The Commons: The government’s tortured answers on torture

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 6:30 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. In an obvious attempt to find common ground with his Conservative counterparts, Jack Harris appealed to the ideals of the free market.

“As long as there is a market for information derived from torture,” he posited, “torture will exist.”

Mr. Harris’ concern this day was the government’s quiet decision to allow for the use of information potentially obtained through torture. This after publicly renouncing the suggestion that it was operating under any such policy.

“Why,” the NDP critic wondered, “is the government getting Canada into the torture business?” Continue…

Villains: Gadhafi reign of fear in

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

Eric Vandeville/Getty Image

Of the three dictators who have thus far been toppled by the populist uprisings known as the Arab Spring, the cruellest, strangest and most depraved was Moammar Gadhafi of Libya.

He ruled the country for 42 years, after seizing power in a 1969 coup. It was not enough for Gadhafi to lead Libya; he tried to remake it. Gadhafi wrote a manifesto, his “Green Book,” dealing with subjects from the economy to horsemanship, but all fall under the principle of “jamahiriya”—a made-up word that roughly translates as “the state of the masses.”

In reality, though, the masses had no say over how they were governed. Gadhafi’s rule was total and arbitrary. He banned alcohol and private property. He closed tea shops because unemployed men hanging around in them made Libyans appear lazy. The only constant was fear. East Germans helped him set up the secret police. They built networks of informants, arrested dissidents, tortured and hanged them. Even Libyans abroad were not safe. Eleven protesters, plus British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, were gunned down outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984.

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Byron Sonne: sacrificial lamb, scapegoat, gadfly

By Jesse Brown - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 2:23 PM - 0 Comments

The Yiddish language is wonderfully precise when it comes to put-downs. Consider this famous explanation of the difference between a shlemiel and a shlemazl:

“A shlemiel is somebody who often spills his soup; a shlemazl is the person the soup lands on.”

Byron Sonne is a shlemiel and a shlemazl. He is clumsy and unlucky. But he is not a terrorist.

Driven by curiosity, hubris, and a genuine desire for social justice, Sonne poked and prodded the $1.2 billion “security apparatus” of the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto. He wanted to know if it was in fact just “security theater”–an expensive display of pomp and barbed wire that would never thwart an actual terrorist. Simultaneously, he wanted to know if it was too effective, if the heightened atmosphere around the summit meant that police were forgetting people’s rights. And he wanted us to know too, so he documented everything he did. Continue…

Terror plot—or fantasy?

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 2 Comments

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

It’s a baffling plot that strains the credulity even of those deeply familiar with Iran’s capacity for murder and intrigue.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department said it had disrupted an Iranian plan to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir. Several options were supposedly discussed, including a restaurant bombing that likely would have killed many innocent bystanders.

The U.S. has charged two individuals with the alleged plot. One, Gholam Shakuri, is a suspected member of the Quds Force, a wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for operations—including terrorism and assassination—outside Iran. The second, Mansour Arbabsiar, is an Iranian-born American citizen who, over the past three decades, has failed at a variety of business ventures selling everything from used cars to horses, gyros and ice cream. He’s been sued, chased by angry creditors, and charged with theft. Friends say he’d often forget keys and cellphones, and that his socks didn’t always match.

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ThreatDown

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 14, 2011 at 3:53 PM - 6 Comments

Speaking with reporters today in Peterborough, the Prime Minister commented as follows on the alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Let me just say with regards once again to this specific plot, we condemn this in the strongest possible terms, and it only reiterates the position that our government has been expressing for several years now, that the regime in Tehran – we have no quarrel with the Iranian people, but the regime in Tehran represents probably the most significant threat in the world to global peace and security. And so we take these matters very, very seriously, and we will be working with our allies.

Back in June, Mr. Harper implied that something threatened the existence of the country. Paul subsequently considered the conditional country here. I noted the rhetoric again here.

In an interview with this magazine, the Prime Minister was asked about the threat and identified “Islamic extremist terrorism,” but also an increasingly complex world. Roland Paris read that interview and came away wanting the Prime Minister to be more specific.

In an interview with Peter Mansbridge this fall, Mr. Harper identified “Islamicism” as the greatest terrorist threat to Canada, but here he seems to elevate Iran to the most significant global threat. It’s unclear whether that makes Iran the threat to Canada that he has vaguely referred to in the past.

U.S. foils alleged Iranian plot to kill Saudi ambassador

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 4:01 PM - 8 Comments

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that federal authorities had disrupted a plot by the Iranian government to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. and to bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington. Holder said the two men charged in the alleged plot have links to the secretive Quds Force, a division of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that has carried out operations in other countries. Court documents suggest the assassination would have been carried by men with ties to a Mexican drug cartel, but who were in fact confidential sources for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Manssor Arbab Arbabsiar, who was arrested September 29, and Gholam Shakuri, who remains at large, have been charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. specifically explosives; and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism.

New York Times

Omnibus toughness

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 at 12:27 PM - 5 Comments

The government has announced details of its omnibus crime bill: The Safe Streets and Communities Act, which will bundle together nine separate bills.

A quick scan of the backgrounder shows no mention of “lawful access,” nor any mention of the two anti-terrorism provisions the Prime Minister has vowed to reinstate.

‘We must remain vigilant’

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 6:28 PM - 1 Comment

The text of Stephen Harper’s speech in New York City today.

Thank you, Mr. Johnston. Merci beaucoup. Thank you to everybody. Greetings to Consul General Prado, to Consul Generals Lopez and Scanlon, to Senator Wallin, to Commissioner Castro, to Mr. Stewart, to of course so many members of our protective services, and of course families and friends of those whose memory is honoured here today.

À titre de Premier ministre du Canada, j’ai l’honneur d’accepter l’offre de tenir en ce cadre enchanteur une cérémonie commémorative officielle pour les Canadiens et Canadiennes qui ont cruellement perdu la vie il y a dix ans aujourd’hui.

As Prime Minister of Canada, it is my honour to accept the offer to include in this beautiful place an official commemoration of the Canadians whose lives were taken so cruelly ten years ago today. On behalf of the people of Canada, I thank her Majesty, the Queen, and I thank Mr. Stewart, Mr. Johnson and the officers and directors of the trust for this gracious gesture. We warmly welcome the decision to also include here other Commonwealth countries, and we support wholeheartedly the plan to rename this garden the Queen Elizabeth the Second Garden to reflect this decision. It is fitting that the Canadians who perished on 9/11 should be remembered here, alongside the Britons, Australians and other Commonwealth citizens who were also killed in that atrocity.
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‘Hope and help in the face of tribulation and terror’

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 4:18 PM - 0 Comments

The speaking notes for John Baird’s remarks at the National Arts Centre memorial ceremony this morning.

Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, friends and colleagues: Those beautiful notes we just heard hang heavy with memories of that terrible morning 10 years ago.

On this solemn anniversary we remember and honour all those who lost their lives or a loved one. Nearly 3,000 people died that day – including 24 Canadians – in senseless acts of terror. Many left behind still grieve for the loved ones taken from them. Today, we stand with them in solemn solidarity. Sadly, the terrorist threat is still with us. Still very real.

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‘This dark day in our history’

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 3:53 PM - 0 Comments

Governor General David Johnston’s statement on the anniversary of 9/11.

At the time, I witnessed the incredible generosity of Canadians and all those who worked together to help the American people. And today, countless individuals are devising and undertaking initiatives to benefit those whose lives were affected by the attacks. Those events turned the world as we knew it upside down, but the extraordinary courage shown by the rescue workers as they tried to save lives, despite the threat, will forever remain a source of inspiration. 

‘Terrorism will not undermine our way of life’

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 12:45 PM - 0 Comments

The Prime Minister’s statement on the anniversary of 9/11.

“Ten years ago today, nearly 3,000 innocent lives – including 24 Canadians – were taken in horrific acts of terrorism that took place on American soil.”

“These senseless and cowardly attacks shattered not only the lives of those who perished, but also of the family and friends of the victims who have had to live with the terrible losses inflicted that day.

“While Canadians share in the grief of all those mourning loved ones lost, we also honour the incredible acts of courage, sacrifice and kindness by those who served in the rescue efforts.

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When states fail

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 12:53 PM - 10 Comments

Michael Ignatieff reflects on 9/11 and the decade that has followed.

We are in need of good politics, of democratic systems that are more than reality-TV shows driven by attack ads, and of democratic debate that allows the people to talk about what actually matters and then to elect politicians who will do what must be done.

We are not short of good ideas about what to do. We are not short of dedicated public servants. Most people, apart from those in the grip of ideological fantasy, know that we need competent sovereigns. But truth be told, a decade later, sovereigns are failing us still. And until they stop failing us, we will not be safe, and our prosperity will not be secure.

See previously: The apparatus

Ten years later (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 4:51 PM - 3 Comments

Following the President’s letter, the Prime Minister writes to Mr. Obama on the anniversary of 9/11.

The Liberal press office has sent out the following statement from interim leader Bob Rae.

“Ten years ago, the September 11^th terrorist attacks shook the world. And as we extend our thoughts and sympathies to those families affected by this senseless attack, including the families of the Canadian victims, we also remember the strength, compassion and resolve exemplified by Canadians across the country as we responded to this disaster.

We remember the empathy, love and support that poured out from the more than 100,000 people who gathered on Parliament Hill for a national day of mourning.

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“Credible” threat cited ahead of 9/11 milestone

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 11:25 AM - 5 Comments

Americans were warned Thursday of a “specific, credible but unconfirmed” threat of a terrorist attack planned to coincide with Sunday’s tenth anniversary of the 9/11 hijackings. New York police have been put on high alert ahead of the milestone date, with shifts extended and the number of officers on the street increased. According to ABC News, investigators are hunting for three men, one an American citizen, sent to the U.S. to carry out a “vehicle-borne attack against Washington, D.C. or New York.” Rumours of an anniversary attack have swirled for months. Documents found in Osama bin Laden’s compound suggest the late al-Qaeda leader hoped to bomb a train or fly a small plane into a public event ten years after he toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center. For now, Sunday’s planned memorial at the site of the attacks will go on as scheduled.

The New York Times

ABC News

Poverty, terrorism and 9/11

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 38 Comments

During his interview with the CBC, Stephen Harper was asked about comments Jean Chretien made nine years ago on the first anniversary of Sept. 11.

Nobody who was killed on 9/11 deserved it remotely. It was a terrible thing, has nothing to do with wealth versus poverty. It has to do with, in this case, a particular hateful ideology that has attacked people around the world, not just affluent societies like our own, but some pretty poor places. You know, I think the people killed in Indonesia, in India. The fact that Afghanistan became a failed state, where you know, people just essentially lived in not just poverty, but brutality, to the point where a kind of Islamic fascist regime literally invited terrorists, international terrorists to set up camp in their country. I think that that kind of situation obviously bred a threat, and that’s why we are so worried when we look around the world now at other places where the same thing could happen. You know, I think you know some of them: Somalia, Yemen, that are there or at that kind of stage. That’s the kind of thing I think we really have to worry about, where you have not just poverty, but poverty and literally lawlessness becomes the nature of the state. And I do think it’s in our broader interests and the right thing to do to try and help people and help countries so that they don’t get into that situation. That’s why, you know, we obviously are helping with the famine in East Africa. It’s why we’re so involved in Haiti. Not to have that kind of a state in our own backyard. So those, I think those kinds of situations are very dangerous.

Mr. Chretien’s comments, as reported by the Globe, were as follows. Continue…

Worried about terrorism? Not us.

By Philippe Gohier - Friday, September 9, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 12 Comments

Steve Payne/The New York Times/Redux

Even though memories of 9/11 remain vivid for Canadians, the threat of terrorism is hardly at the top of our minds. An Innovative Research poll done for Maclean’s shows that 27.1 per cent of Canadians consider 9/11 to have been the most important international development of the last decade, ranking it just slightly higher than the credit crisis of 2008 (26.2 per cent) and well above other developments like climate change and the rise of the middle class in China and India. Which isn’t to say 9/11 has had a lasting impact on our national psyche. Asked to name the one issue that concerns them most, just 3.4 per cent of respondents identified the threat of terrorism. Indeed, Canadians are much more likely to be worried about the state of our health care system (19 per cent) and the potential for another recession (18.2 per cent) than they are of a repeat of 9/11.

That may be partly explained by the seemingly widespread perception among Canadians that terrorist attacks aren’t likely to affect them personally. If terrorist threats are to happen at all, Canadians believe they’ll target people other than themselves. Nearly eight in 10 Canadians say they’re either not very concerned or not concerned at all that someone they know could fall victim to a terrorist attack. A comparably meagre 3.9 per cent say they are very concerned about the possibility. The online poll had 1,066 respondents and a margin of error equivalent to plus or minus three per cent.

But Canadians have come to some firm conclusions about the fallout from 9/11. As a nation, we’ve grown particularly skeptical about the benefits of the two wars that followed the attacks. Canadians are twice as likely to say the war in Afghanistan made the world a more dangerous place as they are to say it made the world safer. The divide is even more stark when it comes to Iraq: Canadians are more than four times more likely to say the war in Iraq made the world more dangerous rather than safer.

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Opposition parties oppose re-introducing terror laws

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 11:58 AM - 2 Comments

Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to reintroduce sweeping police powers to detain and question terror suspects, according to a CBC interview set to air Thursday night. The powers, first granted after the 9/11 attacks then scrapped in 2007, permit police to hold a suspect for up to three days without charge if they believe a terrorist act has been committed, and allow judges to compel a witness to testify in secret about past associations or “pending acts.” Opposition figures say police don’t need the “draconian” laws, arguing the provisions were never used between 2001 and 2007 and haven’t been missed since.

CBC News

The apparatus

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 7 Comments

The New York Times magazine convenes a panel of contributors, including Michael Ignatieff, to discuss the ramifications of 9/11.

The most obvious consequence of 9/11 to me has been the creation of a new national security state, to rival the one created at the start of the Cold War. It is an archipelago beneath democratic scrutiny, and it has done liberal democracies real damage: rendition, torture, detention without trial, Guantánamo, military tribunals. Its justification is that it has prevented an attack on the homeland. But this is a strange kind of justification: the absence of apocalypse is held to justify a permanent state of emergency, extending indefinitely into the future…

The concern I have about the whole world opened up after 9/11 is this archipelago, not just of drones, but of communication intercepts, Internet monitoring, which preserves our security at the price of … what? We don’t even know. I’m relatively trusting, far from paranoid, but we do have a new institutional problem:  to subject special forces, cybercommand, the boys with the drones, to some form of democratic oversight and control, if we are to stay what we say we are.

Essential, but unused

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 4:46 PM - 22 Comments

Further to the Prime Minister’s comments about the usefulness of the two anti-terrorism provisions that he hopes to reintroduce, I emailed the offices of the ministers of justice and public safety with the following question.

Were the two anti-terror provisions that the government wishes to reinstate ever used before they expired?

Shortly thereafter a response arrived from the office of Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. It reads, in full, as follows. Continue…

How necessary?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 1:38 PM - 5 Comments

In that interview with the CBC, Stephen Harper confirms that the government will, again, seek to reinstate two provisions that were part of the Anti-terrorism Act.

Mr. Harper says those provisions are “necessary” and “useful” and that they been applied “rarely,” but when these measures were debated and defeated in Parliament in 2007 it was said that they had never been employed. Indeed, that was a key part of the argument against them made by Michael Ignatieff, then the Liberal deputy leader.

The government has alleged that it is the opposition that is playing politics and is endangering national security by voting to sunset these clauses. However, it well knows that these clauses have not been used once in the entire time they have been on the statute books. The case that we are endangering public safety by our actions is fanciful…

Abridgments of civil liberties can be justified but only if public safety absolutely requires it and then only under strict conditions. If this is the test, the clauses should sunset because they have not proven absolutely necessary to the public safety. The government, in essence, has not proven its case, and, on these questions where our liberties are at stake, the government must prove the case of public necessity beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Harper: “Islamicism” biggest threat to Canada

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 12:35 PM - 4 Comments

Ten years after 9/11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada is a safer place, but that “Islamicism” remains the greatest threat to national security. In an interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, Harper said “there are other threats out there, but that is the one I can tell you occupies the security apparatus most regularly in terms of terrorist threats.” He added that the authorities keep a close eye out for domestic extremists as well as those operating in foreign countries. The Conservative government will re-introduce two clauses of Canada’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws that were struck down by the opposition parties in the House of Commons in 2007, after their pre-ordained five-year lifespan expired in 2006. One allowed police to detain a terrorist suspect without charges for three days, while the other gave judges the power to interrogate a witness in secret to obtain critical information. The judge also had the ability to send the witness to jail for refusal to comply. Neither clause was ever used. Harper told Mansbridge his government plans to reintroduce these laws, saying that despite being rarely used, they’re sometimes necessary.

CBC News

The diffuse threat

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 12 Comments

Stephen Harper discusses the terrorist threat facing Canada.

… Harper says Canada is safer than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaeda attacked the U.S., but that “the major threat is still Islamicism.” ”There are other threats out there, but that is the one that I can tell you occupies the security apparatus most regularly in terms of actual terrorist threats,” Harper said.

Harper cautioned that terrorist threats can “come out of the blue” from a different source, such as the recent Norway attacks, where a lone gunman who hated Muslims killed 77 people. But Harper said terrorism by Islamic radicals is still the top threat, though a “diffuse” one.

“When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world,” he said, citing domestic terrorism in Nigeria. The prime minister said home-grown Islamic radicals in Canada are “also something that we keep an eye on.”

‘The benefit of the doubt’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 3:27 PM - 40 Comments

Without commenting on Abousfian Abdelrazik, mind you, Jason Kenney suggests we put our faith in the government in cases such as his.

“I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt.”

But, as Campbell Clark notes in that story, the leak of CSIS documentation raises plenty of questions. Indeed, supporters of Adil Charkaoui want an inquiry into that leak.

A day like no other

By Richard Warnica - Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 4 Comments

MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images

On Sept. 11, 2011, 10 years to the day after terrorists crashed two passenger jets into the towers at the World Trade Centre in New York, 15 Americans will run out for a pool match against Ireland at the Rugby World Cup in New Plymouth, New Zealand. The date of the game is a coincidence, organizers say. There is no special reason the Americans are playing then. But the particular timing is not lost—either on the players or the security officials charged with keeping the tournament safe. The New Zealand Police have established a special unit to oversee the World Cup. A spokesman said they have “no indication” of any threat tied to the game. But they are “aware” of the occasion. As for the players, team captain Todd Clever was one of the first to see the schedule when it was released. The date of the Ireland match stood out right away. “It was yelling at me,” he said: “9/11/11.”

New Zealand sits just west of the international date line, so the men of the U.S. rugby team will be among the first Americans to live through the 10th anniversary. But as the sun moves east and the morning breaks elsewhere that day, millions more will mark an occasion that, a decade after the attacks, remains heavy with apprehension, sorrow and the niggling fear that it might just happen again.

This year’s milestone could be particularly poignant. It marks not only 10 years since nearly 3,000 people died in the worst-ever terrorist assault on American soil, but also comes just months after the man who oversaw the attacks was himself killed. U.S. Special Forces shot Osama bin Laden dead at a compound in Pakistan in May. Documents found in the raid suggest the 9/11 mastermind hoped to pull off another plot a decade after his greatest triumph. According to initial reports, bin Laden wanted to bomb a train to mark the occasion. (Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists killed hundreds in train bombings in Spain and Britain in 2004 and 2005.) Media reports have since indicated he was looking to shoot down Air Force One, assassinate U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, or fly a small plane into a sporting event. According to the Wall Street Journal, those plans never went past the earliest stages. Bin Laden kept vetoing targets, others have reported. And there are questions about how much influence the Saudi still had with al-Qaeda when he died.

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