New details emerge in Ontario terror case

[dancing-loon]

New details emerge in Ontario terror case
(just in time for the Omar Khadr trial?)

Crown lawyers expect to present evidence against the Toronto-area terror suspects that show some of the accused planned to commit attacks more deadly than the London subway bombings, according to documents filed in court containing anticipated evidence.

New details contained in the Crown factum that was filed at the trial of the only remaining youth charged allege prosecutors have audio tapes and video tape evidence of some of the suspects plotting several explosions.

The factum contains transcripts of alleged conversations between suspects, including one where one of the accused speaks about the group's violent ambitions.

http://tinyurl.com/2nb8c7
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Too many "alledge" in my opinion to take it serious. Timing of this "alledged" business appears suspicious to me. Just a couple of days ago the Globe and Mail reporter gave the Government some heck for being totally uncooperative in helping a Canadian citizen, namely young Omar Khadr.

Sorry, I'm not sparing the Canadian Government my doubt and cynicism. I still remember the Arar case!!

 

[DurkaDurka]

They will have their day in court, what is the problem here Loon and what does this have to do with terrorist boy-Khadr?

 

[MikeyDB]

It is alleged….

It is alleged that if you’re diligent and studious your parents your society and your government will facilitate your opportunity to succeed. The truth is that unless you are willing to adopt the popular game-face when it comes to judgment and opinion your attitude and behavior will be branded as anti-social and you will be regarded as a misfit. It is alleged that Canada as a nation and Canadians as a people are fair minded and trustworthy. The truth is that your livelihood will be held over your head as mechanism of reward and punishment. You have only the security of your employers mood and attitude towards you as assurance that you retain the means of earning a living and feeding your family. You are coerced to acquiesce to the system of justice erected around you and your society, that see’s injustice practiced daily in various forms and many different manners. Your perspective and your values are molded to reflect the image(s) demanded by your society your government, your community and your church (belief) and advertising despite the bias prejudice and inequality that these perspectives imbed practice and provoke.

It is alleged that as a Canadian you live in a democracy that regards your opinion your perspective and your convictions as critical to the complexion of the Canadian identity. The truth is, that your participation in this democracy is purposefully limited to making choices between-lesser-evils when an election is called. Between elections your participation isn’t needed or wanted and your participation is prevented by unscrupulous machinations of governments currying favour with industry and business, by engaging in high level talks that will determine the health and direction of Canadian commerce, behind closed doors guarded by riot-gear clad police and cordoned off from public view by chain link fences.

It is alleged that the wealthy and the poor are equal under the eyes and letter of the law. The truth is that there is one standard of justice for the wealthy the politically connected and the purveyors of “belief” while another exists for the poor for the native for ethnic minorities and for women.

It is alleged that the purpose of government is to serve the interests of the people as a whole. The truth is that government is willingly held hostage to the appetites and caprices of the wealthy entrepreneur.

It is alleged that agreements treaties and international understandings of purpose and principle will be honoured by governments subscribing to these treaties agreements and understandings. The truth is that when the interests of the wealthy (acknowledged as corrupt and dishonest corporate structures) demands that principles of fairness justice mutuality and human rights be abandoned in the interests of business or security or “peace” that these pacts and contracts will be altered or abandoned to suit that purpose.

A society and a system that tolerates these conditions and perpetuates their acceptance has no authority to practice a judgment or a morality it has abandoned.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Nice essay Mikey

 

[karrie]

Too many "alledge" in my opinion to take it serious. Timing of this "alledged" business appears suspicious to me. Just a couple of days ago the Globe and Mail reporter gave the Government some heck for being totally uncooperative in helping a Canadian citizen, namely young Omar Khadr.

Sorry, I'm not sparing the Canadian Government my doubt and cynicism. I still remember the Arar case!!

The 'alledged' is merely media jargon for 'we're not allowed to call it fact until after a conviction'. It has nothing to do with the strength of the case or the available facts. It just means the conviction is pending.

 

[Kreskin]

Or saute.

 

[MikeyDB]

Karrie

Do you think it's appropriate or prudent to put any faith in a system of justice that stands prepared to stand by while great injustice is perpetrated in the world? A system of justice that witnesses innocent people killed by federal police at our airports? A system of justice that only after twenty-two years begins to come to grips with Air India? A system of justice that is manipulated by lawyers and politicians to allow Brian Mulroney and Paul Martin and a huge number of Canadian politicians to slide...?

You keep the faith sister..

I have none.

 

[karrie]

Karrie

Do you think it's appropriate or prudent to put any faith in a system of justice that stands prepared to stand by while great injustice is perpetrated in the world? A system of justice that witnesses innocent people killed by federal police at our airports? A system of justice that only after twenty-two years begins to come to grips with Air India? A system of justice that is manipulated by lawyers and politicians to allow Brian Mulroney and Paul Martin and a huge number of Canadian politicians to slide...?

You keep the faith sister..

I have none.

where did I say I had faith in the system?

Can I construct a better one? No. Do I think many better exist? No. Do I think flawed humans do what they can? Yes. But faith, no, not especially.

I was merely explaining a flawed little bit of logic to loon... that the term 'alleged' somehow weakens the case against them. It doesn't. It is merely a word chosen by the media as a convenient butt-cover.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Mikey, you have faith in very little it seems. No justice system is perfect but the majority of the time, ours works.

 

[karrie]

Mikey, you have faith in very little it seems. No justice system is perfect but the majority of the time, ours works.

I've been studying the history of Cynicism. And I couldn't help but think of Mikey and darkbeaver. :smile:

 

[MikeyDB]

Karrie

Why would a system of law and justice play with semantics if it was bound to fact? Do you reject the idea that your perceptions and your attitudes aren't influenced by the use of words?

When presidents and prime ministers stand before the podium and ladle out lies and misdirection isn't "alleged" and "suspected" and "anticipated" as slippery symbolisms frequently interspersed to give the appearance of legitimacy to what is in fact wholly fantasy and untruth in the effort to elicit the desired conclusion from the great unwashed listening to these lies?

No you didn't say you had faith in this system and I'm simply pointing out that words can be entirely contextual in meaning.

 

[MikeyDB]

Durka

Fool me once.....

And in case you haven't noticed Durka, we keep lurching from one war to another from one exuse for justice to another and despite generations raised to believe in the formulas of their parents, we're all going around in a circle that keeps killing and poverty and destruction as inevitable concepts within our perceptions of the human condition.

If you believe that answers or strategies don't exist up to the task of addressing these recurring issues, why bother with "loyalty" and what meaning does "morality" have?

 

[karrie]

Karrie

Why would a system of law and justice play with semantics if it was bound to fact? Do you reject the idea that your perceptions and your attitudes aren't influenced by the use of words?

Why? Because we have demanded innocence until proven guilty in court. So if they find you, MikeDB, standing over a freshly dug grave, they can only allege that you dug it until the court hears proof and passes down a verdict. Even with Pickton, these words were used. When it was known and it was clear as hell's bells what he'd been up to, he was guaranteed innocence until the case was finished and the final verdict handed down.

Would you like to see us proceed otherwise? Would you like to hear the media state that these men ARE on tape, ARE guilty? What faith would you have in a system that decides guilt first and leaves it to the accused to prove otherwise?

 

[DurkaDurka]

Well Mikey, if you feel you cannot fix or you are just apathetic about these reoccurring patterns in history such as war, poverty, injustice etc, by all means be cynical & mistrusting of it.

 

[MikeyDB]

Durka

I've marched in protests on Parliament hill, I've exercised my vote...I've worked within the limited sphere of government I was a part of for years and absolutely nothing has changed. I quit one job because I presented the case that the re-structuring of the Juvenile Delinquents Act was antithetical to the results/outcomes being sought. The list of how and what I've tried to do as a participant in this country goes back years and years. If you can't see a change taking place despite volumes...literally mountains of evidence that screams out that some very basic fundamental things are wrong....what's the point?

 

[MikeyDB]

Karrie

I fully support the premise, the principle behind "innocent until proven guilty", but accepting allegations as pre-amble to action based on fact and certainty aren't part of that principle or premise. It's like asking the question.." Have you stopped beating your wife yet..."

An assumption is made that because someone "suspects" that a situation or condition exists, that ipso facto...shazamm that MUST be what's going on behind the scenes.

When our perceptions are sculpted to reach particualar conclusion what is the value in the precept of "innocent until proven guilty"? We went to war in Afghanistan because we believed that our good neighbors wouldn't lie to us...when in fact there is plenty of evidence indicating that that's exactly what they did!

It was "allegged" that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and this allegation and supposition un-confirmed by fact and evidence has cost this world and will continue to cost this world for years to come...

Before something is internalized with the label of "alleged", the preparedeness of the person making the allegations to influence perception and belief must be scrutinized with the sharpest focus. Sharper in fact than any other because this person or these people wouldn't be sowing the seeds of desired conclusion uless there was a particular conclusion being sought.

Critical thought is victim to artifice and baloney and if you don't think it is why would advertising firms spend billions upon billions of dollars to influence how you thought about particualr products?

 

[Praxius]

In addition:

Defence in Toronto bomb plot case counters claims of terror training
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/26/toronto-trial.html

A defence lawyer in the alleged Toronto-area bomb plot case filed a court document Wednesday attacking the Crown's case as fanciful and based largely on the unsubstantiated allegations of an unreliable police informant.

The fact that they bought explosive equipment from undercover officers had nothing to do with it? Ok.....

The defence factum, a summary of the case that lawyers will argue during the trial, takes on some of the more dramatic allegations made in Crown documents submitted on Tuesday.

The factum was filed on behalf of one of the adult accused whose case has yet to go to trial.

The trial began this week of another defendant, who was 18 at the time of his arrest and cannot be named under the terms of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

If he was 18, he's an adult.... release his name.

The factum says the defence lawyer will show that a so-called "jihadist" training camp run by some of the accused was nothing more than a screening exercise for possible recruits to Islamic militancy, and few of the participants in training at the camp — near the southern Ontario town of Orillia — knew what they were involved in.

Two of the other defendants who have yet to go on trial ran the camp, the factum says, and concealed its purpose from other participants. Trainees took part in winter camping activities but were so ill-equipped for the cold weather that they spent much of their time in a nearby Tim Hortons coffee shop.

Informant brought bullets: lawyer

The document acknowledges that some firearms training took place, but it alleges that the only person to bring live ammunition to the camp was a police informant. That same informant was the person who actually conducted the gun exercises, the factum says.
In addition, the document alleges that the only source of information about what was happening at the Orillia camp was the police informant. There was no "real time" police surveillance, it says.

Responding to transcripts of audio tapes of a police wiretap that the Crown claims were "damning and disturbing" proof of a militant Islamist bomb plot, the factum filed Wednesday said the defendant was not present at the time that other accused were talking about attacking Parliament and the headquarters of CSIS and the CBC.

The factum concludes with an argument against the Crown's request for a publication ban on the names of the defendants, or any evidence that might help identify them.

The document says police and government officials have already taken part in "orgiastic and self congratulatory press gathering … during which evermore private details and 'investigative gossip' were revealed to inflame and misinform the public."

No witnesses until May

"Restricting the publication of evidence at a trial is the sharp edge of a slippery slope," the factum states, "which … results in 'Star Chamber' or military commission [-style] trials where the public's right to know is supplanted by the government desire to withhold."
The document says the defendant would suffer unduly from a publication ban because he wouldn't be disassociated from some of the worst allegations being made in the case.

In all, 18 suspects were originally charged with offences related to supporting terrorism, but three have had charges against them stayed.

None of the evidence detailed in the Crown review has been tested in court.

Although the trial officially began Tuesday, the first witnesses are not expected to be called until May 27.

There's a chance the defence might be right, but I don't see/hear anything that's very strong or supportive of their innocence yet, except equally dumb explinations. (Oh it was cold so they hung out at Timmy's for most of the time.) Welcome to Canada you nut jobs.... what'd you expect?

Whether or not they're guilty or innocent, I personally can not say at this juncture, but there's some very serious acusations towards them..... CSIS and the RCMP better have their sh*t together.

 

[Walter]

we keep lurching from one war to another from one exuse for justice to another and despite generations raised to believe in the formulas of their parents, we're all going around in a circle that keeps killing and poverty and destruction as inevitable concepts within our perceptions of the human condition.

The Ploughshares Monitor

Summer 2005, volume 26, no. 2

The 2005 Armed Conflicts Report — preview (For a map showing the countries hosting armed conflict in 2004, click here.)

Although the world endured 32 armed conflicts1 during 2004, the total was the lowest since Project Ploughshares began monitoring armed conflicts in 1987. At 26, the number of states hosting conflict violence in 2004 was also the lowest of the 18-year period (see Figure 1). There were four fewer armed conflicts and two fewer states involved in war than in 2003.
The latest drop in both the number of armed conflicts and the number of states at war is the fifth successive decline in annual conflict totals and follows a turbulent post-Cold War period that saw the total number of armed conflicts peak at 44 in 1995. Although extrapolation remains speculative, the general downward trend in armed conflicts since 1987 supports the value of increased multilateral efforts at peacemaking, peacekeeping, and especially peacebuilding to prevent the reemergence of violent conflict. Despite the persistence of political, communal, and criminal violence across the globe, there is evidence that international efforts to reduce, end, and prevent armed conflicts are bearing fruit.

 

[karrie]

Karrie

I fully support the premise, the principle behind "innocent until proven guilty", but accepting allegations as pre-amble to action based on fact and certainty aren't part of that principle or premise. It's like asking the question.." Have you stopped beating your wife yet..."

An assumption is made that because someone "suspects" that a situation or condition exists, that ipso facto...shazamm that MUST be what's going on behind the scenes.

When our perceptions are sculpted to reach particualar conclusion what is the value in the precept of "innocent until proven guilty"? We went to war in Afghanistan because we believed that our good neighbors wouldn't lie to us...when in fact there is plenty of evidence indicating that that's exactly what they did!

It was "allegged" that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and this allegation and supposition un-confirmed by fact and evidence has cost this world and will continue to cost this world for years to come...

Before something is internalized with the label of "alleged", the preparedeness of the person making the allegations to influence perception and belief must be scrutinized with the sharpest focus. Sharper in fact than any other because this person or these people wouldn't be sowing the seeds of desired conclusion uless there was a particular conclusion being sought.

Critical thought is victim to artifice and baloney and if you don't think it is why would advertising firms spend billions upon billions of dollars to influence how you thought about particualr products?

Some compelling thoughts Mikey.

 

[Fain]

Publication Ban?! publish the names outside of Canada or on the internet. This should be a open process and the judge should be fired.