Back In the USSA

As the Anarchist Sci-Fi writer Mack Reynolds used to posit in many of his novels the difference between the KGB and the CIA was the difference between the Military Industrial Complex in America and the Military Industrial Complex in the USSR.

Today that difference has all but disappeared. As old enemies now become clients in the privatized world of secret rendition. Secret CIA jails hosted by Poland, Romania: watchdog

See:

Lagrange 5


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Free Kadhar

The 'liberal humanist' government of Stephen Harper denounces China for holding a Canadian citizen incommunicado, without access by Canadian Embassy staff, for the use of torture, forced confession, illegal arrest and show trial. His crime is to be a Muslim who is accused of terrorism.

Yet when the US of A does it well that's okay.

US can deal with terror suspects without flouting its own laws

The facade of due process and respect for international law that United States President George W. Bush has tried to attach to the treatment of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay slipped again this week.

The decision by a military judge to dismiss all charges against Omar Khadr will be a slight embarrassment for the Bush administration, since it was based on what appears to be a flaw in the law written specifically to prosecute prisoners held on the American base in Cuba. But it will make little difference to Khadr, at least in the short term. The 20-year-old Canadian has been held for the past five years in Guantanamo after being captured in Afghanistan where, at the age of 15, he allegedly killed an American soldier and wounded another with a grenade.

Before Khadr's trial began this week, a Bush administration spokesman made it clear that even if he were to be acquitted by the military tribunal, he would most likely continue to be held as enemy combatant for as long as the war on terror goes on.

In this case, although he was captured in combat in a country that had been invaded by the United States and its allies, Khadr was not considered to be a prisoner of war. Nor was he arrested for murder under either the laws of Afghanistan, where the death occurred, or the U.S.

Instead the administration made up its own rules, which allow prisoners to held indefinitely without charge, to be tortured -- humanely, of course --to be shipped around the world and to be denied basic legal protections given to the worst criminals in the U.S.

The Canadian Government,regardless of it's political ideology, is expected to defend it's citizens or the party in power has no right to govern if it fails it's citizens.

In this case the whole of Parliament, all the parties that make up the State, have failed to do their duty to defend an underage Canadian citizen who has been illegally confined by the Americans. No questions were raised in the House of Commons this week by any opposition party. And while their silence was deafening that of the Government roared disinterest.

While it is easy to see why Canadian politicians and officials don't want to touch the Khadr case with a barge pole, their silence has been seen by some as an unconscionable endorsement of an increasingly suspect U.S. policy.

This is particularly the case considering the very public complaints that have come from Canadian officials -- including the prime minister -- about China's treatment of terrorist suspect Huseyin Celil, a Canadian-Chinese citizen arrested while he was travelling in Asia on a Canadian passport.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was right to take China to task over the Celil case. But he should have been just as forceful with the American government on Khadr.

Harper ignores citizen's right to due process

Canada still mute as Guantanamo circus continues

It is true that Khadr is no model citizen, coming from a family whose father raised his children to be warriors for jihad.

It is also true that everyone, no matter their guilt or innocence, deserves a fair hearing in a legitimate court of due process.

When that fails to occur for a Canadian citizen in a foreign land, it is imperative that the Canadian government stand up for that citizen's right to a proper trial.

Stephen Harper understands this, repeatedly criticizing China for its shady handling of Canadian citizen Huseyin Celil, recently sentenced in secret to life in prison on questionable terrorism-related charges.

Harper carries a much different line on Khadr. Not wanting to offend his war-on-terror pal George W. Bush, Harper and his government -- much like the previous Liberal regime -- remains silent on the Khadr matter.

The opposition parties aren't much better, apparently fearing that support for Khadr's right to a fair trial may be portrayed as being "soft of terrorism."

Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP MP Joe Comartin briefly broke the silence this week by demanding the Harper regime get more involved in Khadr's file.

Here is a Law and Order government that refuses to defend it's own citizens and one who is 'underage', a mere child when he was kidnapped by the U.S. Government.

There we have it the Americans have imprisoned a Canadian underage child, kidnapping him, denying him the right to a fair trial,the very basis of common law broken, violated. Now one would think that those who profess to uphold moral virtues as politics would publicly abhor these actions.

Especially our Conservative Government which has made an issue out of both increasing the age of consent from 14 to 16 and to decreasing the age for which felonious crimes can be charged. They are so concerned with the rights of children unless of course it is Omar Kadhar.

Instead they acquiesce to the American State, and it's right post 9/11, to become a fascist state.

Report: 39 Secretly Imprisoned by US

An alliance of human rights groups has determined the U.S. is secretly detaining 39 terror suspects. Names of the so-called "ghost detainees" were published in a report released Thursday.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and four other groups, agreed on the list which was compiled from interviews with former prisoners and officials in the U.S., Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen.

"What we're asking is where are these 39 people now, and what's happened to them since they 'disappeared'?" Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Factbox: secret CIA prisons in Europe

Bush to arrive in Rome during 'CIA rendition' trial

SEE:

State Sponsored Terrorism

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New Math

This has to be some form of new math, right.

Terrorism suspect Mohamed Mahjoub will soon be living again in Toronto with his wife and two young sons after spending almost seven years behind bars without charges.

Because if he has been in jail for seven years on terrorism charges, counting backward on my fingers that means;he was arrested in 2000 a year before 9/11 and two years before the Security Act was passed and several years before they built Gitmo North in Kingston.

And if he was not allowed to know the charges against him or see the evidence in denial of habeas corpus, then we already had a paranoid security state in place in Canada before 9/11!!!

My gawd that means we have been living in a police state for seven years and it had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9/11.

But thats nothing new; Canada's First Internment Camps




h/t to verbena-19

SEE

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

CIA

Torture

RCMP

CSIS

Arar

Crime

Terrorism



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Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

Harper admits he wants more law-and-order judges

So that they can stop liberal judges from doing this;

Yesterday in Toronto, a judge ruled it didn't make any sense to keep a sick, 46-year-old man who has not been charged with any crime locked up for almost seven years.

We haven't gained our equilibrium yet. Egyptian refugee claimant Mohamed Mahjoub may be able to rejoice now that Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley has allowed him to be detained under house arrest rather than in a special jail built just outside of Kingston. But there are still two other immigrants there who have been imprisoned for years without charge.

This won't solve all of the defects of the anti-terror laws. The legislation continues to give the government sweeping powers to outlaw any organization it wishes – and then treat anyone who has ever been a supporter of such an organization as a terrorist.

The word "terrorist" is defined so broadly that it can include not just those who commit or plan terrorist acts but those who use symbols associated with terrorism.

See

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

CIA

Torture

RCMP

CSIS

Arar

Crime

Terrorism



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Saudis Threaten Oil Production World Wide

The armed Islamicist faction of the Saudi State, bin-Laden Inc. issued a statement yesterday saying that competitor oil producing nations could be targeted for attacks.

An Arabian-peninsula-based terrorist website encouraging attacks on oil installations in Canada, Mexico and Venezuela to disrupt the U.S. economy. A statement on the al-Qaida Voice of Holy War e-magazine said “it is necessary to hit oil interests in all regions which serve the United States, not just in the Middle East.”

The Saudis are worried that the U.S. move to reduce its reliance on their oil, hence their involvement in the war in Iraq, they are Sunni's after all, a fact overlooked in all the finger pointing at Iran.

Nawaf Obaid, a security advisor to the Saudi monarchy, said in an article from the Washington Post:

...therefore the Saudi leadership is preparing to substantially revise its Iraq policy. Options now include providing Sunni military leaders (primarily ex-Baathist members of the former Iraqi officer corps, who make up the backbone of the insurgency) with the same types of assistance -- funding, arms and logistical support -- that Iran has been giving to Shiite armed groups for years. Another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias.

Another possibility includes the establishment of new Sunni brigades to combat the Iranian-backed militias. Finally, Abdullah may decide to strangle Iranian funding of the militias through oil policy. If Saudi Arabia boosted production and cut the price of oil in half, the kingdom could still finance its current spending. But it would be devastating to Iran, which is facing economic difficulties even with today's high prices. The result would be to limit Tehran's ability to continue funneling hundreds of millions each year to Shiite militias in Iraq and elsewhere.

The sub-text of this article is clear. If American troops walk out of the Iraqi Armageddon, Saudi Arabia will walk in, not with troops but with oil, funds and possibly proxies, chosen from among the various Iraqi Sunni forces, both old and new. This is a clear warning to disaffected American constituencies who are calling for the return of their troops. Once again, Saudi Arabia is serving the interests of the Bush administration by calling on Americans to stay in Iraq because the alternative is going to be worse. When asked if Saudi engagement in Iraq would precipitate a regional war, Obaid replied “so be it, the consequences of inaction are far worse.”

Now that Bush has said for a second time that the U.S. needs to reduce its reliance on Saudi oil, and the Democrats concur the Saudis have again unleashed their puppets in Binladen Inc.

Al-Qaida has called for terrorist strikes against Canadian oil and natural gas facilities to "choke the U.S. economy." An online message, posted Thursday by the al-Qaida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula, declares "we should strike petroleum interests in all areas which supply the United States ... like Canada," the No. 1 exporter of oil and gas to the United States. Three western countries are mentioned in the call-to-arms -- Canada first, followed by Mexico and Venezuela. Would-be attackers are instructed to specifically target oilfields, pipelines, loading platforms and carriers.

Al-Qaeda's beliefs are those of Salafism, which originates in the Saudi Arabia as the State religion.

While a number of CIA veterans have written about Islamic extremism, Sageman's treatise provides the most detailed account of how Al Qaeda emerged from the rubble of war-torn Afghanistan to become the vanguard of a Sunni Muslim revivalist movement known as Salafism (deriving from salaf the Arab word for "ancient one"), which calls for the restoration of "authentic Islam" through the violent overthrow of the established order. Social bonds have played a more formative role than ideology in the growth of "the global Salafi jihad," as Sageman calls it, which became leaner and meaner and increasingly radicalized. "Conceptually we failed," admits Robert Baer, a former officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, who was right in the thick of things in the Middle East and Central Asia during his twenty-one-year cloak-and-dagger career. "We didn't consider Sunni Islam to be a threat to the West. We didn't want to see it."

Al-Qaeda attacked one of the Saudi refineries last year, but that was a feint. The refinery was not destroyed and conveniently the 'terrorists' were executed on the spot. Had the Saudis wanted to they could have found out who was behind this. Just as Jordan had, when attacked by Zarqawi's forces. But when you fund terrorist organizations in the game of geopolitics, plausible deniability is the name of the game, not ending terrorism.

Saudi Arabia and Global Terrorism: From al-Qaeda to Hamas

The Saudis welcome the current U.S. focus on Iran, its major competitor in the region for oil and gas exports.

Earlier key Sunni Arab allies while endorsing the goals of Bush's plan, and expressing hopes of success , almost in the same breath suggested that the Shia -led government in Baghdad cannot or would not implement the plan.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was perhaps the most positive , who agreed " with the full objectives set by the new plan, the strategy." After talks with Rice earlier , he commented , "This has objectives that ... if it were applied, it will solve the problems facing Iraq." But he emphasized that it was the responsibility of the Iraq government alone. "We cannot be Iraqis more than Iraqis," Saud emphasised. "Other countries can help, but the burden, the whole burden and taking a decision will be the Iraqis'."

It was well put by the Saudi newspaper Al Jazirah which noted, "The Americans are trying to get out of the Baghdad bottleneck and they are looking for agent players in managing their conflict with Tehran to make their new strategy in Iraq successful."

Of course the Sunni Arab world would not trust Prime Minister al-Maliki's government with close ties with Shia Iran The Shias have become empowered after many centuries , courtesy Washington and would not let go .Rice did admit that" There are concerns about whether the Maliki government is prepared to take an evenhanded, nonsectarian path here. There's no doubt about that."

Intimidated and nervous, Sunni Arab rulers in Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and the Gulf are egging US to stay put in the region , to stop and roll back Iranian influence . They had acted similarly when Saudis, Kuwaitis , Emirates , Egypt , West et al had encouraged and funded 'brother Saddam' and Iraq in its 1980-88 war against a rampant Iran after the Khomeini led Shia revolution of 1979 .Iraq's Shia Arabs had fought against Iran's Revolutionary Guards and young boys seeking martyrdom .

In a recent Asia Times report, Amandeep Sandhu revealed that Saudi Arabia has boosted oil production with the express intent of lowering world oil prices and hurting Iran’s economy.

Moreover, Sandhu reports, Israel and Saudi Arabia have been engaged in secret talks that might be aimed at securing Saudi approval for Israeli overflight rights, should Israel opt to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. And, according to Sandhu, “a financial war on Iran has already begun”--noting that the Iranian parliament concedes that the country’s internal stability would be at stake if full economic sanctions were imposed.

Which explain's why this happened last summer after Israel invaded Southern Lebanon.

Leading Saudi Sheik Pronounces Fatwa Against Hezbollah

Wahhabism in the Service of American Imperialism: 
The Politics of a Fatwa

CIA funds Hizbullah rivals

The Telegraph said the American move is supported by the region heavyweight Sunni countries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as well as Israel.

It added that former Saudi ambassador in Washington Prince Bandar bin-Sultan is believed to have been closely involved in the decision to take on Hizbullah.

Prince Bandar, now King Abdullah's national security adviser, made several trips to Washington and held meetings with Elliot Abrams, the senior Middle East official on the NSC.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Bandar's successor, has resigned abruptly as ambassador to Washington last month.

Intelligence sources said that a principal reason for this was his belief he had been undermined by Prince Bandar, who had not told him of the Lebanon plan or even that he was visiting Washington.

The Israeli government, which sees Iran as its chief enemy, has also been involved.

"There's a feeling both in Jerusalem and in Riyadh that the anti-Sunni tilt in the region has gone too far," said an intelligence source.

He said the aim is to stopping Iranian hegemony in the Middle East emerging from the US invasion of Iraq.

After all the Saudi family business of Bin-Laden Inc. the parent operation is the largest engineering firm in the region which has cooperated with Bechtel and competes with Halliburton. It also owns Arbusto Energy in cooperation with the Bush regime.

With America's declaration that it wants to reduce its reliance on Saudi oil, the Saudis had to hit back. The fact they would also target Venezuela, no fan of the U.S. but a major supplier to America shows that this is aimed at allies of Iran as well as allies of America like Canada and Mexico.

Also tar sands production is the next stage in long term oil production, which will replace the need for Saudi oil. And both Alberta and Venezuela have vast reserves of oilsands coming on line.

The Saudis were worried when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Saudis helped fund the Sunni insurrection, a fact under-reported by the MSM. Partially because of the links between the Saudi Royal Family and the Bush Royal Family.

The Sunni attacks on Iraqs oil pipelines and refineries sabotaged the U.S. ability to rely on Iraq as a replacement for Saudi oil. Now the Saudis threaten their natural competition with Jihad. After all in the Saudis view it's their religious right to do so and it's in their economic and political interests.

Thanks to the Bush regime and its complicated personal business relations with the Saudis they can point the finger at al-Qaeda giving them both plausible deniability. And once again create the fictional need for more State Security in both the West and in the Middle East. We know who funds the Terrorism that the U.S. has declared war on, but of course its all one big geopolitical game of power politics between Bush Inc. and Bin-Laden Inc. A dance of the dialectic between the funders of terrorism and the funders of the war on terror.

In southern Adelaide, construction of Park Holme mosque halted this month, because the foreign minister, Alexander Downer ordered that the Saudi government should not be funding the building. The mosque had been a haunt of immigrant Warya Kanie, who was captured in Iraq last year, fighting against the coalition.

A report by terror analyst Jean-Charles Brisard, compiled for the UN Security Council in December 2002, stated that between 1992 and 2002, al-Qaeda received between $300 million and $500 million from Saudi businessmen and banks. This represented 20% of Saudi GNP.

According to Brisard, Abdullah Bin Abul Moshin al Turki, the secretary general of the Muslim World League (founded in Mecca in 1962), entered into business negotiations in Spain with Muhammad Zouaydi in 1999. Zouaydi was al-Qaida's main fundraiser in Europe. Abdullah al Turki was an adviser to the late King Fahd. In November 2003, Turki was awarded a prize by King Abdullah for his missionary work.

According to the Jamestown Foundation, the MWL spreads "radical and vehemently anti-American" propaganda, and also has an agenda specifically targeting Europe. The Saudis began a policy of globally disseminating their brand of Sunni Islam during the 1980s, as a reaction to the Iranian (Shia) revolution. According to former CIA director R. James Woolsey, the Saudis have spent nearly $90 billion spreading their ideology around the globe since the 1970s.

Al-Haramain received large donations from the Saudi royal family. Its international branches were involved in funding Al Qaeda. Omar al Faruq was al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. He was arrested by Indonesian authorities on June 5, 2002. According to Jean-Charles Brisard, al Faruq confessed: "Al Haramain was the funding mechanism of all operations in Indonesia. Money was laundered through the foundation by donors from the Middle East."

See:

Bin Laden Inc.


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More Foreign Affairs Incompetency

We need a serious shake up in the Foreign Affairs department. This is not the first time this has happened.

"Canadian diplomats failed to contact the Chinese family of Huseyin Celil for more than 10 months after the Canadian citizen was arrested,"

So while the Harpocrites saber rattle and endanger our trading relationship with China they should get their ducks in a row before beaking off.

Foreign Affairs failed to protect Maher Arar, instead acting as a conduit for CSIS.

They failed Canadian businessman William Sampson when he was arrested and tried in secret in Saudi Arabia.

The BC Civil Liberties Association has proposed a bill that would force Foreign Affairs and other Canadian government agencies to protect Canadians abroad from torture.

It is not just a case of sloppiness or bureaucratic failure it is explicit policy, based on Canada's Security Laws. All of these cases, except Sampson (but he was judged guilty of a crime, by the Suadi's, thus reluctance on the part of FA to do anything) were because the Canadians were considered terrorists by Canada's allies.

Iacobucci's remit is to examine the cases of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nurredin. All are Canadian citizens born abroad. All have been under investigation by the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or both. All ended up being jailed and tortured in Syria and (in the case of El Maati) Egypt.

As such it fits in with a longstanding cold war security regime that exists in Ottawa amongst Foreign Affairs and Intelligence services.

Britain, the US and Canada had begun talking about psychological warfare together at least as early as June 1951, when Sir Henry Tizard, the Ministry of Defence's senior scientist, met Canadian scientists and Cyril Haskins, the senior CIA researcher, in Montreal. Among the Canadians was Donald Hebb of McGill University, who was looking for funds to research "sensory deprivation" - blocking out sight, sound and touch to affect people's personality and sense of identity. Early photographs show volunteers, goggled and muffled, looking eerily similar to prisoners arriving at Guantánamo.

And while there are commentators asking why Arar did not sue his captors it is important to remember that Sampson was unable to sue Saudi Arabia as Arar was denied the right to sue Syria.

In the area of justice and oversight Canada is also failing to meet recommendations set out by the UN human rights committees. Canada must change the State Immunity Act to allow individuals to seek redress in Canadian Courts for torture and other serious human rights violations suffered abroad, says Amnesty International Canada.

Canadians cannot seek redress for torture in other countries and rejected refugees who may face the danger of torture, as the Committee against Torture has noted, are being denied a judicial review on the merits of their cases. The Committee has called for this type of review. Canada must meet this recommendation, says Amnesty International Canada, and live up to the requirement of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and establish the refugee appeal process.

After all like it or not Huseyin Celil is considered a 'terrorist' by the Chinese. And the Harper government has been quick off the mark to use that label in questionable circumstances too, like they did when in opposition alluding to Maher Arar, being a terrorist.

The Harpocrites are very selective in whom they label terrorists, for instance Jason Kenney spoke on behalf of the PM at an event held by an Iranian terrorist organization.

And let's not forget that the Harpocrites major reason for challenging China over 'human rights' is their close relationship with and support for the fascist cult the Falun Gong.

And when they banned the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization it had less to do with Sri Lanka and more to do with cutting off Liberal Party support in the Tamil community in Canada.

And recent actions by the Sri Lanken government of breaking the peace agreement and using child soldiers means that instead of being an honest broker the Canadian government choose sides like they did with Israel. And the side they choose is guilty of state terrorism.

The fact that the Karuna faction has abducted so many children in Government-controlled areas in the eastern districts of Sri Lanka raises the question why the Government has not more effectively protected those children, investigated the complaints made by the children’s families, and secured the release and return of the children from the Karuna faction camps that are located in areas under Government control.

Based on the facts and circumstances set out in this report, I have concluded that certain elements of the Sri Lankan security forces are complicit in the abduction of children by the Karuna faction, and that at least some elements of the security forces have facilitated and sometimes participated in those abductions.

Ambassador Allan Rock, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict,

Terrorism is a broad brush pejorative for labeling the supposed 'enemies of the state', whereas others would call most of these organizations National Liberation Movements and the difference is crucial.

Whether the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Kurds, or the Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel, the Canadian government is targeting as terrorists people who are, in fact "victimized refugee groups involved in an armed conflict in terms of their self-determination rights", she asserts.

But it has been deliberately obscured by the American Empire and quickly adopted by other states to justify their repression of National Liberation Movements and oppositional groups, including those engaged in armed struggle.

Once you use the ideology of the War on Terror, you throw out your right to defend your citizens accused of being terrorists. This is the catch 22 Harper finds himself in over the Celil case.

Foreign Affairs deals with state to state relations, and the Chinese State has declared Celil a terrorist. Thus Foreign Affairs deems him a security threat, just as they did with Arar.

And they do so because of what Harper prides himself on most, being the Law and Order PM. Foreign Affairs is just carrying out their operations under the existing security laws. Laws which must be changed in the interests of all Canadians, here or abroad.



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CIA

RCMP

Arar

Foreign Affairs

Terrorism

China


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