Sputtering (Redux)

I suspect that I'll be doing a lot of this (sputtering) over the next little while as the people involved in the terrorism arrests go through varying degrees of posturing.

Here's a snippet from today's Toronto. (Emphasis mine):


Gary Batasar, the lawyer for Steven Vikash Chand, alias Abdul Shakur, told reporters outside the building his client was accused of wanting to decapitate Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“The allegations, as you reported, are quite serious, including storming and bombing of various buildings,” Batasar said.

“There’s an allegation that my client personally indicated that he wanted to behead the prime minister of Canada.”

Batasar said the synopsis of accusations provided by the Crown included allegations that the group wanted to “storm the Parliament buildings” and “take politicians hostage.” It also indicated that the CBC building in downtown Toronto was a potential target.

The synopsis also alleges Chand indicated “he would personally like to behead Stephen Harper,” Batasar said.

He said the group also allegedly planned to behead the hostages if their demands - the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the release of Muslim prisoners - weren’t met.

Batasar accused those authorities, as well as the U.S. government and President George W. Bush, of trying to instil fear in the public.

“It appears to me that whether you’re in Ottawa or Toronto or Crawford, Tex., or Washington, D.C., what is wanting to be instilled in the public is fear,” he said.

“That’s precisely why everyone is here today, and that’s unfortunate.”

The lawyer chastised Harper for expressing “happiness” that the suspects had been arrested over the weekend.
- - -

Ok. Take a deep breath. Let's take this a bit at a time, shall we?

Better?

Good, 'cause here we go...

We have an individual who, it is alleged, wanted to "behead the Prime Minister", "storm the parliament buildings", and "take politicians hostage". All this from his lawyer's mouth.

And what's the next thing out of that mouth?

An accusation that CSIS, the US Goverment, and George W. Bush himself are behind some kind of sinister plot to "instill fear in the public". If that wasn't idiotic enough, this yahoo proceeds to tell us that he's pissed that Harper's happy about the weekend arrests.

Here we go with the victim culture again.

That any man would stand up and say these things should make him ashamed - ashamed to be a man and ashamed to call himself a Canadian. It disgusts me, and should equally disgust every Canadian in the World.

The spokesmen (how come there are no spokeswomen?) of the Muslim community - as their members are hauled in and out of courtrooms around the world - want to convince us that some kind of Kristallnacht is upon them.

Well, there are some serious flaws in that argument. First and foremost, the difference between German Jews of the 30s and Canadian Muslims today is that our government hasn't passed laws against them, we haven't boycotted their shops, we haven't restricted their economic or religious activities, we haven't forced them to carry special identity cards, and we haven't relocated them.

Quite the contrary, actually.

Canadians and their governments have, over the past several decades, taken people from all over the world, and not just allowed - but encouraged - the maintaining of their respective cultures once they got here.

That jihadists would spring from this is a slap in the face to us all. To have a lawyer preach to us on the courthouse steps about how unfair it all is is just another slap.

This begs all sorts of questions, doesn't it?