Round 'em Up

Today there was a distinct shortage of Conservative unicorns in the news. Today's links are from the CTV site. First, Chief of Defence Staff General Rick Hillier has decided to step down. While he has chosen a point where there seems to be little risk of an election, thus attempting to avoid politicizing the move, it will focus attention on the Afghanistan mission. More importantly, in the wake of the New Government's attempt to bury enquiries into the detainee issue, it will focus on the administration of the mission. To Hillier's credit, he has presided over the forces and maintained a high level of support for himself and for the troops even while running a draining and seemingly endless foreign deployment.

Hillier has been criticized for being too political in his role and acting as a mouthpiece for the PMO but he has also gone to bat for the men and women of the forces and stood up to Minister of the Defence Lobby Gordon O'Connor. His popularity both at home and among the troops was seen as a contributing factor in O'Connor's replacement by weepy Pete. Hillier retires as an honoured warrior who leaves on his own terms. His popularity and outspoken nature will be hard to replace. Certain members of the Stephen Harper Party will likely celebrate his departure as Hillier was no one's boot licker and that is what the Harperians admire most, a bent knee and a trained tongue.

And last fall, Hillier appeared to contradict Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The general said Canadian troops could be in Afghanistan for 10 years -- after Harper said the mission could be accomplished by 2011.

That triggered rumours Hillier would be fired. Hillier then said he was on the "same sheet of paper" as the prime minister about the mission.

Fife said there were elements in the Prime Minister's Office who didn't like Hillier, but he didn't know if that extended to Harper.

Next up, cue the exploding heads as our whinging amigos poop themselves over the staying of charges in the big terror bust. Back in the summer of 2006, 18 men and youths were arrested and charged with a variety of terror related offences. Of the original 18 charged 11 still face charges after today's staying of charges against four men.

Three of the four accused who had their charges dropped attended a camp in Washago near Orillia in December 2005 that the Crown had alleged was used for terrorist training. But on Tuesday, a prosecutor admitted that all these men did there was play paintball and run through obstacle courses.

"My client went to a winter camp with five days with some of his friends, and for that his life has been irrevocably changed into a Kafkaesque nightmare," said lawyer Raymond Motee, who represents Aboud.

Charges have already been stayed against three of the four youth suspects, but this is the first time any of the adult accused have had the charges against them all but dropped.

Oh noes! Obstacle courses and camping! Let's serve warrants on all those Outward Bound fuckers. What's that? They aren't teh scary Muslims... okay, never mind. With charges stayed, the Crown is requiring the men to abide by certain conditions similar to parole for a period of a year. The crown can reinstate the charges during that period of time if new evidence comes to light.

The men agreed to sign the peace bonds in exchange for the Crown acknowledging they committed no criminal wrongdoing, CTV Toronto's Chris Eby reported.

Given that none of the charges have been tested in court or proven it remains to be seen whether the entirety of this much ballyhooed arrest is bogus. I would expect to see calls for investigation of the authorities involved in the arrests and subsequent treatment of the men involved, particularly in the case of Qayyum Abdul Jamal.

Jamal, 45, who is twice as old as most of the accused, had been described in court documents as the alleged spiritual leader of the alleged terror group.

He spent 16 months in jail before being granted bail, with 13 of those months in isolation, his lawyer said.

And today's big story has to be the search warrants served on the Stephen Harper Party HQ. The fabulous LuLu has already covered this story but I just wanted to add my nod to the lineup of popcorn hungry implosion voyeurs. The comments on the CTV article are highly entertaining as Con apologists fall all over each other in a desperate show of false bravado and false accusations. My personal fave...

Freedom haters infiltrate like termites
False accusations and slander are tools used numerous times every day by people what hate freedom, democracy, and the protection of human rights. This is not the first evidence I have that Elections Canada has some kind of problem.

Darn those people what hate freedom!