Tories Strike Out

So the Harpocrites want to introduce another American innovation into Canada, the Three Strikes law. Which has not reduced crime but increased the Prison Industrial complex in the U.S.

Those who would pass such laws should have to abide by them.

Strike One

"Why did the prime minister make misleading statements about Conservative party donations and possible illegal fundraising practices that the parliamentary secretary cannot possibly defend in the House?" asked Liberal Leader Bill Graham. The controversy over the fundraising rules stems from the 2005 Conservative party convention. This spring, the party revealed it had not declared delegate convention fees as political donations as other parties do, defending the omission by saying the convention did not make a profit.

Strike Two

Also Wednesday, the Tories were asked to respond to charges the party is favouring former insiders who are now lobbying government. A member of the team that helped Harper make the transition into government was later given a contract to do public relations work on the Accountability Act. A report said she submitted a bill for $13,462.

Strike Three

Opposition politicians were also fired up over revelations that the name of a reporter who was seeking information under the Access to Information Act was divulged to Harper's office.



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Space Litter

Do we now have to start a campaign to stop litter in space? Its bad enough on our streets and in our parks. Now it has downed the Atlantis return mission. Not once, not twice, but three times. Mysterious objects in space, UFOs, or that's what happens when you flush your garbage into the galaxy. Shuttle Landing Delay: UFO or Litter?

Sheesh. How do they know it ain't the three missing bolts that floated off during the repairs. Of course space litter could also be from exploded satellites from the undeclared war in space.

Litter, garbage, the result of the planned obsolescence the throw away culture of of capitalism in space. And wait till we get more space tourists. More litter. Duck here comes another one.....

Tossed in space, litter-ally

It's a junkyard out there in space, and sometimes astronauts accidentally contribute to the litter.

In 1965, the first American spacewalker, Ed White, lost a spare glove when he went outside for the first time. From that time on, astronauts have accidentally added some of the more unusual items to the 100,000 pieces of space trash that circle Earth.

In July, spacewalker Piers Sellers sheepishly reported that he lost a spatula. Nicknamed "spatsat" by space junk watchers, it will return to Earth in a fireball early next month.

This week the Atlantis astronauts made their own contributions to the space debris in low orbit when a couple of bolts escaped from the addition they were connecting to the International Space Station.

ESA Science & Technology: Space is big, but not big enough

According to Douglas Adams, in his famous book The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, space is big. However, it seems near-Earth space is not big enough. In December 2001, the Space Shuttle pushed the International Space Station away from a discarded Russian rocket booster that was due to pass uncomfortably close. Space litter is a growing problem but smarter satellite design may help in the future

MSW Management | Beyond The Pail

"Marking" litter is currently an especially acute problem in space. When we earthlings began our space exploration, we followed an age-old tradition. Pioneers and explorers have always done whatever it takes to "get there" the first time and have given little or no thought to what they leave behind or no thought at all to cleaning up after themselves. Note that the Mars record to date is that two out of every three "lander" missions have produced nothing but space junk!

When, however, standard roadside litter is compared to the discard of "official" EPA hazardous wastes - lead-acid car batteries or industrial canisters full of used solvents or nuclear wastes - many of us also believe that the litter we're used to seeing takes a secondary place.

But what happens to this view when items common in refuse and litter - such as French fries or plastic bags - get frozen solid and hit you or anything else at a speed of 20,000 ft/sec? If you are traveling in the same direction at the same speed, the litter will just float alongside; but if you are going at some other angle, and especially if you are moving in the opposite direction, it could shoot right through you! Ouch!

COSMIC LITTER:
Japan Moves to Counter Space Debris (June 30, 1998)

Space is getting to be a crowded neighborhood. (Courtesy of NASDA)

Japan is taking steps to clean up the space debris that is hurtling around Earth at tremendous speeds, threatening to collide with satellites and render them useless. There are said to be about 35 million objects, large and small, that can be classified as space debris, including pieces of rockets and satellites launched in the past. Japan's countermeasures include construction of a facility to monitor debris by radar and a telescope to help skirt collisions. In the future, Japan hopes to apply its strength in unmanned robot technology to develop a satellite that could collect the litter flying around Earth.

SEE:

Space

NASA

Space Station


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An Antidote to Bush

The right wing blogosphere, and I include some American liberal bloggers under this heading, are all agog at the references made by the democratically elected, two time winner in a landslide, President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez to George Bush being the Devil.

Why all the fuss? Bush already defined his cosmological war as one between good and evil. Bush and bin Laden’s Binary Manicheanism: The Fusing of Horizons

Now what else would you call a guy who thinks he talks to God? Which God? The God of the Pope? The God of Pat Robertson? The God of Sisterani? The G-D of Israel? Or his own personal God.

Hugo Chavez has been well taught by the Jesuits. He understands that if you hear voices from God you are probably either talking to the God of this World, the Devil as the Manicheans understood, or in need of a psychiatrist.

Chavez covers both bases. And in typical Chavez tongue in cheek humour he ends with the typical American Presidential sign off.....May God Bless You all.

Chavez is right on when he says; The United States is “the gravest threat looking over our planet, placing at risk the very survival of the human species.” Everyone but the American Establishment, Conservative or Liberal, and Harper get that.

And hey he promotes Noam Chomsky as an antitode to George Bush. There are two Americas, in the Manichean New World Order of today.

Here are excerpts of his speech courtesy of the New York Times and Toronto Star....

“Yesterday, the devil came here,” Mr. Chávez said, alluding to Mr. Bush’s appearance before the General Assembly on Tuesday. “Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.”

Then Mr. Chávez made the sign of the cross, brought his hands together as if in prayer and glanced toward the ceiling.

“Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.”

“I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement by the president of the United States,” Mr. Chávez went on. “As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

“An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘The Devil’s Recipe.’ ”

“Wherever he looks, he sees extremists,” said Mr. Chávez, who won office by defeating a businessman educated at Yale, Mr. Bush’s alma mater. “He looks at your color, and he says, ‘Oh, there’s an extremist.’ Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.”

Chavez held up a 2003 book by American leftist writer Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, and said it was recommended reading for the General Assembly. "You can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination," Chavez said. "They say they want to impose a democratic model, but that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites.''

“We appeal to the people of the United States to halt this threat, like a sword hanging over our heads,” Mr. Chávez said.

“It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us, and I embrace you all,” he said. “May God bless us all. Good day to you.”

And here is his entire speech...well worth the read.




Read This Book.....

PRESIDENT CHAVEZ DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

"Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it. Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.]

"It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet. The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.

It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself]

"And it smells of sulfur still today."

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."

Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.

I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."

That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.

But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?

He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.

This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'

The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.

And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?

And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.

And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.

Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's (ph) yesterday, or President Mullah's (ph). Yes, it's good for that.

And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.

But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.

Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.

The first is expansion, and Mullah (ph) talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.

Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.

Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.

Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.

Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.

Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.

Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.

Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.

The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.

And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.

But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.

Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.

And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.

Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.

As Sylvia Rodriguez (ph) says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?

What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.

We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.

Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.

And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.

And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.

And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.

And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.

And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.

Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.

But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.

And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.

But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.

And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.

And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.

Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.

So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.

With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.

CHAVEZ (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.

And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.

You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.

May God bless us all. Good day to you.

(APPLAUSE)

END



SEE:

Chavez

Gnostic



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Western Slander On Arar

Well I guess we won't be getting an apology from Ezra and the gang over their slanders against Mahar Arar and his family. The slagging and smearing continues in the ignoble press of the right in Canada. The tinfoil hat brigade is in denial. Talk about consipiracy theories the author of this little missive and the follow up commentators actually believe a Judge who spent two years in a public inquiry doesn't have all the facts. I guess they do...the ones they make up to continue slander Arar and his family.

That said, there is still at least one very large question O'Connor et al have not answered, for the simple reason that it is one those of us south of the 49th must address.

When we had Arar in custody, with the information (whatever its value) given to us by the Mounties, we could have sent to him to Guantanamo Bay, a slew of other military bases, or some holding facilities run by intelligence agencies in Europe.

Posted by D.J. McGuire on September 19, 2006 in Canadian Politics,

See

Arar

Ezra Levant



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What Took So Long

So the CBC finally fired this creep. And for saying impolite things on the air. He should have been fired a year ago whenCBC forced its workers out on the picket lines with a lock out. And Rabionvitch should be fired too.

Fouriner takes on the role of chairman as the CBC is tangled in a labour dispute in which it has locked out its 5,500 members of the Canadian Media Guild, mainly journalists and technicians.

See:

CBC

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And Ezra Can Apologize Too

And while we are getting apologies by folks who accused Mahar Arar of being a terrorist how about Ezra Le Rant and his Western Standard publishing a front page apology to the Arar family. These are just a few examples I am sure you can find more, and more, and more.....

Layton wants to negotiate with Taliban terrorists (is NDP star candidate, Monia Mazigh -- wife of Maher Arar -- Layton's terrorism advisor?)

Alghabra was stopped at the U.S. border and searched and fingerprinted -- whether that was by reason of demographic profiling, or because he was on a watch list is uncertain. What is certain is that Alghabra turned it into an opportunity to gain media face time, Maher Arar-style, as an anti-American, anti-security mouthpiece.

Looking for a good read? Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant reviews and recommends the latest books. Buy them today!

Confessions of An Innocent Man: Torture and Survival in a Saudi Prison
by William Sampson
McClelland and Stewart, 432 pages

Unlike Maher Arar and the Khadr terrorist family, William Sampson has not received lavish government attention and aid, nor a public inquiry. Sampson suffered torture at the hands of Saudi Arabia, and that is one regime Canada doesn't want to offend. His book is about heroism--and Canada's diplomatic cads.

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Arar

Ezra Levant



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Graham Should Step Down

He should be forced to apologize in the house and Parliament should censor him demanding he step down as leader of the opposition for his role in the Arar Affair. Parliamentary condemnation should be applied to all sitting Liberals involved in this sorid affair. Wayne Easterly is another MP that should be forced to apologize. And their parliamentary privileges should be revoked so the Arar family can sue them.

Remember this....

Documents released by the Arar Commission suggest former foreign affairs minister Bill Graham asked for Washington's help in staving off a public inquiry into the case.

In a memo marked 'secret' the director of Canada's Foreign Affairs Intelligence Division writes that Graham spoke directly with former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell about negotiating a protocol for handling future problematic security cases.

The memo says Graham pointed out to Powell that "agreeing to negotiate such a protocol would [provide] a way to deal with the pressure for a public inquiry in Canada and to turn the page of this issue."

The government did call an inquiry shortly after, but only after a politically embarrassing raid by the RCMP on the home and office of a journalist who had been investigating Arar's case.

Remember the raid... Court orders sealing the detailed reasons for national security raids against the Ottawa Citizen and reporter Juliet O'Neill violated the constitutional guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system, a judge ruled yesterday.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Lynn Ratushny said an Ottawa justice of the peace was wrong when he hastily agreed to an RCMP request to keep secret the reasons for Jan. 21, 2004, police raids on Ms. O'Neill's Ottawa home and the Citizen's downtown office to execute search warrants under the Security of Information Act.

March 9:2004

Ottawa police chief Vince Bevan admits involvement in investigating Maher Arar before he was deported to Syria.

And he is another guy that should be fired along with the Commisioner of the RCMP, the RCMP involved in the above raid and the Arar case, as well as CSIS Director General and agents involved as well as those from Foreign Affairs under Graham.

While the RCMP is likely to suffer the most devastating criticism, the report is expected to highlight the conduct of Foreign Affairs officials who testified they were unaware Arar was being tortured while in Syrian custody. Among those who addressed the inquiry was Canada's former ambassador to Syria, Franco Pillarella.

And lets not forget that none of the current Conservative Government members have clean hands in this affair. As Opposition members they pressed the government to treat Arar as a criminal terrorist.

However, Mr. Harper, who has been in office since January, previously led a party known as the Canadian Alliance, which had called Mr. Arar a dangerous terrorist and attacked efforts by the earlier Liberal government to secure his release.

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Arar

CIA



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Right Whinger Decries Arar Inquiry

Speaking of words coming back to haunt one here is a comment from the Rightwhingnut Front Page magazine round table forum on Terrorism in Canada.
Handwringing rightwhinger Patrick Grady proclaims he is worried that the Arar inquiry will further limit the police state in Canada. How right he was.

FrontPage magazine.com :: Symposium: Terror From the North July 2006

Patrick Grady, an economic consultant from Ottawa and the author of Royal Canadian Jihad, a novel about Islamic terrorists in Canada, which prefigured the recent Toronto bomb plot.

The only person who has actually been prosecuted under the Anti-Terrorism Act was Momin Khawaja and he was apprehended thanks to British police and U.S. intelligence, and not Canadian police work. Instead of vigorously pursuing radical Islamists, the former Liberal Government was more concerned with avoiding any perceptions that the rights of ultra-sensitive Muslim Canadians might possibly be violated. It also gave the Muslim community exactly the wrong signal by allowing the notorious Khadrs back into the country to sponge off Canada’s generous welfare and health systems when they should have had their Canadian citizenship revoked.

Following the return to Canada of Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar who was rendered to Syria by the United States for interrogation, the old Liberal Government set up the Arar Inquiry to look into RCMP and CSIS wrongdoing in providing information on Arar to the Americans. Against this backdrop, it also issued some ministerial directives that clamped down on RCMP national security probes. One required the RCMP to obtain prior ministerial approval before cooperating with or entering into a working arrangement with a foreign security or intelligence service and then only allowed this through CSIS. Another directive provided guidance on investigating "sensitive sectors" of society like religion. This was done to restrict the ability of the RCMP and CSIS to carry out U.S.-style investigations of mosques and Islamic centers, which have resulted in so many successful prosecutions south of the border. As far as I know, these three directives are still in effect, although when I asked the RCMP Commissioner about them in a public forum, he denied that they existed.

My greatest fear is that when the Arar Commission issues its long-awaited report this summer it will recommend additional constraints on law enforcement and intelligence, which the new Conservative Government will feel forced to go along with in response to the political pressure likely to be exerted by the many soft-hearted, and soft-headed, Canadians concerned to do penance for the way the big, bad American Government treated poor, little Maher Arar. If so, it will play right into the hands of the terrorists and make it much more difficult for the RCMP to continue to do the job they did so admirably last month in Toronto.

See

Arar

CIA



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Kettle Pot Black

The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran has waged a 20-year armed campaign to overthrow the ayatollahs. Conservative Foreign Affairs critic Stockwell Day said the group, also known as MEK, has confined its attacks to military and regime targets and that Public Security Minister Anne McLellan has twisted the meaning of the word "terrorism."
Thu, 26 May 2005 Terrorist designation of group meant to appease Iran

Gee Stock you could say the same thing about Hezbollah, Hamas and the Tamil Tigers, all banned by the Conservative government as terrorist organizations. Yes I know this is old news but I came across it looking for something else, and thought in light of recent pronouncements from the Gnu Government of Canada on terrorism it was worthy of repeating; one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.


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Ignatieff; Bush's Useful Idiot

Ignatieff remains Bush's 'useful idiot', a wonderful twist on the old Cold War phrase, despite his attempts to distance himself from the White House. Even in Liberal Leadership debates he refuses to denounce the invasion of Iraq.Ignatieff takes fire over his position on Iraq


Bush’s Useful Idiots :: Tony Judt: Whatever happened to American liberalism?
London Review of Books

To be sure, Bush’s liberal supporters have been disappointed by his efforts. Every newspaper I have listed and many others besides have carried editorials criticising Bush’s policy on imprisonment, his use of torture and above all the sheer ineptitude of the president’s war. But here, too, the Cold War offers a revealing analogy. Like Stalin’s Western admirers who, in the wake of Khrushchev’s revelations, resented the Soviet dictator not so much for his crimes as for discrediting their Marxism, so intellectual supporters of the Iraq War – among them Michael Ignatieff, Leon Wieseltier, David Remnick and other prominent figures in the North American liberal establishment – have focused their regrets not on the catastrophic invasion itself (which they all supported) but on its incompetent execution. They are irritated with Bush for giving ‘preventive war’ a bad name.

What I felt was disappointing about a lot of Canadian opposition to the war was that very few people seemed to give a damn about the human-rights situation," Ignatieff says. "Very few seemed to care that peace had the consequence of leaving 26 million people inside a really odious tyranny."

Macleans.ca | Culture | Books | SMART GUY, EH?

NY Times March 14, 2004

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

The Year of Living Dangerously

By MICHAEL IGNATIEFF

o I supported an administration whose intentions I didn't trust, believing that the consequences would repay the gamble. Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences. An administration that cared more genuinely about human rights would have understood that you can't have human rights without order and that you can't have order once victory is won if planning for an invasion is divorced from planning for an occupation. The administration failed to grasp that from the first moment an American tank column took a town, there had to be military police and civilian administrators following behind to guard museums, hospitals, water-pumping stations and electricity generators and to stop looting, revenge killings and crime. Securing order would have meant putting 250,000 troops into the invasion as opposed to 130,000. It would have meant immediately retaining and retraining the Iraqi Army and police, instead of disbanding them. The administration, which never tires of telling us that hope is not a plan, had only hope for a plan in Iraq.

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Liberal Leadership Race

Ignatieff


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