Stronger Than A Pot of Tim Horton's.
"Three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, thrice the amount used by Timothy McVeigh to demolish a government building in Oklahoma City. Cellphone detonators. Switches. Computer hard drive. A 9-mm pistol. Soldering gun. Camouflage gear." - Toronto Star
This weekend's terrorist arrests (read this) in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) will hopefully bring a renewed - or first-time to be more specific - sense of urgency to Canadians, and are incidentally of absolutely no surprise to me. Thank God this new awareness of the realistic domesestic threat level is going to stem from this news - and not an actual flattening of the ACC, Rogers Center (Skydome) or CN Tower. I have long maintained, and you can ask multiple people who've been bored to tears by my theories, that Canada will be the next Western country hit by a major terrorist attack. The new government was a welcome power-shift for me, and Harper's era is probably just in time. Harper, from yesterday:
"The raid that netted 17 Toronto-area youth and men proves Canada is not immune to violent attacks. Canada is a target because we value freedom, democracy and the rule of law." I'm going to take a stab at another translation here, and it's not because he was speaking French - Canadians are perceived as infidels by extremists, just as surely as Americans are. We're all North Americans, and we're all fair game. A flag-on-the-knapsack works well on rude German waiters, but it might as well be a bullseye to the radicals, mon ami.
I will never forget walking back to my Boston apartment on September 11, 2001, watching people crying into their cellphones as they tried to reach or get news on their loved ones in New York City. I worked near a bonafide potential target, so was sent home around noon on that day. At the time, I had a pretty devious analog cable descrambling method, and was able to get a live feed from MuchMusic which is the equivalent of Canadian MTV (except they actually play music videos). They filled a room with high school students and passed a mike around - the opinions expressed were painful, and resonate with me to this day.
To paraphrase: "Yeah, well... like... maybe now the States will wake up and see that they can't, like, push the rest of the world around anymore or nuthin'." This distancing sort of opinion has only gotten worse over the last five years, and Iraq - regardless of how you feel about the motivations - is the first American-involved conflict that Canada has not contributed forces to in over a hundred years.
I am not going to pretend to have any special insight into world affairs. But I do read the news every day, from multiple sources, and consider myself reasonably informed. I was worried at the dialogue coming out of my home country, and I am exstatic that these bastards were nabbed by the CSIS before they could do anyone any harm. I take a great comfort in the new awareness that will likely stem from this incident. That was a close one, and there's a silver lining.
"This isn't just slumming with jihad. For the benighted who claim that the war on terrorism is terrorism: Here is your war."
UPDATE: A great editorial from the Globe and Mail.
posted by Dave Pye @ 6/04/2006 06:34:00 PM
11 Comments:
Dave.
The silver lining, (which is a ridiculous statement to begin with) will be when and if we (Canadians) do not succomb to the mass hysteria that the government and media of the U.S. inflicted on it's citizens.
I swear, if one Canadian government official, either Liberal or Conservative, tells anyone in Canada to go out and purchase duct tape and plastic to wrap their houses with, I will implode. (Do you remember this nonsense?).
If the day comes when I hear Peter Mansbridge say, "The end is nigh", I will shit a brick.
Canada has the second largest fighting force in Afghanistan and has had since 911 when citizens of MANY different countries were needlesly killed. Canada has not participated in Iraq because it had nothing to do with 911.
FOX news, Bill Oreilly or anyone else that says differently needs to check their oil.
Thanks for letting me rant.
p.s. I consider myself neither Liberal or Conservative. I simply have the good fortune of being able to watch, listen and read news from many different places on the globe.
I wish we all had the same privilege.
You mentioned 911, Bill O'Reilly and 'oil' in the same breath. You're definitely ranting.
Thanks for the comment. It doesn't change the fact that an operation capable of killing hundreds, maybe thousands, of Canadians was definitely underway and was stopped.
Canadians are vulnerable to, and being targeted for, domestic large-scale attacks, and it has nothing to do with Mr. O'Reilly. Either we'll continue to smell the Tim Hortons, or we'll be turned into dust at the next New Years Eve Hip ACC show. I'd prefer the former.
It was a wake up call, not hysteria. It happened. It's real.
Don't panic, like those lunk-headed Americans (who probably watch Fox, of course), when your country is producing homegrown terrorists. That special, overheated, American-style vigilance--not the "duct tape" kind, which, incidentally, seems a rather benign bit of hysteria, all things considered--is precisely what prevented the destruction of Toronto. So while Chomsky-on-the-night table might make you feel smart, it sure as hell won't ever make you feel safe.
And don't fall into this lazy "we are in Afghanistan, after all" trap. So? Do we surrender our morality in the face of religious extremists because it might peeve the poor lads? To oppose the Iraq War is perfectly understandable--it was, after all, an opt-in war--but opposition to the liberation and slow democratization of Afghanistan is a morally frivolous position; an action that every Canadian should be proud of.
One more point: Art seems to believe that terrorism began with 9-11, and if not for Iraq or Afghanistan, the aggrieved jihadists of Ontario would simply melt away. Wrong on almost every count. Why the attacks in Holland (Well, Theo van Gogh made a film about Islam that "offended the prophet." Maybe he shouldn't be making films)? Why the attacks (and threats...we should, of course, stop banning headscarves, lest it turn a wayward 'jeune' into a wannabe bin Laden) against France? Why the Islamist insurgency in the Philippines? Why the fatwa against Rushdie (perhaps he should be so insolent as to write books that offend the prophet)? Why are three Islamists in Sweden--SWEDEN!--currently on trial for attempting to blow up churches, voting booths, etc? As one of the poor, oppressed children said on his website, "Sweden will suffer in the name of Allah."
To paraphrase Mr. Chamberlin, "If we just give them Czechoslovakia, all will be well."
So basically Art you are saying you are noncommittal and have not passed judgement, but still oppose the U.S. response?
Where the hell is Graeme Doyle during all of this?
Nice work anonymous!
I certainly do not believe that terrorism began with 911.
Every super power needs a villian. The Neo Conservatives convinced America in the 60's that the villian was the U.S.S.R. (Even Regan had a problem with this idea).
I believe Canada's participation in Afghanistan was warranted. I also believe the "War on Terror" is something completely different.
Countries around the world, like you said, have been dealing with terrorism, in one form or another, for ages.
My point, though rather muddled, was in regards to Dave's comment on a silver lining.
I don't believe there is such thing as a silver lining especially in the way Dave thinks there is one. Saying there is a silver lining is like saying, "Ha! 100's of you almost died. I told you so!".
Canada's heightened sense of this problem has been downplayed by various U.S. media outlets and government officials since 911.
First we were villified as the doorway to 911. The media and other officials were speculating that the terrorists must have come through Canada. If they did, they had to pass through American security.
Now there is a Republican senator going off about Canada's inproportianate growth of Al Queda terrorists. What a load of crap. Our immigration policies are no worse than America's. I defy anyone to PROVE otherwise. And I'm not talking proof as in "FOX news said..."
So, the "silver liniing" in this case, is moot. Canada has always been aware of the problem. We have always been sympathetic to the plight of the U.S.. What we have not been, and I am proud to say, is hysterical.
Our backlash has been in response to the rather ridiculous way the U.S. government has created hysteria to support further attacks, i.e. Iraq.
I think this point is obvious to anyone who has the chance to hear opinions other than that of the American Media.
Monster, I am in full support of our men and women in Afghanistan.
I 100% sympathise with the men and women and their families who are in Iraq.
I 100% oppose the U.S. governments decision to invade Iraq.
I will not call anyone who has a different opinion than mine, an idiot.
Art seems to know that he’s on the left, though he doesn’t seem too sure as to why. In lieu of any real argumentation—thinking from the heart rather than the head—we get the usual buzzwords: Fox News (twice), neoconservatism (wildly out of context), oil, etc. So lets cut through the platitudes and get to the one argument I can comprehend.
Art says: “I certainly do not believe that terrorism began with 911. Every super power needs a villian. The Neo Conservatives convinced America in the 60's that the villian was the U.S.S.R. (Even Regan had a problem with this idea).”
Of course it exists; we all need to invent a villian??? Well, which is it then? Is terrorism a fanciful invention of those dreaded “neo-cons” or does it exist? Can’t have it both ways. (This second argument, which is pure historical fantasy, seems to come from “The Power of Nightmares,” an embarrassing BBC “documentary” that equated Sayed Qutb with Leo Strauss. Two sides of the same coin). Also, how on earth did the “neo-cons”, in the 1960’s, during which America saw 8 years of Democrats in the White House—unless, Art, JFK and LBJ were “neocon” agents—followed by the paleocon Richard Nixon, the man behind détente (i.e. the anti-“neocon”), “convince America” of anything? Was Joe Sixpack in
And absurdity to trump all absurdity: the American right didn’t need “to convince” anyone that the Soviets were “the villain.” (are you imply that Soviet communism wasn’t villainous?) The gulag, invasion of Hungry, suppression of the Czech uprising, invasion of Afghanistan, puppet control of Eastern Europe…they did a pretty good job on their own.
And I assume you mean that Reagan “had a problem with this idea”, and not Don Regan. The man who—rightly—referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” was an “anti-neocon”, soft-on-the-Reds kind of guy? Evidence?
And should America be worried about the northern border? Art says that’s Fox News hysteria. Perhaps he would care to, then, put this into the context of the Toronto raid and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam in 1999?
What if someone said, "CNN said..." would that make whatever proof you are looking for more true?
I've been on the sidelines reading some other opinions on this subject before I weighed in. There are a couple of points that I would also like to add to the discussion.
1) We really need to give props to the CSIS. They saved thousands of lives and also allowed Canadians to continue debating this subject of "terrorists" rather than going after this little f'ers wherever they are. I find it hard to believe that if half of Canada's national monuments were blown to shreds, thousands of Canadian citizans were killed in an instant that the Canada's policy toward Islamist Extremism would remain the same.
2) Masses are Asses. I'm only bringing this up because we keep talking about the "media" and the hysteria created by the US Gov't following 9-11. That whole duct tape thing was a joke and it was something that ALL of the networks played over and over again. It sells! The news services need market share so they will carry whatever story puts the arses in the seats.
Lets get one thing straight, we haven't had a terrorist attack in the States since 9-11. I'd say the Federal & Local Gov'ts are doing something right. So if we need to have a few duct tape warnings so be it. I'll take that anyday over having to deal with another handful of friends, thousands of people and our financial stability hijacked from us by a bunch of scum bags... SO BE IT!
3) I am truly thankful and happy to see that this attack was thwarted. I hope that Canadian's and their governmenet take this seriously and hopefully now understand that the world has changed and that there are some real pricks running around looking to do some serious damage.
Just like you guys, I don't want to rant too much and I would much rather debate this over a pint. But Pye's Blog is the next best thing and I know his political views are similar to my own.
I'm glad to see the conversation this post has generated. It has been a while.
I really don't know why Art took such an issue with what I wrote. Perhaps he's been recruited into a cell during his current international trip. The funniest thing is, Art has no idea that he shared a hotel room with myself and 'anonymous' back in 1996. We had fun. What a different world that was.
Canadians HAVE been sitting around, judging from the sidelines. And it is DANGEROUS. Nothing but good things, thousands of Canucks NOT being dead aside, can come from renewed awareness or a 'reality-check' as I actually resisted calling it in the main post.
I'm glad we had this discussion.
"Anonymous" makes some great points (even if he is a little exciteable).
This is a damn good issue to get excited about. Things like this need to be discussed so that all sides are seen and understood.
Nice work fellers. Now get back to work before some Neo Conservative group reads this and deports me from my next trip to the U.S.
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