statism watch

When you think of Lashkar-E-Taiba training camps – the camps to which Khan wished to send Western muslim youth – you should immediately think of the ISI, the ‘Inter Services Intelligence‘ Agency of Pakistan. As the New York Times reported, “Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, helped create Lashkar two decades ago… [and] only a thin distance separated Lashkar and the ISI, bridged by former ISI and military officials.” In fact, “One highly placed Lashkar militant said the Mumbai attackers were part of groups trained by former Pakistani military and intelligence officials at Lashkar camps. Others had direct knowledge that retired army and ISI officials trained Lashkar recruits as late as last year.” Now, knowing that the ISI and the CIA were tightly integrated in the 1980s in order to set up Mujahideen groups – what we now call ‘Al Qaeda’ – the question must be asked. Who is training these kids in Pakistan in militant ideology? Where do they obtain their resources? How does the CIA obtain knowledge of impending attacks, as they did in the case of Mumbai? And is it all a front to create an army of arms-length patsy terrorists to menace Western populations to justify expansionist wars in the middle east? This is certainly what’s indicated by the available evidence.

Flashback: Pakistani president Asif Zardari admits creating terrorist groups | Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries | Taliban flee new U.S. drive in Afghanistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | CIA Foreknowledge of the Mumbai Attacks | Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden | Low Level Driver Convicted Of Terror Charges While Bin Laden’s Senior Body Guard Was Let Go | CIA, Pakistani ISI have long, complicated relationship | US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Report: U.S. Gave Green Light For Taliban Prison Attack | New Bin Laden Video: 100% Forgery | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Stewart Bell, National Post
September 3, 2009

Terror recruiter spoke of a ‘worldwide battle’

BRAMPTON — He has been called the Terrorist Mr. Fix-It. Aabid Hussein Khan was an avid al-Qaeda supporter who recruited young Muslims and arranged their passage to Pakistan for terrorist training.

Although he lived in central England, Khan travelled often, including to Toronto, where he intended to rent an apartment for recruits on their way to Pakistan’s network of weapons training camps.

“He was always spoken of in the sense of one who could facilitate travel to places for training and was particularly hopeful of having a place near Toronto, where his wife lived,” said Mubin Shaikh, who informed on Khan’s associates in Toronto for the RCMP.

Now in a British prison, Khan is considered a key figure in a terrorist network that spanned a half-dozen countries, including Canada. He is also one of a growing number of friends, associates and co-conspirators within that network who have been convicted of terrorist crimes following a series of overlapping investigations.

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They’re built multiple hardened military bases. They’re not leaving. They have a ‘new strategy’. Allegedly. And after that, it’ll be another surge, or the troop numbers will adjust slightly upwarsd or downwards, and we’ll be arguing about those issues, the ones we’re given to argue about, rather than the heart of the matter – getting out.

Flashback: | U.S. military seeks ’second surge’ for Afghan mission | New Afghan mission commander vows to protect civilians | New US brigade ‘bringing in plenty of firepower’ to Afghanistan | U.S. troops will have big impact on Afghan mission: Canadian commander | NATO agrees to Afghan troop increase | Obama adds another brigade to Afghanistan troop surge | Obama eyes 3 more brigades for Afghanistan | United States’ short-term goals hurt Afghanistan mission: report | Top U.S. general boosts troop pledge to Afghanistan | Obama’s planned troop surge in Afghanistan could lead to more violence: ISAF

CBC News
September 3, 2009

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that the Obama administration’s effort in the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan is “only now beginning,” despite eroding public support for the conflict.

Gates also said he disagrees with people who say it is time to get out of Afghanistan.

“I absolutely do not think it is time to get out of Afghanistan and I think that the notion that you can conduct a purely counterterrorist kind of campaign and do it from a distance simply does not accord with reality,” he said.

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So Bell gets the ruling that they can throttle torrents, and then want to further cap speeds on their resale partners? And they go ahead and give the marching orders to the Chamber of Commerce. Ridiculous. That’s a publicly subsidized network they’re using, and the decision has already been made. If they don’t like it, maybe Sympatico ought to have its license yanked so we can start fresh in a privately held network environment.

Related: Bell can squeeze downloads, CRTC rules | Bell continues throttling Internet, proposes bandwidth caps for resellers | Vint Cerf blasts ISPs for choking off internet infrastructure | Bell’s internet throttling illegal, Google says | Net neutrality bill hits House of Commons

CBC News
September 3, 2009

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is taking fire from local chambers, business groups and companies it represents for backing a move by Bell and Telus to overturn a CRTC decision on internet speeds.

Several smaller chambers, including those representing Winnipeg and Manitoba, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) and a number of internet providers say the larger chamber did not consult them on their views — an accusation the national body denies — and therefore does not speak for them.

“They consulted their corporate members perhaps but they did not consult with the Manitoba chamber,” said Graham Starmer, president of the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce.

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Hey kid – wanna do some crimes? This will teach the unfortunate Mr. Saad for being naive enough to get recruited by CSIS agents, for attending the CSIS operated ‘Jihadi’ bootcamp and for letting them trail around all day filming and recording everything for the prosecution. This has been a state-provocateured operation from end to end, working off of the same script as cases in Australia and the UK. It should be illegal for police agencies to deliberately create militancy or the appearance of militancy and then theatrically swoop in to disable the shocking fantasy plot they’ve ‘uncovered’ – but considerations of entrapment and indeed of motive are rendered irrelevant by Canada’s horrifyingly unjust anti-terror law. This political trial is a sad, shameful episode in our history, not just because it has been exposed so thoroughly, not just because it has damaged long held legal concepts like mens rea (intent or guilty mind), but also because a complacent public cannot, will not believe that the Canadian government, like governments throughout history, would be involved in psychological operations against its own citizens: It’s called propaganda. Learn to recognize it before it ossifies into ‘official history’.

The history: 2-year term sought in Toronto ‘terror plot’ | Toronto 18 ‘terror’ accused signs confession, media retreads tales of planned chaos | Toronto 18 member pleads in bomb plot | How MI5 blackmails British Muslims | New York “Terror Plot” Another Government Provocateured Set-Up | Toronto 18 Terror case: RCMP agent Shaikh was instigator who broke law: defence | Five muslims face life for Fort Dix ‘terror plot’ orchestrated by FBI | American Intelligence Contractors Leak Canadian Toronto 18 ‘Terror Training’ Video to Web | Third Mole Surfacing in Toronto Terror Trial? | RCMP informant says accused in militant plot was naive | Paid CSIS Informant Says Public Not Upset Enough about Toronto ‘Terror’ Plot | Latest Toronto 18 ‘Terror’ Wiretaps Confirm Youths Goaded by Reservist, Paid Police Informant | Toronto ‘Terrorists’ Agree on Decapitation Plot, Fail to Open Tuna Tin | Many Question if Toronto “Terrorists” Were Led by Informants as Case Weakens | Crown presents evidence in Toronto terror suspect trial | Australian ‘Terror Plot’ Case Bears Remarkable Similarities to ‘Toronto 18′ | Terror case begins to emit ripe aroma | Canada’s anti-terror law unconstitutional, defence says | Toronto’s Terrorism Case: For the Families, Fear and Bewilderment | CSIS informant admits cocaine, marijuana use during investigation | Terror trial proceedings troubling | Alleged Toronto terror plot included two police agents | Toronto Terrorist Ringleader Has Military Connections | Canadian ‘Terror Plot’ Begins To Unravel | Police arrest terrorist suspects in Toronto

Colin Freeze, The Globe and Mail
September 3, 2009

Thursday’s sentencing of confessed terrorist marks first time that any core member of the alleged ‘Toronto 18′ bomb conspiracy sent to prison

A terrorist bomb-plotter has received a 14-year sentence for his role in a scheme to blow up government targets in downtown Toronto.

Saad Khalid, 23, who pleaded guilty in the so-called Toronto 18 conspiracy, was credited with seven years for time in pretrial custody. He will spend a maximum of seven more years in prison. He can apply for parole in two years four months.

Thursday’s ruling may bode ill for accused in the case who have yet to face trial. Mr. Justice Bruce Durno said that even taking into account many mitigating factors – Mr. Khalid’s youth, sincere regret, guilty plea and non-central role – Canadian courts have an obligation to punish terrorism harshly.

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Flashback: Was Couillard used to push leasing bid?\ | CSIS link in Bernier case | Government could have planted Couillard bug: former CSIS agent | Bernier quits cabinet post over security breach | Harper shrugs off new concerns about minister’s ex-flame

CBC News
September 3, 2009

Former cabinet minister calls report ‘derogatory and sensationalist’

Former Conservative foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier is denouncing a Montreal newspaper report that says documents he misplaced last year contained a mine of crucial national security information.

Bernier issued a statement Thursday calling the report in newspaper Le Devoir “derogatory and sensationalist.”

The newspaper obtained copies of national security documents Bernier left at his ex-girlfriend’s house last year, and reported that they contained highly sensitive information about foreign policy and global efforts to fight terrorism.

The documents were obtained through a federal access to information request.

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No surprise there, really. This guy probably wasn’t playing ball with the CIA.

Flashback: Afghanistan’s Hidden Heroin Addicts | Canadian troops could soon target Afghan drug trade: top soldier | Reports reveal concerns over drug use among Canadian military | NATO to let troops fight Afghan drug lords | Karzai’s kin linked to heroin trafficking | Afghani Narco-state Continues to Blossom under Puppet President

Nathan Hodge, Wired.com
September 3, 2009

A drug raid in Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in July netted a huge stash of hashish and opium — and led to the arrest of an Afghan Border Police Commander.

This recent high-stakes raid, confirmed by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, involved a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) team and Afghan counter-narcotics agents staging an ambitious helicopter-borne assault in potentially hostile territory. Equally important, the bust also revealed how intimately some Afghan officials are involved in the drug trade.

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China, step right up. You’re the first customer for the SDR global currency. Gordon Brown, Mark Carney, Paul Volcker, Henry Kissinger, Robert Zoellick, Baron Rothschild, and all the rest of the globalist power brokers and international bankers calling for a New World Order by name (or simply demanding all states be subject to central economic regulation vested in their hands) will be greatly pleased – their Great Work is proceeding apace.

Flashback: China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | No one talking about dumping dollar: China minister | China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds | Chinese economists deem huge holding of US bonds “risky” as Geithner visits | A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | UN & IMF Back Agenda For Global Financial Dictatorship | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | World needs new Bretton Woods, says Brown | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda | Banks face “new world order,” consolidation: report

Meena Thiruvengadam, The Wall Street Journal
September 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — China is on track to become the first purchaser of notes issued by the International Monetary Fund, a move that would diversify its foreign asset holdings and could give the IMF’s quasi-currency more clout.

The IMF on Wednesday said China has signed an agreement to purchase approximately $50 billion in notes from the fund. The notes are denominated in Special Drawing Rights, a quasi-currency issued by the fund and promoted by China as a potential replacement for the dollar.

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Perhaps now the government-provocateured witch hunts will cease. Ezra, and all of us, deserve a celebratory moment. How could Canadians support any institution that plants false evidence, engages in entrapment, makes legal findings without the benefit of legality, and tramples on the principle of free speech? Direct incitement to harm aside, the concept ‘hate speech’ is a close cousin to Thought Crime. StatismWatch may not agree with what you say, but will most assuredly defend your right to say it, as we all must, for political correctness has been used for a very long time as a tool of tyranny.

Flashback: Tribunal shouldn’t police online hate, report says | Queen’s proposed thought-crime cadres prove controversial | Canada’s free speech enemies to lay Remembrance Day wreath | Ezra Levant: How I beat the fatwa, and lost my freedom | All speech is free in Canada except speech we happen to hate | Human rights body to consider Internet speech regulation | Blogger arrests hit record high | The Ontario Human Rights Commission: Hey, we want to be in the censorship business, too!

Ezra Levant, National Post
September 3, 2009

Yesterday, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal did something its never done in its 32-year history. It acquitted somebody of “hate speech” charges. Until now, the tribunal had a 100% conviction rate.

In a 107-page ruling, tribunal member Athanasios Hadjis didn’t just throw out the case against Marc Lemire, he threw out the law, too, calling it an infringement of the free speech guarantees of the Charter of Rights.

Hadjis is no wild-eyed civil libertarian. In the recent past, he himself has convicted people under this same law. And, before Jean Chretien appointed him to the tribunal, Hadjis was the boss of one of Montreal’s largest multicultural lobby groups, which thrived on ethnic identity politics. But even Hadjis has had enough of the human rights industry and their fetish for political correctness. He ruled that allowing Canadian citizens to express offensive ideas is preferable to living under a government that prosecutes people for expressing those ideas.

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Forecast: Massive hype, unsettled media showers and the risk of a propaganda storm leading into December as the Jetstreams make their way to Copenhagen. (The UN, incidentally, stands to acquire a major new source of revenue through global carbon taxation as a result of climate change hysteria. Is this not a conflict of interest? Look – Greenpeace has retracted their statement that Arctic Ice would disappear by 2030. And historical data shows that Arctic ice has retreated and expanded before as a result of natural cycles. Antarctic ice? Growing, not shrinking. Clearly, someone is lying here, or the picture is far more complicated than anyone with ideological blinders on knows.)

Flashback: German Scientists Call for ‘World Climate Bank’ | G8 Summit: Rich nations to pay green tab | Ontario unveils cap-and-trade legislation | Economic stabilization may rely on carbon economy, economist says | Climate panel presses for federal cap-and-trade system | Obama, Gore, tied to Chicago carbon exchange | U.N. ‘Climate Change’ Plan Would Likely Shift Trillions to Form New World Economy | U.N. Environment Head Wants Global Warming Tax | Time to emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal and create green jobs | EU calls for global carbon trading system to fight climate change | Harper ready to harmonize with U.S. on climate change | Harper Govt. to push North American carbon market plan with Obama | B.C. carbon tax kicks in on Canada Day | Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs | CEOs call for ‘aggressive’ action on climate change

CBC News
September 3, 2009

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had more dire warnings about climate change Thursday as he spoke to a United Nations conference in Geneva.

He told officials from about 150 countries that time is running out for a new climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Only limited progress has been made to hammer out a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing the gases blamed for global warming.

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Good luck with that. See here.

Flashback: Scotiabank: Global economy set to recover, China and developing nations to lead | More US Bank Failures and The Coming Deposit Insurance Bailout | Underwhelming GDP growth fails to move stocks, loonie | A Stock Market Rally Engineered by Government | Central bank of Canada stands ready to inflate currency in response to strong loonie | Bank of Canada declares recession over | Cost Of US Bailout Hits A Whopping $24 Trillion Dollars | Second wave of economic crisis coming, international regulation necessary Brown warns | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | TSX sinks below 10,000 on World Bank outlook | Financial crisis: Worst may be still ahead, says IMF chief | ‘New world order’ needs better economic grounding: Carney | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Stimulus needed now, Bank of Canada says | Optimistic central bank expects speedy economic rebound

Andrew Willis, Globe and Mail
September 3, 2009