Written
October 22, 2009
When you have been in jail
for years with no trial, faced with a judge that is running on the
attitude that he would convict a teenager of terrorism
for shoplifting that is quite the mountain to climb. I
guess, Zakaria Amara recognized that at one point or
another and decided to just put an end to it all without
posing any sort of challenge. It
normally happens within the justice system. Perhaps he
was aiming for a lesser sentence like the other men.
Regardless, now the “ring leader” of the Toronto 18 will
be put behind bars for a long time. Three guilty pleas
and a conviction is enough for people to throw their
hand's up in the air and to begin heralding this entire
case of the Toronto 18 as case closed despite the others
still going to trial -- some of Amara's "associates".
I am
not asking to believe whether he is innocent or not.
Quite frankly, I don't care what your opinion is on the
matter. I can
personally just jump on the bandwagon and begin condemning
like many of the Muslim leaders that we have here in
Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton and all across Canada. Perhaps I
can join in the chorus of people lambasting these
“terrorists” as despicable and who display an attitude
contrary to the message of Islam.
I can
jump on the bandwagon right now but let’s face it, many
in the Muslim community have jumped on it a long time
ago. They have long abandoned these men and this touchy
issue so stop pretending that you have always been an
objective bystander finally making a statement now.
After
the arrests, a whole plethora of reaction came pouring out
of the Muslim community, already condemning as if the
case has been closed on the guilt of all these men, pre-emptively
condemning in order to protect their own behinds. Some
even toasted it up with CSIS and the RCMP. Before the
handcuffs were even placed on the accused, there were
people ready to carry the RCMP and CSIS up and down the
streets in celebration.
Imam’s were urging young people in the community to
freely talk with CSIS with little or no care in
providing them the tools they need to ensure their
safety – especially in light of CSIS historical record
that highlights a history of human rights violations.
You find statement after statement of people calling for
the need of fighting extremism. From highly credible
Muslim leaders who are just trying to minimize the
backlash of the arrests on their community, without any
sort of ideological axe to grind against a perceived
theological rival (ie. Salafis, Wahhabis or Sufis), to
self/media proclaimed “Muslim leaders” like Tarek Fatah
and Ahmad Amiruddin who are both close associates of
Jason Kenney. Of course, both with huge ideological axes
to grind: Fatah against the music concert organizing
wahhabis of MuslimFest (a completely ridiculous notion,
even for him) and Amiruddin who saw Al-Maghrib
Institute as the primary source of terrorist ideology in
Canada. Even such clear and complete idiots have become
intimidating for a lot of people. It is definitely
confusing. All these intertwining issues, defensive
reactions and opportunistic whistle-blowing are
difficult to make sense out of.
Understandable responses, I guess. After all, who needs
the headache of defending a bunch of men who might end
up getting convicted? When the RCMP put together a
massive press conference – not to mention the spectacle
of the arrests – displaying what they herald to be
impressive evidence, followed by press conferences,
press releases, one after the other, from credible
Muslim organizations, their head Imam’s tucking their
tails in-between their legs, feigning courage and lack
of attraction to power at the pulpit … I mean, who needs
the headache? Quite frankly, no one seems to need the
headache within the Muslim community.
I
remember an event in which Dennis Edney, Omar Khadr's
well-known lawyer, lambasted the majority Muslim
audience for giving him a standing ovation. He said all
across the country, people stand up to praise him, he
always receives standing ovations, one after the other,
and no one does any work. So even if people are willing
to take in some headache the amount that they are
willing to tolerate is extremely limited. Yeah, they'll
come to an event but they'll just go home and play with
their hair. So getting involved becomes nothing more
than a superficial intellectual exercise.
When
looking at the Toronto 18 issue, people are faced with a
limited number of choices about how to deal with it:
i. To
remove yourself from the issue by completely avoiding
it.
ii. Take
the safe route and just agree with whoever seems like
they are winning.
iv. To
keep scrutinizing every single piece of evidence and
statement that has been made by the judges, RCMP and
CSIS regarding this case in light of their historical
record which is anything but impressive.
The
first is easy, just lay low and hope that no one spots
you. The second seems to be the most indecisive,
opportunistic and cowardly choice. The third seems to
belong to people impressed by power while being much
like the second. The last choice of course is the stance
of a difficult to please jerk that finds it impossible to
put history aside in order to lay low, make the cowardly
choice or to toast the seats of power.
Who
needs to call for an inquiry when Ali Dirie, now a
"convicted terrorist", was physically abused in prison? Who
needs to join an activist group that is calling for a
fair trial for these men? Or a group that tries to
identify the weaknesses of the “evidence” when all
effort can just go to organizing something that
guarantee praises? A conference on the importance of
community leadership by helping charitable organizations
that provide food for malnourished children, perhaps?
Who needs the headache, right? Who wants to be condemned
as a terrorist sympathizer? It’s clear which one
guarantees praise. There is no question that feeding
malnourished children is necessary work, but is it fair
to assert that the other is necessary as well? For
someone to pick up on the dirty work because someone has
to do it?
The
Muslim community seems to be concerned with creating
leaders that fit the mold of a tie and suit wearing
politician; and thobe wearing leaders that could deliver
the crap out of khutbah about modesty but not know jack
about the world around them. Even when they do, do they
have the testicular fortitude to put their reputation
out there to ask fair and unpopular questions?
Where
are the leaders who are out to raise questions about
issues that others are too scared to ask? Before
the story of Charkoui’s triumph over the years of CSIS
accusation of him being a terrorist was buried in the
back pages, everyone walked away from him, so-called
leaders. If these never-satisfied jerks, always so full
of scrutinizing questions, did not exist, would he be
spending life in prison as well as opposed to
celebrating in complete freedom with his family? Such a
question is important to ponder for those who take the
idea of leadership seriously and not just as an avenue
of self-advancement for their career and reputation.
No
one wants to take a chance at trying to scrutinize the
evidence put forth by CSIS or the way that they have
gone about with their infiltration. On the spot, I can
think of a couple of possible questions that people
should reflect on when they find themselves intimidated
by what they are seeing all over the media -- especially
after Zakaria Amara's guilty plea.
How
impressive is the evidence really?
So we
hear a lot of these crazy recorded conversations that
seem to imply some sinister plot to a lot of people. But
then you start remembering that some of us have had
crazy things said to us or overheard something that
sounded insane at one point or another in our lives. Are
we going to start snitching on each other for idiotic
thoughts? If I were to write a song about killing the
Prime Minister, could I be arrested? What if I just
whisper it to some random stranger on the subway?
I
once had someone tell me that they would like to be a
suicide bomber. I could have filed a police report and
raised a flag on that guy. Instead, I called him an idiot
and walked away.
Thought-crimes.
We
look at the television and we see Zakaria Amara testing
a “sophisticated” cellphone trigger-device that caused a
spark and burned a hole through his apartment carpet. Is
it possible that he just had an interest in putting it
together? A science project? Of course not, don’t be
ridiculous, right? Is it possible that he made it so he
can brag to his friends about how big his set of balls
are for making such a device?
Coming from a background of extreme juvenile
delinquency, I have come across many immature young men
who do like to brag and show off how bad ass they are. I
once had a high school friend who pulled a butterfly
knife in front of me and said he will stab some “punk
ass muthafucka who messed with his girl”. Being a common
day to day happening in the machismo culture of high
school, I took it as meaningless bravado. He stabbed no
one the next day. The same goes with the so-called
“gang” at my high school with the leader who started
requesting money from members so he could purchase a
gun. Meaningless bravado. Moronic thoughts.
At
the end of the day, it all comes down to those three
tonnes of ammonium nitrate. We hear all the time that it
would have surpassed the Oklahoma City Bombing which was
done with ONE tonne. We see that terrifying
demonstration put together by the RCMP of only one tonne
of ammonium nitrate. It looked like a movie and was
definitely hair-raising. Then you start thinking of what
kind of controlled environment that explosion was
created in.
Now
we can turn to Professor Michael Keefer’s analysis of
the situation:
"For the arsenal
of weaponry revealed by the arresting officers was distinctly
unimpressive. In addition to five pairs of boots, it consisted of
“six flashlights, one walkie-talkie, one voltmeter, eight D-cell
batteries, a cell phone, a circuit board, a computer hard drive, one
barbecue grill, a set of barbecue tongs, a wooden door with 21
bullet marks and a 9 mm hand gun.” ... Not that any of the accused
had actually been in possession of that or any other bag of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer – much less fuel oil, or an appropriately
configured truck in which to mix the two, or a detonating device –
in the absence of which ammonium nitrate makes plants grow, but
won’t blow anything up, not even the headquarters of CSIS. Yet one
or possibly more of the accused had apparently been
lured by a police agent into making a purchase order
of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate, and had
accepted delivery of some quantity of a harmless
substitute chemical, at which point the police
swooped."
Out
of sheer wonderment, I decided to take a quick look on
Wikipedia at how the bombs were constructed by Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols. You do not even need to read
all of it. Just skim over it and you will realize a huge
difference between this plot and what Amara has plead
guilty to.
“On April 17–18, McVeigh and Nichols
loaded 108 bags of explosive-grade
ammonium nitrate
fertilizer weighing 50 pounds (23 kg)
each, three 55-US-gallon (210 l) drums of liquid
nitromethane, several crates of explosive
Tovex, seventeen bags of
ANFO, and spools of
shock tube and cannon
fuse into the Ryder truck from their
storage unit in
Herington,
Kansas, where Nichols lived. The two then
drove to Geary County State Lake, where they nailed
boards onto the floor of the trucks to hold the
thirteen barrels in place and mixed the chemicals
using plastic buckets and a bathroom scale. Each
filled barrel weighed nearly 500 pounds (230 kg).
McVeigh added more explosives to the driver's side
of the cargo bay, which he could ignite at close
range (at the cost of his own life), with his
Glock 21 pistol if the primary fuses
failed. During McVeigh's trial, Lori Fortier (the
wife of Michael Fortier) stated that McVeigh claimed
to have arranged the barrels in order to form a
shaped charge. This was achieved by
tamping the aluminum side panel of the
truck with bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to
direct the blast laterally towards the building.
Specifically, McVeigh arranged the barrels in the
shape of a backwards J; he said later that for pure
destructive power, he would have put the barrels on
the side of the cargo bay closest to the Murrah
Building; however, such an unevenly distributed
7,000-pound (3,200 kg) load might have broken an
axle, flipped the truck over, or at least caused it
to lean to one side, which could have drawn
attention.
McVeigh then added a dual-fuse
ignition system accessible from the truck's front
cab. He drilled two holes in the cab of the truck
under the seat, while two holes were also drilled in
the van of the truck. One green cannon fuse was run
through each hole into the cab. These time-delayed
fuses led from the cab of the truck, through plastic
fish-tank tubing conduit, to two sets of
non-electric blasting caps. The tubing was painted
yellow to blend in with the
truck's
livery, and duct-taped in place to the
wall to make them harder to disable by yanking from
the outside. The fuses were set up to initiate,
through shock tubes, the 350 pounds (160 kg) of
Tovex Blastrite Gel "sausages", which would in turn
set off the configuration of barrels. Of the
thirteen filled barrels, nine contained ammonium
nitrate and nitromethane, and four contained a
mixture of the fertilizer and about 4-US-gallon
(15 l) of diesel fuel. Additional materials and
tools used for manufacturing the bomb were left in
the truck to be destroyed in the blast. After
finishing the truck bomb, the two men separated;
Nichols returned home to Herington and McVeigh with
the truck to Junction City.”
One
thing we can take away from that vivid description is:
that is a lot of materials and work to cause an explosion out of
ammonium nitrate. Did Zakaria Amara even come close?
From the looks of it, despite his guilty plea, he just
looks like a tired, hopeless and abandoned man who still
holds on to the possibility of living with his family as
a senior citizen down the road. Believe what you want
regarding his guilt. If you do think that he is
completely guilty, you have to at least recognize the
striking difference between the two plots: McVeigh and
Nichols actually had a bomb.
Going
further down the rabbit hole, everything connects to the
moles: Mubin Sheikh and the other who set up the
delivery of the ammonium nitrate. What were the
circumstances when it was supposedly “ordered”? What was
the role of the moles in that process? How trustworthy
are they? The role of the RCMP and CSIS? Who’s warehouse
was it delivered to? None of these have ever been tested
in court. Even when they are tested, it is by judges who
are willing to equate shoplifting junk with aiding and
abetting a terrorist organization. Not to mention judges
who are known to make ridiculous statements regarding
Islam, equating a religious sermon with a call to
action, but of course no one is allowed to report on it.
Much
to my annoyance, I once heard an Imam during a khutbah
state that back in the day the enemies of Islam was
beheaded in the battlefield and he left it at that. I
assume it was due to his lack of proficiency in the
English language that he was not able to put such a
sermon in the proper historical context. I guess next time I
will be calling the cops on him because I don’t want
anyone thinking he was indoctrinating me in terrorist
ideology.
Thought-crimes.
I can
either keep scrutinizing by asking these questions or I
can jump on the same bandwagon that many Imam’s and
Muslim leaders have shamelessly jumped on already. I can take the
safe route and agree with whoever seems like they are
winning. I can celebrate side by side with CSIS and the
RCMP, toast them for a job well done and then recommend
for people to freely speak to CSIS as if it was some
random chum off the street. Or, I can just sit back,
play my NBA2K10 and hope that no one notices me sitting
on the sideline. Yeah, that definitely sounds pretty
sweet. Who needs the headache?
If I
could do a social experiment, I would get every single
Muslim to write a rap song about assassinating the Prime
Minister and blowing up City Hall. I’m curious to see
how many would get a phone call from our own set of
Orwellian cops.
For
more information, I would suggest taking a look at the
documentary called “Unfair Dealing” by David Weingarten
which can be found
here.
In
the spirit of resistance,
Critical Mood
