it's prepaid. Just sign here.

Alright - a present! So what is it? What's it say is in the box?

Let's see ... a remote control plane.

Really? I always wanted an rc plane. Who's it from? Bet it's my dad.

If you'll just sign here, I'll be on my way.

Oh sure, sorry ... here ya go and thanks.


Wow, this weighs a ton - must be one massive plane. Say, what's this other stuff listed on here with the plane :"Six assault rifles, three grenades, 25 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives, detonators ..." WTF ???

Hey, nice plane. You Mr Smith?

Yeah, why?

I've got a delivery for you. Three tonnes of fertilizer, prepaid. Where do you want it?

No offence to the hard working intelligence officials in Canada, US, and Australia, but just how small a part is the perp permitted to play in these terrorist plots to blow up public buildings anyway? Besides the usual initial angry anti-gov chat, I mean?
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Stockwell Day on the tragic shootings in Norway

CBC Power & Politics at noon Friday , edited

Evan Solomon : This raises again.the spectre of international terrorism. 

Stockwell Day : As recently as July 8 in Norway there was a dragnet for al-Qaeda suspects related to the Manchester bombing. Whether this group is tied to them we don't know ...

Solomon : A suspect has now been arrested. This looks like a multiple series of attacks that are going on. Now remember Norway did have a small number of troops in Afghanistan.
It's a very very fluid situation but it does raise all sorts of security issues about - this is a hackneyed phrase but on a day like this it suddenly has new poignancy - the war on terror.

We don't know whose taken credit for this, or responsibility for this attack but if indeed it is al Qaeda if indeed it is an extremist act that has any connection to what's happened in Afghanistan, how do we square that with what the PM said at the end of our mission there that Afghanistan and what's going on there is no longer a threat to global security?

Stockwell Day : Well the level of training that was going on in Afghanistan was extreme in exporting terror.
[Stock goes on about our accomplishments in Afghanistan] In Canada we've had the Toronto 18. Security has to be #1.

Solomon : The profile of these extremists ... Somalia - these are the places where extremists take root.

Stockwell Day : The single reason for this type of terrorism ... this type of terrorism will continue ... and we hope to be able to limit it through the 21 century ... is the result of extreme lunatic insane ideological teaching and it happens whether the people involved are from poor areas or wealthy areas. Don't forget Osama bin Laden himself was a multi-millionaire growing up in Saudi Arabia in a very very wealthy family. The Toronto 18 were all in good financial shape. Many of this extremist al Qaeda type extremist lunatic ideology that is even being bred in the US - these are coming from people who are not disaffected by poverty. This is the result of an insane extreme religious teaching and I encourage those within the broader community to reach out to extremists within their own community and they've got to get the message out to the young people that they are being told lies - that the afterlife for them is not what they're being promised.

Thank you, Doris.

BBC : Scores killed in Norway attacks

A massive bomb blast shattered buildings in the capital Oslo, killing at least seven people. Then a gunman rampaged through a youth camp run by the ruling Labour Party, killing 84 people. On Saturday police continued combing the island as a number of teenagers were still missing, feared dead.

Norwegian media identified the man as Anders Behring Breivik, 32. Police charged him for the island massacre and the Oslo bomb blast.

Police said the man was answering questions and they described him as a right-wing Christian fundamentalist.

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They hate us for our freedoms

Also not at all keen on how we bulldoze their villages and orchards.


NYTimes, Oct 16 2010, via Maclean's

"Three years ago, Canadian troops built a temporary post near Lora in Panjwai.
When they immediately came under fire from insurgents, they bulldozed much of the hamlet, flattening houses, water pumps and surrounding orchards, the villagers and local elders say.

“There were 10 families who had houses there that were totally destroyed, and mulberry trees were taken out by their roots,” Mr. Hamid said in a recent interview in Kandahar city. "They destroyed all these things, and we are unable to replace them."

Just one of three bulldozed villages in Panjwai, Kandahar.

Unfortunately the focus of the NYT article is on the difficulties faced by incoming US troops in overcoming the Canadian/NATO 'legacy' in Panjwai and it neglects to explain why the villages were bulldozed.

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NYTimes, January 2007, via me :

"The road that cuts through the heart of Panjwai district here tells all that is going wrong with NATO's war in Afghanistan.

To fight their way into Panjwai district and clear it of Taliban insurgents, NATO troops bulldozed through orchards, smashed down walls and even houses, and churned vineyards and melon fields to dust.
Reconstruction projects were planned, but never materialized. Now NATO countries are championing the thoroughfare as a $5 million gift to local people."

The old road, you see, "twisted and turned through the hamlets and walled farmsteads."
"The military needed a straight road", explained the acting military commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.

"Displaced and buffeted by fighting since May, the Afghans are homeless, fearful and far from being won over. They say the road was built for the troops’ benefit and forced on them, at the cost of their land and livelihoods.

“We are compelled to be happy about the road,” said Hajji Baran.

So now it's nearly four years later. Did we ever get around to compensating those farmers for the loss of their villages, homes, crops, and livelihood so the military could have a straight road?

"Press officers for Canadian forces, who have led operations in Kandahar Province for the past four years, and the Afghan district administration said they could not confirm the destruction.

... a public affairs officer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa wrote by e-mail that she had no information to support the allegations that Lora was bulldozed.
But she acknowledged the existence of an "austere platoon house" in the area, which Canadian forces upgraded to a substation for the Afghan police in the spring of 2008. It was dismantled in the fall of 2008 "because of changing operational priorities," she wrote.

“Should locals have concerns, we encourage them to come forward,” she wrote.

We 'found' the building, you see, and we fixed it up, and when we didn't need it anymore, we 'dismantled' it. Orchards? What orchards?

.

From 2007 to 2010 : Plus ça 'changing operational priorities'.

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Awol Libs defeat war resisters bill

For want of just eight more votes, Bill C-440 - the war resisters bill to give protection to US Iraq war deserters - went down to defeat on Wednesday 136 to 143. The following eighteen Libs expedited that defeat by going awol on the vote :
Michael Ignatieff, Jean-Claude D'Amours, Ruby Dhalla, Kirsty Duncan, Marc Garneau, Albina Guarnieri, Dominic LeBlanc, Keith Martin, John McCallum, Brian Murphy, Anthony Rota, Judy Sgro, Michelle Simson, Frank Valeriote, Joe Volpe, Bryon Wilfert, and Lise Zarac,
with Lib Alan Tonks voting with the Cons against it.

Special mention goes out to Lib Frank Valeriote who was there at 6:25pm for the Criminal Acts Records vote five minutes before the vote on the war resisters bill, and who was on his feet again at 6:42 making a speech in favour of "revitalizing parliamentary proceedings through reforming question period" five minutes after it. Yet somehow Frank went awol in the middle here for conscientious objectors who don't want to fight the US war on terra.

Good job, Frank. You really want to "revitalize parliamentary proceedings"? Try showing the fuck up for what were once called liberal values. It was a Liberal bill.

Also present on Wednesday for the Criminal Acts vote but MIA five minutes later for the war resisters bill were Libs Kirsty Duncan, Brian Murphy, Judy Sgro, Joe Volpe, and Lise Zarac.

L-Girl at We Move to Canada has worked fiercely on behalf of US war resisters. She cites a letter written on Sept. 19 from a former head of the Immigration and Refugee Board to Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In it Peter Shormer criticizes the following July 22 CIC directive concerning war resisters who claim refugee status in Canada :

"Military deserters from other countries have sought refugee protection in Canada. Desertion from the Canadian military is a serious criminal offence.
Therefore these deserters may also be serious criminals and therefore inadmissible to Canada."

What utterly bizarre logic. As per Shormer's letter to Kenney, the CIC directive goes on to specifically target US war resisters for exclusion from Canada by meddling in what should be independent case reviews by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Luckily for Kenney and the Cons and the US war on terra, this time the Leader of the Opposition and 17 more Liberals had their back.
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Project Samosa : The media and their sources in the war on terror

The publication ban on Project Samosa, the RCMP's latest salvo in the war on terror, has the media scrambling to get unnamed sources and security experts to augment and substitute for accounts of court proceedings. By a happy coincidence for war on terror fans, this allows for far more pants-pissingly terrorfying conjecture than mere straight news would allow.

So far, "sources" have told one security expert, an ex-RCMP and CSIS operative quoted at CTV, that the accused :

1) "would have targeted the Parliament buildings and Montreal's public transit system with bombs",
2) "that the ringleader went to Afghanistan and to Pakistan to receive training",
3) "some of their suspected accomplices could be in Iran or in Dubai."
4) "were assembling components for one or more bombs and had raised money for al Qaeda and the Taliban"
5) "the ringleader was about to take a trip abroad, maybe to deliver the money himself"

This last is the reported reason for the arrests. After a year of watching them :

"Police say a terror attack was likely still months away when they pounced on the plot, but they moved because they feared the men were about to start sending money to other terrorists in Afghanistan."

Last I heard "terrorists" in Afghanistan were already rolling in US tax dollars and drug money but whatever.
A year ago The Star ran an excellent piece on the media's relationship with their "sources" in the Arar case when he was the terrorist du jour :
Learning from media mistakes in Arar case

Canadian Press journalist Stephen Thorne quoted an official source that linked Arar to "a suspected member of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network."

Robert Fife, CanWest's Ottawa bureau chief, "cited an anonymous official who described Arar as a "very bad guy" who had received training at an Al Qaeda base and that intelligence received from Syria had helped the CIA avert an attack on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa."

Craig Oliver at CTV News was "offered a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan" Oliver :"The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source... This experience has made me more skeptical... I knew these people very well."

Ottawa Citizen's Juliet O'Neill was fed a story headlined "Canada's dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to Al Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case."

Even after Arar's return to Canada, "Robert Fife was once more the vehicle that Canadian and U.S. intelligence officials used to inform the public that they were "100 per cent sure" that Arar trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan."

Some of these reporters have since stated they were used and apologised to Arar; some have not. The point is they were all used to disseminate false information from anonymous government and police sources to the public. Something to bear in mind when "sources" are once again where we will be getting most of our information on this newest batch of alleged terrorists, given it will likely be months if not years before they go to trial.
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Labour unions hire Abdelrazik

In defiance of a UN edict making it illegal to hire Abousfian Abdelrazik and to put pressure on our government to get him off that 1267 terrorist blacklist, the Canadian Labour Congress will hire Abdelrazik for a week, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the International Association of Machinists will each hire him for a day. They are hiring him to tell his story, which will presumably include his being kept an exile inside his own country.

The Canadian government froze his assets in accordance with the UN list earlier this year, although they are permitting him to have an allowance from it, but he is still not permitted to work.

Here, by the way, is what the UN Security Council 1267 page has on Abdelrazik. Good grief. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon maintains it's up to Abdelrazik to get himself off the list, although no one has yet succeeded in getting off it without the help of their government.

After Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan at the bequest of the CSIS in 2003, he was imprisoned for twenty months during which time he was beaten and tortured and later interrogated by two CSIS agents. Abdelrazik says he also remembers being questioned in Sudan by Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, who questioned him about Osama bin Laden and what he thought of Israel.

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Combating Terrorism Act 2010, redux, redo

Your government announced today it needs more powers to combat terrorism.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson : "These provisions are necessary to protect our country from the threat of terrorism."
A redo of the panicky now defunct Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, the new Combating Terrorism Act includes preventive arrest and forcing people to testify at secret hearings about terrorist acts that might happen in the future, and if you don't like it you can go to jail for up to a year with a judge's option to extend.

There are more safeguards included this time round - you can have a lawyer! at any time! - which will only allow the Libs to go along with it so as not to be painted as soft on terrorism. Mark Holland, Liberal critic for Public Safety and National Security, already looking to cave.

The argument in favour of anti-terrorism legislation is that criminal law only deals with crimes already committed. What to do about people who feel that crimes perpetrated by the state against their people require a response like blowing things up?

The argument against it is ... well, let's look at how they're doing with the laws they've already got.

The federal government case against Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat appears to have suffered a significant blow Wednesday when a document was introduced in court showing that Abu Zubaydah, once considered a master terrorist and 9/11 mastermind, actually had nothing to do with the attacks.

Even more surprising, the document, which quotes U.S court filings declassified last week, shows that Zubaydah, once believed to be one of the top leaders in al-Qaeda, was not even a member of the terrorist group.

The unfortunate Abu Zubaydah got waterboarded 83 times in the US, coughed up Harkat's name, and the Canadian government obligingly held Harkat for 3 1/2 years.
A clue about the reliability of Abu Zubaydah's "testimony" might have been found in his confession to terrorist acts committed after his imprisonment, but sadly, no, it wasn't.

Abdelrazik? "Closely associated" with the same hapless Abu Zubaydah.
Result? Abdelrazik was tortured, then exiled in Sudan for six years. Still on the UN's 1267 terror list, and the Canadian government has frozen his bank account and he can't work.
Help him get off that list? Blow me, said Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon.

Maher Arar - the first inkling for many of us that something had gone terribly wrong.
Adil Charkaoui - in custody 21 months, now free.
Hassan Almrei - in custody for 8 years, now free.
Mahmoud Jaballah - in custody for 6 years, now free.
Mohammad Mahjoub - in custody for 7 years, freed, requested return to jail in 2009 to protest bail conditions worse than jail.
Benamar Benatta - rendered to US for 5 years
Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin

And then there's the ever-expanded definition of what constitutes terrorism.
According to Jason Kenney's "infandous" Mr. Velshi, George Galloway's proposed visit to Canada last year to give a speech entitled "Resisting war from Gaza to Kandahar" was sufficient for him to brand a sitting British MP on tour in the US "a terrorist supporter".

Nothing about these vile clowns inspires any confidence in their wanting to accrue more secretive powers to their already abused arsenal of abominations.
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Orange Alert! Orange Alert! now with shiny things!

"Vigilance is at a medium level. This is not 9/11, but the information we have
received is of concern and we need to have heightened vigilance," said Mr. Baird.

But the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day could be a "pilot project" for attacks on North America and represents the first time al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula has attempted to strike this part of the world, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said.

CTV, the G&M, the Star, and NaPo are all reporting on the Transport Canada "heightened alert" for Canadian airports this last weekend, a full two weeks after the Detroit underwear bomber told of 20 more guys in Yemen planning attacks on North America.
And apparently there's also the other terrorists ...

"But sources say Canadian intelligence also had credible information of other terrorists planning to come to Canada.
Federal authorities say the terrorists did not pose a direct threat to Canada. They were not planning to blow up a Canadian airliner, nor were they planning terrorist attacks at the Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, or some other target in Canada."
The terrorists want to use Canada as a jumping-off point to get into the U.S."

So we should be scared, but not too scared?


Robert Fife wastes no time getting to the point : The Canada-US border would be shut down immediately, he said - a disaster because 75% of our trade is with the US.

Then CTV, the Star, and the G&M all end their reports with :

In addition to the heightened security already in place, Transport Canada said it will install full-body scanners at major Canadian airports by the spring.

even though full-body scanners would not have stopped the underwear guy anyway.

Say, will we be buying the scanners promoted by former Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff, who now represents Rapiscan, "one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines"?

Security theatre plus expensive new shiny things.
Scanners might not be any good at detecting whatever device the next Detroit bomber is carrying; what they will do is keep our trucks rolling across the Detroit River.
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GWOT - A Moveable Feast

Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan ... next stop - Yemen?

Since that guy who detonated his underwear on a plane on Christmas Day claimed to have been sent by the al-Qaeda network in Yemen in retaliation for US/Saudi bombing raids inside Yemen, Saudi policy analysts are popping up in the Globe and Mail to report that Yemen is now more dangerous to the West than Afghanistan:

The botched attack on the U.S. plane came a day after Yemeni forces, with the help of U.S. intelligence, launched the second of two major air and ground assaults on major al-Qaeda hideouts in Yemen. [Ed : Odd coincidence, that]

Anwar Eshki, the head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, said al-Qaeda in Yemen “is stronger than it was a year ago and is turning Yemen into its base for operations against the West."

Yemen is al-Qaeda's last resort,” Mr. Eshki said. “There's no doubt that al-Qaeda's presence in Yemen is more dangerous than its presence in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, home to 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hi-jackers, has been helping the US-backed Yemeni president with his Operation Scorched Earth assault against the minority Shiite Huthis, using "fighter-bombers, helicopters, heavy artillery and special forces" and shelling well into Yemen.

Once again the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies was on hand to explain :

"From the Saudi point of view the existence of a Huthi 'state' with the support of Iran is intolerable. They are going to squeeze the Huthis, to shut them down," he said.

The Saudis seek to create a permanent 20-kilometre (12 mile) wide no-go zone straddling the border, and has vacated scores of villages on the Saudi side to that end, according to regional security expert Anwar Eshki.

"The problem in Yemen gave us a good chance to fix our border problem," said the former Saudi general, head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jeddah.

And right on schedule, from The Times, today:

'Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants planning attacks from Yemen'

Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country’s Foreign Minister said today.
“They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit.
There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300.”

The Global War On Terror moves on ...

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Christmas security theatre

Within days of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama's announcement that US cruise missiles attacked Yemen in his ever-expanding war on terror, the Christmas Day bomber shows up on a flight to Detroit in his suicide underwear - on instruction, he says, from Al Qaeda in Yemen.
Make of that what you will.

In response, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced new security rules for flights inbound to the US :
~physical pat down at departure
~only one piece of hand luggage per customer and no access to it during the final hour of the flight
~all customers must remain in their seats for the final hour of the flight
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None of these new measures would have prevented Captain Underpants from detonating his underwear an hour and five minutes before arrival. As with the shoe bomber in 2001, it was the terrorist's incompetence and plucky passengers who saved the plane.
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Rethink Afghanistan - Part 6 : Security

Rethink Afghanistan : Parts 1 through 6

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Afghanistan : Making a killing

LA Times : Four men with the U.S. firm once known as Blackwater are said to be under investigation in the deaths of two Afghans. A U.S. report found serious fault with private security firms in Afghanistan.

Kabul : Residents say the U.S. contractors opened fire without provocation after one of their vehicles tipped over in a traffic accident. The driver of a Toyota said the Americans ordered him to stop, then told him to move on. When the driver began pulling away the Americans started shooting. A passenger in the car was killed and a man walking about 200 yards away was shot in the head. No weapons were found in the Toyota, or on the bystander. A lawyer representing the four contractors said the company [Xe] falsely accused the men of drinking alcohol that night.

The U.S. spent between $6 billion and $10 billion on security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 through 2007 alone, according to Congress. In all, there are more than 71,000 security contractors or guards, armed and unarmed, in Afghanistan.

Since February, oversight of security contractors in Afghanistan has been entrusted not to Congress or the Pentagon, but to a British-owned private contractor, Aegis.
The company was hired by the American government after the U.S. military said it lacked the manpower and expertise to monitor security contractors.

The US military says it lacks the manpower and expertise to monitor its mercenaries ...
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h/t Pogge via B'n R.
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Canadian Project for a New American Century

In July 2005, Canada's Chief of Defence Rick Hillier explained our new relationship to the people of Afghanistan :

"These are detestable murderers and scumbags. They want to break our society. If Canada is attacked, it will be only because it is a free country.
They detest our freedoms. They detest our society. They detest our liberties."
By sending troops to Afghanistan, he argued, Canada is actually protecting itself : "We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people."

Our job is also, he might as well have added, to placate the US for having foolishly avoided public advocacy for its adventure in Iraq.

Four years and many platitudes about little girls going to school later, the Canadian military manual of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations doctrine begun in 2005 and spanning the Bush and Obama presidencies is now complete.
Authorized by the head of the Canadian army Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, it is, Anthony Fenton writes at The Dominion, "a synthesis of two recent US Army Field Manuals" and a model of US-Canada "synergy":

Obama's administration has sent clear signals, through political appointments and holdovers (such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates), that the US military and national security apparatus' transformation toward fighting smaller, "irregular wars" begun under Bush will continue apace.

Only a week before Bush left office, Gates, together with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Director of USAID, Henrietta Fore, co-signed the US Government Counterinsurgency Guide.

Neo-conservative historian Eliot Cohen, who oversaw the Guide's creation, wrote in its introduction:
"Insurgency will be a large and growing element of the security challenges faced by the United States in the 21st century...Whether the United States should engage in any particular counterinsurgency is a matter of political choice, but that it will engage in such conflicts during the decades to come is a near certainty. This Guide will help prepare decision-makers of many kinds for the tasks that result from this fact."

Thank you, Eliot Cohen, charter member of the Project for the New American Century, signatory to the 1998 white paper on "regime change" in Iraq, and all-round advocate of US military imperialism.

Although PNAC was disbanded in 2006 when its founding members decamped to the Foreign Policy Initiative, both its membership and its objectives of an imperial US COIN agenda continue through Obama and into a Canadian manual on military doctrine.

Suddenly this picture becomes less amusing.

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Fenton :

"According to Lt. Gen. Leslie, the Canadian Army is "at the cutting edge" of Western armies readying themselves to fight 21st-century wars.

Since General Leslie signed off on the COIN manual last December, the COIN Center and Canada have collaborated on more than 20 exchanges, including "COIN Leader Workshops" and "COIN Integration" meetings.
Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) met with the [US]COIN Center for discussions about "US-Canada COIN synergy" five days after Leslie wrote in his issuing order for the new COIN doctrine that it is "complementary to our allies."
In April, the US COIN Center "visited military installations and think-tanks in Canada to inculcate the Canadian military establishment with COIN doctrine and best practices."

Recent meetings have concentrated on how best to sell this idea to the Canadian public.

Maybe they could brand it as the Canadian Project for a New American Century.

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Anthony Fenton at The Dominion. Go.

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Edited to fix link - thanks, Chris

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Canada Border Services Agency upholding Reagan's legacy

A Salvadoran judge personally invited by the government of Canada to a conference in Ottawa was detained for 24 hours at Pearson Airport by the Canada Border Services Agency because he is a member of the FMLN.

"They told me that because of my affiliation with the organization, they wouldn't let me into the country," Eugenio Chicas said from San Salvador.
"I told them that the war in El Salvador ended 17 years ago and the FMLN is now the governing party in El Salvador, but they told me that was the information they had available."

Eventually Chicas was permitted to attend the meeting of inter-American electoral bodies hosted by Elections Canada and the Organization of American States but :

Border officials kept his diplomatic passport and instructed him to promptly return to Toronto following the conference to get his flight home.

Chico said the CBSA "repeatedly pointed out his affiliation with the FMLN".

Ronald Reagan's 12 year war on the people of El Salvador ended in US disgrace a long time ago. The former revolutionary guerrilla organization FMLN has been sitting in the Salvadoran legislature as a registered political party since 1992. Earlier this month Hilary Clinton and Canadian minister of state Peter Kent attended the presidential inauguration of the FMLN leader.

Note to CBSA : Who exactly are you working for? Reagan is dead. Possibly it's time to update your security brief on that.
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"Then they were heroes. They were heroes."

Another brown Canadian citizen has been held in the US for 5½ years without charge, 4 of them in solitary confinement, for "allegedly assisting al-Qaeda", and his lawyer worries that he will suffer the same fate at the hands of the Canadian government as Omar Khadr and Abousfian Abdelrazik.

CBC : Ottawa not saying if Canadian linked to al-Qaeda can return

"Last month, U.S. federal prosecutors offered to drop the five charges of material terrorism if Warsame pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to support al-Qaeda."

Mohammed Warsame has accepted the offer - and after four years in solitary in the US, so would I - but Warsame does not deny his association with al-Qaeda. In 2000, he left Toronto for Afghanistan to train with al-Quaeda. Disillusioned by what he found there, he returned to Canada in March 2001 - six months before 9/11 - was picked up by the FBI in Minneapolis in 2003, and has been held in custody without trial ever since.

As his lawyer puts it : "Like many young Muslims, he was attracted by the notion of an Islamic state he believed was a sort of utopia."

Reading this I was reminded of a Chris Sands interview with the wife of an American diplomat stationed in Kabul. She spoke of her husband accompanying the Afghan resistance on their missions across the border against Soviet troops and of her friendship with fundamentalist Mujahideen leaders.
"Then they were heroes. They were heroes," she said.

Yes. They were praised as heroes, we now know, for being used by the US to embroil the Soviet Union in a crippling unwinnable war. But what is not often mentioned is the effect all that hero worship and propaganda in the western press would have had upon young Muslim teenagers in Canada and the US.
Warsame's crime was to have believed it.
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