The extraordinary rendition of Abousfian Abdelrazik

The journalistic pitbull Paul Koring is chewing again this morning, in a devastating report that implicates the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in a collaboration with the genocidal Sudanese regime to imprison and torture a Canadian citizen.

Abousfian Abdelrazik, of whom I have written many times, is a Canadian presently marooned in our embassy in Sudan. The Harper government and the Foreign Affairs department have been playing a sadistic game of cat and mouse with Abdelrazik in recent months, but the events outlined in today's Globe and Mail report took place under the Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin.

Abdelrazik was arrested on September 10, 2003, while he was visiting his ailing mother in Sudan. According to a document reproduced in Koring's account--a smoking gun, as NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar points out--this was done on the direct request of CSIS, which had every reason to believe that he would be tortured, as indeed he was over a lengthy period in a Sudanese jail before even the Sudanese government concluded that he was innocent of any wrong-doing and set him free.

Ministry of Justice officials, clearly embarrassed by the case, actually tried to persuade Abdelrazik to say that the torture-scars on his body were self-inflicted. Canadian diplomats were ordered to refuse him assistance while he was interrogated in a Khartoum prison by US agents. And CSIS operatives participated in the interrogations while Abdelrazik was being held.

We should be proud. Canada is all grown up now. We can do extraordinary renditions just like Uncle Sam.

After release, Abdelrazik was refused travel documents to return home. He was then promised them if he obtained an airplane reservation. He did, and the Harper government moved the goalposts, insisting that the destitute Abdelrazik produce a fully paid-up ticket to return home. At the same time, it has threatened to prosecute anyone who tries to help him pay for one.

Well, I sent him some money a few days ago, c/o The Embassy of Canada, PO Box 10503, Khartoum, Sudan. I dare the authorities to come after me. Others have stepped up as well, but not nearly enough.

Send a message to our government, Foreign Affairs officials and our very own secret police. Join the "Help Abousfian Abdelrazik get a ticket home" Facebook group, mail him a contribution, and stand up as citizens for our shared values of fairness and common decency. This disgraceful saga must be brought to an end. Let's do our part to make it happen.

UPDATE: CSIS literally out of control?

A Montreal man stranded in Sudan after being cleared of terrorist links has lodged a formal complaint against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

But the watchdog over the spy agency says it may not have authority to fully investigate the case.

The Braidwood Chronicles: getting a crooked story straight

I don't usually cut and paste, but this story pulls together the police testimony so far rather nicely.

From the Canadian Press:

[Don] Rosenbloom [the lawyer for the Polish government] pointed to numerous inaccuracies Millington and other officers wrote in their notebooks, recorded in internal police reports, told investigators and wrote in the days and weeks after Dziekanski's death.

Millington, for example, initially said Dziekanski was yelling when police approached and was waving a stapler "wildly" just before the first stun of the Taser.

He also said in statements and notes that Dziekanski was still standing after three jolts of the 50,000-volt weapon and continued to walk towards the officers.

Millington said on numerous occasions that the four officers had to wrestle Dziekanski to the ground.

But after being shown a bystander's video of the event, Millington conceded at the inquiry that those facts were incorrect.

Rosenbloom also noted that some of those same errors - for example, that Dziekanski had to be wrestled to the ground - were consistent among the three officers to testify so far.

He asked Millington to explain how three RCMP officers who are trained to be observant could all report seeing something that didn't happen.

"Why are there similar mistakes made by you and your fellow officers?" asked Rosenbloom.

"I don't know, we dealt with the same incident, but I don't know why," said Millington.

Millington acknowledged a day earlier that he knew his use of force would be examined after an in-custody death, and he realized the purpose of his notes, reports and statements to investigators were to justify his actions.

But he insisted the other officers never talked about what happened in the hours after the incident when they returned to the airport detachment or in the weeks they continued to work together afterwards.

Another officer, Const. Bill Bentley, said all four officers recounted their versions of what happened at a debriefing session about two weeks later, designed to help officers deal with traumatic events such as an in-custody death.

Millington said he was at the meeting, but insisted no one talked about what happened during the confrontation with Dziekanski.

[emphases added]

UPDATE: As Alison at Creekside puts it (her on-going coverage of the Inquiry is not to be missed), the officers weren't able to get their stories straight about getting their stories straight. Well said.

The Braidwood Chronicles: Robinson next--what lies ahead?

The last of the four officers to be heard with respect to the killing of Robert Dziekanski is Corporal Benjamin Montgomery Robinson. He will testify before the Braidwood Inquiry on March 23, when it resumes after a two-week break. In the video, he's the man with his knee on Dziekanski's neck.

Corporal Robinson, more recently, has been implicated in another death--that of a motorcyclist last October. I wrote about that here. Robinson was under the influence of alcohol when he struck 21-year-old Orion Hutchinson. According to witnesses, he left the scene of the accident, without attending to his injured victim.

At the time, I noted the following:

**********
It would appear that an alibi is already being prepared for him. Here is his collegial fellow officer Paul Eisenzimmer:

Delta Const. Paul Eisenzimmer said that, in general, anyone who leaves the scene could be charged under the Criminal Code.

"Leaving the scene means avoiding responsibility," Eisenzimmer said. "If someone left their identification there it is hard to say the person is avoiding responsibility.

"But if someone leaves their identification and then leaves the scene the issue is why leave and what have they done in the interim -- have they gone and drank some more?"

I am not alone, I suspect, in reading between the lines here.

**********

It turns out that I was exactly right. Robinson is presently facing charges of impaired driving causing death and exceeding the legal alcohol limit. (Well, not quite, it seems: police have recommended that those charges be formally laid, but no decision has yet been made by the BC Criminal Justice Branch. Have I seen this movie before?)

In any case, in the interim, Robinson had his licence suspended for three months for impaired driving. And, lo and behold, he did precisely what I predicted he might: he argued all the way to the BC Supreme Court that he drank himself over the limit after leaving the scene and going home.

Luckily, there are a few smart folks around courtrooms these days. His appeal has been summarily rejected. The original decision to suspend his license came from a motor vehicles adjudicator, who ruled:

The police evidence indicates you told the officer you left the scene, had two shots of vodka and then returned. In reviewing the evidence before me I do not find this credible.

This was upheld by BC Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan in his review of the adjudicator's finding: as reported, he found that "the adjudicator's determination was within her jurisdiction and within the standard of reasonableness."

To be sure, this is more of a tangled tale than it looks. As I noted above, witnesses at the time reported that he had indeed walked away, and Robinson staked his case before the adjudicator on this. But for some reason the claim that he had left the scene was dismissed by the adjudicator, who said, "I find it unlikely that after witnessing you having a collision that the witnesses would then allow you to leave the scene of the collision."

In any case, the adjudicator took the blood alcohol readings seriously. And Justice McEwan concurred:

(The) officer noted her personal observations that the petitioner had a strong odour of liquor on his breath and on his person, that his face was pale, his eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were dilated, and his speech was slurred,” said the judgment by Justice Mark McEwan.

It said Robinson told the officer he had two beers at a party at 5:30 p.m. and then took two shots of vodka after the collision during a 10-minute period in which he left the scene, walked home, and returned.

The officer didn’t believe him, noting “symptoms far more set than two shots in that time period should indicate.”

Wheels within wheels. Whether he walked away from the scene or didn't, the blood alcohol evidence was damning in two respects: it was well over the legal limit, and it was not consistent with his going home and downing two shots of vodka.

Corporal Robinson's testimony at the Braidwood Inquiry should be...interesting. Stay tuned.

Conservative falsification of history: part deux

Actually, deux et trois.

After reading my post on alleged "liberal myths" about the Vietnam War, reader and blogger Dave (a military man who knows whereof he speaks) visited the "Examiner" site in question to post a few facts. He had read the book that our "examiner" referred to, and found that she had misstated its theme. He made mention of the infamous "Project 100000." And, in answer to one commenter who had claimed that many draftees had "cushy gigs" in the US Navy, he pointed out that the USN has always been a volunteer force.

Facts, unfortunately, have a left-wing bias.The comment was deleted.

Moving on to alleged anti-Semitism at York University. Alert reader "forgottobuytinfoil" found this gem over at Omri Ceren's Mere Rhetoric. No one, of course, could deny the blatant anti-Semitism of the sign being held. The problem is, though, that it was being held halfway around the world from the university in question--in Melbourne, Australia, to be exact.

Ceren, a student of rhetoric as it happens, explained to our assiduous commenter that his "regular readers" were familiar with the photograph in question, and would know that it wasn't depicting the event being described.

Ceren has some stroke-quotes up at his place, describing his blog as "stellar," "one of the best blogs in the known universe," etc.

Allergy to facts, meet allergy to ethics. A conservative two-fer.

The Braidwood Chronicles: Kwesi explanations

Contrary to an earlier report, the deadly stapler that Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski has been accused of "brandishing" had indeed been recovered from the scene. Constable Kwesi Millington, the Taserman who seems to have more stories in his repertoire than Sheherezade, demonstrated yesterday how Dziekanski used it "combatively," prompting so many scoffing noises and derisive snorts from the audience that Thomas Braidwood had to call for order.

The constable didn't fare much better today.

Despite admitting that he knew from his training that multiple Taserings were dangerous, Millington didn't see fit to alert arriving medical personel to his repeated shocking of Dziekanski.

He couldn't explain why he failed to give the standard warning to his victim: "Police, stop, or you'll be hit with 50,000 volts." In a perhaps telling phrase, he stated, "I didn't believe we had the time. I wanted to get to Mr. Dziekanski."

That much appears to be obvious. As I noted earlier, the video suggests (@3:42) that he came through the door with his Taser already drawn and pointed at Dziekanski.* Nine seconds later (@3:51) he blasted him while Dziekanski was stationary, with his back to a counter, his hands perhaps slightly above waist level. Contrary to his earlier testimony, there was no advance, no stapler-brandishing, nothing in the video that indicates that force was necessary.

But Kwesi Millington, in his own words, "wanted to get to Mr. Dziekanski." And indeed he did.

____________
*Readers are asked to check this for themselves. More than one pair of eyes is always helpful. Is what appears on the video @3:42 a hand-signal (Millington stated that he had made them to Dziekanski) or a Taser? Comments welcome.

UPDATE: Having reviewed this tape a number of times by now, I no longer believe that Millington had deployed his Taser. What we are seeing, I believe, is simply a finger being pointed.

Hawks in a tailspin

Further to my recent post about Harper on Afghanistan, consternation has broken out within the hawk-flawk. The sense of betrayal by our Prime Minister is palpable, and they're lashing out. I am denounced as a "defeatist" here, and the subject of schoolyard taunts here. (As one commenter at the latter site suggests, the primary issue for the hawks, it seems, is manly turgor. It's not defeat, it's the tumidity.)

In another comment there, "leftist" Terry Glavin, keyboard in hand, just about sums up the only mode of argument left to the war-hungry at the moment:

You realize of course that from here on in the same flaccids you excoriate will now call you a liar as they lie about you, call you a coward as they hide behind their ridiculous pseudonyms, and traduce you as a neocon, a Zionist, a warmonger and an idiot?

Well, er, no. I for one don't even know the guy. And I've never used the word "Zionist" as a pejorative. And non-neocons for one reason or another have supported our doomed incursion into Afghan affairs. And I have no evidence the blogger is an idiot. And...

Oh, heck, why bother. Folks like Glavin, in their barely-read echo-chamber blogs and in drive-by comments elsewhere, exult in building bigger and better strawmen. Armies of them, in fact. Which at least, unlike the real thing, don't bleed and die.

The Braidwood Chronicles: video vs. Kwesi Millington

The man with the stun-gun muddied the waters further today. Constable Kwesi Millington, who fired his Taser at Robert Dziekanski without warning, contrary to RCMP procedure, testified that he fired another blast at the man because the first one had had no effect.

Confronted, however, with video evidence that showed Dziekanski falling to the ground screaming after the first shot--he changed his story, admitting that the video showed what it showed. He could only remember using the Taser four times, though: twice more as Dziekanski lay writhing on the ground because he was allegedly struggling with other officers. And he claimed that the third shot hadn't worked, so he changed the setting to push-stun mode and zapped the man in the shoulder to create "localized pain."

Previous evidence showed that the Taser did in fact deliver 5 jolts, of six, five, five, nine and six seconds.

Millington claimed that he had used the words "passport" and "identification" to indicate to Dziekanski that he should produce them. But, as we know, his passport was in his luggage, and he had just been ordered away from his bags by Corporal Benjamin Robinson as soon as the officers arrived on the scene.

So now we have Dziekanski, in an exhausted state, understanding no English, given two conflicting orders by two RCMP officers. That he threw his hands up and turned away should come as no surprise. Millington agreed under questioning that Dziekanski might have turned his back to officers and moved away to locate his passport.

Millington claimed that Dziekanski "was approaching the other officers with the intent, I believe, to attack." Yet the video shows no such advance (@3:51). He was backed up against a counter when he was first jolted.

Now, if you check @3:42, you will see that Millington appears to have already deployed his Taser and is pointing it at Dziekanski. Given that obvious threat of harm, is it any surprise that Dziekanski instinctively grabbed something near to hand and defensively held it to his chest? Officers have testified that he had his other hand in a fist in a "combative" stance. Try throwing your hands up against your chest--you will make fists naturally.

"We feared for our safety, and we felt he was going to escape," said Millington.

Escape? Good grief. More tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic waters have gone a little turbid as well. Poland claims that Canada has unilaterally suspended a mutual cooperation treaty and is withholding information. But a spokeswoman for the Justice Department claims that no such suspension has occurred.

UPDATE: (March 3) Kelly McPartland searingly sums up the RCMP testimony so far.

Maybe a "time out," Minister?

Gary Goodyear, Minister of Science and Technology, is known to have serious anger management issues.

Fellow blogger Chrystal Ocean has more-than-adequately covered his latest meltdown at a recent meeting with representatives of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, but this alarming incident deserves maximum circulation.

CAUT was attempting a civil dialogue about the paucity of funding for research in the new Conservative budget. Alas, civility is not the Minister's style. He raised his voice almost immediately, pointed his finger at the CAUT representatives, and called them liars. Then he and an equally out-of-control staffer lost it completely:

When CAUT staff said the Conservatives have a spotty record on science and noted they abolished the office of the national science adviser, Mr. Robinson said, the minister's assistant screamed at them to shut up.

"Then the minister said, 'You've burned all your bridges with us!' and they stormed out.

"In all the meetings I've been in like this, I've never been shouted at and told to shut up," Mr. Robinson said. The civil servant who escorted them to the elevator suggested it would not even be a good idea to return to the minister's office to collect their coats, he said. Instead, she retrieved them.

And here I thought "the inmates are in charge of the asylum" was just a cant phrase. Edgar Allan Poe, meet Gary Goodyear--a man badly in need, it seems, of a "system of soothing."

Israeli apartheid: calumny or reality?

To take note of Israeli Apartheid Week, I am opening the floor to a discussion in which all are encouraged to join, under the usual rules of civil exchange.

The phrase "Israeli apartheid" is obviously an inflammatory one, evoking images of the former regime in South Africa, condemned around the world as racist and grossly cruel and exploitative. But does that make it false?

I'll sketch the affirmative position in broad strokes, and hope that the ensuing debate will provide, no doubt with the usual heat, perhaps a little light as well.

Introduction

At one time I was of the opinion that the Israeli occupation (and through settlements, the partial annexation) of the West Bank could rightly be said to have imposed "apartheid," but I did not apply the term to Israel proper (within the pre-1967 boundaries). Yet even within Israel itself, as it turns out, the non-Jewish population is not treated equally. Access to land by non-Jews is next to impossible. Even the right to remain on land that is clearly theirs, and here I am referring to the Bedouins of the South Negev, is denied them.

An equally inflammatory companion phrase, "ethnic cleansing," needs to be injected into the discussion as well. This was, in fact, a major element in South African "grand apartheid," leading to the creation of the Bantustans. Whole populations were forcibly removed from land that the whites wanted, and transported to a number of little enclaves, some set up as "independent" states within South Africa, and some as mere reserves, to provide a permanent pool of cheap labour. A case can be made, I believe, that similar policies have been, and remain, in force in Israel and the occupied territories.

What was South African apartheid? What were its main characteristics?

This is not a difficult matter to research. The word (when I use it to describe the SA regime I shall use italics) refers to separation (lit. "apartness") of "races" in South Africa, but assuredly not on a "separate-but-equal" basis. The majority Black population was condemned to be the eternal servants of the master race. Kept apart and yet essential as the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the whites, Blacks had unequal rights, unequal opportunities, unequal lives. And they were kept in their place by hyperpolicing and a myriad of regulations deployed by racial micromanagers, not to mention periodic massacres to discourage dissent.

The core nature of apartheid, then, consisted of 1) racial separation; 2) brutal rule by one "race" over another, using the apparatus of the state; 3) dispossession of land on the basis once again of "race," and the formation of so-called Bantustans, some even with toy versions of self-rule; 4) the use of Blacks as a source of cheap labour to sustain the whites in a relatively lavish lifestyle; 5) disenfranchisement.

What are the similarities and differences between the practice of South African apartheid and Israeli state policy?

Benjamin Pogrund, a former South African now resident in Israel, stresses the differences. Certainly, as he says in a poignant example, Israeli hospitals are staffed by Jews and non-Jews working side-by-side: Blacks and whites never worked together in similar fashion in apartheid South Africa. And the whites in South Africa were a minority, while Jews in Israel are a majority.

He also claims that, unlike Bantustans, the walling off of the West Bank by the Israelis is not to create a pool of cheap labour but simply to remove themselves from the Palestinians. Others disagree that accessible Palestinian labour is not a consideration in Israeli policy: but the Wall would not appear to promote the exploitation of Palestinians. The Wall was, however, a transparent land-grab: 8% of Palestinian land is now on the Israeli side of the fence.

But with the best will in the world, Pogrund stretches matters. He concedes, for example, that most land in Israel (93%) has been reserved for Jews, but is full of hope that a court action by one Arab family may be a breakthrough. Indeed, the High Court of Justice did, subsequent to Pogrund's article, rule that state-owned land must be leased without regard to ethnicity. The Jewish National Fund, however, which controls 13% of Israel's land on which live 70% of the population, wants to keep it Jews-only, and the Knesset helpfully passed a law in 2007 to make it so.

When it comes to matters of ethnic separation, we also know, for example, that Palestinians are restricted to "Palestinian" roads--450 miles of roads in the West Bank are off-limits to them. A system of road segregation is clearly in place. But in another article, that no longer seems to be on-line, "Is Israel the new Apartheid?” Pogrund argued that that this wasn't apartheid at all--because under South African apartheid all roads were shared!

At this point one might wonder if other such non-essential differences (the Israeli government uses Hebrew, for example, while the apartheid South African government conducted its affairs in Afrikaans and English) are going to be advanced to make such fine--and in the case above, damaging--distinctions. We know that, towards the end, the apartheid regime in South Africa was being taken apart piece by piece, while nevertheless retaining its core character.

The profoundly humane Canadian academics Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley ultimately find the apartheid comparison problematic. But they note some key similarities: universal suffrage does not exist when the Palestinians in the occupied territories are factored in. They may vote only for their own captive parliaments (indeed, former Premier Ehud Olmert has quite openly stated that one-man-one-vote would mean the destruction of Israel). And Israel's immigration policies are clearly discriminatory: the Law of Return does not apply to displaced Palestinian refugees, only to Jews.

Current marriage laws in effect in Israel are crudely based upon ethnicity. Marriage to Palestinians does not confer Israeli citizenship--indeed, those Palestinians are banned from Israel--and the children of such marriages must leave Israel when they turn 12 years old. Politicians in the Knesset, infuriated by this law, have referred quite explicitly to Israel as an apartheid state. And they aren't the only Israeli citizens to have done so.

One stark difference, however, is that the South African government did not, as a rule, permit individual whites to shoot, rob and harass Blacks any time they felt like it--that sort of thing was left up to the police and the military (e.g., Sharpeville). On the West Bank, however, settlers are violent proxies for the Israeli state, and are permitted to run wild, shooting at shepherds, stoning children, looting, destroying and killing, and generally terrorizing the local population at will. The police say "they have better things to do" than protect the Palestinians. The IDF collaborates with the settlers--when it isn't attacking unarmed civilians itself. The settlers live large on the West Bank, often in swanky houses, using up 80% of the available water (while nearby Palestinian farmers watch their livestock die of thirst*), and sitting on vast reserves of unused land allocated to them by the Israeli state.

Palestinians are routinely humiliated at numerous checkpoints. The anti-Arab thuggery and racism demonstrated by Israeli forces at these checkpoints is manifest. This type of population control is more than a little reminiscent of the routine South African police harassment of "kaffirs," who were required to carry a passbook at all times and were subjected to frequent humiliating searches and interrogations.

In occupied East Jerusalem, 1500 Palestinians have been handed eviction notices. The comment thread here is interesting. Those who defend the move argue that the issue is building permits. But we know that building permits, like bulldozers, have been used to clear the way for Israeli Jews. In the south Negev, Bedouins who have refused to move into a ghetto provided for them by the Israeli state are under constant attack. Building permits are denied in what are called the "unrecognized villages," although even "recognized villages" are not immune. Bedouin homes are razed. Their ancestral lands have been seized. Move they must: because there are plans to resettle the area with 250,000 Israeli Jews. In these instances, I would argue that the term "ethnic cleansing" might fairly be applied.

Conclusion:

At the beginning of this article I outlined the core aspects of South African apartheid. Does Israel compare, when one substitutes "ethnicity" for race?

1) Ethnic separation. Israel's policy of apartness, as outlined above, is obvious.

2) Brutal rule by one ethnic group over another, using the apparatus of the state. Again, I believe that case has been made.

3) Dispossession of land on the basis of ethnicity. Ditto.

4) The use of Palestinians as a source of cheap labour. At least arguable. The case could be made, however, that South African apartheid was essentially rooted in the super-exploitation of the Black majority. Is this sufficient to distinguish the two?

5) Disenfranchisement. Within Israel, non-Jews do have the right to vote. But, as noted, when the occupied territories are taken into account, the matter might be seen a little differently. Just as South African "coloureds" had their own Parliament, so too do the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank--and with about as much real authority and power.

Why compare Israeli state policies with South African apartheid? Certainly one reason is simply to express moral outrage by using a term that carries its own baggage of opprobrium. But another is to point out remarkably similar structural patterns of repression and discrimination against subjugated populations. While comparisons between the Nazi Holocaust and Israel's brutal repression of the West Bank and Gaza are (at least in my opinion) wildly overblown and wrong, and the usage of words like "genocide" equally so, the case that there exists a functioning Israeli apartheid system is not so easily dismissed.

Over to you.

UPDATE: (March 4) More. [H/t Mound of Sound]
_______________
*Paul Koring, Globe and Mail (Saturday, May 18, 2002) p. A15. No longer on-line.

Harper: We can't win in Afghanistan

Finally, the truth:

We're not going to ever defeat the insurgency. My reading of Afghanistan in history is that it's probably had an insurgency forever of some kind.

Who said that? "Taliban Jack?" Some peacenik member of the "pseudo-left," as warhawk Terry Glavin is wont to call us?

Nope. Prime Minister Stephen Harper--levelling with us at last.

At the moment, coalition and civilian deaths are at their highest since the Northern Alliance, with US support, took control of the country in 2001. So far this year, the coalition is killing more civilians than the Taliban are. The Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai is riddled with corruption, implicated in extensive human rights abuses, and dangerously unstable. The Taliban presently control 70% of the country.*

Make no mistake: the reign of the Taliban was a monstrously cruel one, and they are still at it. But the hard men of the Northern Alliance who toppled them are little better. We can't make people democratic; we can't force them to be free. Our intervention, even if undertaken with the best of motives, was doomed to fail. We are seen by too many Afghans simply as foreign occupiers: and for them, even the Taliban is preferable to that.

Bring 'em home, Steve.

*UPDATE: (March 3) Reader Mark Collins notes that this is incorrect. The Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai controls--with assistance--about 30-31% of Afghanistan, but most of the rest is controlled by tribal warlords (58-60%). The Taliban have control of about 10-11% of the country.

Whether this serves as a decisive riposte is open to readers to judge. No matter if the Karzai government is facing the Taliban or sundry regional warlords, the house that the Coalition built is on shaky ground. Here are a few thoughts about the "Afghanification" strategy endorsed by Stephen Harper.

On the buses

Be heard.

When your rich girlfriend leaves you

...for the Liberals and a macho hockey player, what do you do to prove you're still a man?

Oh.

Nightmare on Bialik Street

I'm on a tour bus. In Israel. My travelling companions? Kathy Shaidle. Kate McMillan. Terry Glavin. And the fellow talking our ears off? Jason Cherniak.

I wake up screaming. Only to discover that I haven't been sleeping.*

________________________
*A very pleasant woman from the Canada-Israel Committee was recently in touch with me to offer an all-expense-paid week in Israel in late March. It was to be a bloggers' trip, with the opportunity to meet Israeli political bloggers. I would have jumped at it, even though the West Bank wasn't included (it's considered too dangerous). Alas, this came smack in the middle of my lamentably-delayed studies, and I had to beg off.

Subsequently a little bird in the blogosphere let me know who else had been invited. And now I believe in a God, if only a God of circumstances.

Haloscan

Anyone know what's happening? Email me.

UPDATE: Judging from email received, this seems to be a general problem. Hold your bouquets and brickbats for a while! This is likely temporary. At least, I hope so.

UPPERDATE: At last. Fire away.

Dziekanski: the Harper factor

My, what a coincidence. A cooperation treaty between Canada and Poland, which enabled the RCMP to go on a dirt-gathering expedition to Robert Dziekanski's home town in Poland, was unilaterally suspended by the Harper government as soon as the cops returned.

This will effectively block any attempt by Poland to gather information for possible charges against the four officers involved in Dziekanski's death, presently sweating under the bright light of the Braidwood Inquiry.

With the usual transparency, a Department of Justice spokeswoman stated: "Communications between Canada and a foreign country are confidential. As such, it would be inappropriate to comment on the specific circumstances of this or any other matter."

Good to have friends in high places about now.

Fear and loathing at Carleton University

Academic freedom is under major assault on university campuses in Ontario.

First it was McMaster University, banning the phrase "Israeli apartheid" from the campus last year. Then there was a major behind-the-scenes effort by University of Toronto officialdom to squelch a campus Palestinian solidarity conference.

Now the virus has spread to Ottawa.

Yesterday I was privileged to join a protest at Carleton University against an administration that is determined to stifle criticism of Israeli foreign policy on campus. In an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression, the administration has threatened students with expulsion for speaking out against Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank; torn down posters advertising the upcoming Israeli Apartheid Week [see above]; and sent its security goons to confiscate a milder form of the poster from a student literature table.

We handed in a letter to the President, Roseann Runte. She had no wish to engage. "You've been heard," she said, and scuttled back into her office.

The virus has spread further, to the nearby campus of the University of Ottawa. The same poster had been officially approved for putting up around the campus, but the administration, following suit with Carleton, changed its mind and banned the poster as well.

By no coincidence, the presidents of both universities have been recent recipients of lavish hospitality tours of Israel.

The usual lies about "anti-Semitism" are duly being trotted out, even though some of the loudest critics of current Israeli policies are Jews. Evidently we're not supposed to mention the civilian death toll at the hands of the IDF in Gaza, for example. It's the Blood Libel, you see. And the rote arguments against the notion of "apartheid" applying to Israel are sprouting up, in the official student newspaper at Carleton and in the mainstream press.

The executive director of Hillel Ottawa, Alana Kayfetz, said other universities should follow Carleton's lead. B'nai Brith has called for even tougher measures, demanding that campus "Israeli Apartheid Week" activities be banned outright.

Kayfetz stated:

We had nothing to do with the posters being taken down. Our students felt uncomfortable with them, and we said, any time a student feels uncomfortable with anything at all, they're supposed to go to equity services, and go to security. Students complained and the university took action." [Emphasis added]

Carleton's Israeli apartheid week will go on, but closely monitored by university officials to ensure that the discussions are "respectful."

Good grief, bring the bubble-wrap. Shut down the dangerous playground of ideas. Nothing must disturb the world-view of any pro-Israel student, lest he or she suffer a mental bruise. And thus it is decreed that comfort and respect will now be enforced where rough debate once raged. It's almost enough to make me join the Speech Warriors™--had they not been sitting this one out.

[Give the universities a (polite) piece of your mind. Email Carleton University President Roseann Runte, and copy Students Against Israeli Apartheid. Email the University of Ottawa President, Allan Rock, and copy the Students for Palestinian Human Rights.]

The Braidwood Chronicles: “When he turned blue, I realized it wasn’t an act”

In his second day of testimony, Constable Bill Bentley changed his story yet again.

Bentley had initially testified that he had feared for his safety when Robert Dziekanski turned and walked away from the officers. He had interpreted that as defiance, he said. But as the lawyer for the Polish government, Don Rosenbloom, pointed out, Cpl. Benjamin Robinson had warned Dziekanski away from his luggage (where he'd stowed his passport), and signaled with a clear hand-gesture to move towards the counter. Bentley was forced to concede that this was the case.

In other words, Dziekanski was doing what he was told--in police language, he was being "compliant." Yet the day before, that very move was held to be non-compliance--and, according to Constable Gerry Rundel, who testified earlier, sufficient justification for a Tasering.

None of this was in Bentley's police notes. Instead, they referred to a combative Dziekanski who ran towards the officers screaming. On his first day of testimony, he insisted that he was in fear of his life, but admitted that his notes were in error. And now he has had to admit that Dziekanski was being compliant after all.

The exhausted Dziekanski must have been terrified as the officers advanced on him. They obviously meant business. Indeed, the lawyer for the Dziekanski family, Walter Kosteckyj (a former RCMP officer himself), got him to admit that the officers had arrived at the airport pumped for a fight. In a deadly error of judgement, Dziekanski grabbed a stapler (which, in another lapse of police procedure, was not recovered from the scene) and held it up to his chest--he didn't "brandish" it or "wave" it--in what could well have been an instinctive defensive move.

Despite established procedure, which calls for a warning before a Taser is used, no warning was given. Kwesi Millington, the man with the stun-gun, just zapped, and zapped and zapped--five times in all. Dziekanski passed out after the officers leapt on him and Millington delivered more jolts. Bentley thought he was faking it. "But when he turned blue, I realized it wasn’t an act." Instead of administering first aid, Bentley started taking pictures and interviewing witnesses.

More inconsistencies were exposed. It had been claimed earlier that the first Taser jolt didn't drop Dziekanski, and that a second one, therefore, was necessary. Corporal Robinson, the man in charge, told Constable Kwesi Millington, who had deployed the Taser, to "hit him again." But Bentley, under cross-examination, admitted that the first shot put Dziekanski on the ground in six seconds--although the order for a second shot might have come before he actually hit the floor.

"So the second Taser shot was not necessary?" asked Don Rosenbloom, the lawyer for the Polish government.

"Yes, perhaps," said Bentley.

He then had to concede that his formal police statement might have been wrong in stating that Dziekanski was brought down by two of the officers because he was "fighting through" the Tasering. Rosenbloom pointed out that, after a 50,000 volt electric shock, Dziekanski would have lost control of his muscles. The look on his face, and his screams, could have resulted from the pain the Taser caused, the lawyer suggested.

Bentley's response? "It could be both. It depends how you interpret it."

And then, another twist: under cross-examination by Rosenbloom, Bentley revealed that the four officers had got together for a "debriefing" a few weeks later to compare notes--apparently after the video was released. This came as a surprise to Inquiry counsel Art Vertlieb, who has now asked for all records of that meeting.

Asked earlier by the Dziekanski family's lawyer if there had been a cover-up, Bentley denied it. Yes, he had changed his statement after the video came out, but just "to set the record straight."

Some record. Some straightening.

Monday: Constable Kwesi Millington, the man with the Taser, will be on the stand.

The Braidwood Chronicles: an officer's story changes

Constable Bill Bentley is the second of the four RCMP officers implicated in the death of Robert Dziekanski. Like his colleague Gerry Rundel, Bentley misspoke himself in his formal statement, before the existence of the video was known.

Dziekanski, he said then, was running at the officers, screaming. Now, with the video plainly refuting that nonsense, he has revised his position (as reported here): Dziekanski "actually appeared calm and cooperative and wasn't doing anything as the officers approached." Quite a revision.

Bentley testified that he saw Dziekanski's face turn blue after being Tasered. Despite having first aid training, however, he never thought to check his pulse.

One key point about that stapler: despite reports that Dziekanski "brandished" it, justifying a Tasering, the evidence is that he merely picked it up and held it to his body, possibly defensively. His arm swung up--but only after the first 50,000-volt electric shock. Bentley claims that he "waved" it, but this contradicts Rundel's earlier testimony that he was holding it to his chest.

Bentley's lawyer, David Butcher, is worried that tapes and transcripts of the Inquiry might be used by the Polish government to prosecute the four officers. A motion to prevent the materials from leaving the country will be heard later on by Thomas Braidwood. The last thing that these officers want, it would seem, is a criminal trial. And given what we've heard so far, no wonder.

Colby Cosh

How frightfully clever! An ageing enfant terrible who wrote for a couple of screechy rightwing rags that tanked, and writes now for one that's about to, has dissed baby boomers. Why, that's never been done before.

Here's what might laughingly be called the money quote:

These are people who started their working lives at a time when labour unions were strong, taxpayers outnumbered retirees nearly 10 to one, housing was as cheap as borscht and the basic personal exemption covered most of a living wage. They congratulated themselves on building an elaborate "social safety net" at the expense of their children. Their great numbers have allowed their preferences and superstitions to dominate culture and media. They're the ones who burned through tonnes of pot and then launched a War on Drugs when they grew bored with it; they drove mighty-bowelled Mustangs and Thunderbirds in their youth, and only started worrying about the environment when they no longer needed a capacious backseat to fornicate in; they espoused and took full advantage of sexual liberation, but were safely hors de combat by the time AIDS reared its head. The first time I see one shopping for dog food, I doubt I'll be able to suppress a laugh.

Like all of those who think in categories because it's less taxing, Cosh sees my generation (for I must declare interest here) as All One Thing--like Muslims, for example, or immigrants, or whatever haine du jour fills the nooks and crannies of the conservative mind these days.

But it wasn't, of course. The preppy right-wing types who always prowled among us, running our student councils and organizing homecoming dances and taking commerce and engineering degrees and inventing disco because it was music they could understand, are conflated in his article with the dopesmokers, anti-war activists, creative writers, civil rights workers, blues guitarists and scientists who put their stamp on my generation. It was the former who launched wars, not merely on drugs, but on long hair, compassion, dreams, Third World countries and non-white immigration. It was the latter who were never in the ascendancy, but we made them think we were for a while, which was great fun while it lasted.

I drove my parents' VW bus, then didn't drive at all for a while, and finally ended up with a Toyota Corolla in my declining years. Mustangs and Thunderbirds? Those were for the fratboys and engineers. They needed those cars to pick up girls. Meanwhile, we male bohemians, radicals and deviants were being picked up by girls. Setting aside the sexual liberation that wasn't--which rightfully gave rise to a market correction called second-wave feminism--we simply had more of everything that mattered.

No use fulminating now, Colby. Most of us are actually doing pretty well, living on decent pensions while the economy you whiz kids built upon the solid rock of unfettered capitalism is falling apart. Some of us, certainly, are collateral damage in your war against regulation (when aren't you guys at war with something or someone?), and for that you have much to answer for. But luckily the remnants of that social safety net we built are preventing total catastrophe for your victims.

We greet the world with a smile every morning. We buy dogfood, but for our dogs. We tell our kids the truth: the economy will right itself in a year or two, because even conservatives will resort to socialism when they're in a jam. We'll tell ourselves that Schadenfreude is never nice, because we were brought up that way, but we'll feel it keenly nonetheless, when the smart-ass right wingers who helped get us into this mess, or at least promoted the values and ideology that caused it, are unemployed, many probably unemployable, and they're hauling out the begging bowls.

While you're pounding the pavement with fellow chômeur Rick McGinnis, give a thought to the money and services you'll be receiving, from EI to medicare. That's the social safety net you've been sneering at, oh-so-wittily placing the phrase in shudder-quotes. That's where my taxes have been going for decades. It will be too much to expect thanks, of course: but frankly, knowing that you're benefiting will be satisfaction enough. Have a nice life, Colby. God knows we've paid dearly for it.

A hint of spring?

The panhandlers are out in force again. Sad, really.

(As yet, no cyber Safe Streets Act.)

Join the Abousfian Abdelrazik Facebook group...[updated]

...and send a little money his way to help him buy a plane ticket home.

My letter:

Dear Mr. Abdelrazik:

I am enclosing a token contribution to assist in purchasing an airline ticket home.

As one of your fellow citizens, I am sickened by the actions of our government and Foreign Affairs officials in their treatment of you.

The government has apparently warned that helping you out in this way is illegal. If they are serious about this, they know where to find me.

All the best, and, in the near future I hope, Bon voyage and happy landings.

Sincerely,


[via Alison]

UPDATE: (February 25) As of this writing the Facebook group has a whopping 22 members. Come on, "progressives," stand up and be counted!

Meanwhile the Globe and Mail, in an otherwise sound editorial yesterday, described Abdelrazik as "a citizen, if not an ideal one." Readers are invited to speculate: what does the editorialist think is less than "ideal" about him? Better still, why not write to the Globe to ask? Send an inquiry to the editor.

UPPERDATE: For those with Facebook issues, just send a donation directly to Abousfian Abdelrazik, c/o The Embassy of Canada, PO Box 10503, Khartoum, Sudan.

Stunned

What impeccable timing by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Canadian Police Association. Just as an inquiry is underway into the killing of Robert Dziekansky, shocked five times with a Taser, jumped on and left to die in handcuffs by four RCMP officers, these two national police groups have announced that they want every cop in the country to be armed with the things.

Defending this suggestion was the bare-knuckled authoritarian Julian Fantino, Chief of the Ontario Provincial Police, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Charles Momy, head of the Canadian Police Association. When he was just the President of the Ottawa Police Association, Momy distinguished himself by threatening to sue a man who had been brutalized by two Ottawa Police officers and had the temerity to complain too publicly about it. Both leaders, it is safe to say, have a less than perfect commitment to principles of democracy and accountability.

Fantino claimed that there are "150 studies" that show Tasers are perfectly safe. But, like Sarah Palin and her news sources, he couldn't name even one.

It's salutary for Canadians to obtain these fascinating if repellent glimpses into the minds of some police officers and the people who lead them. I suspect, as the Braidwood Inquiry progresses, that we shall be afforded many more. The question is, however, what are we going to do about these "serve and protect" folks when there are no effective means of forcing public accountability on a regular basis, laughably inefficient internal controls, and differential treatment by the judicial system?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, indeed. A good question, as always--and no answer in sight.

The Braidwood Chronicles: "It's possible he was frightened"

RCMP Constable Gerry Rundel continued his testimony at the Braidwood Inquiry yesterday. The officer who believes that walking away from the RCMP is a Taserable offence stated flatly that "Based on the knowledge we had at the time, we wouldn't have done anything differently."

That famous stapler that no one can see on the video of the event became the focus of discussion. According to Rundel, it was a weapon, about to be deployed by Robert Dziekanski on the four officers who were confronting him.

Rundel has changed his statement about the stapler, as it happens. He had earlier claimed that Dziekanski had raised it over his head: that proved to be a lie, however, as the video subsequently showed.

Asked if Dziejkanski was told to put down the stapler, Rundel replied: "Time did not allow that."

Might Dziekanski have been afraid of the four armed and uniformed men who were closing in on him? Rundel said, "Now that I have had the opportunity to look back at the video prior to us arriving and the information that has been since received, it's possible he was frightened, yes."

One must ask, once again, what training RCMP officers actually receive prior to being given badges and weapons. First, with respect to the rights of civilians. And secondly, on how to read the glaringly obvious.

Revenue Canada targeting gays?

I'd missed this story on Saturday, but it seems that the Canada Revenue Agency has determined that Edmonton's not-for-profit Pride Centre, which provides support for gay and lesbian people in the community, is "too political" for charitable status.

Meanwhile the Fraser Institute has charitable status. Ditto the militantly anti-gay Focus on the Family. The "outspoken" (read: bigoted) Bishop Fred Henry was permitted to make blatantly political statements during an election, with no tax consequences for his diocese.

But a gay community centre--well, that's different.

We are in the grip of a recession, and donations to the Pride Centre have dropped off, making things difficult--but not impossible. The revocation of charitable status on top of that, however, means almost certainly that it will be forced to close. It has about a month of funding left.

Sounds like the Canada Revenue Agency may be just a little too political itself.

[H/t Slap Upside the Head]

And, just in time for Israeli Apartheid Week...

...1,500 Palestinians in East Jerusalem face eviction.

The Braidwood Chronicles: RCMP videos?

Here's a tantalizing little item that vanished down the memory hole:

Asked to describe what he saw on the video, [Dziekanski family lawyer] Mr. Kosteckyj replied: "I would describe it as something that will be shown to police academies around North America as not the way to intervene in this kind of situation."

Police have described a much more measured response in which officers gave a wildly agitated Mr. Dziekanski two jolts from a taser just to subdue him long enough to put handcuffs on him. The RCMP say they too have videos, but they can't be released because an investigation is under way. [emphasis added]

Will these videos surface at the Braidwood Inquiry? Or have they been reduced to ashes at this point? Or, knowing the propensity of the RCMP to lie (note the claim above about two Taser jolts, for example), did they ever exist?

The Braidwood Chonicles: the cops speak

The four RCMP officers who caused the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski, but were exonerated of all wrongdoing by the B.C. Crown Attorney's office, have begun their testimony before the Braidwood Inquiry.

RCMP Constable Gerry Rundel was first up. And his testimony provides a glimpse into the attitudes of some police officers towards their jobs, Taser use and the public they are supposedly sworn to protect.

When the four officers descended upon the Vancouver Airport, they had no game plan, Const. Rundel stated. He himself was informed that Dziekanski spoke no English, but didn't think to share this information with the other officers. In any case, as reported in the Globe and Mail, Rundel didn't believe Dziekanski's lack of English was a barrier to communications.

Rundell's thinking during the incident itself was exposed to the light by the media today, and those reports make disquieting reading.

Rundel stated that it all began when Dziekanski reached for his luggage. The officer in charge, Cpl. Benjamin Robinson*, barked "No!" and gestured for Dziekanski to stop--which he did. Dziekanski then turned, lifted his hands in the air and started to walk away.

According to Rundel, this made Dziekanski fair game. Somehow, flipping up his hands, turning around and leaving was disobeying a direction from Cpl. Robinson: it was resistant behaviour," he said. According to Rundel, this was a "to hell with you guys" gesture, amounting to what the officer deemed "non-compliance."

"Non-compliance?" What compliance was required? Was he under arrest? In the mind of Const. Rundel, however, this alone would justify the use of a Taser. Never turn your back on the RCMP.

When Dziekanski finally turned around to face the four officers, with a stapler in his hand, he was Tasered, but as Rundel indicated, the intent to Taser, at least in his mind, was already fully formed. "Hit him again," Cpl. Robinson shouted, and Dziekanski, already in pain and shock, was duly zapped once more.

The rest is tragedy. No doubt as the inquiry progresses there will be other such insights into the mentality of the Mounties who got their man.

UPDATE: More. [via The Gazetteer]

Rundel took long pauses when asked repeatedly by Patrick McGowan, a commission lawyer, what command Dziekanski disobeyed that made officers conclude he was resistant.

McGowan noted that Dziekanski stopped moving toward his luggage when he was ordered to.

Rundel eventually replied that Dziekanski "indirectly" disobeyed the officers when he walked away because he should have known they were police and should have stood still.

Rundel was shown a video of the incident, taken by a witness, and asked to point out when Dziekanski lifted the stapler in an aggressive manner, but he could not. [Emphasis added]

______________
*Robinson is currently facing impaired driving charges in connection with the death of a motorcyclist.