The strategy of the fly

"A terrorist is like a fly that wants to destroy a china shop. Small, low, fly is unable to move not even a cup. So she found an elephant, enters his ear and buzzes until mad with fear and anger, it sacked the shop. Thus, for example, the Al-Qaeda fly led the American elephant to destroy the china shop of the Middle East.

Why are they so sensitive to terrorist provocations? Because the legitimacy of the modern state is based on its promise to keep the public sphere free of political violence. A regime can withstand terrible catastrophes, and even ignore them, provided its legitimacy is not based on preventing them.

Today, a government may turn a blind eye to high levels of domestic and sexual violence, because they do not undermine its legitimacy. Rapists and abusive husbands are not perceived as an existential threat to the state, because, historically, the state did not build itself on the promise to eliminate sexual violence. In contrast, the much rarer cases of terrorism are viewed as a deadly threat, because over the last few centuries modern western states have gradually built their legitimacy on the explicit promise to maintain zero political violence within their borders."

Read the whole article from Yuval Noah Harari in French, or in English 

h/t Line Merrette Vincent

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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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Closet organizer

A Message from the Conservative Party Closet Organizer of Canada
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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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The root causes of not committing sociology

"This is not a time to commit sociology," said Stephen Harper, asked when is the right time to study the root causes of acts of terrorism like those by the alleged Trainspotter Two.

"The root causes of terrorism is terrorists", said Pierre Poilievre three times on CBC Power and Politics yesterday.

Politics and its Discontents has clips up of both Steve and Poilieve's statements.

Neither statement has anything to do with terrorism at all of course; they were just manufacturing an attack on Justin Trudeau's "root causes" response to a terrorism question in his interview with Peter Mansbridge.

In 2004 journalist and author Ron Suskind related the following conversation with a senior Goerge W Bush advisor :

"The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' 

I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' 

So, how are y'all enjoying the 'other new realities' Steve has created in his 39% empire ?

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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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Lib MP links pie tossing to terrorism

Liberal MP Gerry Byrne says he believes the federal government should investigate whether the pieing of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea by a woman opposed to the seal hunt constitutes an act of terrorism.

I think Gerry should at least get a cupcake for that.

Gerry Byrne hails from Newfoundland Labrador where, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada:

"Approximately 1% of the total population of Newfoundland and Labrador derive income from sealing."

When last we heard from our FishMin Gail Shea, she was promoting BC's fish farms at a trade show in Norway, where their Minister of Fisheries is "a co-owner of a salmon farming company and former head of the Norwegian salmon farmers association". Over 90% of the open-pen fish farms in BC originate in Norway.

Asked about the connection between fish farming and the collapse of the Skeena and Fraser River salmon fisheries in December, Gail Shea, minister in charge of Fisheries and Oceans, said : "Nobody knows what’s happening in the marine environment."

I'm betting right now you want to replay that vid at least one more time.

We have had 5 pieings of politicians in Canada in the last decade, two of which were misses. Colby Cosh at Macleans says it's all fun and games till someone throws an acid pie, a particularly daft and rather desperate argument which depends on conflating tofu with acid. Or as one commenter over there points out : "it is stupid to say that pie throwing is serious because somebody could throw something WHICH IS NOT A PIE"

UPDATE : From Dammit Janet : Tofu Pie - It's the New Anthrax

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"Pro-lifer" : Just another name for "terrorist"

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, responded to the gunning down of Dr. George Tiller in his church today by saying he "reaped what he sowed."

From Kos : "The alleged assassin, Scott Roeder, was an active member of Operation Rescue. On an Operation Rescue website called Charge Tiller (which in the last 30 minutes or so has been taken down), there's this comment, posted on Monday, September 3, 2007, by a Scott Roeder from Kansas, almost certainly the same Scott Roeder alleged to have assassinated Tiller:

"It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the "lawlessness" which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp "Mengele" of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgement upon our nation."

McClatchy : Suspect supported killing abortion providers, friends say
"I know that he believed in justifiable homicide," said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist. Roeder also was a subscriber to Prayer and Action News, a magazine that advocated the justifiable homicide position, said publisher Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines, Iowa.

"Pro-lifer" is just another word for "terrorist" .

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Toronto18/ Paintball11/ Tim Hortons10 terrorist fatcamp update

G&M : RCMP agent concedes key role in set-up, running of terrorist training camp

Mubin Shaikh on Friday:

"I thought that if the RCMP didn't tell me I couldn't do it, I inferred that I could do it, Mr. Shaikh testified.

Lawyers for Canada's first underage convicted terrorist argued in court Friday that without Mubin Shaikh, assigned by CSIS and paid by the RCMP, there would have been no terrorist conspiracy at all.
In fact, minus Canada's new US-compliant Anti-Terrorism Act, the most he could have been charged with is shoplifting some items that were not even used in the RCMP/CSIS plot to, uh, blow up the Houses of Parliament, CBC, and CSIS (although they weren't sure where these buildings were), and behead Prime Minister Paul Martin (having failed to note he was no longer PM)

Let's review, courtesy of Thomas Walkom, our young convicted terrorist's complicity in the plot :

He did not make bombs or buy guns. Nor did he advocate doing so.
He did not threaten to kill anyone, did not call for holy war, did not pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
He did not even badmouth Canada's military efforts in Afghanistan.

His most damning entry on the audio tapes helpfully provided by Mr Mehta, who testified along with the other crown witness at the kid's trial in September that he believed him to be innocent, was to ask if "if Muslims can use Nivea cream".

So what was he convicted of ?

Walkom explains Superior Court Justice John Sproat's guilty verdict last September :

"Under the anti-terror legislation, the government doesn't need to prove an accused terrorist took part in or even knew about a specific plot.
All it has to prove is that he knowingly participated in the activities of a terrorist group and contributed either directly or indirectly to anything "enhancing" its abilities."

Oh well - the kid definitely qualifies then.
As RCMP/CSIS fatcamp troop leader and prosecution star witness Mubin Shaikh testified at the kid's trial, he convinced the reluctant teen to attend the training camp by telling him it was a religious retreat:

"I don't believe that (he) is a terrorist," he said outside the courtroom.
"I don't believe he should've been put through what he was put through, but that's our system." Shaikh said he did not believe that the defendant was aware of the group's violent plans."

And yet under "our system", if the kid's lawyers are not successful in overturning his conviction by a sole judge, the kid could get ten years for, as Hysperia remarked in comments at the time, "something that someone else might have been doing without his knowledge."
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Related posts :
Canada's first anti-terrorism conviction
Toronto18/ Paintball 11/ Tim Hortons 10 video footage
A load of fertilizer
Clowncar terrorism - Update #2
Clowncar terrorism
RCMP, now with free delivery
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Update : May 23, 2009 : Sentence of 30 months reduced to time served.
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