Security Trumps Trade with Canada for President Bush -- & -- Mohamed Majoub

Wake up on terror, Cellucci warns Canada -- North America targeted: Consequences of another attack would be 'tragic,' U.S. ambassador says -- "security trumps trade" for George W. Bush -- security a priority

Wake up on terror, Cellucci warns Canada Anne Dawson and Robert Fife, CanWest, Feb. 7, 05

[. . . . ] In a final interview before he leaves Canada next month, Mr. Cellucci said terrorism remains the biggest challenge facing Canada and the United States, and expressed misgivings many Canadians have lost their fear of a new terrorist assault in North America.

"It is inevitable that terrorists would look to Canada as a potential launching pad to get into the U.S.," Mr. Cellucci told CanWest News Service. "It is also quite possible if the terrorists think that the United States is too hard a target, that they'll stage an attack on Canada from the United States, so it is really in each of our security interests to work together to protect the people."

Mr. Cellucci said "security trumps trade" for George W. Bush, the U.S. President, and any terrorist attack in the United States or Canada would have serious economic repercussions for the $365-billion in annual bilateral trade. [. . . . ]

Canada is short about 3500 RCMP and CSIS officers -- Cellucci: Spend more on spies, JTF2 special forces, strategic airlift for a rapid-reaction force -- "U.S. Envoy's Parting Advice: Beef Up the Military"

"Canada also needs to purchase strategic airlift for a rapid-reaction force so it does not have to hitch rides with the U.S. air force, or rent Ukraine-built Antonov cargo planes from Russia as the military had to do during the recent tsunami crisis."

Spend more on spies, soldiers, Cellucci urges Robert Fife and Anne Dawson, Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 4, 05

Canada can "punch above its weight" on the global stage, but it must pour money into intelligence gathering, create a rapid-reaction strike force and buy heavy-lift aircraft to transport elite soldiers to world trouble spots, says outgoing U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci.

With a boost in defence spending expected in the federal budget, Mr. Cellucci said Canada's 55,000-member military needs to be reshaped to battle terrorist threats, confront ethic cleansing and help out in national disasters.

The U.S. would like Canada to beef up its elite JTF2 special forces and establish a Canadian strike force that could deploy anywhere in the world on short notice.

[. . . . ] Mr. Cellucci did not say how many soldiers the U.S. would like to see in a strike force.

But experts have said Canada should be able to commit a self-contained brigade-size unit of about 4,000 soldiers to any rapid-reaction force.

In fact, the Liberal government has committed to recruiting an additional 5,000 full-time troops, and the Defence Department is in the process of doubling the size of the Joint Task Force 2 ranks to an estimated 600 troops from 300 counter-terrorism commandos. [. . . . ]

I have heard there are problems with this recruitment. Look into it. Talk to those in the military -- lower ranks, since the upper ranks may have to support the government's position -- a politicized military. How else would one get ahead in Ottawa?




Justice Eleanor Dawson -- Toronto man with alleged links to al-Qaeda to stay in Canada over fears he'll be tortured in Egypt

Whose rights are paramount in Canada? Mohamed Mahjoub's or Canadians'? No contest. His!

Judge refuses to deport terror suspect -- Toronto man with alleged links to al-Qaeda to stay in Canada over fears he'll be tortured in Egypt Andrew Duffy, with files from Shannon Kari and James Gordon, Ottawa Citizen

Justice Eleanor Dawson said that since a federal immigration official was not allowed to see the secret dossier against Mohamed Mahjoub, he did not have the information on which to base a decision that could result in his mistreatment or torture.

The official had to decide whether Mr. Mahjoub's threat to national security outweighed his risk of being tortured in Egypt. But in making that assessment, the official was not allowed to review the complete dossier prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, only a summary of it.

[. . . . ] CSIS contends that Mr. Mahjoub was a high-ranking member of Vanguards of the Conquest, a radical wing of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. That group merged with al-Qaeda in 1998.

Islamic Jihad, which is dedicated to the violent overthrow of the Egyptian government, has supplied al-Qaeda with some of its senior members, including Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and the man who orchestrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mohammed Atta.

CSIS claims Mr. Mahjoub took part in decision-making on terrorist operations organized by the Vanguards.

Mr. Mahjoub has been convicted in absentia in Egypt for his involvement with the group and sentenced to 15 years in prison. [. . . . ]

Mr. Mahjoub, who married a Canadian citizen and has two Canadian-born sons, admits he met Mr. bin Laden several times. Mr. Mahjoub worked in a senior capacity at Mr. bin Laden's agricultural firm in Sudan in the early 1990s, but maintains that he left the job over a wage dispute and has never had contact with him since.

When he arrived in Canada in 1995, Mr. Mahjoub lived for three weeks with Ahmed Said Khadr, the highest-ranking Canadian in al-Qaeda. He initially denied knowing Mr. Khadr in an interview with CSIS. [. . . . ]

Creating Counterweights to Big Media --& -- Patrick Watson Wants a CBC / Government Newspaper? Read on!

When you have finished with the following, there are several recent compilations on News Junkie Canada


Creating Counterweights to Big Media -- "when it comes to encouraging diverse civic discourse in the media, we don't do much. Often we do it badly."

Creating Counterweights to Big Media -- How to open up Canada's news media in an era of corporate concentration. David Beers and Charles Campbell, Feb. 2, 2005, TheTyee.ca

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications is investigating the state of Canadian journalism, the media's role, rights, and responsibilities in Canadian society, and current and appropriate future policies regarding media concentration, globalisation, and technological change. Two Tyee editors were invited to offer testimony before the visiting Committee on January 31, 2005 in Vancouver, B.C. In order of appearance, here are their comments:

DAVID BEERS:

Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet is the title of a recent book by the eminent Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner. After interviewing 100 journalists Gardner found them to be "by and large despondent about their profession. Many had entered . . . armed with ideals: covering important stories, doing so in an exhaustive and fair way, relying on their own judgment about the significance of the stories and the manner in which they should be presented."

"Instead," Gardner found, "for the most part, our subjects reported that most of the control in journalism had passed from professionals to corporate executives and stockholders, with most of the professional decisions made less on the basis of ideals than of profits." [. . . . ]

Example for Canada [. . . . ] By honest I mean dedicated to informing readers, rather than pandering to advertisers or to political allies. [. . . . ]

About The Tyee [No, I am not paid for including the next paragraph.]

[. . . . Thanks] to the rich talent and good will of many, many B.C. journalists, The Tyee breaks investigative stories and publishes analysis, slice of life writing, provocative views. This being the Internet, our stories can be read, the minute they are posted, anywhere in the province and beyond. Readers can post their own comments to our stories, and create their own province-wide conversations. The Tyee also provides links to many other stories. [. . . . ]

Some proposals for change

[. . . . ] 1) Order the CRTC to not approve television broadcast licenses for companies that own daily newspapers in the same market. . . .

2) Create legislation to break up concentration of media ownership where it is already too high. . . .

[. . . . ] 5) Foster media owned and operated by membership based societies. This member "co-op" model lets citizens take the lead in creating and supporting and democratically participating in decisions about their media. But because real journalism is expensive, government could provide money to membership-based media that garners a critical mass of support.

[. . . . ] 7) Create tax incentives for media philanthropy.

[. . . . ] 8) Find ways to help alternative media do "convergence."

This sounds very much like what is already occurring with mainstream media. I had too little time for close reading, so check for yourself.

[. . . . ] 9) Develop a community-based web portal to provide alternative perspectives. The portal could be managed by public libraries, provide CBC news and information to attract a critical mass of viewers, plus access to dozens of alternative news and information sources . . . .

# 9, "a community-based web portal" and mention of government funded CBC in the same sentence? Community input could be great if this portal could eliminate the repetition, invective, petty bickering, and the like, which takes over so much website commentary.

Government influence, pressure, control and CBC go together. Much about public broadcasting was well intended and idealistic in the beginning; however, reliance on government funding has rendered its journalism suspect, and its television news unbalanced--it is simply a conduit for the government.

How? The government gives taxpayers' money to the public broadcaster which uses it to bludgeon any ideas other than those emanating from the government and to make merry with or denigrate non-governmental ideas and political thought. Think Kyoto--no exploration of different points of view. We get Rick Mercer's "one tonne challenge". A public broadcaster? A jest!

There is a pretense through three (or more) person discussion panels for example--one NDP, one Liberal, one supposedly neutral or even conservative--until you check further.

(An example: There is a prevalence of leftists and left thinking, featured. Check how many times and for how long NDP leader Jack Layton is featured, compared to CPC leader Stephen Harper. An NDP also-ran, Olivia Chow, Layton's wife--both actually lived in Toronto public housing--was one of five Blackberry owners in a large segment of a CBC program on RIM's Blackberry. Incidentally, I note CBC unofficially 'advertising' in this way more--e.g. Tim Hortons and RIM. Better buy Blackberry stock -- RIM has been or is pursuing some new "business partnership" in China, I seem to recall. What are the rest of the connections? That is how cynical I have become about the CBC. I am not alone.)

My point? The minority Liberals need the support of the NDP. The NDP is simply the farthest left wing of the Liberal Party. Once getting funding from taxpayers is involved, there is (leftist) government pressure in return -- The broadcaster attempts to please -- maybe with a little free advertising for politicians, friends and businesses that are on side? I do not know. It certainly appears that way.

This whole digression is intended to suggest CBC be funded by the public, not taxpayers. Now, to continue:

[. . . . ] CHARLES CAMPBELL:

[. . . . ] The fact is that traditional media depend on traditional advertising sales, and they are terrified of cannibalizing their own audiences

[. . . . ] Support new media

We certainly haven't shown much stomach for tackling the difficult conglomerate issue, partly because corporations such as CanWest have the good sense to put the likes of prospective prime minister Frank McKenna on their boards of directors.

[. . . . ] Encourage different kinds of ownership

[. . . . ] You can have diversity of ownership in the media and it won't matter a whit if the owners are all wearing the same suit and belong to the same club.

Previously, I have mentioned the Liberal/CanWest Asper push to make Frank McKenna the next Prime Minister of Canada. Have the Asper media and CBC really explored his suitability for the post of Ambassador to the US? For Prime Minister? I read somewhere that the diplomatic corps feels he is unqualified. McKenna is a politician without the background necessary to diplomacy. Nor have the media really explored his relationship with the Power Corp Desmarais clan.

Related:

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications' interim report (April 2004)

Media report card

There is so much more if you link, then follow the links. A couple of excerpts follow.




Journalism's 'Ethical Vertigo' -- In the era of renegade bloggers and newsroom scandals, a UBC prof writes the book on reviving press ethics. -- Stephen J. Ward: Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond

Journalism's 'Ethical Vertigo' -- In the era of renegade bloggers and newsroom scandals, a UBC prof writes the book on reviving press ethics. Judith Ince, Jan. 18, 2005, reprinted in TheTyee.ca, Feb. 6, 05

Most Canadians think journalists are about as trustworthy as the politicians they cover, and that's not saying much. Ethical lapses of individual reporters—a little plagiarism here, a little fabrication there—have stained the profession's reputation, of course. But it's the broader ethical issues, such as media bias that have earned the industry such disdain: three quarters of Canadians think the media's in the thrall of the rich and powerful , not to mention their corporate masters

Stephen J. Ward, a UBC journalism professor, has contemplated this sorry spectacle as a journalist and ethicist. His conclusion? We have seen the end of journalistic ethics—or at least as we known them—and the profession is in a state of "ethical vertigo." [. . . . ]

Senate Comes to Scrutinize Big Media in B.C. Jan. 28, 2005, Donald Gutstein, The Tyee.ca

[. . . . ] Logan appeared before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in 2001, offering testimony that supported the broadcast license renewals of CanWest and CTV. "Converged journalism offers an opportunity to … [free] up reporters to do stories that are not being done and are vital to democratic discourse," she said.

That hasn't happened. Instead, converged journalism offers owners an opportunity to get rid of reporters and use the same story twice or more. That means greater profits for shareholders and less information for citizens.

Two months after her CRTC testimony, CanWest gave $500,000 to Logan's school of journalism for a visiting journalism professor.

Logan denied any connection. "It's not going to influence us," she said on the Rafe Mair Show.

Witnesses like Logan and LaPointe told the Senate committee that diversity is not a problem.

[. . . . ] Some suggested fixes

There are several ways to increase diversity in the news.

1. Restore core CBC funding to its historical levels. The CBC is a genuine alternative voice to corporate media and it is being mortally wounded by dozens of small cuts over two decades. [. . . . ]

4. Establish a publicly-funded national newspaper to be run by an independent board of senior journalists. This was proposed to the committee by Patrick Watson. [. . . . ]

Watson is a CBC man. Who would contribute/control it? Guess.

The moral of all this is that you had better pay attention. A government newspaper is coming if Canadian citizens do not stop amusing themselves long enough to prevent it.

Are the Media Independent? -- graph

What was Promised for 'Israeli Apartheid Week' and a Link to What was Delivered

Groups Condemn 'Israeli Apartheid Week'


Groups Condemn 'Israeli Apartheid Week' January 31, 2005, Beth Duff-Brown, AP

After the "Israeli Apartheid Week" I posted U of T Hatefest--Using the Freedom of Speech and our Canadian Values to Incite to Hatred and Racism .

Someone suggested I have a bias so judge for yourself; it is instructive to look back to what was written in January about this conference.

[. . . . ] The students set up a mock Palestinian refugee camp on campus to show passers-by the conditions in which they say many Palestinians have lived since the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation.

The students insist their program is not meant to be a slight against the Jewish people, but what they call an oppressive Jewish state. They note Jewish students are taking part in some activities and Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian at the University of Haifa, is scheduled to speak Thursday. Other speakers come from pro-Palestinian and Arab groups.

The program has infuriated Jewish and human rights groups, noting the title alone is enough to frighten thousands of Jewish students on campus.

"Is the University of Toronto hosting a free and scholarly exchange of ideas, or a racist rally masquerading as an academic conference?" asked Alastair Gordon of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies.

Canada has been named one of the five countries with the highest rates of anti-Semitic incidents, along with France, Britain, Russia and Germany.

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada more than doubled since 2000, with 584 incidents in 2003, according to B'nai Brith Canada, the country's leading Jewish human rights group, which has condemned the University of Toronto program. [. . . . ]

Someone told me that I, along with others, should look at the other side of the story. If some haters in Canada would stop trying to hack and infect with viruses the computers of those of us who want dialogue, perhaps we could find out more. This is not the only touchy topic today; the countries that want "business" with Canada, as well as the drug producing and drug transshipment countries, hack prodigiously, which just goes to prove Canada has a security problem that our government has not really admitted, let alone address. Some people do not want the information I find posted.

Perhaps it is appropriate to look at a study of the media in Canada -- to be posted eventually, today. Whether this will enlighten or not remains to be seen. One of the problems is that we do not have a bias free mainstream media to synthesize both sides. I am aware that neither side is above reproach. Hate breeds hate and violence breeds violent retaliation.

The only reasoned response to my request for information, as opposed to hatred and hacks, has come from one person. I suggest looking at these websites for one position on this perennial problem.

The National Interest, Fall, 1993, "A Mandate for Israel", Douglas J. Feith -- a twentieth century history of the Arab/Israeli conflict via via www.looksmart.com -- or -- www.findarticles.com

"23 reasons" -- You may download this as a .pdf or ZIP format file to read.

If the Palestinians in Canada and their supporters could learn to discuss rationally instead of fomenting hate, perhaps a dialogue could ensue. One sided hate fests is not dialogue. Even the name of the conference was designed for what purpose -- other than to prevent dialogue? An inflammatory name designed to breed more hatred, I suggest.