The Pride of Africa

"Nigeria is facing a demographic tidal wave."
"The long-term viability of the Nigerian economy -- and the state itself -- hinges on the government, religious, and traditional institutions developing a plan to address this challenge before it becomes impossible to remedy."
Matthew Page, associate fellow, Africa Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs, Britain

"They used car engine belts and electrical cables to flog us."
"Teachers used to sexually harass us -- They tried to loosen my pants once but I fought them off and was beaten."
"They beat us everywhere in the house, even in the mosque. If you asked to speak with your family, they would shackle you."
"When the police raided the school the whole place was in pandemonium, we were so happy."
"What I want now is to return home. I'll be a good boy."
Suleiman, 15, former student, Kaduna Muslim institution

"The teachers and prefects raped boys. Those who were sexually molested were enticed with canned fish. Those of us who refused were caned."
"They used planks of wood to beat us."
Jibril, 17, former student, Kaduna Muslim institution

Television Continental / Reuters TV | People are pictured after being rescued from a building in the northern city of Kaduna, Nigeria, on September 26, 2019, in this grab from a video.

Islamic schools such as the one in Kaduna, Nigeria , called Almajiris, can be found commonly in the mostly Muslim north of Nigeria. According to Muslim Rights Concern, situated locally, an estimated ten million children are sent to attend these Islamic schools. Nigeria's Muslim President Muhammadu Buhari undertook an initiative to encourage school attendance with a program guaranteeing free school meals that 9.8 million children in 32 of Nigeria's 36 states can take advantage of.

Nigeria, with one of the strongest economies on the continent, and a huge population of 190 million people and a wealth of oil resources has been unable to provide adequate school places for its population. That gap is an invitation for unregulated institutions such as the Kaduna institute for religious studies to offer their services to indigent families. Primary education in Nigeria is free officially, but around 10.4 million Nigerian children, five years of age to 14 do not attend school.

The oil producing state of Nigeria whose finances are drained by endemic corruption, spends a mere 0.5 percent of gross domestic product on health for the population, while allocating 1.7 percent on education, representing the lowest worldwide among others, according to the International Monetary Fund. With so few options available to poor families, there are some parents quick to defend the Kaduna institution which charges 35,000 naira ($114) each term.

The pink two-storey building is a prison-like structure surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. It has an imposing gate, with more than a dozen rooms, with small windows for ventilation. Reuters

A tailor living next to the combined mosque/school institution attested that two of his children attending the schools had never been abused. "It was good for them, they became calm. They showed them how to read the Qur'an. I liked it." How to read the Qur'an, but since it is in Arabic, the meaning of the Arabic words which they were then able to quote as required, eluded them. "There is no problem in this school", Zainab, a mother of seven children at the institution where she cooked meals, insisted.

The institute's sign is also in Arabic, describing itself as "House of Imam Ahmad Bin Hanbal for the Application of Islamic Teachings". Some parents paid the fees in the belief it was an Islamic school, describing it as a good institution, dismissing abuse allegations while others saw it as a correctional facility, although it was never formally registered as required, as either. The two-story house used as a religious school is emerging as a place of horror visited upon men and boys, some of whom had been there for years.

Those who managed to escape the prison that the large, complex building represented to return home, were frequently returned by their families with some parents claiming their wayward children required discipline. And then there were other parents who were too poor, they said, to look after all their children. At least 77 boys under 18 years of age were held in the house, the  youngest age five. According to the victims, there were frequent, regular beatings; children and men often shackled.

Some detainees were as young as five years old  Reuters

Food was served at 10 a.m. and 11 p.m. only, and in short supply. Suleiman was sent to the institution by his older brother as punishment for skipping school. He studied Arabic and Islam's holy book, the Qur'an. When he was ten years old, Jibril, now 17 was hung by his arms after attempting to escape. He was left hanging until bones in his shoulders broke. He struggles now, years later, to raise his arms. Directly after the incident he was sent home to recover, and when he had healed his family returned him to the school.

A complaint by an uncle who was denied access to his nephew (a regular feature at the school where family members were not permitted admittance) alerted police who dispatched about 40 officers to raid the building where they found several boys and men in chains. Shackled to broken power generators, some boys dragged them around after themselves, including to bed or to the bathroom. Police arrested seven men they found to be in charge of the place where starving children caught trying to steal food would be stripped and whipped. In total several hundred men and boys were kept prisoner there and subsequently freed.

Only several days later, a house in Lagos was raided by police, where ten young women who had been kidnapped were kept prisoner, raped, to became pregnant and bear children to be sold for profit. How many of such operations exist? When Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group, kidnapped hundreds of school girls as 'brides' for their fighters from a private all-girls' school, the country was aghast, and a search for the girls was undertaken by the Nigerian military. Much good came of it.

Four children were rescued along with 19 women

Some of the girls managed to escape, some with babies whom their villages refused to accept. The country, in a sectarian divide between Muslim and Christian, is destabilized by the presence of marauding terrorists who torch villages, slaughter the men and kidnap and rape women, and has created a dilemma for the government whose underfunded and demoralized military would rather flee from confrontation with Boko Haram and other terrorist groups claiming affinity with Islamic State than fight and destroy their ability to terrorize the population..

Dysfunction is so widespread and deep that the presence of international aid agencies and other humanitarian groups trying to provide medical care and food for poor Nigerians is viewed askance; they are are accused by the government of giving aid and succor, along with funding support to the very terrorist groups whose victims they are engaged in offering care to, now finding themselves shut down, declared foreign interventionists causing problems in the country.

Unions of the World Unite in Solidarity With Murderers, Righteous War-Mongers  

"We had no interest in being represented there. We're taking this seriously. We're trying to get to the bottom of it."
"We take our international relations very seriously. When we make a conscious decision to get involved internationally, there's a discussion that happens. That never happened."
"So obviously we're really concerned and we're trying to get to the bottom of how this came to pass."
"Having someone more or less freestyle like this is beyond my immediate experience. We need to find out how and why this came to pass."
"Questions need to be answered."
CLC (Canadian Labour Congress) spokesman Joel Duff

A Syrian man carries his two girls as he walks across the rubble following a barrel bomb attack on the rebel-held neighbourhood of al-Kalasa in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Sept. 17, 2015. Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images

Actually, it is not really all that surprising. Unions everywhere seem to be in increasing solidarity with both left-and-right-wing ideologies. And, in fact, when CLC executive vice-president Donald Lafleur was once a national vice-president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers before he joined the 3.3-million Canadian Labour Congress in 2014, CUPE was notorious for some of its alliances. And the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is known for their anti-Israel stance in solidarity with the public relations campaign in support of BDS by Palestinian groups and their supporters.

Admittedly for a Canadian unionist to join the likes of North Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, China and the 'Luhansk People's Republic' in breakaway, Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine to attend a trade unionist solidarity conference along with representatives from Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua does represent a road less travelled. So to settle the puzzling question of how a Canadian union member saw fit to travel to Bashar al-Assad's Syria in support of the Baathist government's concerns over labour matters does require an explanation.

And Mr. Duff was quite prepared to take the matter up with the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, Hassan Yussuff, about these bad optics, as soon as he returned from attending a meeting of the International Union of Operating Engineers in the United States. Perhaps most of the three million-plus CLC members would be interested in discovering why one of their own would want to travel to an event convened by the World Federation of Trade Unions, a relic left over from the Soviet era, when the CLC is formally affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation based in Brussels?

A Syrian girl holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a makeshift hospital following a reported gas attack on the rebel-held town of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus on Jan. 22, 2018. Hasan Mohamed/AFP/Getty Images

Puzzling, if for no other reason than that in so doing he was paying homage to a country whose president is a vicious butcher, responsible for the deaths of over a half-million of his own citizens, a man who through his unstinting devotion to slaughter and displacement has sent his Sunni Syrian citizens in their millions to find haven from his military's use of chemical weapons, barrel bombs and helicopter gunships destroying lives, bombing hospitals and medical clinics, schools and marketplaces.

The unionists in Syria have adopted their president's view of their Sunni brethren as 'terrorists' for having had the gall to protest their unequal treatment at the hands of the Alawite Shiite government.
But just as the unions continue to support and praise the ruinous destruction of human rights and the Venezuelan economy by President Maduro, they obviously see nothing wrong in giving allegiance to a master of death and destruction, satisfied to send millions of Syrian refugees to Europe, depriving them of their birthright and human rights.

Well the answer is out there, and Fra Hughes of the Irish Republican Socialist Party who left Caracas to attend the Damascus meeting where he met Assad, describing him as "an affable, engaging, clever man", the perspective he brings to the matter of Syria's collapse into civil war is not to be blamed on Assad, nor on Russia, Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, much less Shia militias. "The West" is responsible, eager to look after "the expansionist dreams of Zionism come to fruition". There, isn't the truth good to know?

That belief and dedication to the truth also brought to the Damascus convention the U.S. Green Party's nominee for vice-president in 2015, and the Lebanese-Californian founder of the Free Gaza Movement.

A Poster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is seen on the main road to the airport in Damascus, Syria, on April 14, 2018.  Omar Sanadiki/Reuters

Open Letter to trade unionists in support of brother Donald Lafleur, Executive Vice President, Canadian Labour Congress/ Syria Solidarity Movement

Dear Comrades,
We write to you as fellow trade unionists and comrades dedicated in the struggle for workers’ rights in support of Donald Lafleur and his visit to the GFTU trade union congress in Damascus. Brother Lafleur has been unjustly placed on administrative leave despite the fact that he attended the meeting as a private individual, on his own time and at his own expense. The Union Executive is continuing its deliberations and considering further actions against him.  We demand that he be permitted to resume his full duties!
We are surprised by the witch hunt against a fellow comrade and double standards taken by western media and governments when it comes trade unionism in Syria! We draw your attention to the fact the Canadian Labour Congress has never endorsed the economic sanctions against Syria and we don’t believe it would ever support actions that would bring hardship and undermine fellow trade unionists.
Donald had the courage to accept an invitation to the congress in Syria in order to listen, learn, see with his own eyes and try to understand the experience of fellow trade unionists in Syria and the 42 other countries represented at the conference. Unlike many others, he kept an open mind and did not accept without question the one-sided accounts and demonization in the western media and governments.  Now he is under attack by those same media and governments, as well as the many, many persons and organizations that have been willingly brainwashed by the prevailing war propaganda. He deserves to heard and honoured for his efforts and solidarity, not pilloried and reviled.
SYRIASOLIDARITYMOVEMENT.ORG

Great Minds at Work Investigating, Interpreting, Counselling

"We've shown that what happens in the solar system can have a big influence on Earth. Extraterrestrial events aren't always destructive. Many people think about meteorites as just dinosaur killers, but we found the opposite. A big collision in the asteroid belt had constructive consequences that led to cooling and biodiversification."
"We're talking about gentle changes that happened over two million years. If we could travel back in time, it wouldn't appear as a catastrophe to us; it would be more like a gentle nudge that led to global change and triggered diversification."
Philipp Heck, curator of meteorites, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago

"Our study is the first time it has been shown that asteroid dust actually helps cool Earth to a dramatic extent."
"Geologists often think of nothing outside Earth. You have to understand what happens in space to get the full picture of what's happened on Earth."
"We knew almost nothing about the meteorite flux to Earth in geological deep time before this study." "The conventional view is that the solar system has been very stable over the past 500 million years. So it is quite surprising that the meteorite flux at 467 million years ago was so different from the present."
Birger Schmitz, nuclear physicist, Lund University, Sweden 

An artist's depiction of an asteroid collision in outer space.

(Image: © Don Davis, Southwest Research Institute)

A distant, ancient asteroid collision generated sufficient dust to cause an ice age aeons ago on Earth, according to a study published last week in Science Advances. A research team that reached that conclusion and produced the study has given new insight into efforts that might address climate change.

Our planet Earth is exposed to extraterrestrial matter on a fairly frequent basis; no less than 40,000 tons of space dust settles here annually. A 150-kilometre-wide asteroid collided with a fast-moving object between Mars and Jupiter 466 years ago, the crash serving to increase the dust falling on Earth for the following two million years by a factor of 10,000.

Drs. Schmitz, Heck and their research team discovered that this voluminous fall of dust managed to trigger cooling in the atmosphere of Earth, leading to an ice age. Extraterrestrial dust in significant amounts has the potential of cooling the planet by blocking the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the planet. Since dust from this asteroid collision gradually accumulated, the cooling also resulted gradually, enabling plant and animal species to adapt, as sea levels dropped and temperatures descended by up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Evidence was derived from a study of fossil meteorites, extraterrestrial materials embedded in Earth's rocks in antiquity, so rare Dr. Heck names them "Mona Lisas", the first one of which was discovered in a limestone quarry in Sweden in 1952, set aside by a paleontologist for future study, and identified 27 years later. A mineralogist realized in 1979 the origins of the rock, prompting a systematic search for additional such extraterrestrial material, resulting in the discovery of 130 meteorites over the following two decades.

Co-author Fredrik Terfelt of Lund University collecting rocks containing 467-million-year-old specimens

On examination, Dr. Schmitz and his team determined fully 129 specimens were originally part of the same asteroid breakup. Their level of cosmic ray exposure was measured to confirm outer-space origins and determine their arrival on Earth when the meteorites were analyzed for chemical composition. Researchers were able to determine that extraterrestrial dust began its reach to Earth about 50,000 years after the asteroid collision, by tracing the increase of certain isotopes in the meteorites. Roughly ten thousand years later, during the Ordovician Period, a worldwide ice age was initiated.

The team hypothesized the collision might have increased dust levels by a hundredfold before they launched their research. However, the chemical analysis revealed that dust levels had increased by a far greater amount, by a factor of ten thousand, an increase quite sufficient to alter Earth's climate markedly. Out of that discovery came the attention to a mechanism that could conceivably be used in counteracting global warming.

In their recently-published paper, the research team propose an asteroid be captured and brought to one of the Lagrange points between the sun and Earth. An unstable zone where the gravitational pull of each of those celestial bodies is equal, allowing the production of dust to block sunlight. The use of extraterrestrial dust for global cooling has in fact been previously proposed by other scientists. Dr. Heck, however, has his doubts, considering their findings to represent a mere basis for investigation.

An undated photo of the slowly diminishing asteroid 6478 Gault, with a tail more than 800,000km long and some 5,000km wide. The dust from such objects may have been a factor in past global cooling on Earth.
Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/world/how-cool-planet-extraterrestrial-dust   NASA via New York Times

"Putting a rock into an unstable point that could make it fall into Earth has me worried. A small asteroid wouldn't cause a global extinction, but it could cause a local catastrophe or wipe out a city in the worst case."

Not Quite Who He Appears To Be

"[Cameron Ortis, high-ranking RCMP intelligence official has been accused of violating Canada's secrecy laws, accused of breaching the Security of Information Act and the Criminal Code]."
"[Five charges filed against him include the] unauthorized communication of special operational information, [possessing a device or software] useful for concealing the content of information or for surreptitiously communicating, obtaining or retaining information, [and breach of trust by a public officer]."

"[The unit within RCMP where Mr Ortis worked is] a fusion centre and a clearing house [for both internal intelligence and for sensitive information received from other Canadian and foreign intelligence agencies and allies]."  "[The damage could be] very serious [but] no one knows what the link between potential and real damage might be at this stage."
"The reality of his position is he would have had knowledge of a wide range of national security files. That's partly what of course worries Canada and worries Canada's allies." 
Wesley Wark, visiting professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa 

"He's basically Clark Kent in looks and in his dedication to do the right thing. He's the closest thing I know to a superhero."
"He's smarter than everybody -- I don't care who you put him in a room with."
"He wanted to be on the undisputed side of good."
"He's been offered all this money so many times to take a cushy job and he's never taken it. Unless there's some other element to it -- blackmail or gambling -- it doesn't make sense ... There's got to be more to it."
Chris Parry, former journalist, friend of 18 years

"I remember talking to him a couple of times about books people had written about crime and terrorism. I was always impressed with the academic rigour he brought to critiques of those books."
Angus Smith, retired senior intelligence adviser

"[I homed in on East Asia as the focus of study into cyber intrusion in part because of the region's] growing reputation as a breeding ground for software piracy, crackers, virus writers and lackadaisical system administrators."
"The region plays host to the most advanced use of the Internet by organized crime groups."
Introduction to PhD dissertation, Cameron Otis

Cameron Ortis in 2010. .Handout

No one, not his high school peers who were his admirers and friends at W.J. Mouat Secondary from which he graduated in 1990, the local pastor who was his father at the Emmanuel Mennonite Church, those who knew him at university as mentors and professors, much less his friends of that period and his later colleagues at the RCMP unit where he worked as a senior administrator suspected the man of being anyone other than what they saw him as; a brilliant mind, a dedicated intelligence officer, a man loyal to his country.

His LinkedIn profile reflects study at the University of British Columbia in Prince George where one of his professors laid "the groundwork for a continuing interest and passion for the study of international relations" (in his words). He completed a master's degree at McMaster University in Hamilton where his thesis title was: "The Asian economic crisis: the changing nature of the relationship between domestic institutions and the international system".

At University of British Columbia, pursuing graduate studies from 1999 through 2006 he remained fascinated with Asia. And so it made sense that field work of a number of years saw him travelling to eight cities in Asia to interview government officials, engineers and members of the "hacker community", where he described the "precarious undertaking" involved in pursuing face-to-face interviews in dealing with sophisticated crackers -- network intruders -- and not low-level "script kiddies".

His computer expertise attracted large firms, but their job offers were turned down, irrespective of the sky-high salaries on offer. He maintained a laser focus on travel and research and then in 2007 his career with the RCMP began, as a civilian analyst. The first years with the National Security Criminal Investigations program where he was a tactical/operations analyst, taking information gleaned from investigations to find linkages.

When the national police force underwent a major reorganization within its federal policing branch in 2013, a new unit was created named the National Intelligence Coordination Centre, and Cameron Ortis was elevated to the position of director-general with access to not only Canada's intelligence files but those of its allies as well, which would include the 'Five Eyes', group of the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Australia. Any breach in intelligence would include the entire group's intelligence, shared between them.

In 2015, Cameron Otis was alleged to have communicated "special operational information". There was suspicion that between September 2018 and September 2019 he began to access information -- inclusive of possessing a device or software useful for concealing or surreptitiously obtaining information to enable him to hare it with a foreign entity or terrorist organizxation; clear "internal corruption". This was revealed when the agency was involved in an investigation led by the FBI.

A probe focused on a man in Richmond, B.C., Vincent Ramos, whose company, Phantom Secure, aided in facilitating the flow of cocaine and allied drugs globally through supplying high-level traffickers with encrypted communications devices designed to throw law enforcement off their scent. Investigators appear to believe that Cameron Ortis reached out to Ramos by email with an offer of "valuable" information.

"If the allegations are proven, it would be frustrating that someone who perhaps had the highest-profile career [within the intelligence investigations branch of the RCMP] as a civilian ... has made these missteps."
"My concern would be this would be a setback to those efforts [where senior managers "sweat a lot of blood to attract people outside the core policing stream into the RCMP] because they're still important."
Allan Castle, civilian member in charge of criminal intelligence analysis, RCMP E-Division, British Columbia

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki provides an update on the ongoing investigation, arrest and charges against Cameron Ortis at RCMP National Headquarters in Ottawa on Sept. 17, 2019. Chris Wattie/The Canadian Press

The Continuing Agony of Afghanistan's Civilians

"We were going to the bride's house for the henna ceremony, some of us were outside the home and some inside [when] suddenly the battle began ... "
"We told the security forces that we were not members of the Taliban. But both sides ended up killing civilians."
Mohammad Salim, 30, Musa Qala, Afghanistan

"[Our U.S. forces joined with Afghan forces in the operation, conducting] precision strikes against barricaded terrorists firing on Afghan and American forces."
"[There were] targeted precision strikes [but] we assess the majority of those killed in the fighting died from al Qaeda weapons or in the explosion of the terrorists' explosives caches or suicide vests."
"[The U.S. is] fighting in a complex environment against those who intentionally kill and hide behind civilians, as well as use dishonest claims of non-combatant casualties as propaganda weapons."
Col. Sonny Leggett, spokesman, U.S. Forces in Afghanistan

Afghans transport the body of a woman who was killed during a raid conducted by Afghan special forces, in the southern Helmand province, on Sept. 23, 2019. (Abdul Hadi / AP)

"The locals are trapped in a war between the Taliban and the U.S. and Afghan forces."
"We told the Taliban, 'don't settle foreign militants near our houses,' we told the Afghan government, 'don't target us if militants live in the middle of our houses, that is not our wish or our fault."
"We can't stop anyone. Don't kill us.'"
Local resident

Perhaps it is inevitable. In any kind of war civilian life is fraught with danger. In Afghanistan's long agony trying to fend off the Taliban with the help of American and NATO forces not much seems to have been accomplished through a UN mandate from 2013 to oust the Taliban. Afghan civilians living in the one-third of the country controlled by the Taliban are at their mercy. And they are at the mercy of the Afghan military targeting the Taliban. To make things even more complex, both al-Qaeda and Islamic State have their own militias stationed in that godforsaken country.

Afghans started out considering the Taliban their heroes, as mujaheddin, fighting on their behalf against the Soviet occupation of the country. When the Russians finally left, knowing that the savage fighting of the war lord militias and the mujaheddin had succeeded in routing them, the field was left wide open for the mujaheddin forces to transform themselves into what is called the Taliban; religious 'scholars' whose fundamentalist reign in the country was every bit as brutal as that of the Soviets, exchanging ideology for theocracy.

There is no such thing as a 'precision' target when fighters deliberately ensconce themselves within crowded civilian populations as shields, a practise widely seen from Hamas in Gaza to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and in fact, a favourite tactic with Islamist jihadists anywhere. While the 'precision' attack can take out members of terrorist groups, the fallout inevitably victimizes ordinary civilians trying to live their lives and not become another sacrifice to the tyranny of violence under the banner of 'liberation'.

On Monday, a joint raid by the U.S. military and the Afghan government forces on a Taliban hideout took the lives of an estimated 40 civilians, a wedding party in a  house adjacent to a building used by the Taliban. Days previous to that an American drone strike again aiming to hit the Taliban ensconced among farmers, killed 32 workers harvesting pine-nuts. On this latest occasion, according to Afghan officials, a house used by the Taliban to train suicide bombers located next to the bride's home saw both come under fire during a commando assault in the Musa Qala area of Helmand province.

Mohammad Salim carried the bodies of cousins and other relatives from the house decorated for the wedding of his sister-in-law, to a nearby burial ground. Celebration transformed to mourning. Twelve children were among the 40 killed at the wedding site. "A foreign terrorist group actively engaged in organizing terrorist attacks" was the target, according to a senior Afghan Defence official. A warehouse of military equipment was also destroyed in the raid.

As a defence ministry official explained, a foreign militant detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and those standing in close proximity, including a woman. "We are aware that civilians were injured in the attack", his understatement made clear. And according to Col. Leggett, most of the dead civilians had been struck by the gunfire of the foreign fighters; alternately from explosives caches or suicide vests being detonated.

The 40 dead civilians are balanced, one supposes in the minds of the military, with the strike killing four senior Taliban commanders and the Taliban shadow governor of Musa Qala, succeeding in bringing to twenty-two the total number of Taliban killed, and another fourteen taken prisoner. The heavy toll on civilian life merits a mental shrug; that's life and death in Afghanistan.

Afghan villagers carry a dead body on a stretcher outside a hospital in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, following an airstrike, September 23, 2019. U.S. and Afghan officials were looking into reports that 40 civilians, including children, were killed in an airstrike that hit a wedding celebration in southern Helmand province. Getty

O Canada! True Patriot Love

"The other day I had the honour to meet and listen to the honourable P.M. Justin Trudeau discussing the domestic and international policies of his government as well as his views and style of leading his caucus."
"With his government winning the next and upcoming federal election we have hopes to see Canada playing a bigger role in world peace."
Wasseem Ramli, honourary Syrian consul, Montreal 

"Shocked by the comments made to the press by the Syrian Honorary Consul in Montreal and the views he has espoused publicly on social media and elsewhere."
"Neither my team nor I were aware that officials at Global Affairs Canada had approved this appointment. I have asked the department to look into this right away."
"Let me be very clear that in my view, the current situation is unacceptable and we intend to respond very quickly. I think it's important to act with speed, but not with haste. And it's important to hear out the public service."
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland

A photo of Waseem and Trudeau posted to Waseem’s Facebook page. (wramli/Facebook)

"I think it's outrageous. She [Chrystia Freeland] needs to do more than just a review. This individual should never have been appointed in the first place."
"Again we see people who hold extreme views, who make anti-Semitic comments and who sympathize with terrorists seem to feel welcome in the Liberal Party of Canada."
Leader of the Conservative Parliamentary Opposition Andrew Scheer

"I'm baffled that it wouldn't have gone up [red flags within the Department of Foreign Affairs]."
"I would have assumed somebody in the chain of command would have said: 'Hey guys, bugger off, we're not going to do that'. Or: 'Let's wait until we bring it to the minister'."
"I'm somewhat surprised nobody at the political level seems to have known."
Former Canadian Ambassador to Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Ferry de Kerckhove

Chrystia Freeland ✔ @cafreeland

 · Sep 23, 2019

1/2 Shocked by the comments made to the press by the Syrian Honorary Consul in Montreal and the views he has espoused publicly on social media and elsewhere.

Chrystia Freeland ✔ @cafreeland

2/2 Neither my team nor I were aware that officials at Global Affairs Canada had approved this appointment. I have asked the Department to look into this right away.

In a world bursting with refugees, millions of them resulting from a civil war in Syria where the ruling Shiite-Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad has violated all human morals by employing the most atrocious means of delivering death to his majority-Sunni Syrian citizens, that ruined country has emptied its cities by millions of desperate-to-survive Syrians fleeing a hopeless situation, seeking refuge in bordering Islamic countries and migrating as refugees from a vicious, ongoing war to Europe and North America.

Every moral convention of warfare and civilian life in Syria was obliterated in President Bashar's no-holds-barred war against his Sunni Syrian population among whom orderly protests against their inferior status had emerged in 2011 only to be confronted by a vicious backlash from the regime. Since then, tens of thousands of Syrian Sunnis, among them children, have been imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Treaty-forbidden chemical weapons were used in bombing civilian enclaves. Markets, funerals, schools and hospitals and medical clinics have been deliberately bombed by the regime's forces.

Wartime munitions not only levelled municipal infrastructure and historical monuments along with people's homes, apartments, but barrel bombs were used indiscriminately to kill and to maim thousands of civilians. The death toll during the Syrian civil war between the regime and the resulting Sunni militias rose over a half-million until no one counted any longer. Of the pre-war population of 22-million people, an estimated 13 million have fled their homes, some internally displaced, an equal number external refugees.

The Syrian regime, aided and abetted in its relentless murder spree by the Islamic Republic of Iran dispatching al-Qods units of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its proxy terrorist militia Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Shiite militias loyal to Iran resolved to destroy any vestige of resistance against the Alawite regime. Even so, the tide was turning in favour of the rebel Sunni Syrian militias until the entry of Russia, supporting the Syrian regime with air power.

Canada had responded to the United Nations' call for countries of the Western world to respond to the refugee emergency by accepting 50,000 Syrian refugees, both government- and privately-sponsored. It is the needs of these refugees given haven in Canada, many of whom live in Quebec now, that a Syrian regime-sponsored consul would serve. Given the very obvious connection of the honourary consul to the Syrian regime whom Canada had officially welcomed, the untenable scope of the situation is incredible.

A photo of Assad and Waseem posted to Waseem’s Facebook page. (wramli/Facebook)

The new consul, in his online postings makes no secret of his admiration of and support of Bashar al Assad and  his murderous regime. That the government of Canada welcomed his appointment is shocking in and of itself. That that same government now professes to have had no idea of the situation is equally beyond belief. The minister involved blames her bureaucrats. In one online post Ramli wrote on September 23, he accuses the Syrian American Medical Society giving humanitarian assistance in Syria, of supporting terrorist groups.

In another post he extends an invitation to readers of the post to visit Syria for themselves so they can "see for yourself the truth that mainstream media is hiding from you". As for the storied Syrian White Helmets, Syrian Sunnis who have dedicated themselves to rescuing wounded civilians after regime bombing runs, risking their lives to save the lives of others and often risking the regime's deliberate after-bombings targeting them, Ramil describes them as a "terrorist organization" linked to al-Qaeda.

The website for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs states quite clearly that such appointments, made by the department's office of protocol "should avoid controversial or politically active persons, or persons whose professional activities might otherwise interfere with the effective discharge of consular functions". How likely is it that Syrian Sunnis so horribly persecuted by the Alawite Syrian regime would turn for consular assistance in acquiring documents to a representative of that murderous regime?

Official Canada has been most helpful to Bashar al Assad in establishing his regime as one deserving of diplomatic relations with Western democratic liberal governments that focus on human rights and equality.The Syrian honourary consul drives around in a red Humvee, a customized 1Syria licence plate and photographic artwork of the Syrian president emblazoned on a side window. On Ramli's Facebook  profile photos are posted with him standing smiling beside Assad, and another, with Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

This man had the unmitigated gall of stating "...We hope to see Canada playing a bigger role in world peace"; the 'we' he refers to being Syria whose long-standing war of epic proportions by an odiously loathsome regime, celebrates the role Canada could play in promoting world peace ... of course aided by Canada's willingness to host a representative of the promoter of death and destruction.

A photo of Waseem’s vehicle, posted to his Facebook page. (wramli/Facebook)

Locked and Loaded?

"The president talked about our use of those [cyber weapons] previously, but I'm certainly not going to forecast what we'll do as we move forward."
"This was Iran through and through [from drone downing to missile strikes on two Saudi oil facilities], and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime."
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

U.S. Intel: Saudi oil field attacks originated from Iran

"Cyber can certainly be a deterrent, it can be a very powerful weapon."
"It is an option that can cause real damage."
Senator Angus King, Maine, Chairman, Cyberspace Solarium Commission

Visitors gather at Tehran's Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense museum during the unveiling of an exhibition of what Iran says are U.S. and other drones captured in its territory, in the capital Tehran on Sept. 21, 2019. ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

"To the extent that Iran is conducting unlawful operations, I think [the cyber strike] was an appropriate measure to take to preclude their ability to conduct further unlawful operations."
"Sometimes cyberspace allows you to take operations that are not as escalatory as other options on the table. And this would strike me as one such operation."
Michael Schmitt, international law professor, US Naval War College

The purported wreckage of the destroyed US drone. File photo: Reuters

"Clearly those who conducted this attack were not deterred. That means inflicting pain."
"But we want that pain to be inflicted in a wise way that does not increase the credibility in the eyes of the Iranian people of a regime that is not credible."
Bradley Bowman, senior director, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

From piracy in the Strait of Hormuz to prove to the world that the Islamic Republic of Iran through the expert terrorism credentials of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, can give as good as it gets when one of its oil tankers was taken into custody in the belief that it was headed to unload its cargo in Syria where EU sanction against such traffic was being enforced at Gibraltar, to the downing of a sophisticated American surveillance drone which Iran claimed had overflown its territorial air space, the Republic has gone out of its way to prod, goad, provoke its Gulf neighbours and their ally, the United States of America.

Speedboat of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard moves around a British-flagged oil tanker, Stena Impero, in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas two days after it was seized in the Strait of Hormuz by the Guard on Friday, July 19. File photo: Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Iran that the United States is 'locked and loaded', should it indulge in any further violent expressions of contempt for its adversaries, even while it reacts increasingly recklessly in its frustration over the strict sanctions most latterly imposed on the oil-rich but distribution-and-sales-poor nation aspiring to expand its authority and command in the Middle East and beyond. Iran's use of coercion and threat followed by violence it claims has nothing to do with it is a strategy that has worked for it up to the present.

The American president exercised restraint after the destruction of the U.S. drone, preferring, it seems, to bide his time rather than risk an all-out war on a country that continues to agitate for war even while it claims it seeks peace and to make certain that foreign elements stay well away from its territory. This, even while it sends its proxy terrorist groups abroad to indulge in destabilizing violence meant to further Iran's territorial and conquest interests. That big stick Washington carries is withdrawn in exchange for blasting rhetoric mimicking Tehran's.

Ah, and then there is the U.S. Cyber Command, the world's purported most potent arsenal of cyber weapons that cyber professionals are preparing to implant in enemy networks. Tougher sanctions have only made the Islamist Shia tiger gnash its teeth in rage and fulminate over violent attacks on its Sunni neighbours delivered mostly via proxies, if not by the IRGC. The original Stuxnet cyberattack meant to disable Iran's centrifuges enriching uranium to bomb-grade succeeded in setting the Iranian nuclear program back temporarily.

A number of following cyberstrike launched by the U.S. and another three months ago which the Pentagon claims would be disabling to the Republic, which is not yet aware of it -- which makes the uninitiated wonder just how powerful and useful such a cyberattack could be if its results have not yet been detected by the target -- is being considered the beginning of a series, the next of which is now being considered to wreak as much damage to the country's cybernetworks as possible; presumably in a manner that would be catastrophic and not readily given to repair.

Trump, it seems, is unwilling to widen the conflict into a potential war footing, given his promise that the U.S. would be leaving the region. But a strike to significantly damage Iran's oilfields just as it has done to Saudi Arabia, and put its refineries out of immediate business is being considered for its "proportionate response" value. The administration is not, however, convinced that a cyberattack alone would be sufficient to convince calculating Iran that its ongoing belligerence is not paying off.

The mission is meant to convince Iran that it should set aside its ambitions for nuclear and missile programs. To punish the theocratic executive powers sufficiently so as to move them toward the kind of self-preservation that would convince them to step back from their regional destructiveness, much less its dedicated support and direction of terrorist groups acting at its behest, from Shiite militias, to Hezbollah, to Hamas.

Restraining themselves from overt military action in favour of reliance on cyberwarfare may not, however, be the answer to the dilemma, as pointed out by General Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and the director of the National Security Agency who has warned the president and his aides that the nation's cyber arsenal represents "no magic bullet" for Iranian aggression deterrence.

So, back to the drawing board. Perhaps. Perhaps not. The big question is how far is Iran willing to push and shove the U.S. into a responsive 'proportionate' military reaction?

Air and missile defense units are at the top of the list for a deployment in support of Saudi Arabia, following an Iranian attack on oil fields there. (Capt. Rachael Jeffcoat/Army)

Harmony and Loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party

"It's as if the whole population is treated as guilty until proven innocent."
"These internment camps and prisons are not going away and stand as a warning to the population that they better be more loyal to the party."
Sean R. Roberts, anthropologist, George Washington University, Washington

"I'm very worried about her [his imprisoned wife], because there's been no information."
"Everyone is talking about the camps, even at the United Nations, but the prisons are taking in more and more, and they're under even stricter control."
Almas Nizamidin, 27, Uighur, Australia

A police checkpoint in Kashgar, March 2017

"The government thinks they [Uighur professionals, academics, businesspeople] are more dangerous because they have money and knowledge and often have been abroad."
"Families often don't know where their loved ones have disappeared. Then we hear that this person was sentenced, or that one is in prison."
"Almost every family has this experience."
Habibulla Altay, Uighur tea merchant, Switzerland

The policies appear to mark a fundamental shift in official thinking - separatism is no longer framed as a problem of a few isolated individuals, but as a problem inherent within Uighur culture and Islam in general. BBC

China wants obedient, faithful-to-the-state populations within its vast empire. Harmony, above all else. Dissent is not permitted, questioning authority is forbidden, quiescent, biddable citizens mean that the Chinese Communist Party need have no concerns that ethnic or religious groups, or groups that have been deprived of their autonomy, freedom and sovereignty when their homelands have been ensnared in China's octopus grip -- like Tibet, or the Turkic people of Xinjiang -- object in any measure to their status.

Xinjiang region's Uighurs have earned the imposition of the Chinese authority's vast surveillance system to keep tabs on their activities and possible plans of protest groups. Relations between the Han Chinese and the Uighurs have been fraught with violence on occasion; distrust and dislike and suspicion have a way of breaking into the open from time to time, frustration and anger spilling over into the public sphere. Leaving the Uighurs intimidated, discriminated against, oppressed.

Their geography has become a giant prison system with actual prison camps named as re-education centers used by the Chinese government to impress upon this stubborn population that their first -- and even better -- only -- loyalty must be to the state, not their religion, not their culture, not their heritage. So northwest China has seen resurgent arrests, trials and prison sentences where millions of Chinese Uighurs are purported to have been incarcerated reflecting the displeasure of the CCP with these citizen-troublemakers.

A wall poster in Xinjiang reads: “Stability is a blessing, instability is a calamity”

Uighurs and Kazakhs constitute over half the population of Xinjiang. Xinjiang courts have sentenced 230,000 people to prison between 2017 and 2018 to prison terms of five years or longer. Exiled Uighur activists accuse Chinese officials of ignoring rudimentary legal protection in favour of expediting arrests and incarcerations. All in the name of unity, mind. Police, prosecutors and judges work in collegial tandem for convictions in a drive to eradicate unrest and ultimately convert the Muslim minorities toward loyalty.

Critics of the system insist that arrests are based on exaggerated charges, trials perfunctory, guilty judgements universally applied. Sentenced and imprisoned, abuse and hard labour in overcrowded facilities result. Numbers involved are not released and whether the claims of millions under arrest and imprisoned is accurate is anyone's guess. Xinjiang has 24.5 million residents. Almas Nizamidin who migrated to Australia had been attempting to secure a visa for his wife.

However, 27 year-old Buzainafu Abudourexiti was sentenced in 2017 to seven years in prison, charged and convicted with assembling a crowd, planning to disturb public order. The security situation in Xinjiang erupted from ethnic riots in the regional capital of Urumqi when in 2009 hundreds of people were killed, leading to harsher government policies. Many of the prisoners since sent to prison represented business class people, professionals and academics.

The Iranian Terrorist Theocracy

"The terrorist strikes were still going on when the first team arrived. The first hour [of response] is known as the golden hour and they knew they had to try to get a handle before it burned out of control."
"You can see, there is a lot of damage. But we have some of the best teams in the world Within seven hours the fires were extinguished. Within 24 hours we brought production back to 30 percent."
"Yes, the attack happened. But had it been any other country that would have been it [for the industry]. We must remember that Saudi is strong."
"The world should know that."

Khaled al-Hamdi, operations manager, Abqaiq Aramco oil plant, eastern Saudi Arabia

"The pinpoint precision of the drone strikes is astonishing and the fact that those specific areas were targeted indicates the attackers knew where to strike for maximum effect."
"There are 11 large spheroids, of which it appears at least seven have been struck. If all of these vessels are disabled completely, operations at Abqaiq would have come to a grinding halt."
Former Aramco engineer

Structures at Khurais bear the signs of the damage inflicted in last Saturday's drone attack (photo: Frank Gardner)

An unexpected attack at the Abqaiq Aramco oil plant, an incoming missile at 3:50 a.m. Just the very first of a fusillade meant to disable, to destroy if at all possible, Saudi Arabia's oil refining capacity as the world's leading supplier of oil. One explosion followed by a series, all of the missiles accurately aimed at sensitive targets. Ostensibly and increasingly certainly the terrorist act of an accomplished terror-state accustomed to acting with impunity both while fostering terrorism on command by its proxy militias and through well-planned acts of sabotage carried out by the Republic's Revolutionary National Guard Corps.

Middle East rivals; the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran, an oil-producing state with sinister ambitions including nuclear attainment, control of the Middle East in wrenching authority away from Sunni Saudi Arabia in a region of majority Sunni states, and reaching throughout the world to influence support for its brand of violent Islamist jihad. The targeted hit at the Abqaiq plant was not the only target; simultaneously another pinpoint-accurate attack was taking place 240 kilometres away at another processing site at Khurais, also hit by a combination of missiles and drones.

Saturday was not a good day for the Kingdom. Considerable damage was inflicted on both plants. The shock of the events was stunning; first in the bold and obvious violence that it represented, and second in the amount of damage that ensued, and lastly that the incoming missiles were not detected by the vast array of early warning technology on land and at sea by either Saudi installations or those of the United States. Saudi oil production was, in one fell swoop, crippled. From over five million barrels a day to supply world markets to two million.

First indications through an educated hypothesis that it could only have been Iran that was responsible has not yet elicited sufficient certainty, according to authorities, for an immediate response. And Iranian authorities warn that no response is indicated since they were in no way involved in the operation, and should an attack against their own oil fields be contemplated, it would be taken as a declaration of war. Not that Iran had initiated a war footing by its ongoing violent provocations, but any targeted country feeling the pain of Iran's poisonously corrosive actions seeking to respond would be guilty of war-mongering.


The anti-missile defence systems meant to warn Saudi Arabia of any potential attacks were installed to face in the direction where previous missile attacks had come from -- thus failing to detect a coordinated precision attack on two vulnerable sites -- facing south toward Yemen instead of facing north toward Iran and Iraq, where Tehran is suspected of having routed missiles on a circuitous route around the northern Persian Gulf through Iraqi air space, evading the Saudi radar systems as well as the Americans'.

Riyadh's missile experts are still studying the bits and pieces they retrieved from the attacked sites. To ensure that it is absolutely without doubt that the missiles were the responsibility of Iran. "Three-phase separators" held gaping holes in their spherical construction that separates fluids into gas, oil and water. Replacement parts are being shipped in to the country from the United States and Europe on an emergency basis. Two burnt-out stabilization columns forming part of oil-gas separation units at Khurais are being worked on.

The 1,100 usual Aramco employees that work at the Abqaiq plant in a normal week have been swelled to 6,000 workers, labouring around the clock to remediate the damage incurred by one hostile nation using its latest strategic assault weapons against another, with vicious malice aforethought.