"And history seems to agree
That I would fight you for me
That us would fight them for we
Is that how it always will be?"
--Moxy Fruvous, "The Gulf War Song"
Seventeen people, alleged would-be terrorists, arrested in and around Toronto. Three tonnes of ammonium nitrate seized, along with a variety of paraphernalia meant to turn that common fertilizer into a close approximation of hell.
Brush the sleep out of your eyes, Canada. I know, you've had a nice pleasant nap since that awful dream we all had five Septembers ago, but you might want to get up and rejoin the rest of the Western world.
To summarize, then: a radical strain of Islam is at war with everyone and everything that doesn't fit their perverted vision. Then again, maybe not so perverted: "Islam", often translated as "peace", really means "surrender". To God, it's true, but people have such a nasty habit of putting themselves in God's place.
For those who have been asleep in their smug and snug little beddies, here's the toll in the major incidents so far. The two columns of numbers represent deaths on "our" side and deaths on "theirs".
9/11/2001 (New York): 3000+, 19
10/12/2002 (Bali): 201, 1
3/11/2004 (Madrid): 192, 0
7/7/2005 (London): 52, 4
A quick look at these numbers will confirm that "they" are winning. Quite resoundingly.
Now, it's alleged that at least one terror attack was planned for Toronto. Terrorists! With bombs! In our cities! In Canada! Who would have ever thought it?
Many, as it turns out. Including our own intelligence service, CSIS, which was instrumental in smashing this cell but has stated there are at least fifty more here. Oh, yes, and I thought it up, too.
All but one of these detainees is younger than I am. Five of them are too young to be named under our joke of a justice system. Yup, you read that right: they're old enough to stand trial for their part in a potential atrocity, but not old enough to be publically accountable for it.
So what foreign shore do these people hail from? Uh, Scarborough. Mississauga. A couple are from as far away as Kingston, Ontario. Good ol' Canadian boys, all. Most of them are citizens.
This isn't as shocking as it probably seems. The bombers in London were British-born and raised. As recently as last week, the head of CSIS warned that "white, Anglo-Saxon male Protestants" were being recruited to terrorist causes. Indeed, the foe puts a high price on such recruits because of their ability to blend into Canadian society. This recruitment is happening at various mosques under our very noses.
This is what happens in polite, tolerant Canada when we allow just about anyone free and easy access to the country; when we insist, not that they conform to our ideals, but that they don't; when we remain complacent to the idea that nobody could possibly want to hurt us. Memo: people do want to hurt us. To kill us. Simply because we're not them. And if they can use some of our own to effect the carnage, so much the better.
We all should pause a moment to thank the more than 400 members of
*the RCMP
*CSIS-
*Toronto Police
*Peel Region Police
*Durham Region Police
*INSET - Integrated National Security Enforcement Team
who have slain one head of the Hydra. Perhaps the best way we can thank them is to be aware that this is what they've done.
6 comments:
Ken,
We have not slain one head of the Hydra. We have lopped off one of the heads of the Hekatoncheires--the hundred-headed monster who grows another hundred heads for everyone killed, all of them smaller, but just as deadly.
It's not simply a problem with security in Canada. I refuse to be afraid to leave my goddamn house anymore. I've spent two years in self-exile, and no fucking nutjob is going to keep me here anymore.
I guarantee most of those boys/young men were reaching for something of substance in their lives, and were (like the London bombers) found by sympathetic groups who claimed to know the answers. They were (likely) given biased and potentially faulty history and motivation. They were brainwashed.
Bush's war on terror has done NOTHING but stir up more of this crap.
I can't dispute your claim of brainwashing, but do bear in mind that bin Laden and his ilk of imperialist Islamicists *long* predate Bush. Lorne Gunter said it best in today's National Post: they are not at war FOR tolerance, they are at war WITH tolerance. I'll grant you that the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan haven't helped, but in the endgame they're next to irrelevant. What motivates these people to turn Canadian citizens into terrorists isn't our actions in Afghanistan. This terrorist cell existed when our total force in Kandahar consisted of a few peacekeepers under the aegis of NATO.
Bush's "war on terror" began with 9/11, which was unprovoked. Before Bush, there was the attack on the U.S.S. COLE and the failed attack at the Twin Towers. The history books show that this is not the first time Islam has been in an expansionist phase.
Europe is feeling this phase's effects most strongly at present (witness the riots in Paris, the assassination in the Netherlands, and so on). We're up next. Mark my words.
"Bush's "war on terror" began with 9/11, which was unprovoked"
From our point of view, sure. But from the point of view of those that planned and committed the act, it was totally provoked. Ward Churchill called it "chickens coming home to roost." 50 years of American interference in the Middle East that has seen more death than we here in the west care to acknowledge. Simply because we are ignorant to their grievances (such as the over-throwing of the democratically elected Iranian government in '53 which gave rise to a brutal American backed dictatorship) doesn't mean they don't exist.
Point taken, Dodos: the more understanding people among us see why 9/11 or something like it was inevitable. You can perhaps extend that to the London bombings--if it weren't for the fact that those who committed THAT act were British-born. They were not victims, even if they chose to see themselves that way.
Likewise, these Canadian citizens were allegedly training in Canada to blow up other Canadians. (I was going to write 'their own people', there, but that can't be right, can it?) What has Canada ever done to them? What government did we overthrow in 1953?
The sooner we realize that these jihadists are motivated solely by jihad, the better...
this is SUCH a complex issue... I can see both arguments... I know there is no love lost for Americans around the world (they moved in for the kill as soon as the communists were out and they are practically buying up Hungary... then close the factories to eliminate the competition and sell their own stuff... everything is americanized and therefore stripped of its soul in exchange for the bottom line, and that's just the economic part of it...). But I also think that anyone who kills and commits acts of violence in the name of their cause is close-minded to the extreme. Religious intolerance is one of those things that I just cannot stand... Yes, believe what you want, if it makes you feel better, but leave the rest of the world out of it... Faith should be a personal thing, and certainly no reason to abuse or kill anyone. However, is there ANY religion in the world that have not been used at some point in time to commit abuse, violence and murder?
America has been the best and worst of countries over the past century, often at the same time. After any natual disaster, they're always first in to help, and help they do...and if there's a profit to be made in the helping, they'll be the ones to make it, thank you very much.
Religions that aren't used for abuse, violence and murder: well, Buddhism springs to mind. Buddhists might set THEMSELVES on fire to make a point, but they'll go out of their way to spare the lives of *ants*.
Various sorts of paganism are probably safe to live around, too.
Moving a tad closer to the North American Christian mainstream, I find it hard to imagine the Society of Friends (the "Quakers") on a rampage...
An acceptable religion, to me, is one of which you can unequivocally answer 'yes' to the following:
--does it encourage question?
--does it stress that there is no one way, no "right" way, to the gods/goddesses?
--is it rooted in each adherent's relationship with the Divine, rather than codified dogma?
There are other qualifications, but these three are critical.
Thanks for your post, flames...
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