Feb. 20, 2007: Peace and a need for charity

If you're not sick of the pandering yet, read this ... with jaundiced eye

The sound and the fury of ethnic outreach
RCMP, CSIS listen as communities vent, but is it getting anywhere? , Stewart Bell, National Post, February 17, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.ht
ml?id=72ce20cc-b4fe-426b-8d7a-dd428fe2dab4&k=26074

TORONTO - The Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security had a noble mission when it was set up three years ago: to engage the country's ethnic communities in Canada's fight against terrorism. Some now call it the "circus."

The round table's meetings, which bring together national security officials and community representatives, take place behind closed doors, but a leaked tape recording of a marathon session held last weekend suggests that its nickname is not entirely undeserved.

About 50 invited guests and a few gatecrashers gathered for eight hours last Sunday at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Toronto to pose questions to the city's top RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service counterterrorism officials. It did not begin well.

The first speaker, Ahmed Motiar, started off by sharing his curious theories of the 9/11 attacks, claiming that "Muslims were not involved and seven of the alleged 19 hijackers are alive and well!"

Then Cheryfa Jamal [See below] complained about a Canadian military exercise she said was held outside her children's Islamic school. (Her husband is one of the 18 men charged with belonging to an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist group that was allegedly plotting truck bombings in downtown Toronto.)

[....] A rare voice of support came from Munir Pervaiz of the Muslim Canadian Congress, who told the officials they need not apologize for what they do to protect Canadians. "You should be very aggressive, very assertive."

Through it all, Inspector Jamie Jagoe of the RCMP and Mr. Ellis, the CSIS representative, replied that government policy was changed at the ballot box and that their only interest was in stopping acts of terrorist violence.

A leaked tape recording? Note the pool complaining. Should we give a hoot? This kind of ethnic outreach is a waste of police time, IMHO. Let the police do their jobs; let the government in office--the ones voted in to take care of citizens' concerns and needs--let that group decide whether the police are doing the job of law enforcement and be held to account at the ballot box and stop with activists who always have ethnic, racial or whatever issues to complain about. The rest of us are tired of this pandering to every vocal activist group, including ethnics ... whatever they call themselves or whatever they claim to represent.

More on Cheryfa Jamal here: Frost Hits the Rhubarb June 25 - 30, 2006 -- Scroll down to June 29, 2006: "this filthy country"....We hate Canada." -- or

here

And here: Frost Hits the Rhubarb June 23, 2006

frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/
2006_07_23_frosthitstherhubarb_archive.html

Search:
Cheryfa, wife of Qayyum Abdul Jamal
Jamal asks public for cash

Former Haligonian Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal



Maher Arar 'just wants a break' -- Michael Byers, a professor at UBC, organized the lecture.

cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/
2007/02/16/3639626-cp.html

The Syrian-born Canadian spoke to a crowd of 400 students at the University of British Columbia Friday. [....]

His problems are the fault of all ... except Syria, so it seems. See if you can find any mention of Syria's part in this. Of course, the Syrians dont' pay a $10.5 million-dollar compensation package and maybe they don't make films about their part. That there might be a movie or book deal in the future was suggested in the article. I'm waiting for the sequel, myself.


Islamist Rants at Trinity College -- with video

littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=
24504_Islamist_Rants_at_Trin
ity_College&only&headline




More peace -- At least 28 bombs explode in Thailand, killing 3 , Updated Sun. Feb. 18 2007 2:56 PM ET, AP

www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070218/
thai_bombs_070218/20070218?hub=TopStories

BANGKOK, Thailand -- At least 28 bombs exploded Sunday in apparently coordinated attacks in parts of southern Thailand plagued by a Muslim insurgency, killing three [I have heard it is 8 now] people and wounding more than 50, the military said.

The bombings targeted hotels, karaoke bars, power grids and commercial sites in the country's southernmost provinces, the only parts of predominantly Buddhist Thailand with Muslim majorities. Two public schools were torched.

Police said three Thais of Chinese descent were also gunned down [....]

Violence in the south has been escalating in recent months despite a major policy shift by the military-imposed government, which is trying to replace an earlier, iron-fisted approach in dealing with the rebels with a "hearts and minds" campaign. [....]

Maybe appealing to their hearts and minds doesn't work? It's been going on for years; now, it is getting worse. Appease at your peril. IMHO, of course.