Your government announced on Friday that it needs more powers to combat terrorism.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson: “These provisions are necessary to protect our country from the threat of terrorism.”

A redo of the panicky, now-defunct Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, the new Combating Terrorism Act includes preventive arrest and forcing people to testify at secret hearings about terrorist acts that might happen in the future, and if you don’t like it you can go to jail for up to a year with a judge’s option to extend.

There are more safeguards included this time round — you can have a lawyer! at any time! — which will only allow the Libs to go along with it so as not to be painted as soft on terrorism. Mark Holland, the Liberal critic for Public Safety and National Security, is already looking to cave.

The argument in favour of anti-terrorism legislation is that criminal law only deals with crimes already committed. What to do about those who feel that crimes perpetrated by the state against their people require a response like blowing things up?

The argument against it is . . . well, let’s look at how they’re doing with the laws they’ve already got. From the April 1st Ottawa Citizen:

“The federal government case against Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat appears to have suffered a significant blow Wednesday when a document was introduced in court showing that Abu Zubaydah, once considered a master terrorist and 9/11 mastermind, actually had nothing to do with the attacks.

“Even more surprising, the document, which quotes U.S court filings declassified last week, shows that Zubaydah, once believed to be one of the top leaders in al-Qaeda, was not even a member of the terrorist group.”

The unfortunate Abu Zubaydah got waterboarded 83 times in the US, coughed up Harkat’s name, and the Canadian government obligingly held Harkat for 3 1/2 years.

A clue about the reliability of Abu Zubaydah’s “testimony” might have been found in his confession to terrorist acts committed after his imprisonment, but sadly, no, it wasn’t.

Abdelrazik? “Closely associated” with the same hapless Abu Zubaydah.

Result? Abdelrazik was tortured, then exiled in Sudan for six years. He’s still on the UN’s 1267 terror list, and the Canadian government has frozen his bank account and he can’t work.

Help him get off that list? Blow me, said Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon.

Maher Arar — the first inkling for many of us that something had gone terribly wrong.
Adil Charkaoui — in custody 21 months, now free.
Hassan Almrei — in custody for eight years, now free.
Mahmoud Jaballah — in custody for six years, now free.
Mohammad Mahjoub — in custody for seven years, freed, requested return to jail in 2009 to protest bail conditions worse than jail.
Benamar Benatta – rendered to US for 5 years
Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin

And then there’s the ever-expanded definition of what constitutes terrorism.

According to Jason Kenney’s “infandous” Mr. Velshi, George Galloway’s proposed visit to Canada last year to give a speech entitled “Resisting war from Gaza to Kandahar” was sufficient for him to brand a sitting British MP on tour in the US “a terrorist supporter.”

Nothing about these vile clowns inspires any confidence in their wanting to accrue more secretive powers to their already abused arsenal of abominations.

In February, Bernie Farber, CEO of the CJC, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, and 10 other Lib and Con MPs attended the London Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism.

George Galloway, a sitting member of the British Parliament and leader of the Viva Palestina humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza, has been banned from Canada on security grounds.

Describing him as an “infandous street-corner Cromwell,” Jason Kenney spokesweasel Alykhan Velshi told Channel Four News above that George Galloway “poses a national security threat to Canadians” and will not be allowed “to come to Canada to pee on our carpet.”

Well done, Alykhan Velshi.

It has been very difficult thus far to get national media coverage for the Viva Palestina aid convoy’s mission to end the seige of Gaza but I think your nonsense will do the trick nicely.

You do realize, do you sir, that Galloway was in Canada just two years ago? And that he evidently does not pose a threat to the national security of France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, or the U.S. where he will be speaking just prior to the now cancelled engagement in Toronto.

Responding to the ban, George Galloway said,

“This has further vindicated the anti-war movement’s contention that unjust wars abroad will end up consuming the very liberties that make us who we are.”

But hey, you go, Mr. Velshi.

The coveted Certificate of Hitlertude has so far eluded our Minister of Fascism and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney but this latest clowncar foray onto the world stage just might garner him another shot at it (h/t Politics ‘n Poetry and We Move to Canada).

Galloway’s full response includes some serious ass-kicking :

“. . . gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, right-wing last-ditch dead-enders of Bushism in Ottawa”

Heh.

So outrageous was Velshi’s “pee on the carpet” comment that I thought I’d look him up.

Here he is in 2006 fondly reminiscing about his days at the American Enterprise Institute :

“Ambassador Kirkpatrick, until fairly recently, was a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where I interned last year, and her office was only a few steps away from my bay on the 11th floor. She later went on to help found the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.”

And the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies later went on to employ Alykhan Velshi, along with Clifford May, Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, James Woolsey, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Ledeen, Gary Bauer . . . you get the idea . . . if you signed the PNAC letter, you’re in.

Here he is at FDD touting a 2007 article he co-wrote for National Review Online — “The law and terrorist charities” :

“There is, however, a compelling basis for a government ban on any assistance — even self-described humanitarian aid — to terrorists. Because terrorist organizations are not known as models of corporate transparency, there is no way of knowing whether a terrorist entity’s humanitarian arm is funneling money to its militant one.”

Gosh, isn’t that just what his new boss Jason Kenney thought he was up to a few days ago when he stripped federal funds to the Canadian Arab Foundation for providing language training to new immigrants and the Canadian Islamic Congress for providing sensitivity training sessions to the Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority? (h/t Stageleft).

Do the Cons get all their ideas from ex-American Enterprise Institute interns?

Update : Mr. Greg got there before me.