A tragedy of errors

The testimony at the Air India inquiry is revealing a chain of brushed-aside warnings, missing dogs, coincidence, circumstance, and tragic happenstance.
Bear in mind there are two facts which I haven't seen covered yet in the news accounts of the inquiry.
First, Air India apparently only flew from Canada to India once a week. So it wasn't as though putting on extra security for the Air India flights created a huge 24/7 security burden at Canadian airports. Second, remember that very same day, another bomb had been successfully hidden on a CP Air Lines flight from Vancouver, which exploded in Tokyo. So any discussion about why the Air India bomb wasn't found also needs to explain why the CP bomb wasn't found either.
As for the inquiry testimony, here's what we're learning. According to the Globe and Mail:

Flight 182 was considered at high risk of attack by Sikh extremists.

Yet according to Canadian Press, the RCMP at the Montreal airport thought there wasn't any particular danger:

...it appears from documents tabled Wednesday that D'Souza never consulted the RCMP. Sgt. J.N. Leblanc, the watch commander at the airport, later told investigators he learned of the three suspect bags only after the plane took off.
Leblanc said he decided not to recall the flight to Mirabel since "no other information had come to our attention that there could be any danger whatsoever to the plane."

From previous testimony, it appears there was actually plenty of information about Air India threats -- but apparently it wasn't passed on to the people who might have acted on it:

The RCMP's former head of airport security was not told that a group of Sikhs were plotting a suicide attack on an Air India jet leaving Montreal on June 16, 1984. . .

Sadder still, a tragic series of coincidences allowed the doomed flight to take off with a bomb on board:

. . . Flight 182 wasn't held at Mirabel to have all the baggage unloaded and matched up against passengers. If that had been done, the unaccompanied bag that contained the bomb would likely have been discovered.
. . . the X-ray machine used at Pearson broke down, and a hand-held electronic detector used in its place had been shown to be unreliable in tests conducted six months earlier.
Moreover, no sniffer dog was available in Toronto because all the RCMP's explosives-detection canine teams were on a training course that weekend.

So it all makes me wonder.
Maybe other bombs have been found aboard other Canadian planes in the last 20 years, but I haven't heard about any.
So we are left with this uncomfortable realization: after decades of security checks on thousands of airplane at hundreds of airports across the country, there were two times, perhaps ONLY two times, that bombs were hidden on in suitcases. And these two times, they didn't get found because of poor communications, inter-agency rivalry, and the incredible bad luck that a never-to-be-repeated series of coincidences occurred on one weekend in June in 1985.
This is the stuff of which conspiracy theories are born.

Long and hot summer

This is the video that has raised all the fuss - "When justice fails, stop the rails". It's a cute slogan, yes, and apparently a non-violent way to protest-- it says that wrapping copper wire about a rail line will just cause the train's electronic sensors to think the line is broken and therefore bring the train to a stop.
Now, I'm not sure this is as harmless as it is purported to be -- what if a train stops and another train slams into it? What if train passengers are stranded?
And I'm not sure what it accomplishes to stop trains, except to cost farmers a lot of money when their grain can't be shipped to ports.
That said, the situation for many Aboriginal families on reserves today is unconscionable. Assembly of First Nations head Phil Fontaine spoke today to the Canadian Club, and CP describes the scene:

Fontaine has always preferred peaceful diplomacy over the risk of alienating public support.
"But First Nations people are beginning to question the so-called rational process," he said during a luncheon speech Tuesday to the Canadian Club of Ottawa.
"At this point you must realize we have a right to be frustrated, concerned, angry," he told the well-heeled luncheon crowd of business, political, academic and cultural leaders.
They filled the gilded ballroom of the Chateau Laurier hotel,? sipping coffee and finishing dessert as Fontaine described 28 people living in two-bedroom houses on the Pukatawagan reserve in Northern Manitoba.
Vicious murders of native women go all but unnoticed, he said. And federal spending hasn't kept pace with inflation or population growth for years.

Railways apparently have involved themselves now in the land claims disputes.

. . . Chief Terry Nelson of Manitoba's Roseau River First Nation, says he'll follow through on rail blockades included in a resolution passed by chiefs at an Assembly of First Nations meeting last December.
It calls for a 24-hour disruption (from 4 p.m. next June 29 to 4 p.m. June 30) "to reaffirm the need for the Canadian government to establish a reasonable time-frame for settlement of Indigenous rights."
Nelson has since said that such action could escalate if rail companies persist in suing demonstrators for related economic chaos. He argues that the rail company has access to traditional native territory because a related historic treaty wasn't properly honoured by Ottawa.
Compensation for commercial use of claimed land is a major snag in several cases. CN sued after a splinter group of Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte near Deseronto, Ont. blocked freight and passenger traffic for more than a day on the busy line between Toronto and Ottawa last month.

It could be a long, hot summer if protests escalate:

Fontaine says there's still time to avoid all-out conflict.
"But what's incumbent upon us is to put out a proposition that's so compelling it actually gives First Nations hope."
That's increasingly tough, he said, under a Conservative government that gutted the $5-billion Kelowna Accord to improve First Nations health, housing and education, before virtually excluding new spending for cash-strapped reserves in the last federal budget.
Still, he met with [Indian Affairs minister] Prentice on Monday and is willing to keep trying.
"In spite of all of the resistance we've encountered in the last while, we've made it very clear that we're still committed to engaging with the government in a process that will bring about good results for First Nations people and Canadians."
. . . "it's an intolerable situation" on many of Canada's more than 600 reserves, most of which are denied any share of lucrative resources on their traditional lands.
"There's no reason why First Nations people should be as poor as we are."
He's convinced that most Canadians want that black mark erased.
Until then, said Fontaine, "we're still committed to do the right thing."

If things get bad, the Harper government may yet regret having stiffed Canada's Aboriginal communities by bailing out of the Kelowna Accord -- and after promising during the election campaign that they wouldn't do that.
In the end, the $5 billion promised by the Accord may well turn out to be a lot less expensive than what nationwide Aboriginal protests will cost us all, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike. And not just in terms of money.

Great line of the day

From Rick Perlstein at Campaign for America's Future:

Now that Padilla's finally going on trial - an eventuality the government worked very, very hard to render impossible - the restrictions on reporters are unprecedented. Washington claims security concerns. Almost certainly, what they're really afraid of is embarrassment. If George Orwell and Franz Kafka had a love child, it would look like the Padilla case.

Emphasis mine.

Hearts and minds

Dave at Galloping Beaver flags this New York Times story about how the increasing number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan is damaging public support for the Afghan government and the war.
He notes this paragraph in particular:

The public mood hardened against foreign forces in the southern city of Kandahar after British troops fired on civilians while driving through the streets after a suicide bombing last year, and Canadian soldiers have repeatedly killed and wounded civilians while on patrol in civilian areas.

Really? Our troops have developed a reputation for repeatedly killing civilians? Now, I don't comb the papers for Afghan news every day, but I don't remember getting the impression that Canadian solders are "repeatedly' firing on civilians.
So I googled, and found this December article from Seven Oaks magazine, which explains why I hadn't heard about it -- because our Canadian media hasn't been giving this issue systematic coverage:

. . . our most respected media went to considerable lengths to avoid negative portrayals of our military role and that of our NATO allies, even to the point of completely ignoring certain shocking and disastrous events which are of vital importance in understanding the role of our military in Afghanistan and its effects on the people of that country.

Here's some of the stories you didn't hear about:

At around 2am on October 18, NATO helicopters firing on houses in the village of Ashogo in Kandahar killed between nine and thirteen civilians, including women and children. Almost simultaneously, in neighboring Helmand province, another NATO air strike killed a reported thirteen civilians. Additionally, NATO revealed that just one purported Taliban insurgent was killed in the attacks. In fact, during the attack on Ashogo, there were no Taliban whatsoever in the village, according to local officials. NATO blamed the botched attacks on intelligence failures.

And here's another one:

. . . an Afghan father's accusations that during the Kandahar attack NATO troops had executed his wounded son when the soldiers had entered their house . . . NATO later announced that they had exonerated themselves on the matter

And a week later:

Before dawn on October 24 -- and on the cusp of Eid celebrations -- NATO air strikes in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar, ostensibly aimed at Taliban insurgents, claimed the lives of numerous innocent civilians. Estimates at the time ranged from 30 to 90 dead villagers; NATO initially conceded only 11 civilian deaths while claiming 48 dead insurgents. Survivors told of their homes being bombed and of fleeing across fields with their families, while NATO planes strafed them. Reportedly, over 50 homes were destroyed.

We are also creating refugees:

. . . at the end of November, Amnesty noted that NATO operations in Afghanistan had contributed to the displacement of up to 90,000 people . . .

Here's another incident:

On December 12, a Canadian soldier on guard duty shot and killed an Afghan senior citizen in Kandahar City. The man, 90 year-old Haji Abdul Rahman, had approached the provincial governor's palace on his motorcycle. A frequent visitor to the palace, the elderly former teacher had come to pay a visit to his old pupil: Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai. Afghan soldiers in charge of an outer checkpoint, evidently familiar with the locally famous man, had let him pass without questioning him. Upon seeing this, the Canadian soldier became suspicious or alarmed and commenced verbal warnings aimed at the elderly motorcyclist. When these signals did not have the desired effect (a common occurrence, it must be noted, in this conflict as well as the one in Iraq), the soldier fired a warning shot which ricocheted and killed the man, according to a Canadian Forces spokesperson.

And there were three more incidents in February:

Maj. Dale MacEachern, a spokesman for the Canadian Forces, said the group of Canadians signalled for the approaching vehicle to stop, but troops opened fire when the civilian driver proceeded . . . The Afghan driver was killed and a passenger was wounded . . . On Feb. 18, Canadian soldiers killed an Afghan civilian and a member of the Afghan national police following an attack on a Canadian convoy. The military said the civilian approached Canadian Forces soldiers while they were engaged in a gun battle with insurgents and did not heed repeated warnings to move away.
A day earlier, Canadian troops also shot and killed an Afghan civilian.

While reporting on other civilian deaths in Afghanistan in early May, due to US bombing, the BBC provides this statistic:

About 4,000 people were killed in Afghanistan last year, about a quarter of them civilians.

This Wikipedia article provides more detail about all of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan, including the ones attributed to US soldiers.

Great line of the day

Ottawa Citizen columnist Margret Kopala publishes a profoundly offensive and racist rant that 'real' Canadians aren't having enough children so all we have to hope for is "a quiet death in a clean facility where the immigrant workers speak our language". It's all the fault of gay marriage or teen sex or frankenfood or electrical transmissions or something.
Anyway, credit Tbogg for the Shorter Margret: "I don't want to die surrounded by brown people".
And credit Tbogg commenter Rugosa for today's Great Line:

As a person of whiteness, I've always been astounded by the level of care and professionalism the brown hordes bring to their jobs. Considering how we've treated them, spitting in our soup is the least we deserve from them.

Nice, but not easy

Ian Welsh has a brilliant post over at Firedoglake, which anyone who is listening to politician speeches needs to read:

The problem is the use of simple as a synonym for easy; and hard as a synonym for complicated.

And I can't really give you the gist of it with any more excerpts -- just go read it.
(And whenever Youtube is working again, come back to hear Tina.)

Great line of the day

Josh Marshall talks about political "orthodoxy":

In our society, at least in most of it, the word 'orthodoxy' comes with at least a loose negative connotation. We're open-minded, tolerant people. So to call one of a political party's bedrock issues an 'orthodoxy', as the Times does here, is at least to slightly prejudice the question . . . But why do Republicans need to give up these 'orthodoxies'...Why shouldn't they organize their voting around these issues that mean so much to them?
It reminds of the predictable-as-the-seasons articles you'll read every few years in the Post and other papers asking whether Democrats are going to give up their hidebound orthodoxies of supporting Social Security or the progressive income tax or civil rights. For many of us those are precisely the reasons we're involved in politics, so why should we give them up because some frivolous oped writer who doesn't know the first thing about public policy thinks it's the hip new thing to do?
How many Democrats would support a flat-tax, pro-privatization, anti-gay rights candidate for president? And why should they? Washington's beautiful people, the froth at the top of the politico-cultural mug, look down on everybody, right and left, who's really committed politically. It's a mild embarrassment, like loud clothes or poor table manners.

Emphasis mine.
And I think this is why so much political coverage from both Washington and Ottawa is just "horse-race" coverage or got-ya gonzo journalism -- because too many of our national reporters on both sides of the border are just too, too sophisticated (and too, too rich) to really care about any of the social or economic issues the candidates are talking about.
They act like nobody else should care either. So gauche!

Call Me Al

Comments aren't working, apparently. So just enjoy:

Household hints

In honour of Mother's Day, The Onion is running a special issue just for us girls -- including some very useful household hints:

* You may find yourself lying in bed at night beside your husband thinking, "Is this all?" It isn't, sister. With a cup of corn starch in your sheet laundry, you can achieve those perfect hospital corners.
* The only way for a woman to know herself as a person is through creative work of her own. Cut grilled cheese sandwichces diagonally and let your spirit soar!
* Power that pan clean with Girl Power! The same goes for counters, collars, rugs, curtains, tile, grout, duvet covers, venetian blinds, and problem areas.
* When you open yourself to the abundance of the universe, anything is possible... even getting a clean toilet with NO SCRUBBING! Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet, let it sit for one hour, and then flush it clean. You can use that extra sixty minutes of free time to believe, breathe, dream, laugh, or CELEBRATE what makes you UNIQUE!
* Do you often find yourself wishing there were more hours in the day? Juggling a career, a home, and a relationship can be hard, but you can't let any one of those things go, or you will be a failure as a woman. Taking a regular dose of methamphetamine will give you the energy to successfully manage all three and spare you the inconvenience of sleep.
* Liberate yourself from household chores: Have children!

Document dump?

Wow -- Cheney is threatening Iran again AND there's a big announcement about a terrorist threat in Germany.
Must be some really bad news for the Bush administration coming out this afternoon.
UPDATE: Here is the bad news. Or maybe it's this embarrassment.

Great line of the day

Josh Marshall writes about the real question raised by many of the recent "terrorism cult" arrests in the United States:- like these guys, and now these guys:

. ..the real jokers they actually bust turn out to be such hopeless goofs that it's hard to know whether ... if Islamic terrorism is catching on in the US, that it's only doing so among the deeply stupid, or that these are the only ones our guys can catch.

Cab-driver Journalism

Some interesting posts today about the conceit of rich, white, old political journalists who think they are "men of the people".
Glenn Greenwald writes:

Claims that one's own views are what 'Americans think,' when unaccompanied by empirical data, are worthless. And patronizingly joining the 'real people' in a coffee shop a few times a year is meaningless. It certainly does not make one qualified to speak on behalf of anyone.

Digby follows up:

[These journalists have] a sort of pre-conceived notion of what defines "the people" that appears to have been formed by TV sit-coms in 1955 . . . invariably these middle-aged white men say the country is going to hell in a handbasket and they want the government to do more and they hate paying taxes . . . Meanwhile, someone like me, who lives in a big city on the west coast and who doesn't hang out in diners with middle aged white men are used as an example of the "fringe" even though I too am one of "the people" as are many others --- like hispanic youths or single urban mothers or dot-com millionaires or elderly southern black granddads or Korean entrepreneurs

What Greenwald and Digby are describing is what I call "cab-driver journalism" and it works like this:
a reporter from Washington or Toronto flies into Podunk, Nebraska or Riverwart, Alberta or even a city like Los Angeles or Halifax to cover something -- maybe a political convention or a space launch or a missing white woman or a big storm or a trial or whatever.
And the first thing he does is hop into a cab to get to his hotel from the airport.
And on the way into town, usually a half-hour trip or more, he invariably asks the cab driver what he thinks about the convention/space launch/missing woman/storm/trial/whatever. And so the cab driver tells him.
And chances are, this will be the ONLY actual citizen the reporter ever talks to -- unless he hops another cab to go somewhere else -- because everyone else he meets, from the desk clerk to the waitress to the doorman to the office secretary, is busy working and they don't have time.
So then the reporter writes a sidebar story, beginning something like "People in Podunk are getting tired of ______ already and ____ hasn't even started yet. They're wondering why the government would spend a dime on _____"
And then when the reporter goes home, he spends the next several months telling his co-workers things like "When I was in Podunk, people were saying.....", to the point that he eventually believes he really did talk to a lot of people there.
Personally, just about everything I know about Nashville, and Seattle, and Detroit, and Boulder, and Boston, and London, Ontario, and Fredrickton, and Toronto, I learned from cab drivers.
In retrospect, though some of the rides certainly were interesting, and the stories I heard certainly amusing, I doubt that I have a particularly broad or well- informed view of those cities or what their people think.
So next time some pundit starts writing about what the people of your town "really think", don't be surprised if it sounds just like the yap you heard during your last cab ride.

Great line of the day

Alison at Creekside gives the Globe and Mail a rap on the knuckles for daring to use the term "prisoners" to describe Afghan prisoners. She asks how long will Canada put up with this?

I thought we settled this already.
The Afghan people are "insurgents" until such time as they are killed or handed over to Afghan authorities to be tortured, at which point they become "scumbags", terrorists, and Taliban.
How many times do we have to go over this?

Chow down

Maybe we should all be putting in our own big gardens this spring. And finding a local farmer to sell us a beef quarter from an animal he raised himself.
Here's a chilling summary of the melamine contamination issue, titled FDA: the “Faith-based Dining Administration”:

. . . USDA/FDA say they believe the melamine level in meat would be very low, but they haven’t bothered to test it. They say they believe melamine is nontoxic to humans, but then, a few months ago we believed it was nontoxic to dogs and cats too. They say they believe that there have been no human health problems due to eating tainted pork and chicken, but admit that the Centers for Disease Control has “limited ability to detect subtle problems due to melamine and melamine-related compounds.”
And while USDA/FDA have focused their efforts almost entirely on inspecting imports of vegetable protein concentrates, and on tracking contaminated product through the animal and human food supply, the import of processed foods, meat and farmed seafood products from China has continued unchecked and unabated, despite the obvious potential of contamination within China’s own, largely unregulated, agriculture and food industries.

I don't think we've heard the last of this one.

Crazy line of the day

From a crazy pundit called Dick Morris:

. . . if we stay in Iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more Americans, which they really like.
One of the things, though, that I think the antiwar crowd has not considered is that, if we’re putting the Americans right within their arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to Wall Street to kill Americans. They don’t have to knock down the trade center. They can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

So now we finally know why American soldiers are in Iraq -- to be targets.