statism watch

So, basically, she’s saying she lied and called Dziekanski ‘drunk’ and ‘a maniac’ in order to provoke a response to help him.

CBC News
February 2, 2009

A woman who pleaded for the police to hurry to Vancouver’s airport the night Robert Dziekanski died is angry her call for help has been made public without the proper context.

Dziekanski’s heart stopped minutes after four RCMP officers stunned him several times with a Taser and tackled him in the arrivals area of the airport in 2007.

Then last week at a public inquiry into Dziekanski’s death, recordings of telephone and radio calls made at the airport to security personnel that night were released and played.

But the woman who can be heard on one of the most dramatic recordings says it doesn’t tell the whole story.

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Oh poor Mubin Shaikh. He must cry himself to sleep every night, sitting on his $300,000 paycheque, snorting coke, thinking of the lives he’s destroyed. Perhaps he’ll give the money back, or donate it to these kid’s defence fund. No? Thought not. This will be dragged through the media, out of context half truths occasionally making it to the front page, until the propaganda campaign has had its desired effect. And then it will probably end up in acquittals, buried on the back pages.

The Canadian Press
February 2, 2009

BRAMPTON, Ont. — An RCMP informant who helped thwart a domestic terrorist plot said Monday that he feels guilty about the role he played in recruiting four youths to the group. [Ed. Note: Which engaged in horrific acts, including camping and playing paintball and talking smack around the fire.]

Mubin Shaikh told a Brampton, Ont., court he knew the teens would get caught up in the terrorism investigation as a result.

Mr. Shaikh conceded that he was instrumental in bringing in one of the teens, who was found guilty last fall of terrorism-related offences as part of the so-called Toronto 18.

The defence is seeking to stay the proceedings against the youth on the grounds that he was entrapped by the police agent.

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What an utter farce… it came out in court already that these allegations are the words of one man, convicted of fraud, who had every inclination to strike a bargain with the police. This should sound all too familiar to Canadians. These manufactured groups of patsies come right out of the cointel playbook, conveniently right on time to drive public opinion on foreign policy: 1) Identify socially vulnerable group. 2) Infiltrate group. 3) Appeal to their fears and desires, flatter their egos. 3) Offer a chance to make a difference in some way, execute frameup, record conversations. 4) Execute frameup – hand them something illegal. Training, detonators, etc. 5) Proceed with arrest and subsequent media campaign. And we fall for it every time. Where’s the outrage?

Associated Press
February 2, 2009

MELBOURNE — The leader of an Australian terrorist cell that prosecutors said plotted to attack major sporting events in a bid to kill thousands of people was imprisoned Tuesday for at least 12 years.

Algerian-born cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 48, was one of seven men convicted by a jury last September in connection with what prosecutors said was Australia’s largest terrorist conspiracy.

Prosecutors said Mr. Benbrika urged his followers to launch an attack to force the Australian government to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. He told them that an attack needed to kill at least 1,000 people to achieve this aim, and that it was permissible to kill women, children and the elderly.

No attack took place, but prosecutors said the group, based in Australia’s second-largest city of Melbourne, had identified railway stations and sports fields as possible targets.

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Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian
February 2, 2009

‘I haven’t seen an average citizen watch 24 and have an uncontrollable urge to torture someone’

Sitting in the lobby after the interview, I look up and see that a man has stopped on his way out. “Thank you,” he’s saying to me, “thanks for coming by, it was good to meet you.” I wonder what this stranger is talking about. Then I realise who it is. Kiefer Sutherland looks in real life so commonplace, so unlike a movie star, that it’s possible not to recognise him only minutes after spending an hour in a hotel suite with him.

This must be a testament to his acting skills, because the face of Special Agent Jack Bauer is indelibly recognisable to millions of 24 fans all over the world. Like James Bond or Jason Bourne, Bauer has become less a role than a global phenomenon, a hero to everyone from Bill Clinton to Karl Rove – his popularity as inexhaustible as his ability to save America from ever more audacious terror plots. The drama series set in a fictional counter-terrorism unit screens on 236 channels to 100 million viewers worldwide. It has won Sutherland an Emmy nomination for every one of its six series to date, and made him the most highly paid television actor in the world.

The show was devised a year before 9/11, but the uncanny prescience of its plotlines foretold the Bush administration’s war on terror. “Whatever it takes” is Bauer’s gravelly motto – and what it takes on 24 can be highly violent, illegal and frequently involve torture. Why so many fans are in love with a man who tortures people is perhaps a disturbing puzzle – but not as troubling as the question that has dogged Sutherland and 24’s creators for the last 18 months. Is admiration for Bauer confined to the escapism of make-believe – or has it had an impact on public opinion and military strategy in the real world?

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