The US are still the ones doing something about terrorism

Four Canadian Tamil Tiger supporters tried to bite off more than they could chew, and got what they deserved. Two have already pleaded guilty, the remaining two were slammed up for 25 years today. They tried to buy missiles in the US to send over to Sri Lanka, yet their contact in the US turned out to be an FBI agent. Schadenfreude chuckles are in order: owned!

Never mind their passports, these scum should rot in a US jail for the entirety of their term, and Canada will do better not to plead on their behalf. We've got enough of their ilk already.

Complain as one may, the USA is still immune from the bleeding-heart ideologies that have spread in places such as Britain and, to a lesser extent, Canada. Terrorist supporters are still jailed and the sentences are stiff. They should be grateful they weren't senteced to death.

His rights are as good as mine

What may seem like a perversion of justice at first will instead be remembered, I hope, as a landmark case re-enshrining rights too often violated on the impulse of fear. Radical scum cleric Abu Qatada will be compensated for unlawful detention.

His deportation case has already cleared the court system and he will be booted out of the UK, the country that gave him refuge and which he spat on. But his original detention without charge on terrorism suspicion was a stain on Britain's rule of law and right. The current ECHR ruling sets the record straight: charge or be charged!

However great the threats we face, we must not sink to the lowness of the dictatorships where suspicion is a valid arrest motive and silence is an acceptable charge. Often the test of our love of liberty and rights is how prepared we are to extend them to our enemy. If it wants to maintain a credible anti-terrorism record, Britain should beef up its intelligence service, re-route police resources and stop fearing being politically incorrect. After all, sending undercover agents into a mosque or a culture centre to record a hateful sermon would be a much more efficient way to obtain enough proof to prosecute and expel the Qatada-like hatemongers.

Oft invoked as a scarecrow by complainants of dubious repute, the ECHR nevertheless has so far played a key role in bringing to the public's attention the rights violations carried out in EU member states, and other countries accepting its jurisdiction. Unlike our own HRC's, the ECHR does not create rights of its own. It merely looks after the EU Human Rights Charter, a sound document tarnished by local interpretations such as the UK one.

Bush gets it right, sort of

Whatever we may think of President G.W. Bush, at times his straightforwardness and stubborness are a virtue. Speaking to Israel's Knesset, he linked the desire of many politicians to see dialogue with terrorists and hostile nutjob leaders to the delusion of appeasement that plagued the 20th century. CNN reports this, focusing on his major slip that involved mentioning the Nazi buildup and invasion of Europe. The notion of argument losers mentioning Nazism should have come to the President's attention during his eight years in office. It apparently didn't.

Talking to terrorists is appeasement, whatever Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter might think. Talking to Hezbollah, Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not make them come to their senses for they lack such an attribute in the first place. Negotiating involves two parties in full possession of common sense and willing to come to an agreement. As the aforementioned organizations and leaders lack both, no agreement can be reached. They can be controlled and kept in check at the table only until their firepower is overwhelmingly outnumbered and they haven't got a place to hide. To paraphrase a notorious expression, they will only accept offers they can't refuse.

I once saw hope in Hamas' electoral success, a hope for change. With the responsibility of government, the armed group would need to learn statecraft and open up civilized talks with Israel. Those hopes were shattered as rockets kept pouring into Israeli land. Ahmadinejad was hopeless from day one. America's true vowed enemies seem to lack the ability to learn and reason beyond the language of fire and blood. You'd need armed bodyguards at the negotiation table itself!

British court sides with terrorists

Does anyone have more news on this? A British Court apparently removed a terrorist group from the British watchlist. Searching Google News I came across mostly Iranian sources, with only one from the UK.

The Mujahedin Khalq Organization has been accused of (and sometimes taken responsibility for) several attacks against Iranian establishments, including embassies. They are also accused of Helping Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and helping him suppress internal dissent. The group is on most terrorist group lists compiled on this planet, as well as being a sketchy bunch who do not hesitate to harm their own country's interests by collaborating with its foe.

The IRNA report is not exceedingly vitriolic, although it does criticize the British Government strongly.

The Britain government is held responsible for such a ruling, he said and urged the UK ambassador to convey Iran's protest to his country's high ranking officials.

Fortunately on this side of the Bosphorus we do have something called "separation of powers", which means courts can be a Government's biggest pain in the butt. Despite the bungles I do hope it stays this way.

The Council of Foreign Relations has some more info on the MKO or MEK:

MEK was founded in 1963 by a group of college-educated Iranian leftists—supporters of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq—opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The group participated in the 1979 Islamic revolution that replaced the shah with a Shiite Islamist regime led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. But MEK’s ideology, a blend of Marxism, feminism, and Islamism, put it at odds with the post-revolutionary government, and its original leadership was soon executed by the Khomeini regime. In 1981, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Khomeini’s Iran

Not a good starting point and not a good tactic. The British court system should know better.

Thought crime or curiosity?

Anti-terrorism efforts frequently tread on the fine line between busting real crime and chasing guys who are curious but would never put their lives or careers in danger. The recent case of five UK students whose terrorism convictions were thrown out by the Court of Appeal is a prime example.

They visited terror-related sites, downloaded and shared material and in a letter to his parents one of them appeared determined to undergo terrorist training. None of them had explosives nor was there any proof of criminal intent. Where do we draw the line?

Clearly these students are a potential threat to the UK and the general public and must be watched 24/7 from now on. But (il)legitimate human curiosity cannot be prosecuted, lest we institute an index of forbidden opinions and statements, setting our countries back five hundred years.

My humble opinion on this issue is that visiting and downloading terror-related material must be sufficient reason to place someone on a watch list, including phone tappings and surveillance. As for the sharing, we have to tread carefully. Although the distribution of such material is very dangerous, should sharing such material be a crime in every way I would be in the same pot with those wackos if I ever reported something publicly to my fellow Blogging Tories.

In this case one should advocate for application of concealment law, or any name such legislation goes by. Sharing and distribution of potentially threatening material should be a crime if it is not reported to the police or the relevant authority at the same time. We have a right to dispose of what we own in any way we please, but we also have a duty to denounce what can threaten the peace of our country.

These guys might have knowingly spread incitement to criminal behavior and hidden it from the police. If this is so, they should be prosecuted for concealment, as should everyone who doesn't report terror literature being spread in their neighborhood. Regarding other charges that may be laid against the individuals concerned I would stand by their right to read what they like, make their own decisions and face the consequences.

In this story, however, some aspects deserve mention as a beacon of common sense and civic duty. Firstly the speaker for the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain (God where has Britain gone) auspicates that this case warns other Muslim youth against entertaining themselves with extremist material. Secondly, parents of one defendant alerted the police when their son left an unambiguous letter declaring his intent to become a terrorist.

Good and moderate Muslims exist in our society, they are good citizens and their priceless contribution to ensuring the safety of our societies (and those close to them) has to be acknowledged and emphasized.

Plot to behead a British soldier foiled!

More evidence of Britain breeding violent terrorists at home and complacency, silence or, at worst, collusion within the Islamic community. The fact that a plot to kidnap and behead a British soldier was being prepared in Birmingham is distressing. The silence of those in the know is alarming.

I'll say no more. Good citizens report conspiracies to the police. Good citizens don't suspect of any neighbor, but they do keep an eye out for things that can cause death and damage. No excuse for silence, it's complicity! Good they're being prosecuted.

Don't bend the system, beef up intelligence.

The USA will have to rethink the way they tackle terrorism through the courts - Reuters (more or less). The recent events around the Holy Land case, where a charity was accused of being a fundraiser for Hamas should have us thinking about how much can we really bend a justice system for the sake of national security without abandoning the principle of due process and the rule of law.

Some of the defendants have other terrorist precedents, and it's a stain on their names and reputations, and hopefully their immigration records as well. However the fight against terrorism should be conducted from a high moral standpoint. Trial is, in the ideal case, rightful, public, with evidence, discussions, cross-examinations of witnesses and a jury's verdict. When one is arrested one must know on what charges, and within the rightful cautionary detention time know what the evidence is.

To me the idea of someone being arrested on the grounds of a weakly corroborated intelligence leak and held in custody without knowing what kind of case they're knitting around him is scary to say the least.

I'm leaning towards security certificates here. Although I applaud Harper's commitment to the security of Canadians, I do believe the certificate legislation is a step in the wrong direction. The answer to a heightened security threat is better intelligence services, beefed-up investigation units, efficient co-operation with foreign and international intelligence agencies. No-fly lists are fine, they are less of a media sensation than someone held in custody.

The security certificates are not a good prospect, for they are a dent in the rule of law, especially in the way they treat the right of access to evidence. My vision for a terror trial is the following: CIA reports someone is suspicious, Canadian intelligence and police hone in on the guy and follow him everywhere, collecting data and evidence. When there's enough material for a trial the guy's busted and brought to court.

I know this sounds idealistic, but first one creates special advocates, then special judges and special juries, and then we end up with a two-tier legal system. We shouldn't be going down this road. Instead, we should be beefing up Canadian intelligence services and Canadian police, to make sure Canada remains a beacon of the rule of law and the rule of right.

Note: this post probably won't go on BloggingTories.