Posted by Jay on June 7, 2006, at 15:04:45 [reposted on June 12, 2006, at 6:27:39 | original URL]
Before you come to any conclusions...please read this..
Suspects seem strictly second-rate
Jun. 7, 2006. 09:17 AM
THOMAS WALKOM
NATIONAL AFFAIRS COLUMNIST www.thestar.com
If these guys are terrorists, they aren't very good ones. At least that seems to be the picture that is slowly emerging of the 17 men and boys charged this week under Canada's anti-terror laws.Their so-called training camp turns out to have been a swath of bush near Washago, where their activities — shooting off firearms and playing paintball — were so obvious and so irritating that local residents immediately called police.
Serious terrorists, like Osama bin Laden, base their operations in remote areas where no one will bother them. These suspects, it is alleged, simply trespassed on someone's farm and, when the owner told them to leave, gave him lip.
Serious terrorists, like the 19 who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, try to avoid making waves. They try to blend in.
The young men charged this week apparently didn't bother with this kind of tradecraft. They apparently didn't realize, or perhaps didn't care, that large groups of brown-skinned urbanites dressed in camouflage are not a common sight in rural central Ontario.
So when local resident Mike Côté came upon a group of just such men near his Ramara Township farm last December, he immediately informed police.
As he told the Star this week, the group appeared cold, wet and bedraggled. Some had fallen though the thin ice into a marsh. The leader of these alleged terrorists was so disgusted with his young charges that he complained to Côté about their incompetence.
These, apparently, were the conspirators. One, a former army reservist, allegedly wanted to cut off Prime Minister Stephen Harper's head. How would he find it?
It appears that a good many knew the police were on to these suspects. Harper knew. So did Toronto Mayor David Miller. So did some of the suspects' neighbours. So did many near the ill-fated Ramara Township "training camp," who told the Star later that police asked them to keep their mouths shut.
But the alleged terrorists, it seems, remained blissfully ignorant. They let themselves get snared in an RCMP sting when one of the 17 allegedly placed an order for three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a substance that can be used to make bombs.
According to police, suspects happily took possession of the "fertilizer" when it was delivered, not realizing that the RCMP had substituted harmless white powder in its stead.
But then that seems to be the history of this group. For militant terrorists, if that's what they are, they are remarkably naïve.
Some, it appears, chatted openly online about their paramilitary exploits at websites such as the now-dismantled http://www.shaheed.ca, oblivious to the fact that the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service regularly troll such sites.
"I got my gun and tomorrow in the morning I am gonna do some target practise (sic) inshAllah (God willing) hott," reads one 2003 posting. "Checked out some paintball guns today at walmart."
Shaheed, the Arabic word for witness, is often used to refer to someone who has died defending Islam — including suicide bombers. It's not a terribly subtle title for a radical Islamic website. But then not all of the postings on http://www.shaheed.ca were radical or even devout.
"Man, ppl always say the Ummah (community of Islam) is so weak blah blah," reads one 2004 posting. "What ummah? I don't believe that there's 2 billion or whatever muslims in the world....It sux."
"Alhumdulilah (thank God) today was the first successful day of work," reads another 2004 posting. "What a great day it was. Sure we were late, but it's far. But Alhumdulilah, the boss is really nice. ... After that we went for pizza."
This is not quite the image that the government and police are portraying of the 17. They paint the suspects as part of an efficiently sinister conspiracy devoted, in Harper's words, to destroying "freedom, democracy and the rule of law."
As such, the arrests last week come at convenient time for the Harper government. A rise in the public's fear quotient could increase popular support for his decision to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan another two years to wage war against Taliban and other insurgents.
Polls show that public support has been slipping for that war. The spectre of terrorism at home, however, might convince more Canadians that the Afghan war is necessary.
(Given that police have said the suspects are homegrown terrorists unconnected to any international ring, it might make more sense to station Canadian troops in Mississauga, where most of the 17 live, rather than Kandahar. But it is unlikely the Harper government will make this argument).
The arrests also come at a time when Parliament is conducting a mandatory five-year review of Canada's new anti-terror laws. Before the arrests, there was a possibility that parliamentarians might recommend that the Harper government ease up on some of those laws. That now seems unlikely.
For this, we can thank one of the world's most incompetent — or perhaps one of the world's most far-fetched — terrorist conspiracies.
poster:Jay
thread:655822
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060610/msgs/655822.html