The Force is with us

(1) Police Force

Anti-Police Brutality march today - Montreal
Protesters fear cops' anger

A group that organizes an annual and controversial anti-police brutality march that last year was the scene of more than 200 arrests says it had nothing do with an attack by vandals early Saturday that left 11 Montreal police squad cars smashed and a neighbourhood police station splashed with graffiti.

YYC: The photos might just as well never have been taken, so little do they reveal. The comments below the article reek with ugly racism - the story was an excuse to trash immigrants - but there is also a suspicion that the vandalism was done by the police themselves.

Coming just ahead of the protest march, vandalism by 20 hooded people dressed in black, carrying rocks, baseball bats and a hammer, none of whom was caught, does look suspiciously like police provocatuerism - especially since the Quebec police tossed their credibility to the wind by wearing black and carrying rocks at the Montello SPP protest event.

There's also every indication that there was at least one police agent in the crowd at the Vancouver Olympics protest.

“He was pushing forward and forcing people into the police basically,” Walia said on her cellphone from the Downtown Eastside. “From past experience, when someone falls into a police officer, they pick you up for assault.”

While the man appeared to be a photojournalist, he refused to identify his media affiliation when asked by protesters around him. He also remained silent as activists accused him of being a police officer. After the crowd chanted, “I smell bacon, I smell pork”, the man accepted an offer by officers to leave through the police line.

The Quebec provocateurs didn't wait for the police to offer; they just walked into their protective arms. (Union heavy, Dave Coles, took undue credit for stopping the provocateurs. He ought to have shared the credit with the black-garbed kids he was initially berating because it was they who kept telling him that the guys carrying rocks were cops, and Coles was actually quite slow to catch on.)

The CBC quotes "witnesses" saying there 15 to 20 perps, and says that the building was empty at the time. What no surveillance cameras? Again, the photo tells nothing.

The CP had nothing new, and didn't bother with photos.

The very fact that so many people are marching against police brutality should tell us something about the times we live in, and who it is that the police really serve and protect, as harsh authoritarianism increases while politicians prate on about freedom and democracy.

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(2) Israeli Force

About the so-called dressing down Netanyahu is said to have received from Obama via Clinton, here's Bibi's response to the media clamor:

"I propose not to be carried away and to calm down," he said. "We know how to handle these situations, calmly, responsibly and seriously."

He kind of echoes Sharon who was quoted as having said (and several prominent Americans concurred):

" ... don't worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America."

It may well be a fact that Israel has access to all American communications which may have proved a goldmine of blackmail material on politicians.

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(3) Military Force

Ted (Newfoundland) writes:

Matthew Hoh, the former senior U.S. civilian representative in Zabul province, Afghanistan, says that civilian deaths in Marjah caused by Operation Moshtarak were unnecessary and that the operation isn't accomplishing anything.

This link leads to another one.

The NATO-led military force in Afghanistan said on Saturday it had confidence in the choice of a man picked to run a former Taliban stronghold, despite a NATO commander saying he spent years in a German prison for assault. Abdul Zahir had been convicted in Germany of assaulting his stepson and jailed for four years.

Enter the commander of NATO troops in southern Afghanistan, British Major General Nick Carter, who says:

... that domestic violence such as that for which he said Zahir had been jailed was not necessarily unacceptable in Afghan culture. "Haji Zahir's mistake was to behave like an Afghan in Germany," Carter said, using an honorific title for a man who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

This is the same Carter, as I mentioned a little while back, who compromised the US big guy McChrystal, after he had apologized for the innocent civilian deaths by saying the missile was off course by 300 meters. Carter said a few days later it was right on course. Carter just loves the Afghan people.

Meanwhile over at Dawg's Blawg, he has an issue with the former Supreme Court Justice Mr. Iacobucci looking at the Torture documents.

And while the Liberals are huffing and puffing,they also knew about this under Paul Martin. But Iggy finally said something right: “let the chips fall where they may".

YYC: Dawg's Blawg also has a well-balanced article on "that Niqab thing" (Educational Force).

With regard to convicted child abuser Zahir, the truth is he was behaving as much like a German, an Israeli, an American , a Canadian, or a Roman Catholic priest as he was "like an Afghan".

But a prison sentence for violence probably should preclude a command position. However, since violence is the name of the game on both sides of the Afghan war, his record of abuse is probably considered an asset.

It's being reported that domestic abuse in the homes of American war veterans is on the increase due to the culture of violence in which they have been immersed. Therefore, we can assume it's on the increase in all of the other countries mentioned above.