New Media

No matter what happens at the Canada-USA hockey game, there’s no question that Canada has owned the podium this Olympics.

Gold medals at the Winter Olympics in Calgary? Zero.

Montreal? Zero.

Vancouver? Thirteen.

Which goes to show that $100 million buys a lot of gold. Kudos to our athletes for showing an incredible return on investment for Canadian taxpayer dollars.

(What was the final tally on that gun registry program, anyway?)

The Winner Is

Am I crazy, or did a convicted terrorist just walk free for no good reason?

Just a few days ago, we had this story about how criminals could no longer take advantage of a legal loophole to avoid hard-time behind bars:

Criminals convicted in Canada will no longer be able to receive double credit for time served before trial unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will announce in a news conference on Parliament Hill Tuesday afternoon he is enacting the legislation which eliminates the common practice of two-for-one credit for pre-trial custody…

“It’s going to go a long way to giving people confidence in the justice system,” said Manitoba Justice Minister Andrew Swan.

And today, a man who entered a plea of guilty of involvement in a terrorist plot goes free the same day as a result of the old rules about two-for-one credit:

James, 27, pleaded guilty in Superior Court to one count of participating in a terrorist group, an offence that carries a maximum 10-year jail term. He received seven years plus a day, but with time served taken into account on the customary two-for-one basis, he was to be freed from Maplehurst prison shortly after leaving court.

I’m not a lawyer. Can someone in the know please explain this to me? Seriously.

The Toronto 18 Terror Plot

During the Vietnam war, American forces were obsessed with body counts. In a jungle war where the South Vietnamese and US forces were theoretically in control of all territory, while actual military control extended only to the nearest treeline, counting enemy deaths served as some kind of grotesque marker for military success. In the end, these metrics were utterly beside the point. The Americans bugged out under the cover of a peace deal that was promptly torn up as communist tanks crashed through the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon.

Americans and NATO forces like our own don’t publicize body counts anymore. It’s not just because Vietnam tainted the practice. Partly, this is because they work for politicians elected by populations that have only rarely been comfortable with the scale of carnage made possible by industrial methods. Body counts may have helped certain soldiers win promotions, but this sort of information doesn’t do much to win the hearts and minds of the home front. Instead, we focus today on the more traditional metrics of success on the battlefield — territory and the support of the people who dwell within it.

These days, it is the Taliban who are obsessed with body counts — as usual, without distinguishing combatants and civilians. In the heart of Kabul, seventeen Afghans and foreigners were murdered this morning by suicide attackers. The enemy boasts of their “glorious” victory over medical doctors, a documentary film-maker, government officials and three Afghan policemen. It was a brutal act, only slightly dulled in its effect by the parade of Taliban atrocities that have come before it.

While the Taliban are focused on the body counts of doctors, film makers, aid workers and ordinary Afghan civilians, ISAF and the Afghan National Army are concentrating on the end-game. It’s not about counting corpses — it’s about boots on the ground and ordinary Afghans having a chance to get on with their lives without worrying about getting their throats slit by barbarians.

We’re still early into this surge, as our own soldiers and our allies have finally been given the resources they need to do the job. But the early signs are promising. Finally, we can start looking at what comes after the thugs have been routed. By 2011, we may already be a good ways along this road.

Further Reading
On This Day, The Birthday Of The Prophet: A Taliban Atrocity In The Streets of Kabul
Turning the Tide Against the Taliban

What’s in store for Canada in Afghanistan post-2011?

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee (CASC) will unveil its Vision for Canada’s Role in Afghanistan Post-2011 on March 9 at the National Archives Hall in Ottawa. The event, called “Canada and Afghanistan: Keeping Our Promises”, is hosted by the Free Thinking Film Society of Ottawa and is also a fundraiser for the Afghan School Project.

Tickets: $30 regular admission, $15 students
• Purchase tickets online:
Online at http://www.canilf.org/news/
• Purchase tickets in person:
Ottawa Folklore Centre (1111 Bank Street, Ottawa)
Compact Music (190 Bank; 7851 ½ Bank Street, Ottawa)

Vancouver has always been one of Canada’s most photogenic cities. Public art and cool venues built for the Olympics have certainly helped top up that visual appeal. Some images of our incredible city, starting with the artistic globes put up along the seawall in False Creek.

Salman Rushdie on Amnesty’s poisonous relationship with Islamofascists:

Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty’s leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong. It has greatly compounded its error by suspending the redoubtable Gita Sahgal for the crime of going public with her concerns.

Read the complete statement here.

This is why I have recently ended my monthly donations to Amnesty’s organization. I will continue to write letters in support of political prisoners and human rights, but I will not fund an organization whose executive seems to have lost its way.

H/T to Harry’s Place