But there’s no terrorist connection

And Faisal Shahzad is not a Muslim.

A Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accused of driving a bomb-laden SUV into Times Square and parking it on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters was to appear in court Tuesday to face charges that he tried to set off a massive fireball and kill Americans, federal authorities said. [...]

Shahzad, 30, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife….

That sucking sound you hear is the “angry white tea-partying gun-toting male” theory going down the drain.

Update 1: Shahzad was seated on the plane. He was that || close to making it. (H/T)

Update 2: Robert Dreyfuss figured “the perpetrator of the bungled Times Square bomb plot was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right.” While MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer really, really hoped the alleged would-be bomber would not be a Muslim.

“There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country.”

Yes, Contessa, it’s the part that leads you to equate Islamic jihad with the Michigan Hutaree; the part that ascribes to the Clintonian nonsense that the greatest threat to America comes from those who question the legitimacy and reach of big government; the part that considers the David Koreshes a greater threat to America than the Muhammed Attas.

It’s the neo-Liberal, conservative == bigot, big Democratic government 4ever, hope-and-changey, take-me-now-Barry, tea party == threat to America, religion == bad, culturally-relativistic, dhimmi-in-waiting part.

Update 3: You couldn’t make this stuff up. Shahzad trained at a terrorist camp in Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban has taken credit for the bomb plot, but U.S. officials say there’s no evidence to back that up.

None except the guy sitting right there in front of you, whose MO is almost boilerplate for jihadists funded by international Islamist organizations, like — oh, I don’t know — the Pakistani Taliban, and who admits to having attended a training camp in the region dominated by said organization.

The Mounties are Getting Machine Guns!

What could be wrong with this:

RCMP officers who guard Parliament Hill are being equipped with submachine guns to give them more stopping power should a gunman attack the heart of Canada’s government.

I can’t imagine any reasonable justification for giving police officers – in an urban centre – automatic weapons.  Canada is not under attack; there is no imminent threat to Parliament Hill.

The militarization of domestic police forces is a troubling, dangerous trend.  This new development does not bode well for our society.  Hopefully, they’ll use these with a little more care than they do tasers.

Of course, maybe they just felt inferior compared to the local Ottawa police, who recently wasted $341 000 on a freakin’ tank.

Bearing Witness to Police Brutality

Early Tuesday morning, I witnessed an incident involving the police and what seemed like an intoxicated driver.  The driver resisted arrest.  In return, the police assaulted him.  I write about it here.

An excerpt:

Eventually, the officers opened the door to the squad car and removed the gentleman they’d just fought so hard to intern in their Crown Victoria.  They brought the gentleman, still resisting, but with less energy, to another car.  They walked around the car and opened the door.  They were on our side of the street, just off the side walk; we could see clearly what was happening.

Once again, they attempted to put this man in the back seat of a squad car.  They got him to a sitting position on the back seat, but that was as far as this man was willing to go.  He would not pull his legs from the ground, and he struggled as best he could, arms still restrained behind him.  There were three or four officers fighting to get him in.  One kicked at his legs, trying to get them in.  Then they backed off, and began to close the door on this man’s shins.  They hit his legs with the door.  Then, as that was not enough, multiple officers began pushing on the door, the gentleman’s legs caught between the door and the frame of the car, feet still hovering inches from the ground.  They repeated this maneuver, but to no avail.  At no time did they try to pull him in from the other side – the tactic that had worked previously.  They attempted to use pain to make this man submit.  None of it worked, and they backed off.

They kept him pinned to the back seat of the car, legs still hanging out.  It was at this point we saw an officer begin to move over him.  It was at this point we saw a red dot, much like that of a laser pointer, dance across his torso.  The officer moved over him more, blocking his torso, the red dot no longer visible.

And then we heard a noise.

I am in the process of contacting the authorities and the media about this.  I will keep readers of The Politic up to date, if they so desire.

Rethinking Terrorism

This post isn’t as timely as I’d have liked, but it’s taken a while to bang these ideas into shape.

Let me begin by getting right to the point: we aren’t fighting a war against terror. We’re fighting a war against jihadism.

This may seem like nitpicking, or even wilful obfuscation, as terrorism and jihadism are often used interchangeably. Allow me to explain why I think it‘s an important distinction worthy of further consideration, since I also believe that this distinction is already being made in a way that suits our enemy more than it helps our cause.

A couple of weeks ago a Fox News poll came out showing that some 61% of young people in the US didn’t see the Fort Hood massacre as a terrorist attack per se, but as a killing spree. Conservative bloggers responded with anger and disbelief. To them it was obvious that Hassan was a terrorist. That the American public was getting it wrong was the fault of liberal media bias and the Obama administration’s overall failure of leadership regarding defence and security. [Read more]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed On Trial

Victor Davis Hanson, writing on The Corner on National Review Online, asks,

Why the assumption that KSM and others will be found guilty?

This got me thinking about a recurring theme in articles written over past decade by George Jonas (a sample of which is here). Mr. Jonas was examining (in part) a central problem of high profile show trials, being that there never really is a presumption of innocence in cases involving the trials of men who commit (or aspire to commit) genocide; as a result, trials like this are actually inconsistent with modern Western traditions of criminal justice. In Jonas’ words, these are kangaroo courts.

There are numerous reasons why giving KSM a civilian trial is wrong. It treats the leadership of an organised, international, terrorist group, with legions of fanatics willing to die to achieve broad socio-political goals, as a mere criminal conspiracy. It exposes classified information and the techniques used to obtain it* to examination by a known terrorist and public review in an open court. It proposes that any number of activities committed on foreign soil, tantamount to acts of war, should ultimately be treated as domestic criminal matters within the American civilian court system.

What it does not do is further the cause of criminal justice. It is absolutely unthinkable, absolutely impossible, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will leave the courtroom in New York a free man. The Supreme Court finding that some of the techniques used in his interrogation constitute torture will surely come up, and in a normal case this would sink the prosecution. It will not have a bearing on the outcome of this case. There can be no other outcome but a finding of guilt and a sentence of death. As it was for Saddam Hussein, so too shall it be for KSM.

What President Obama and AG Holder have set in motion is not justice; it is a showy revenge plot, with the added “bonus” of exposing the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror to unlimited public scrutiny and criticism.

Heaven help us all if this pointless piece of Kabuki theatre goes sideways.

(*Let’s not forget that beyond waterboarding lie techniques such as infiltration that may still be ongoing and valuable; if such operations are at risk of being exposed by the trial they will have to be wound down before lives are put at risk; valuable information in the struggle to protect ourselves against those who would have us all dead might therefore be lost or compromised for the sake of defending the indefensible.)

Update: Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz points out another, potentially far worse problem.

One Life the Gun Registry Couldn’t Save…

…it’s own.

MPs voted by a clear margin Wednesday to repeal the federal long-gun registry, signalling for the first time since the program was adopted 14 years ago that it is headed for the scrap heap, despite police assertions that it saves lives.A private member’s bill, sponsored by Conservative backbencher Candice Hoeppner, had the backing of all the Tories, from Prime Minister Stephen Harper down, and enough opposition MPs to clear its first major hurdle of winning support in principle.

The bill passed by a surprising 164-137, winning more supporters than expected as 12 New Democrats, eight Liberals and one Independent cast their votes with the government.

The Gun Registry has been a supreme waste of tax money.  That alone should be sufficient to kill it off (even if it has taken 14 years).  This is pretty much a no brainer for conservatives and libertarians.  What’s great to see is a number of MPs from left wing parties supporting it also.

The thing is (and conservatives and most libertarians will admit to this), sometimes it is necessary for the government to do things.  Sometimes, they have to spend our money.  It is for this reason that progressives, liberals and big government conservatives (and anyone else who supports lots of government intrusion in our lives) should be especially horrified by the Gun Registry.  It has become such a punch line – such an emblem of wasteful, useless government – that it damages the credibility of the government.  By extension, it hurts our democracy.

Lorne Gunter = nanny-state conservative confusion

Lorne Gunter apologizes for having blamed Robert Dziekanski who was killed by RCMP officers.

Next the force needs to be remade from top to bottom, stressing its responsibility and rectitude.

Only then will it have any chance of repairing its tarnished reputation.

The problem with Gunter is that he has blind trust in the police and the socialization of a particular market: security. Like a common socialist, he just thinks we need to get better people commanding us and taking care of us. Then all will be well with the world. I wonder if he sees that the airport security staff should have taken care of their own security themselves.

The problem is that the airport staff had no choice but to resort the RCMP instead of taking care of security problems internally. That is how international airports are compelled to operate in these matters.

If this happened in a shopping mall, the property owner of the mall would have an incentive to seek a peaceful resolution to the disruption. A customer killed by the mall staff would do a lot of damage to the mall´s reputation. Not so with the police or the RCMP at the airport.

The RCMP hold a monopoly in their industry. Passengers have no choice but to accept their service whether it be good, bad or mortal.

Expelling Bob Rae from Sri Lanka

The federal government’s response to Bob Rae’s expulsion from Sri Lanka is very curious. Only a few months ago the federal government denied entry to George Galloway into Canada for what ostensibly seems the same reasons.

I am of the opinion the treatment of both men is completely wrong but the denial of George Galloway’s visit is completely stupid. We have nothing to hide in Canada and Canadians do not need the government sheltering them from information. Whereas, I do not trust the Sri Lankan government in the least. They need to deny the media access to their country.

Oh, how fickle politics can be! Score a point here, lose a point there.

Moving the customs port off Cornwall Island

Moving the customs port off of Cornwall Island seems like the smart strategy to handle the dispute with the residents of the Akwesasne nation. I do not care if that means people can cross the Canada-U.S.A. border without clearing Canadian customs — this Skyway Bridge will not be the only place along the border where this happens.

Canadians should not complain that such a move represents a capitulation or a recognition of a sovereign native country. Rather, they should be proud of such a move because it is a non-violent intervention. Canadians should say: “You want to be a sovereign nation? Fine! Come back to us when you need our traffic.” Negotiating an agreement becomes a natural solution.

Unfortunately, rogue natives from other regions want to close other bridges in a confused show of support. I think they are just bored. They are not going to do that forever because the natives depend on the open border as much as everybody else does and they clearly do not have the support of their own leadership.

Birmingham police brutality

The police here are sick monsters. The victim is thrown from his vehicle and clearly immobile. Yet, half a dozen stooges pummel him when he poses no resistance.

Birmingham police beating video

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