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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Underwriting police brutality in BC

Lifting the arms of a handcuffed man up behind his back while tripping him facefirst onto a concrete cell floor causing skull fracture and permanent brain damage is "more force than was necessary" but not "police brutality", according to Robert Hutchison, retired B.C. Supreme Court Justice acting as adjudicator for the B.C. Police Complaint Commission yesterday.

The police constable, Greg Smith, has since been suspended with pay after being arrested last month over allegations of uttering threats in connection with an unrelated domestic dispute.

The victim, Thomas McKay, was at the time a Comosun College student arrested for public drunkenness after celebrating the end of his exams. He is incapable of attending the hearing.
The incident occurred in April 2004.

2004? Why is the BCPCC just getting to this now?

The Victoria Police Dept twice tried to dismiss McKay's complaints as unsubstantiated.
An earlier examination of the case by the Deputy Chief of the Victoria Police Department Bill Naughton in 2006 and again in 2007, which included the same police video tape of Const. Greg Smith sweeping McKay's feet out from under him, concluded that allegations of abuse against Const. Smith were not warranted, so no disciplinary measures were necessary.
The City of Victoria, however, reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed amount in a civil lawsuit filed by McKay’s family. The settlement binds him to confidentiality.

Meanwhile, Willow Kinloch, who was awarded $60,000.00 in her police brutality claim against the Victoria Police when she was 15, has been informed that the police plan to appeal the jury's decision in her case.

We pay for the police, we pay for the chiefs who absolve police brutality, we pay for the hearings, we pay for the settlements to victims, we pay for the police appeals to the settlements, and ultimately we pay for lack of public trust in the police.
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Iggy prepares to "swallow hard"

Congratulations, Libs. Tomorrow will mark the 45th time in a row that you have sat on your hands in Parliament because you can't afford to fight an election because no one gives money to fight elections to parties that sit on their hands in Parliament.

Iggy - PM if necessary but not necessarily PM - did go all medieval schoolmarmy on they Con ass, demanding regular quarterly progress reports on how the budget plan he had just finished lambasting was progressing.

G&M :

"We're putting this government on probation," Mr. Ignatieff said.
By 4 p.m., the government, relieved that the conditions did not require more substantive concessions, accepted the amendment, saying that providing updates to Parliament and facing votes wasn't really a new burden.
"This is nothing new. … We always report back to Parliament," Government House Leader Jay Hill said.
"The amendment just states the obvious, so we're very pleased to comply with it as we move forward."

Shorter Jay Hill : Swallow harder, bitch.
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Steve and Kory ready their shovels

Yes that is the original meaning of CBC's new favourite phrase.

h/t The Phrase Freak

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Flaperty's little fixer-upper

Thus far the only party that hasn't made up its mind about Steve's budget is the Libs - all the others hate it.
Will Iggy pass it to avoid an election? No one wants an election - the Libs are too broke and the Harpercon base are too furious with him for his "liberal" budget to show up.

So what's your vote worth to Steve?
They propose to add a $6 billion stimulus package to the $13 billion deficit they had already racked up so far and which they presumably wished to hide within this economic crisis package. We will all get $199 to $599 each, unless you're really poor in which case you'll only get $33. If you're on a fixed low income, you get nothing.

Six out of 10 Canadians pay into EI but still won't be eligible to receive it - no change there.

If you can afford to spend up to $10,000 on a home reno, you'll get a 15% tax credit on it next year if you get it done by Feb 2010. Renters - bupkiss.

Personal income tax exemption will go up from the $10,100 already scheduled for 2009 to $10,320. That's 2.2%.

Every dollar the feds put into infrastructure will be contingent on the provinces and municipalities ponying up 73 cents to match it - although Flaperty says they'll be able to get around this and Iggy is going to challenge it.

Did I mention banks will get at least $200 billion with no upper dollar limit? Plus that $4.4 billion in cuts to business taxes?

Here's the real story.
The whole purpose of tax cuts is to reduce the size and role of government in the long term. Less childcare, education, health and social security; more P3s and deregulation.
So for all the flap about the Cons throwing money around, this is still ultimately a neocon ReformaTory budget.
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Dear Canadian Media : Last call for slagging the coalition

... before parliament returns from its 53 day hiatus - after sitting for only 12 days following Steve's October surprise election - due to what the NYTimes headline referred to as :

"Canadian leader shuts Parliament in bid to keep power"

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How's that coalition slagging going, by the way? Just the last couple of days worth :

Calgary Herald : Coalition power play no longer makes sense to grits

NaPo : The coalition is dead.

Gazette : Gilles Duceppe might be sorry he backed coalition

Guelph Mercury : Ignatieff should denounce coalition

NaPo again : Time to put coalition corpse to rest

AP : Coalition forces kill 15 shepherds

Oh, sorry, scratch that last one. Wrong coalition - that one's from our coalition with the US in Afghanistan

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First prize, for the best gratuitous reference to Obama in the cause of slagging the coalition, goes to Don Martin in NaPo :

"President Barack Obama is right. It's time to set aside childish things.
Specifically for Canada, that means an end to that coalition..."

NaPo also snags second prize for "The opposition does not care about Canada" , a compendium of reader's comments - half of which blame the media for promoting the coaliton!

And so it goes ...

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With thanks to April Reign for the coalition logo

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Israel will defend soldiers against war crimes charges

CTV : The Israeli government will defend soldiers against any war-crimes charges they may face related to civilian deaths that occurred during Israel's three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that special legal teams would be appointed for soldiers, who he promised would receive the full support of the Israeli government.
"The state of Israel will fully back those who acted on its behalf," Olmert said. "The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals."

What exactly is the legal defence for executing nine year olds at close range with two bullets to the head ?

h/t Gene @ Filasteen in comments at the Beav
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Off-duty cops : "We don't like brown people"

Last night's TV news coverage of the three off-duty Vancouver area cops arrested for robbery and assault of a newspaper delivery man early Wednesday morning featured the snippet that police were investigating the possibility that the three cops had been slipped some kind of drug.

Really?
What kind of drug causes three young innocent police officers to allegedly rob a newsie and kick him repeatedly in the head while allegedly yelling, "We don't like brown people" ?
What kind of drug would make them allegedly threaten him with a TASER™ and other appalled bystanders with violence after allegedly commandeering a corvette for their alleged convenience?
Feel free to add as many more "allegedly's" as you think the situation requires, given that there were witnesses to the beating, including the taxi driver who witnessed the entire event and the municipal workers who attempted to stop it with shovels.

And the police who allegedly told the victim not to talk to the media? Were they also slipped a drug?

B.C.'s Attorney General Wally Oppal on Friday asked the public to "keep an open mind."
Vancouver Chief Const. Jim Chu says "the public should have confidence in the police investigation".

"For the sake of preserving the public's respect and belief in the integrity of that process, I believe it is important to reassure them on this matter."

Statistics released by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner in November showed that 106 municipal police officers were guilty of misconduct between Oct. 1, 2006, and Oct. 1, 2008. That's about one a week.

The previous chief of the Vancouver Police Department, Jamie Graham, was found guilty of discreditable conduct for failing to cooperate in an RCMP investigation into allegations of police brutality. He "retired" in August 2007 and moved to Victoria, coming out of retirement to become Victoria's police chief on Jan 1st this year.

Fisk, Grossman, Frum : On talking to Hamas

Robert Fisk : So far, Obama's missed the point on Gaza...
"It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn't the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to "slaughtered innocents", but these were not quite the "slaughtered innocents" the Arabs had in mind.
There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks he's the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the "full partnership" Obama has apparently offered him, whatever "full" means. And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.

The friendly message to Muslims, "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect", simply did not address the pictures of the Gaza bloodbath at which the world has been staring in outrage. Yes, the Arabs and many other Muslim nations, and, of course, most of the world, can rejoice that the awful Bush has gone. So, too, Guantanamo. But will Bush's torturers and Rumsfeld's torturers be punished? Or quietly promoted to a job where they don't have to use water and cloths, and listen to men screaming?"


An inaugural address is kind of like a birthday card, I guess - not really the appropriate venue to point out the recipient's various moral failings. And it's early days yet, although an Obama cabinet that includes Dennis Ross, Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton may never get further than promoting "blood transfusions".


Israeli writer David Grossman, front page of Tuesday's Haaretz :
"When the guns become completely silent, and the full scope of the killing and destruction becomes known, to the point where even the most self-righteous and sophisticated of the Israeli psyche's defense mechanisms are overcome, perhaps then some kind of lesson will imprint itself on our brain. Perhaps then we will finally understand how deeply and fundamentally wrong our actions in this region have been from time immemorial - how misguided, unethical, unwise and above all, responsible, time after time, for fanning the flames that consume us.

We must speak to the Palestinians : Instead of ignoring Hamas at this time, we would do better to take advantage of the new reality that has been created by beginning a dialogue with them immediately, one that would allow us to reach an accord with the whole of the Palestinian people. We must speak to them and begin to acknowledge that reality is not one hermetic story that we, and the Palestinians, too, have been telling ourselves for generations. Reality is not just the story we are locked into, a story made up, in no small measure, of fantasies, wishful thinking and nightmares."


Canada's creepy one-time speech writer for George Bush on talking to Hamas, Reuters :
"U.S. analyst David Frum said talking to violent men was "an invitation to more violence."
He wrote: "Advocates of talks with terrorists often present themselves as pragmatists. Not so. They are guided by unstated biases and pure wishful thinking."


Surely the very definition of wishful thinking here is expecting to achieve any kind of peace by ignoring Gaza's democratically elected government and the people being punished for electing them.

How's that "ceasefire" going?

(Reuters) : Israel completes Gaza troop withdrawal
"Israel completed a troop pullout from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Wednesday, starting its relationship with U.S. President Barack Obama by leaving Palestinian land devastated by its 22-day offensive.
"We've redeployed on our side of the frontier and we will follow events closely," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "If Hamas breaks the ceasefire, we of course reserve the right to act to protect our people."

Meanwhile, today : Israeli gunboat fire wounds 2 Gazans
"An Israeli gunboat firing off the shores of Gaza City has wounded a man and a girl.
The Israeli military says it was firing to deter a Palestinian fishing vessel that had strayed off-limits.
A shell fired by the boat hit a house in a beachside refugee camp. Another shell landed about 100 yards (meters) away in an empty area near a U.N. aid distribution center."

Yesterday Israeli troops shot and killed two Gaza farmers along the border - 28 year old Kassab and 18 year old Ibrahim. Amy Goodman interviews their surviving brother.

Israel has told the United Nations and other aid groups they must apply for project-by-project Israeli approval and provide guarantees none of the work will benefit Hamas, Western and Palestinian officials said.
Israel, the officials said, is also preventing the Western-backed Palestinian Authority from transferring cash to the Gaza Strip to pay its workers and others hard-hit by war.