New Media

Are we so lost that those who we most trust to know the difference between right and wrong can’t see evil when it’s staring us in the face?

I never went to law school. I’m guessing courses in logic and philosophy are not a requirement of obtaining a degree in that field. Paul Slansky, lawyer for Saad Gaya, 22, of the terror group known as the Toronto 18, responds to a sentencing verdict of his client:

“Terrorism is a heinous and evil crime, but not necessarily everyone who commits a heinous and evil crime is himself evil.”

Huh? We are not judged guilty in court or by a higher power merely for evil thoughts, at least not in a democracy. We are judged for our actions. When you do evil things, you are an evil person. No need to sugar-coat it.

By the same token, when a person does good things, this indicates they’re a good person. A bit less abstractly, when a trained professional fixes the plumbing, we call this person a “plumber”. People who make art are “artists”. We are what we do. It’s that simple.

When a group of fanatics tries to kill a bunch of innocent people, we don’t care that these failed criminals give to charity or have good hygiene or are loving parents. Rational people understand that these people are evil, if that word has any meaning, and that they deserve to be locked up. Close the door, turn off the lights and throw away the key.

In any case, it seems Canadian law simply cannot cope with the scale of the threat presented by people aiming to take down the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CSIS building and a military base. The mastermind is in prison for life — which by our oddball rules means he could be out in six years. The rest of the crew are also getting sentences reduced for jail time already served.

Just thinking here, but let’s low-ball the number of people who could have been killed by these maniacs at 100. It’s arbitrary — it could just as well be 500, or 1000, or 5000, but at least we’ve got a number. Now, what kind of sentence do you give someone guilty of 100 separate attempted murders?

I’d have to hope that even in Canada, that might at least add up to the equivalent of a real sentence of life in prison.

Death. Destruction. Terror.

That is the Taliban’s response to the West’s latest idea for getting out of Afghanistan: a trust fund for terrorists.

A second Taliban representative, also reached by phone, said the attack was intended to answer American and Afghan proposals to “reconcile” with and “reintegrate” Taliban fighters into mainstream society. The plan is a central part of the American-backed campaign to turn the tide of the war, and will be showcased later this month at an international conference in London.

“We are ready to fight, and we have the strength to fight, and nobody from the Taliban side is ready to make any kind of deal,” Mr. Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said. “The world community and the international forces are trying to buy the Taliban, and that is why we are showing that we are not for sale.”

Is anyone really all that surprised? The Taliban don’t need money. They just want power. In any case, it kind of takes the decision out of our hands, doesn’t it?

As Terry Glavin points out, this would be an awfully good time for Canada to take a stand; hopefully something more robust than that “if there is even one Canadian soldier reporting for duty in Afghanistan after 2011, he must be assigned to guard an embassy, and he must be odd.”

When I first heard of Google’s threat to withdraw its online services from China over censorship and intellectual property theft, my response was “what took them so long?” It’s not like these complaints are anything new. The company’s slogan, “Don’t Be Evil”, has been a favored target of critics since the Internet giant first went along with Chinese online censorship efforts in 2002.

So why is it only now that Google is considering this move? It turns out the “intellectual property” at risk from the latest attack is not financial data or proprietary Google code. According to Google, it’s something a bit more damning:

We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

Now, email accounts get broken into all the time. I’ve worked for an IT consulting firm that specializes in security, so I know a thing or two about how easy it is to hack email, blogs, corporate websites and such. Sad to say, but most of us are vulnerable. The scale of the problem is typically underestimated because many of the hacking victims worldwide don’t know yet that their accounts have been compromised — often for months or even years.

Hackers can cover their tracks and even make it appear that the person conducting the attack is from another country. In the case of the email accounts of the human rights activists, it would be perverse (and make bad business sense) for Google to withdraw services from hundreds of millions of Chinese just because the accounts were broken into. After all, human rights activists get hacked just like everyone else. Google’s stance just wouldn’t make much sense, particularly after putting up with China’s abusive rules for eight years.

It would be perverse, unless Google had definitive proof that these accounts had been hacked directly by employees of the Chinese state.

That could be a good reason to cease doing business in China. After all, cooperating with a censorship regime can be argued to an extent as at least doing the lesser evil. But remaining silent while you know that your infrastructure is hijacked by a totalitarian government to target human rights activists? That is evil, pure and simple.

It’s no longer enough to not be evil. It’s time to be good.

My Zionist brothers and sisters, this is your Mossad station chief in Vancouver. I ask for your forgiveness for breaching our security protocols through this public broadcast. It was necessary to reach you all before the operation came into full effect.

Operation Glowing Hearts is aborted.

Our plot has been found out. While it is clear that these plucky freedom fighters have not yet stumbled on the details of our plan, it will only be a matter of time before they discover the nuclear weapons we stowed underneath the Olympic Oval and GM place. Your new orders are to immediately retrieve all radioactive materials and evacuate Canadian soil.

It is incredible to believe that this Sherlock Holmes-type character who runs the Ziofascism blog was able to put together all of the clues. After all, this operation was premised on the idea that it could not possibly be blamed on us; who would suspect the only nation that had ever had its Olympic athletes massacred by terrorists to be behind the latest Olympic terror incident?

This one has somehow been able to deduce that Jews were behind not only the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks, but behind all of the acts of terror committed from the beginning of time. Surely he will soon stumble upon our simple 10-step guide book for how Jews can convince Jew-hating fundamentalists and fanatics to martyr themselves for the deeper Zionist cause.

We can only hope that this man does not somehow manage to find the documentary evidence that we were indeed behind all of the wars of the past six centuries. He certainly seems to be on the right track.

The Jewish nation thanks you for your efforts. We will regroup and continue the fight to ensure permanent Jewish control over the nations of the world and a sustainable supply of gentile blood for our Passover matzoh. Shalom.

Further Reading
A Mossad attack on Vancouver?

These Anti-Zionists Are On to Something. They Must Be Eliminated

American forces are moving into Haiti in the wake of a devastating earthquake, providing emergency aid and support to maintain public order. For the moment, the image in some parts of the world of Western forces as war criminals and occupiers fades a bit as disciplined leathernecks move ashore to help people in desperate need. As the shell-shocked Haitians hear of “a swift, coordinated and aggressive” operation by the US military, they will welcome the troops not with rockets and insurgent tactics, but with tears of joy and gratitude.

The troops on the ground will have heavy responsibilities. Indeed, in coming days, they should be called on to act in ways they had never expected — perhaps, in ways that the locals won’t want, but which they do need.

Still the World’s Sole Superpower
America’s ability to respond to these kinds of emergencies all over the world is a reminder of the world’s sole remaining superpower’s unique capability to act for good or evil — particularly when compared with other geopolitical contenders.

Some are convinced of China’s rise as a world power (and there are those who would suggest it has already overtaken America as a superpower). Yet no one is expecting the Chinese navy to drop in and take a leading role in the relief effort in what is essentially America’s pond. You’ll recall that in the wake of the 2004 tsunami that devastated southeast Asia, any kind of overt Chinese military response was extremely limited. It’s unclear whether they lacked the logistical ability to provide far-ranging support, or whether full-scale Chinese intervention might have raised the hackles of neighbors already nervous about a longer-term “China threat”. Meanwhile, the US navy was only too eager to deploy in typical gung-ho style.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
A robust application of military power in these kinds of situations is not to be feared or fought. The American effort is welcomed with open arms. Indeed, people around the world would be shocked if the USA didn’t take an active role in Haiti now. Their efforts are to be lauded.

That said, it must also be acknowledged that it took a natural disaster of unprecedented scope to drag America back into Haiti, when disasters of another sort in Haiti ought to have been higher up the US agenda years ago. The USA should get credit for leading the current effort in Haiti, but the past decade has seen this small island nation endure a living hell of abject poverty, corruption, gangsterism and political instability. When one thinks of the resources spent and wasted in Iraq due to mismanagement and corruption, it’s incredible to think what might have been possible in Haiti given a more focused attention and diversion of resources to the USA’s own sphere of influence.

Indeed, America can act in Haiti in more far-ranging ways compared with other countries that will avoid “interference in a country’s internal affairs” at all costs. America didn’t break Haiti, as it broke Iraq. But there will still be pressure for a long-term American presence to help the country become notable for something other than being the poorest place in the Western hemisphere. Economic aid should come with conditions to hit possibly the worst aspect of Haitian indigenous culture: child slavery.

It may seem incredible, but it’s true: “Haiti was the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery, when it won its independence in 1804 after a struggle led by Toussaint Louverture. But thousands live a life of near-slave labour because of poverty and social breakdown.”

A Real Fight for Freedom
Child slavery in Haiti is not a new phenomenon, though the relatively recent adoption of child slaves to serve not the rich, but the less poor, has certainly put horrific spin on this perverse practice. Haitians reportedly defend the practice as a part of their indigenous culture. But child slavery is one of those things that neither cultural relativism nor poverty can properly excuse. It is a crime and a violation of human rights.

Now that Americans and other countries will be boosting their resources and boots on the ground, we have an opportunity to remove a terrible exception to the freedom that the rest of this region takes for granted.