Hey Toronto:Welcome to Fear, American-Style

"Items are shown on display during a press conference. The bag of fertilizer, right, was not seized during the raid and was there for display purposes only." - Globe and Mail website

I've managed to keep politics out of this blog for a while but the recent Toronto terrorist "scare" is just one step too far.

RCMP behind bomb material - Toronto Star, June 4th.

So you read this article carefully, and what comes out is that the RCMP monitored some websites where a "group of young men", were obviously discussing their anger at American politics and what they were going to do about it. These "young men" then "forged letters about a bogus school trip to give to their parents" to attend a terrorist training camp, actually just "a field north of the city" where they made a video "imitating warfare".

They were high school students?

So the RCMP begins to monitor them, observes them skipping school and horsing around in a field with a video camera "imitating warfare" and then decides to start an "undercover sting operation".

"The RCMP said yesterday that after investigating the alleged homegrown terrorist cell for months, they had to move quickly Friday night to arrest 12 men and five youths before the group could launch a bomb attack on Canadian soil."

Sources say investigators who had learned of the group's alleged plan to build a bomb were controlling the sale and transport of the massive amount of fertilizer, a key component in creating explosives. Once the deal was done, the RCMP-led anti-terrorism task force moved in for the arrests."

List of Suspects from CNN, with ages.

So let me get this straight, of the 17 arrested, 5 were clearly high school students and another 6 were 21 or under; four more were under 25. So of the 17 suspects, 15 of them were basically children.

And the three tonnes of fertilizer was sold and set up for delivery to this group of "young men" BY THE RCMP!! So they weren't prevented from carrying out attacks, so much as they were prevented from carrying out attacks that were encouraged by the RCMP!

Photo from Globe and Mail of evidence

Follow this link and you will note that the ammonium nitrate provided for show at the press conference was described as not from the raid but is there for "display purposes". It would appear that these "suspects" never even had their hands on the fertilizer, or at least just long enough to get entrapped for buying it from the RCMP. Hardly a case of rushing in to stop spontaneous attacks at the last minute.

Basically, the RCMP set up a bunch of angry children (mostly high-school students or recent graduates) by cultivating their anger and then offering them explosives. This is the best they can come up with for a Canadian terror threat?

This just demonstrates that without the RCMP and CSIS funding, supporting, coordinating and supplying them, we wouldn't have credible neo-nazi or terrorist movements in this country (Note: CSIS has been accused of basically setting up the Heritage Front, a neo-nazi organization, in Toronto, also comprised of mostly disaffected youth).

This kind of critique needs to spread far and fast if we are not to be infected with politically motivated fear and witch hunts here in Canada. And for those who are legitimately angry at the direction of our current Canadian and American administrations, do not forget, anger is very easy to manipulate. Be wary of those who encourage your anger to become violence, you are being set-up. The use of violence in the pursuit of any goal is unlikely to succeed in the long run, and is a lazy choice regardless of the cause.