Authorities Say Canadian Terror Suspects Planned 9/11-Type Attacks

It may have looked a lot like 9/11. That's the word from Canadian anti-terror authorities who this week arrested 17 suspects in connection with a plot that apparently included the use of an airplane as a sort of guided weapon.

Sound familiar? CBS News reports one of the suspects, 19-year old Amin Durrani, even enrolled in flight training at Centennial College -- but pulled out shortly afterwards so as "not to draw attention to himself."

The group planned their attacks and trained in paramilitary fashion at an improvised camp north of Toronto.

The possible threat scenarios were listed in an eight-page synopsis of the case against the dozen adults and five juveniles written by prosecutors. Canadian prosecutors allege suspects Fahim Ahmad, 21, and Zakaria Amara, 20, were the ringleaders, who quoted Al-Qaeda's statements advising followers to seek out "big targets" in the US and Canada.

According to the synapsis, some of the suspects in the terror plot -- called "Operation Badr" -- also talked of storming the Canadian parliament, taking hostages in exchange for the freeing of Muslim prisoners, and the withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.

As far as the plot to use an aircraft as a weapon, the synopsis doesn't specify what type of plane was being considered, nor does it say exactly what role it would have played in the attack.

One thing, however, is clear from the synopsis: in spite of the tremendous precautions being taken worldwide to protect commercial aviation from terrorists... al Qaeda and its sympathizers still consider aircraft as potential targets... and potential weapons.

"Sound familiar? CBS News reports one of the suspects, 19-year old Amin Durrani, even enrolled in flight training at Centennial College -- but pulled out shortly afterwards so as "not to draw attention to himself."

"One thing, however, is clear from the synopsis: in spite of the tremendous precautions being taken worldwide to protect commercial aviation from terrorists... al Qaeda and its sympathizers still consider aircraft as potential targets... and potential weapons."

If you ever find out, please let me know, too.

I've long contended that as sovereign nations, Canada and the United States have the right to allow whomever they want into the country, as well as exclude anyone they see fit - without having to give any reasons, apolgies, explanations, etc. to anyone!

I wish like hell we were doing that, too...

> Someone want to tell me why we have these pieces of feces in our countries for?

Ahhh... you obviously did not get educated in Canada in the 1970's otherwise you would *understand*...

Unlike America, which has an "American Melting Pot", Canada instead has a "Cultural Mosaic".

These sound like pretty words, but there are serious practical implications sitting behind them.

The American Melting Pot welcomes all cultures to combine, and conform, to become a uniform American culture: they melt together and mix into a strong alloy.

Canada, instead, has a Cultural Mosaic: each culture is free to remain separate and unique, because individuality is the most prized feature of Society. It is joined by Grout to the next piece of the Cultural Mosaic, and so on and so on, until the mosaic forms an overall picture of what it is to be Canadian.

Problem is, in their haste to differentiate from being Yanks, the Canucks forgot to define what it means -- as a baseline -- to be Canadian. To this day, Canadians define themselves by what they are not -- Americans -- rather than what they are.

This is why there is an absence of tradition in Canada, a paucity of patriotism, and a lack of truly meaningful national institutions and treasures. Canada is a confusing mess: a wonderful country, but doomed to fail unless She can find a National Identity, seize upon it for all it's worth, and grow from a common ground.

The Cultural Mosaic was an ill-conceived con perpetuated by naive pointy-headed politicians in the '60's and '70's. All because Canadians desperately did not want to be Americans: without first deciding what they wanted to be.

Until that day, Canadians are doomed to be a collection of small cultural tiles separated-yet-joined by Grout into a Big Picture that nobody has ever seen or understood.

But is it Art? I think not.

"DieHard"

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