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darthlordcommie · 4 years

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What is Redemption?

Redemption: The act of saving or being saved from sin or evil.

So, I’m going to talk about four characters who are often talked about in regards to redemption. Those four are: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, Severus Snape, Zuko, and Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. I’ll be discussing them in that order. I’ll be starting with why they went down the dark paths they went on, what they did during that time, and finally, their “redemptions”.

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader

So, in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, we encounter Anakin Skywalker at age 22. He spent the first 9 years of his life as a slave, and the next 13 years as a child soldier, while also being groomed by an abuser, aka, Palpatine. When he was 19, the Clone Wars began, and he spent the majority of those three years on the front lines of that conflict, racking up notoriety and trauma. So, when we meet him again in RotS, he is: 22, suffering from PTSD, has been groomed to be abused for over a decade, and lacking a sufficient support system. When he has dreams about his wife, who he loves, dying, he panics, partly because the last time he had dreams like this, it ended with his mother dying in his arms. So, he goes to Yoda for advice on his visions, and gets told that there’s nothing he can do, and not to mourn for the person who’s going to die. Anakin does not like that answer. But he sits on it, until Palpatine reveals himself as a Sith Lord and tells Anakin that he has the power to save Padme. Anakin goes and tells the Jedi, with the one he tells having spent years as somewhat hostile to him, and they go and confront him. When he arrives, Anakin sees the man he had believed to be his friend and mentor on the ground, and Mace Windu, who he was not close to, about to murder him without due process, or anything. And finally, when he’s just about driven mad with fear over Padme’s possible death, Anakin strikes Windu, and joins Palpatine. And we all know how that went.

Over the next 2 decades, Anakin, now Darth Vader, spent his time killing subordinates who angered him and doing whatever Palpatine told him to do. That is known to have included mass murder, torture, genocide, and all manner of military action against innocent planets. (I am not specifically mentioning Alderaan, as while Vader didn’t do anything to stop it, he also wasn’t in charge of the Death Star at any time, so he is very much complicit, but the responsibility for the order isn’t his) When he finds out that Luke, his son, is alive and running around the galaxy, he tries to recruit him. But even then, he is following Palpatine’s orders, as he is still completely obedient to him.

During the climax of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader is confronted by Luke. At this point, Luke does not say “I forgive you”. He says “I love you.” He doesn’t absolve Vader of his sins, because that’s impossible. He offers his hand to his father, because he loves him, even knowing the horrific things Vader has done. And at the end, when he has to choose between obedience and his son’s life, Vader chooses his son, and kills Palpatine, being mortally wounded in the process. As Luke tries to save him, Anakin tells Luke “You already have.” Does this mean that Anakin is redeemed? No. He did good things before becoming Darth Vader, and he did bad things after becoming Vader. But he is saved, because he has chosen to be a good person. If he had lived, would he have done things to try and make up for his crimes? Very likely. But he didn’t, and his choice was not so much redemption, as it was a recognition that he didn’t have to be the monster. At the end, Darth Vader wasn’t redeemed, but he was a good man once more. And he died that way.

Severus Snape

So, prior to the events of the Harry Potter books, Snape was a Half-Blood who grew up in the Muggle world in an abusive household. When he was 9, he met Lily Evans, a Muggleborn with magic, who became his first friend. When he was 11, he went to Hogwarts, and joined Slytherin, quickly becoming one of the most notable practitioners of Dark Magic in that house. He made friends with people like Mulciber, Avery, and Rosier, and over his Hogwarts career, became known as a future Death Eater. He was also someone who had a rivalry with James Potter, and was, at least on one occasion when they were 15, flat out bullied by James. On that occasion, when Lily attempted to defend him, he called her a “Mudblood”, a known slur for Muggleborns. After this event, Lily ended their friendship for good, because she couldn’t keep ignoring that he was growing up to become a wizard Nazi. What was his response to the girl he fancied cutting ties with him for being a bigot? It was to join the magic Nazis right out of school.

Snape spent years fighting Voldemort’s war to conquer the world, to the point where he told his master of a prophecy of the one person who could defeat him. This was when things happened. Because the person Voldemort believed to be his greatest threat was the son of Lily Evans, no Lily Potter, Snape went to Dumbledore, because he didn’t want Lily to die. He didn’t care about James, and he didn’t care about Lily’s infant son Harry. So, the events of October 31st, 1981 happened, and Harry was left the only survivor. Snape spent the next decade bullying students in Potions classes, until Harry arrived in 1991. At which point Snape promptly began bullying him for no other reason than being his parents’ son, and bullied him along with several other students for years, to the point where he was one of his students’, Neville Longbottom’s, greatest fear.

At the end, Snape helped the good guys by getting them the Sword of Gryffindor, and telling them that Harry’s scar was a Horcrux. However, he only did so because Voldemort killed Lily, and resented the world because he didn’t have Lily for his entire life. He even resented Lily for rejecting him. So, at the end, he helped cause Voldemort’s death, but did he redeem himself? No, because he never felt remorse for what he had done, and in fact blamed others.

Zuko

So, Zuko was born and raised into an abusive family, and was abused for literal years by his father Ozai. This culminated in physical abuse, leaving a permanent scar across Zuko’s face, while he was exiled and sent on an impossible mission. At this point, Zuko became obsessed with trying to regain his father’s love, denying the truth that he had never had it to begin with.

During this time, Zuko hunts Avatar Aang across the world, desperately trying to capture him and end the world’s last hope at stopping the Fire Nation’s conquest. In addition, he also assisted in the capture of Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom. Afterwards, he returns to the Fire Nation, and sends an assassin after Aang.

However, he slowly realizes that what he got wasn’t what he wanted, and after he finds out that Ozai intended to use Sozin’s Comet to wipe out the Earth Kingdom, Zuko turns his back on his family, and joins Aang. During this time he trains Aang in firebending, helps Katara put her demons to rest, and helps Sokka rescue Suki and Hakoda from prison, before ultimately battling Azula and saving Katara’s life in the climax. So, was Zuko redeemed? Yes, because he recognized that he had done wrong, fixed what he had done, and spent the rest of his life trying to do the right thing.

Ben Solo/Kylo Ren

So, Ben Solo was raised by his parents, Han and Leia, until sometime in his teen years, when he began training to be a Jedi under his uncle Luke. Due to events that happened, Ben slaughtered his fellow students and joined the First Order, dedicating himself to Supreme Leader Snoke as Kylo Ren.

At this point in time, Kylo Ren’s actions have included assisting in the capturing of numerous planets, the murder of multiple unarmed civilians, multiple counts of torture, the massacre of the New Republic, killing his father Han, killing Snoke to achieve control over the First Order, and the attempted wipeout of the Resistance and killing of his mother.

Can Kylo Ren be redeemed? No, because unlike Vader, who took the chance of changing when a hand was offered to him, Kylo has repeatedly denied any chance of returning to the side of good, once by murdering his own father, who was unarmed and trying to save him.

So there. That’s my take on redemption, who’s been redeemed and who hasn’t, and why.

#star wars #harry potter #darth vader #kylo ren #prince zuko #atla #severus snape #anti snape #anti kylo #kylo stans and snape stans don't interact #I will ignore you

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primrose-path-of-dalliance · 6 years

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Lotor’s end (?) in s6

toc 1: i shake out some salt and talk about the altean colony | 2: i question why people keep insisting lotor was "evil all along" | 3: i talk about my favorite parts of lotor’s breakdown

lotor, altea, and king alfor

when lotor chooses to lash out and start destroying everything, he says: "what about your father? he may have been a master engineer, but alfor was too weak to defend his homeworld. i'm the one who had to step up and save our entire race. who are you to question my tactics in bringing peace and prosperity to the universe?"

the knee-jerk reaction is to be furious at lotor for this statement, and what he says is unfair. it's not as if alfor simply gave up, lay down, and offered his people to the pyre. perhaps he made a mistake in sending voltron away (as his ai freely admits to allura), but although we don't get a lot of information on what happened after zarkon's resurrection, we know that he tried to defend his people. that he ultimately lost isn't a fact that's fair to reflect onto his moral character. additionally, lotor is singing his own praises even after we've discovered that he's far from hot shit, and naturally it's unappealing.

but as a character, lotor possesses an extremely unique perspective. he is the only major sympathetic character in the show to have lived through all of the 10,000 years of post-resurrection zarkon's reign. and he is among the small group of characters who have been aligned against the empire for a significant amount of time since before allura and coran reawoke; potentially, he has spent the longest actively on the galra empire's shit list.

i said that allura's viewpoint in the show is limited for a very good reason. even the person who is our primary protagonist, who is extraordinarily sympathetic and compassionate, whose heart breaks regularly for the people who suffer under the oppression of this empire and who has suffered tremendously herself while determined to devote the rest of her life to this cause, can be a bit clueless when she's a teenager and only woke up about a year ago into a universe entirely different from the one she once knew.

most of allura's life was spent in a stable and loving home on an idyllic planet as crown royalty, with all the resources and wealth that lifestyle offered to her. she was raised for both diplomacy and warfare but had little time to become familiar with them, particularly the latter, when compared to the work of centuries or millennia under the rule of an extremely powerful and oppressive empire. and the perspective from which she learned her trades was as the heir of a powerful kingdom and expansive legacy, not as a freedom fighter. most significantly, she had astounding resources even after waking up into an empire that wanted her dead—the castle of lions, an extremely mobile self-powered warship with apparently no concern to be had for things like food supplies or relative comfort; and voltron, quite literally the most powerful weapon in the universe with limits unknown and a sentient being in its own right. additionally, the return of the black lion distracted zarkon. he was obsessed with reclaiming it above all else, to the point where haggar criticized his illogical behavior right to his face. voltron's return weakened zarkon's ability to strategize intelligently. in terms of practical position against the galra empire, allura, coran, and the paladins possessed the strongest one from the very beginning. and they have only gotten stronger.

this doesn't place allura in an easy position to empathize with the other forces who have fought against the empire, and considering the usual level of empathy or thoughtfulness one can already expect from a teenager, it shouldn't be a shock that allura's perspective may not be the most understanding.

when she condemns lotor for his treatment of the altean colony, as rightfully as she may be doing so, she does so without any understanding of where lotor is coming from. she literally cannot comprehend the type of situation someone like lotor must have been in to drive him to do something so horrific, nor that someone who's not Evil could still commit such crimes. this is tied into one of the biggest reasons lotor loses his temper and says what he does.

what i'm saying isn't without precedence in this show. @howtofightwrite has talked about the usual experience of a resistance (link). (please feel encouraged to read the whole post, especially for context. they do a great job being a resource for writers about a wide variety of topics, and if you're not already acquainted, i totally recommend following them.)

since it's a very long post, i'll quote the most relevant parts:

"When you’re writing a story about a resistance, never forget that they are in a hostile environment where everything is a danger to them, and you should approach every engagement violent or not as a cost comparison. ....

When you’re working with a resistance fighter, the resistance part is more important than the fighter part. These are not people with a very large margin for error, and who need to be incredibly good at threat assessment in regard to their greater goals. The greater goal is what’s most important to them, their priority, their mission, they have limited resources and that means they have to make compromises. For the resistance fighter, violence itself draws attention. Attention is bad.

Think about this, if he does manage to fight these two and kill them then whatever kills he makes will be taken out on the civilian population. If he doesn’t kill them, and they remember his face then he’s done as a resistance fighter. Again, attention is bad. Attention brings notoriety. In a hostile state, the consequences are many and they hit the innocent population hardest.

My point is this: your character is not making decisions on what he can do or can’t do, not in what’s morally right or wrong, if he wants to survive in a resistance then he’s making decisions based on risk. ....

Resistance fighters are the ones who run when their friends get captured, the ones who stand by and do nothing if they’re not at risk of being outed. They wait. They strike later, though usually not to recover their friends. Well, the smart ones do. The stupid ones try. They either get gunned down or captured because hot blood and hot heads get murdered in the streets by the gestapo. There are always more of them than there are you in a resistance, and violence attracts attention. The wrong kind of attention in the wrong place means death or capture, prison, interrogation, torture, and then the firing squad. The consequences for failure are high, not just for the single resistance fighter but for everyone they know, everyone they love, and for the very movement they’re fighting for. ....

For every piece your character and his friends take, the enemy will take five of theirs. He is in a rigged game where his own lack of resources will crush him unless the resistance can convince the populace at large to rise up. That is how a resistance actually wins in the real world, you know. If they can’t get the citizens behind them or receive aid from an outside power or train up an army on foreign soil, they’re doomed."

when the blade of marmora are first introduced, they fill precisely this type of role in the show. they are the resistance, the small guy fighting against an empire that has conquered and controls most of the known universe, who has decided to focus on spywork as the primary goal they can accomplish. and allura dislikes them instantly—not only because they're galra, but because she considers them disappointments for having not already taken down the empire themselves. she criticizes what she sees as passivity, as fear to engage with the enemy. she fails to realize that the blade of marmora lacked the firepower of voltron or the resources to commit to a war with the empire.

as the blade of marmora emphasized in their introduction, they survived through their secrecy. if things went wrong, if they took too many risks in trying to liberate other people, their existence would be discovered. and then the empire, a force with effectively infinite resources and no small amount of cruelty, would have their guard up. all of their spies would suddenly be in great danger. any future operations would become exponentially more difficult. depending on the risk that fell through, it wouldn't be difficult at all for the empire to decimate their numbers, or worse, decimate whatever civilian populations they might have been trying to protect or train for war. the blade of marmora simply wouldn't have the ability to fight back.

allura deserves no guilt for condemning lotor, of course. he abused the very people he was supposed to be protecting. he may have found some comfort for himself by treating it as a conservation issue, but he nevertheless ruined the lives of thousands of already oppressed people. regardless of motive, that is never going to be something that sits well with the type of good our protagonists are, and rightfully so. it's the reason we love them so much.

but it's frustrating to see people reduce antagonists like lotor to "Pure Bad Evil all along" because it's completely dismissive of the work the show writers have put into him as a character with a story entirely different from either zarkon's cardboard cutout villainy or allura's honest but youthful idealism. and to what purpose? making sure we all know genocide is bad? surely we don't have to perform hatred or oversimplification of a fictional character just to make sure everyone knows our disdain for mass exploitation. and surely we're capable of understanding that exploring the reasons why someone would do such a thing doesn't mean we agree with them or are excusing their actions.

i stated that the ultimate incompatibility of allura's perspective with lotor's is tied into lotor's break. not the sole cause. that's because it, when expressed in such a raw attack on lotor's character, was only the trigger for the release of a massive amount of resentment that lotor has been harboring inside him. when lotor breaks, it isn't because he can't tolerate the idea of a woman rejecting him. it's because he's been bitter toward everything for a very, very long time, and his break is that moment when he decides to stop holding it in or rationalizing it away.

for 10,000 years, he has endured abuse from the people who ought to have loved him the most. he's been disconnected from each side of his heritage: the galra, because he's half-altean and a disgustingly moral half-breed exile; and the alteans, because he's half-galra and they, at the hands of the empire and to an extent lotor himself, have experienced genocide and abuse until they were scattered and isolated, a mere shadow of what they once were. his friends are few and far between, because trust is difficult when his father will murder everyone around him just because he hears from someone nearby that lotor's having a decent time being deviant, and when the woman at his father's right hand (who he now knows is his mother, one of the sole figures in his life he imagined to be good because he thought she was already dead) will send spies his way through any avenue possible, including benevolent ones (he's not even a little shocked to accept narti's supposed betrayal, or to find himself taken to haggar's feet at galra central command after kuron's mind-control switch is flipped). sendak, the man implied to have been more raised as a son by zarkon than zarkon's own actual son, threatens to make lotor his personal slave, and lotor barely bats an eye because this inherent violence toward his existence is something completely normal to him. his style of fighting and strategy is entirely angled as someone who's used to being the small guy—he's agile, and clever, and quick, and prefers to either manipulate his way out or outfox his enemy because he rarely has the strength to challenge or threaten people head-on; even sincline's strength is in outmaneuvering its opponent. as an infant, we see lotor in the darkness crying alone in his crib with no one to tend to him.

consistently, lotor has been characterized as a target of abuse, with all the baggage that it comes with.

the resentment here is in knowing how easily it could have been better. how happy he might have been. if he had known king alfor as a parental figure instead ("i envy you, growing up with king alfor"). if he had grown up in altea with honerva instead of in the galra empire with zarkon. if king alfor had not failed in his duty to his people, to the universe 10,000 years ago, and simply killed zarkon when he had the chance.

allura, as much as he respects her as an individual, is also a representation of what he wishes he could have had: a loving family, a happy life, proper training as an altean alchemist, security in a group of close friends she can trust and interact with comfortably. she trusts the universe in a way he can't even comprehend of doing. moreover, allura got to sleep relatively peacefully for those 10,000 years of zarkon's tyrannical rule, undisturbed and undiscovered on arus.

she never had to live those millennia under zarkon's oppressive rule. she never had the burden of a horrific legacy. she never had to figure out who she was all by herself, uninternalize every ounce of racism and abuse and discover what it meant to be a person of value by chasing after crumbling ruins. instead, he had to save the last alteans left after zarkon's genocide. he had to figure out a way to topple the empire. he had to find himself trapped in every corner with the choice to either die or sacrifice whatever morality he had to live another day, to take a single step closer to killing his own father.

and now allura has the gall to condemn him, when he didn’t have a superweapon like voltron. he didn’t have a massive castleship, a wormhole generator, or the gifts of a sacred altean. he was working with the best he had. does she think he wanted to use the alteans as a quintessence farm? does she think he wanted to be zarkon's son? all he wanted was peace. maybe if her father had just won, none of them would've had to be there. none of this would have happened. but instead she has the gall to hate him for trying to clean up her father's 10,000 year old mistake.

well, fine. he'll just do a better job restoring the alteans to power and bringing peace to the universe than any of them ever could.

in lotor's relationship with allura and king alfor, there is as much jealousy and resentment as there is love and admiration. and he understood how much of it was unfair, or else we would have seen it leak into his behavior before now no matter how good of an actor he was, if only so we the audience might characterize him properly as a dick. (hopefully i don't have to clarify that it didn't.)

but at this point, everything has been going wrong, allura is on the other side of the battlefield, and quintessence exposure is insidiously wreaking havoc on his ability to process what's happening in a healthy manner. all he can think about is how bitter and tired he is of this. and so he breaks.

of course it was wrong. he was literally attempting to kill the team by the end. none of this excuses the choices he made or the things he said, and he has to be held accountable for all of it. but more than anything, lotor is an example of how a person as human (for lack of a better word) as anyone else can be incredibly hurtful, how his end of self-destruction is brought about by the very authentic experience of wanting the happiness that has been continually taken away from him, and how this self-destruction is implicitly tied into his isolation.

the importance of a support system

this is probably one of the defining themes of vld. although it sometimes doesn't deliver on the paladins as a family unit, we get numerous arcs throughout the show about one character helping to emotionally support another through something difficult, and it's emphasized several times that every person in the team is deeply concerned with the individual wellbeing of their other team members/friends. as a show about a bunch of somewhat-strangers having to come together and form a giant robot mech in order to literally save the universe through the power of teamwork and cooperation, this isn't really surprising.

so let's look at lotor. he's incapable of having a positive connection with either side of his heritage as a whole—the galra have abused him and most of the known universe, the alteans either never recognize him as one of their own unless he tells them or end up victims of his own vampiric needs. the only person from his history he can draw strength and purpose from is honerva, his long-dead mother—and then he discovers that she survived quite well to become one of his greatest demons. his relationship with his generals is fairly good, but their dynamic is always more professional than casual—and then he kills narti and later claims he will kill any and all galra that stand against him. he and the paladins tentatively befriend each other, he and allura fall in love with each other—and then it's revealed that he hid very dirtied hands from them in the process. all of them abandon or turn against him. and by the end, he pilots sincline alone, in sharp contrast to the recently-reunited team of five in voltron.

repeatedly, we see lotor as a desperate seeker for connection who inevitably sabotages himself through his own actions, driving away every one of his friends and associates. this final collapse of his already-fragile support system is what leads directly to his self-destruction.

officially, lotor's been described as a secret azula the writers were trying to trick us into believing was a zuko. it's a fair description, but not in the sense that he was an evil villain, and that misconception ought to be cleared away. anyone who's watched avatar: the last airbender understands that azula, as dramatic and stunning a villain as she was, was far less someone to hate for her deeds than she was someone to pity—she was a tragedy who never got to grow away from the abuse of her father the way zuko did, and who brought about her own self-destruction through her toxicity and subsequent isolation.

the parallels are very obvious, and i suspect the reduction in similar reception when it comes to lotor is because 1. it's a lot easier to sympathize with a teenage girl who already had characters in-story to sympathize with her and fill in her background of abuse, and 2. fandom culture now is different and much less forgiving to its villains.

in many ways, lotor had the chances azula never got. like zuko, lotor was exiled in disgrace and spent a significant amount of time away from home; like zuko, lotor got the chance to uninternalize his abuse; like zuko, lotor demonstrated qualities from the beginning that made him more similar to the protagonists than the villains. the one thing lotor never got, however, was an uncle iroh: someone with the maturity, energy, and willingness to stay by his side through his unhealthy behavior, support him by promoting healthy behavior, and give him the unwavering love and forgiveness and faith that he was never able to receive from anyone else.

instead, lotor more or less had to figure it out on his own, which is challenging enough without adding isolation and high amounts of stress into the mix. by the end of s6, lotor was probably unconsciously seeking out a similar kind of relationship through allura, but the problem is in how demanding that type of support is. no one is really obligated to expend that amount of effort on anyone, no matter how positive of a result it might create. uncle iroh sacrificed a lot to give zuko the encouragement he needed to find a healthier state of mind, even suffering through his multiple missteps off the path that hurt iroh and everyone else around him, and zuko understood this by the time they reunited in the campgrounds of the order of the lotus.

team voltron, on the other hand, would never have been able to give lotor that kind of support for a myriad of reasons, youth and conflicting priorities and unfamiliarity with lotor among them, much less should have. many of the circumstances were also different—much more difficult with a 10,000-year-old character whose missteps include the abuse of a colony of already oppressed people, after all.

lm and jds have also drawn a similar comparison between lotor and keith (link). they share similar backgrounds—complicated family situation, absent mother, interpersonal issues borne from a history of isolation—but unlike lotor, keith found someone to guide him away from a downward spiral: shiro. ("i will never give up on you.") this difference between the two of them is explicitly acknowledged as what saved keith from self-destruction.

lotor was not an irredeemable character by far, and for some of us who were excited by the potential we saw, the end of s6 was disappointing. but within the context of the show and the progression of the plot, lotor's self-destruction was the logical path for him to go. it probably isn't the ultimate end of lotor; he didn't die, after all. but all things considered, i feel that lotor was ultimately treated with respect, and his arc added things to the story we never would've gotten otherwise.

(if we want a happy story, well, that's what we can write fanfiction for, right?)

#voltron #voltron meta #vld s6 #lotor #allura #readmore #long post #prim post #prim says some things

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padawanlost · 6 years

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What do you think about the Citadel arc? Specifically, about Anakin and Tarkin's interaction, and Anakin kind of... liking Tarkin's perspective on how war should be handled? I'm asking because I have always felt it quite out of character, I mean yeah no doubt he could agree that the Jedi should not be the ones leading the Republic army because he knows it's a bit hypocritical, but on the rest... I don't think Anakin would get along with him so well? What's your take? :)

I’ll start by being super honest: tcw!Tarkin creeps me out. I don’t even know why. He just does. And I don’t enjoy his interaction with Anakin (or any other character) because of that. That being said, I don’t think there was anything OOC about his interactions with Anakin. I don’t see them as friends or even friendly. I see it more as a mutual respect type of thing. They are both pragmatics. They have their own agendas but they understand the seriousness of the situation and how ineffective the Jedi are in handling the war.

Also, I think Anakin’s respect for Tarkin involves more than just “he agree with me”. Anakin has always been different from most Jedi. His past (and Palpatine’s “lessons”) made him more critical of the Order and to hear a high ranking official openly criticize the Order probably made him feel like his owns ideas were legitimized.

No one was ever quite that openly anti-Jedi in Anakin’s presence before. All previously criticism came from enemies (Dooku, Ventress, Separatists, etc.) whom Anakin was taught by the Jedi are mad and shouldn’t be heard. Padmé and Palpatine might disagree with the Order’s methods but they are never THAT harsh. Also, remember that Tarkin didn’t gave the Seps the information and, in Anakin’s book, that makes him a stand-up guy. So, to have his ideas validated by a loyal and sane GAR officer is what made him more open to Tarkin as a person.

We need to acknowledge the bias against certain characters and their criticism of the Jedi. we see characters like Dooku, Ventress, Tarkin and Barriss saying, pretty straightforwardly, what’s wrong with the Jedi and why they are losing and yet the Jedi (and most of the audience) dismiss those claims because of who is saying them.

The thing is, and it hurts me to say it, Tarkin was right (damn, this is something I never thought I would say). Let’s take a look at their interactions and see why Tarkin and Anakin were right and why they ended up respecting each other.

Tarkin: I reserve my trust for those who take action, general Skywalker.Anakin: Then let me remind you, we rescued you back there. And I reserve my trust for those who understand gratitude, Captain Tarkin. [TCW 03x18]

Here it’s established their differences (and why they will never be real friends). Tarkin is contemptuous. He does not trust the Jedi and their ability to act the way he judges to be right one. Only the actions Tarkin deems right truly matter. Anakin, on the other hands, admires loyalty, friendly, humility. He may not agree with the Order but he doesn’t dismiss it. they are both practical men, willing to do what’s necessary to end the war, but their motivations will always keep them at odds.

Tarkin: I am concerned that the jedi have elected this child to lead the group. Rex: I’ve served with her many times, and I trust her, captain. [TCW 03x19]

Here’s a truth bomb that no one wants to acknowledge. Tarkin and Anakin were the only ones concerned by the fact a teenager girl was involved in a war. Again, they were worried about Ahsoka’s presence there for very different reasons but we can’t deny the Jedi’s treatment of children played a part in their downfall (especially this child). Anakin, like Tarkin, is aware that this is wrong. I don’t think they both discuss this particular subject on screen but Tarkin makes it pretty obvious that he’s not pleased with the situation (Ahsoka being there) and the Arc focus a lot on Anakin’s protecting Ahsoka so I like to see as a nice parallel there.

Tarkin: This ordeal only demonstrates how effective facilities like The Citadel are. Pity it ended up in separatist hands and not ours.Anakin: He has a point. [TCW 03x19]

I think this is the first time they openly agree on something. It shows how far they are both willing to go to achieve their ends. We (the audience) know what their ends are, however, they don’t. It’s important to remember that while we know what kind of man Tarkin, Anakin doesn’t. Anakin sees Tarkin as a respectable GAR office who wants to save the Republic and nothing else. He had no way of knowing the kind of horrors Tarkin would commit if he ever get his hands in a place like the Citadel. And Tarkin has no way of knowing Anakin is against imprisoning enemies without trial in secret prisons.

As I said before, their agreement is superficial. They agree the ends justify the means but they completely disagree on the ends and the means.

Tarkin: You may have earned my trust, general Skywalker, but my faith in your comrades is still lacking.Anakin: You lack faith in the jedi.Tarkin I find their tactics ineffective. The jedi code prevents them from going far enough to achieve victory, to do whatever it takes to win, the very reason why peacekeepers should not be leading a war. Have I offended you?Anakin: No. I’ve also found that we sometimes fall short of victory because of our methods.Well, I see we agree on something. [TCW 03x19]

Again, superficial agreement. Tarkin’s secret solution is mass murder, torture and genocide. Anakin’s secret solution is for the Jedi to get more involved, fight corruption, teach communities how to protect themselves, etc. But since they don’t know that, thye believe they are on the same page. And for Anakin, to hear this sort of Jedi criticism from a “reliable” source validates his ideas and makes Tarkin seem like an intelligent and mindful officer.

Ahsoka: Why did master Piell have to share half the intel with that guy? It’s like he’s not even grateful we rescued him.Anakin: Captain Tarkin feels the jedi should be relieved from the burden of leading the war effort.Ahsoka: That’s ridiculous.Anakin: Maybe, but we aren’t soldiers. We’re peacekeepers. The jedi code often prevents us from going far enough to achieve victory.Obi-wan: A rather simple point of view.Anakin: Either way, he is a good captain. [TCW 03x19]

This right here is exactly why Anakin listens to Tarkin. Every time Anakin criticizes the Order this happens. His thoughts are dismissed. The Jedi, being peacekeepers, shouldn’t be involved in war? that’s ridiculous! Now remember that Anakin spent 10 years of his life being told the Jedi couldn’t help his mother and fight slavery because their are peacekeepers and not law enforcers. THAT’s ridiculous. Anakin knows first hand the hypocrisy of the Jedi Council and every time he tries to point it out he’s dismissed. And suddenly, this officer appears and he’s saying all these things Anakin always tried to say, so, of course, Anakin will listen to him. That’s exactly how Palpatine got to him the first place. By pointing out all the wrongs Anakin already knew existed and acknowledging them.

Anakin, like everyone else, wants to have his feelings and ideas acknowledged. Here’s an exemple: Anakin wants people to acknowledge that slavery is an issue because the Republic doesn’t care about slaves. The Jedi tell him it’s not their problem and there’s nothing they can do about it. Palpatine tells him it’s a problem, the corrupt senate is the reason why and that he’ll try do to something about it. Which opinion will Anakin deem more sensible? Of course, he’ll respect the one that acknowledge his suffering.

If the Jedi were more willing to discuss “uncomfortable subjects” and teach their students to think for themselves Anakin would’ve never been in this situation. He ends up gravitating towards guys like Palpatine and Tarkin because they are the only ones to seem to recognize the problems he knows exist.

Tarkin: I’ve fallen into favor with the chancellor.He shall support me.Anakin: Oh, I happen to know the chancellor quite well, myself. [TCW 03x20]

This was the nail in the coffin. If Palpatine respects and listens to this guy so why shouldn’t Anakin?

Tarkin: I wish more Jedi had your military sensibilities. Perhaps I can inform the chancellor of your valor.Obi-wan: I’m not sure what to think of your new ally.Anakin: Well, I think we need people like him. This is a war. If we aren’t willing to do what it takes to win, we risk losing everything we try to protect.Obi-wan: Unfortunately, war tends to distort our point of view. If we sacrifice our code, even for victory, we may lose that which is most important: Our honor. [TCW 03x20]

I love Obi-wan with all my heart but this is exactly why they failed. They already sacrificed their code. They did long before the war started. And even if they hadn’t, they sacrificed when they, the peacekeepers, accepted to fight the war. The Jedi are not worried about honor or their code. They were willing to assassinate their enemies (that’s canon btw). Jedi hypocrisy strikes again. This is already way too long so I’ll try to keep it short:

Anakin and Tarkin do not know each. Not really. They agree the Jedi Order is making mistakes and that is it. They have no idea how far the other is willing to go or what they really want. They respect each other’s opinion but they are not friends (because they don’t truly know each other).

I don’t think it’s out of character for Anakin to agree with Tarkin because Anakin has no idea what he is agreeing with. Anakin has criticized the Order’s methods before, so he siding with someone doing the same is natural. Besides, Anakin remained in character by defending Ahsoka’s abilities (and everyone else’s too). Anakin’s only agrees with Tarkin on the political aspects of the Order. He still respects the Jedi abilities to overcome hardship, to save people and get the job done.

#ask #anon #anakin skywalker #Tarkin #the clone wars #jedi order #sw meta #sorry for the length #I have no self control #Anonymous #tcw meta #meta: anakin #jedi politics #txt #gffa politics

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xtruss · 4 years

Text

Rohingya Hail UN Ruling that Myanmar Act to Prevent Genocide

— Mike Corder | January 23, 2020

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ top court on Thursday ordered Myanmar to do all it can to prevent genocide against the Rohingya people, a ruling met by members of the Muslim minority with gratitude and relief but also some skepticism that the country’s rulers will fully comply.

The ruling by the International Court of Justice came despite appeals last month by Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi for the judges to drop the case amid her denials of genocide by the armed forces that once held the former pro-democracy champion under house arrest for 15 years.

Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, president of the court, said in his order that the Rohingya in Myanmar “remain extremely vulnerable.”

In a unanimous decision, the 17-judge panel added that its order for so-called provisional measures intended to protect the Rohingya is binding “and creates international legal obligations” on Myanmar.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomes the court’s order and “will promptly transmit the notice of the provisional measures” it ordered to the U.N. Security Council, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Diplomats said the U.N.‘s most powerful body is not expected to take any action until it sees how Myanmar is implementing the court’s order.

While the court has no ability to enforce the orders, one international law expert said the ruling will strengthen other nations pressing for change in Myanmar.

“Thus far, it’s been states trying to put pressure on Myanmar or using their good offices or ... diplomatic pressure,” said Priya Pillai, head of the Asia Justice Coalition Secretariat. “Now, essentially for any state, there is legal leverage.”

The orders specifically refer to Rohingya still in Myanmar and thus did not look likely to have an immediate impact on more than 700,000 of them who have fled to neighboring Bangladesh in recent years to escape Myanmar’s brutal crackdown.

Even so, Yasmin Ullah, a Rohingya activist who lives in Vancouver and was in court for the decision, called it a historic ruling.

“Today, having the judges unanimously agree to the protection of Rohingya means so much to us because we’re now allowed to exist and it’s legally binding,” she told reporters on the steps of the court.

But asked if she believes Myanmar will comply, she replied: “I don’t think so.”

Myanmar’s legal team left the court without commenting. Later, its foreign ministry said in a statement that it took note of the ruling, but repeated its assertion that there has been no genocide against the Rohingya.

The court sought to safeguard evidence that could be used in future prosecutions, ordering Myanmar to “take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related” to allegations of genocidal acts.

At the end of an hour-long session in the court’s wood-paneled Great Hall of Justice, judges also ordered Myanmar to report to them in four months on what measures the country has taken to comply with the order and then to report every six months as the case moves slowly through the world court.

“I think this is the court maybe being much more proactive and ... careful in acknowledging that this is a serious situation and there needs to be much more follow-up and monitoring by the court itself, which is which is quite unusual as well,” Pallai said.

Rogingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh welcomed the order, which was even supported by a temporary judge appointed by Myanmar to be part of the panel.

“This is good news. We thank the court as it has reflected our hope for justice. The verdict proves that Myanmar has become a nation of torturers,” 39-year-old Abdul Jalil told The Associated Press by phone from Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar.

However, he too expressed doubts that Myanmar would fully comply.

“Myanmar has become a notorious state. We do not have confidence in it,” Jalil said. “There is little chance that Myanmar will listen.”

Rights activists also welcomed the decision.

“The ICJ order to Myanmar to take concrete steps to prevent the genocide of the Rohingya is a landmark step to stop further atrocities against one of the world’s most persecuted people,” said Param-Preet Singh, associate international justice director of New York-based Human Rights Watch. “Concerned governments and U.N. bodies should now weigh in to ensure that the order is enforced as the genocide case moves forward.”

The world court order for what it calls provisional measures came in a case brought by the African nation of Gambia on behalf of an organization of Muslim nations that accuses Myanmar of genocide in its crackdown on the Rohingya.

The judges did not decide on the substance of the case, which will be debated in legal arguments likely to last years before a final ruling is issued. But their order to protect the Rohingya made clear they fear for ongoing attacks.

At public hearings last month, lawyers used maps, satellite images and graphic photos to detail what they called a campaign of murder, rape and destruction amounting to genocide perpetrated by Myanmar’s military.

The hearings drew intense scrutiny as Suu Kyi defended the campaign by her country’s military forces. Suu Kyi, who as Myanmar’s state counselor heads the government, was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for championing democracy and human rights under Myanmar’s then-ruling junta.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless. They are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.

In August 2017, Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in northern Rakhine state in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh and led to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes.

Suu Kyi told world court judges in December that the exodus was a tragic consequence of the military’s response to “coordinated and comprehensive armed attacks” by Rohingya insurgents.

Thursday’s ruling came two days after an independent commission established by Myanmar’s government concluded there are reasons to believe security forces committed war crimes in counterinsurgency operations against the Rohingya, but that there is no evidence supporting charges that genocide was planned or carried out.

Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director, said the panel’s findings were “what would have been expected from a non-transparent investigation by a politically skewed set of commissioners working closely with the Myanmar government.”

At December’s public hearings, Paul Reichler, a lawyer for Gambia, cited a U.N. fact-finding mission report at hearings last month that said military “clearance operations” in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state spared nobody. “Mothers, infants, pregnant women, the old and infirm. They all fell victim to this ruthless campaign,” he said.

Gambia’s Justice Minister Aboubacarr Tambadou urged the world court to act immediately and “tell Myanmar to stop these senseless killings, to stop these acts of barbarity that continue to shock our collective conscience, to stop this genocide of its own people.”

Anna Roberts, executive director of Burma Campaign UK, called the order “a major blow to Aung San Suu Kyi and her anti-Rohingya policies.”

She urged the international community to press her to enforce the court’s order.

“The chances of Aung San Suu Kyi implementing this ruling will be zero unless significant international pressure is applied,” Roberts said. “So far, the international community has not been willing to apply pressure on Aung San Suu Kyi over her own appalling record on human rights.”

0 notes

lj-writes · 7 years

Text

The problem with villain fandom

It might not be evident from the way I criticize and argue with Kylo Ren and First Order stans, but I’m a longtime fan of villains. I’ve always loved morally complex/redeemed villains and/or self-interested jerks. My fandom activity for the past twenty years focused on characters like Severus Snape (Harry Potter), Seifer Almasy (Final Fantasy VIII), Sesshoumaru (Inuyasha), and Prince Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender). Consistent with this pattern I find Kylo Ren fascinating, though of late I’ve come to focus more on heroic characters. (Probably since I started seeing more heroic characters of color, but that’s another subject.)

Of these characters Seifer Almasy probably parallels Kylo Ren most closely: A former member of the heroes’ group who betrayed them when he was lured away by the Big Bad, he later committed atrocities as her right-hand man including torturing the main character Squall and destroying a school by firing missiles at it (a military academy, to be sure, but he knew they had children there). I was part of a group of fans who shipped him with his former instructor, a woman he had imprisoned with the other members of the hero group, so my fannishness was plenty #problematic as it went.

The thing is, though, I don’t think any of us argued that Seifer’s actions were justified or that torture and mass murder were somehow okay. We liked him as a villain, though likely mind-controlled and back to being his old (jerkish) self by the end of the game. If anyone had attempted to justify his actions the rest of us would likely have been horrified. And I was in a section of the fandom that was as friendly to Seifer as it got, with much of the fandom reviling him for perfectly understandable reasons.

I don’t think I ran across villain woobification until the early 10′s when I got into Avatar: The Last Airbender and started seeing justifications for genocide and romanticization of abuse. I don’t know if fandom changed or I had simply managed to dodge the bad parts of it, but this was when I first felt unsafe in fandom spaces as an abuse survivor from a country that had been a target of colonialist aggression for millennia.

So it’s just not true that I think liking a villain is the same thing as rationalizing their actions. What I object to is the argument that their actions aren’t that bad or defending against their aggression is just as bad--the argument, in other words, that they are not actually villains.

Because as much as apologists like to say “It’s just fiction,” you can’t have a villain that doesn’t commit actions that are evil in the real world. Let’s say we have a character whose worst action is turning rabbits purple. That character can’t be an effective villain because we don’t have a frame of reference for understanding the action as evil. In order for this character to actually work as a villain, the logic of the story would have to make purplifying rabbits an analogue to some real-world evil such as refusing to honor personal boundaries, forced assimilation of minorities and so on.

Usually the association of villainous action to real life is much more direct: Mass murder, torture, abuse and more are actual evils that hurt actual people, and disproportionately people who are marginalized in some way. By dismissing the immorality and harm of such actions you dismiss the very real injustices done to victims and survivors and the consequences they are forced to live with.

Yes, it’s just fiction. Yes, it’s absolutely fine to like villains, I would be a hypocrite to say otherwise. What is not fine is to try to wave away murder, war crimes, and even historical atrocities in a campaign to dilute and justify villainous actions. These evils are not “just fiction,” they are real and the people who suffered from them are real. It’s simply wrong to dismiss real people for the sake of enjoying fictional villains who are, after all, just fiction.

#star wars #villain fandom #kylo ren #the first order #final fantasy viii #seifer almasy #avatar: the last airbender #long post #fandom history

238 notes · View notes

cristoph00cdc · 5 years

Video

HANDS OF MY FILES CANADA - COURT ORDER TO ACCESS

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/how-the-canadian-consulates-murders-canadians-who-are-attacked-abroad-a-cautionary-tale-of-havoc-madness-malfeasance-2/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/taoiseach-prime-minister-of-ireland-leo-varadkar-ireland-headquarters-government-buildings-merrion-street-dublin-2-d02-r583-ireland-urgent-emergency-sos/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/long-live-the-king-kevin-oleary/

Dear Mr. Kevin O’Leary,

I am Christopher De Caermichael - Born April 21,1958 - Funchal Madeira Portugal. In the parish of San Antonio. Which due to Cristiano Renaldo acquired fame for being the location of his birth.

I write all this to give you a idea of the great shock that I am to understand that Canada has sentenced me to death in Malaysia.

The reason for this contact is to be found in these files but as the victim of heinous crime - someone like me - we have to in ways I had not understood prove our innocence. Establish the criminal circumstances etc.

I am so ill that I just put this all together in Faith. I don’t have much longer to live and I don’t want to die - at least this way.

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2l9gslpbZ

RE: IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH

AS CANADA HAS DELIBERATELY SENTENCED ME TO DEATH IN MALAYSIA FOR NO REASON EXCEPT FOR CANADIAN AVARICE AND MALFEASANCE . I ASK YOU TO CONTACT MR.KEVIN O’LEARY

WHO I HOPE WILL HONOR MY DEATH - IN AS MUCH AS CANADA & MALAYSIA DISHONORED MY LIFE

This is what I am dying from - A fatal pathogenic attack by a Mr,Jack Goh - Condo Manager - Coco-Bay Port Dickson with the screams - chains flying. A whirling dervish of madness and pure evil. This was the first time I met this man. The 3 rd time he chased me in a public car-park - screaming I am going to kill you. And Canada agreed. Stating that I was not Canadian enough? As well I was part of a tribe he wanted to cull. Old white European vanguard. Again so any details and yet - despite being victimized to the point of death. I can receive no solace from Canada.

THE CHC-KL has resorted to lies and bogus information to ensure that I am stuck in Malaysia and Die.

Please consider this fact - this was not about - Medical Insurance - or could not pay for the service its based on the Malaysian MEDICAL ethos- that foreigners sue - that the treatment of foreigners has controversy attached due to the MALAYS FAKE MEDICAL DEGREES.

I have attached in my files Sunway medical center a top Hospitable and treatment center in writing stating that they did not have any doctor to treat me or medicine. This is in writing. At the same time I was in the ED and met a dr, a specialist who was not supposed to not exist who gave me - medicine that the hospital was not supposed to have. I told Dr, Tan and showed him the documents. He started to laugh - Welcome to Malaysia- I said so the unspoken policy in Malaysia - is to deny foreigners medical treatment- he says yes you have to understand - we cant risk treating you people.To many issues - and we get sued a lot.

So just go back to your country. I said I can’t - I am too ill to travel.

• Syndrome pulmonaire à hantavirus étendu.

• F La fièvre hémorragique avec syndrome rénal s'est effondrée.

• F La fièvre de Lassa s'est effondrée.

• ⦁ La leptospirose s'est effondrée. (EPIDEMIC DE MALAISIE)

• Ch La chorio-méningite lymphocytaire (LCM) s'est effondrée.

• F La fièvre hémorragique d’Omsk s’est effondrée.

• ⦁ La peste s'est effondrée.

• Bite Morsure de rat La fièvre s'est effondrée.

• VIRUS DE L'IMMUNION DEFECIENCE HUMAINE

• SYNDROME D'IMMUNION DEFECIENCE ACQUISE

Dr.Hedy Fry. Dr. Fry has sanctioned my death and I am dying. I have no idea how much I can live? Its becoming increasingly difficult to breathe - to walk- cancer has started - palsy - a real cornucopia of death was delivered to me in Port Dickson Malaysia 2017. It has been well documented by me. Via the CHC-KL - The Prime Ministers office - Many of the key players in the current Liberal corrupt government and as well the incumbent - Andrew Scheer - Pierre Poilievere - Michelle Rempel - are apparently known colleagues of you?

The incident history I documented -there are many blogs - V-blogs. To lay out the absolute torture of my death process. My death is too near - I have all ready had a severe brain bleed in April 2019 that bought me to deaths door. I have had to go back into complete bed rest. Writing this is agony.

This was 4 pages to get to this point - the rest I placed on this flash drive.

There is still time to save my life - I think- I hope -I beg.

This may be a tall ask but - its what Trudeau / Fry etal have done to Canada and I am possibly the first - non criminal detainee. Meaning I have committed no crime - a visa overstay of this magnitude, that equals death -is not a crime. I see that even Clive Smith - REPRIEVE will prefer if I had committed a crime? Its easier to try and free a Criminal versus a Victim.

Please assist. I don’t have much time. Also has social media posts can be easily deleted. Or electronic- snail mail will have to do.

I just don’t know. And I see how busy you are - you have an army of people working with/for you.

Peace

Cristoph De Caermichael

Dell/Downloads/CanadaProtectionCharter26January16.pdf

https://youtu.be/OJJsBjZCDPU

https://www.amnesty.ca/news/protection-charter-mohamed-fahmy-and-amnesty-international-propose-more-effective-action-defend

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/04/20/emergency-sos-imminent-death-hon-pierre-poilievre-p-c-m-p-pierrepoilievre/

file:///C:/Users/Cristoph-Dell/Desktop/asylum%20seeking/PDF/FRY-%20CRIMINAL%20complaint-Copy.pdf

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/honorable-jody-wilson-raybould-jody-wilson-raybouldparl-gc-ca-web-sitewww-vancouvergranville-ca/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/01/27/clive-stafford-smith-reprieve-urgent-urgent-urgent-urgent/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/urgent-life-death-antonio-guterres-guterresunhcr-org-united-nations-n-y-10017-antonioguterres/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/04/08/fake-medical-degrees-malaysia-once-u-have-a-fake-degree-there-is-no-penalty-if-caught-u-keep-on-killing-people/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/david-versus-goliath-canada-declares-war-on-its-own-citizens-to-cause-their-death/

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+book+of+25+-+all+trudeau

CC-

https://www.change.org/p/human-rights-campaign-free-a-canadian-trapped-in-malaysia

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/canadian-applying-for-urgent-asylum-canadas-deadly-kings-preoragative/

https://thebookof25.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/a-morte-pela-viral-persistente-leptospirose-humana-na-malasia/

thebookof25.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/the-plague-cocobay-resort-leptospirosis-diseases-port-dickson-malaysia-2017-coco-bay-resort/

https://thecanadiandebacle.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/the-great-canadian-debacle-circa-2018/

DUE TO THE INCREDIBLE DANGER I AM OF IN DYING HERE IN DANGER - I HAVE ALERTED THE FBI - THE RCMP IS UNDER TRUDEAU - FRY CONTROL AND WERE NOTIFIED VIA FRY TO HARM ME.

AS MY BODY IN THE END MAY BE - THE ONLY REALITY OF CONSEQUENCE - I HAVE TO PREPARE FOR ALL REALTIES THAT I AM SO UNFAILIAR WITH.

ITS MORE THAN LIKELY THAT AS THE RCMP IS NOW A CORRUPT - CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION - THAT ALL OF MY INFORMATION WILL BE COMPROMISED BY THEM - INCLUDING DENIAL OF ANY AND ALL ACTIONS THAT THEY TOOK ON DELIBERATELY HARMING AN INNOCENT - VICTIMIZED AND SEVERALLY WOUNDED BY MALAYSIA.

https://youtu.be/5XMPUlGMPqI

https://youtu.be/c3uH6J5CUd8

https://youtu.be/p8l8M__bR8M

https://youtu.be/sxMTM67JEbY

https://youtu.be/trReprbH5lE

https://youtu.be/_Wr64o24QR8

https://youtu.be/p8l8M__bR8M

https://youtu.be/BSqh6Azr1ew

https://youtu.be/5XMPUlGMPqI

https://youtu.be/uSPbzV1FJrw

https://youtu.be/7x8v-eIKoFI

https://youtu.be/xsgtbef3TJc

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/06/01/how-the-canadian-consulates-murders-canadians-who-are-attacked-abroad-a-cautionary-tale-of-havoc-madness-malfeasance-2/

https://writerswrite000.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/long-live-the-king-kevin-oleary/

THE CORCOPIA OF DEATH - THE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

•Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome expanded. •Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome collapsed. •Lassa fever collapsed. •Leptospirosis collapsed.(MALAYSIA EPIDEMIC) •Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM) collapsed. •Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever collapsed. •Plague collapsed. •Rat-Bite Fever collapsed

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wB2lI7rj

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBuZ31Wi

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBvhGFSY

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBwwnYwJ

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBBwsOfw

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBGFJ5h0

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBxFs9kv

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2wBzYO8ND

https://drive.wps.com/docs/2l9gslpbZ

DEAR PRIME MINISTER LEO VARADKAR YOU KNOW OF MY OUTRAGEOUS ORDEAL- I HAVE HAD TO USE ALL MY STRENGTH- TO TRY AND MANAGE MY RESCUE – INSTEAD OF RUSHING TO THE EMBASSY AND TRAUMATIZING YOUR STAFF – I HAVE SPENT WEEKS AS IN 6 WEEKS ATTEMPTING TO ALERT YOU ALL OF THIS ORDEAL AND THAT I REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASYLUM IN IRELAND AND TREATMENT FOR THE PLAGUE BEFORE I DIE AND UNLEASH IT ON THE WORLD – THANKS TO TRUDEAU WHITE GENOCIDE STRATEGY . PLEASE HELP – ASAP!

@merrionstreet

@dfatirl

@govdotie

@eiregov

@DeptJusticeIRL

@davidstantontd

@RSAIreland

@NewYorkFBI

@DonicaPottie @CanadaMalaysia @MichelleRempel @PierrePoilievre @kevinolearytv @Puglaas @NewYorkFBI

@ariannahuff

@HuffPost

@thrive

#JOHNSchachnovsky

@rideauinstitute #GARPARDY

#DrIsabellaDanel

@pahowho

@Plague_TV

@peoplespca

@MaximeBernier

@oberlo

@newsflash

@MediaTMO

@tweetdeck

this has a summary - as there are so many details. within the next few weeks maybe 90 days - i am dead . The history of this ordeal - must be known - as Canada is actively seeking the death of innocent Canadian citizens - while abroad are brutally attacked by Malaysians and eventually die. The RCMP is implicated as a corrupt organization and is being used by Dr. Hedy Fry to seek my death. Its beyond Malaysia as they are extremely corrupt but due to formalities I have to inform this branch as well.

[email protected]

@merrionstreet

@dfatirl

@govdotie

@eiregov

@DeptJusticeIRL

@davidstantontd @RSAIreland

May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be ever at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And the rains fall soft upon your fields

And until we meet again

May God hold you, May God hold you

Ever in the palm of His hand

Go n-éireoidh an bóthar chun bualadh leat,

Go mbeidh an ghaoth ar do dhroim riamh

Go n-éireoidh an ghrian go te ar d'aghaidh,

Agus tagann an bháisteach bog ar do pháirceanna

Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís

https://twitter.com/i/status/1138124092706557958

https://twitter.com/i/status/1137729095230533633

May God hold you, May God hold you

Ever in the palm of His hand

The palm of His hand

WHAT IS SO HORRIFIC IS THE WAY I HAVE BEEN TREATED THUS FAR BY EVERYONE.

INFECTED WITH A KNOWN FATAL DISEASE (THE PLAGUE) - DENIED ALL HELP- MEDICAL FROM CANADA - MALAYSIA

BRUTALIZED BY BOTH CANADA AND MALAYSIA

YET ACCORDING TO WHAT TAKES PLACE - IF I WAS A SYRIAN REFUGE - OR FROM A SCHWARTZ COUNTRY , CANADA BENDS OVER BACKWARDS - FLIES YOU - PAYS FOR YOU -GIVES $50,000.00 OR SO TO RESETTLE YOU.

YET I AM CANADIAN BASTARDIZED - BRUTALIZED - AND HELD IN GREAT CONTEMPT BY THE WORLD IT SEEMS - AND LEFT TO DIE- FOR MY BODY TO EXPLODE WITH THE PLAGUE AND CAUSE A PANDEMIC.

AND TO CAUSE THE DEATHS OF THOUSANDS ? OMG -SUCH INCREDIBLE CRUELTY. SUCH INSANITY BY CANADA & MALAYSIA. SO WHY-AM I SO SPECIAL? I DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. EXCEPT TAKE A MEDICAL VACATION THAT HAS ENDED MY LIFE AS I KNOW IT. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ME . DO I LIVE ?-WHERE DO I LIVE -? WHICH COUNTRY - AM I GOING TO BE PERMANENTLY CRIPPLED? HOW MUCH LONGER DO I LIVE? HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE INVOLVED WITH MY DEATH? AND WHY? - WHY? WHY?

THIS IS MY AUSCHWITZ INTERMENT - JANUARY 2017 - TILL PRESENT.

I AM ALIVE - STRUGGLING TO LIVE - FIGHTING FOR LIFE - HOURLY - DAILY - WEEKLY - SCREAMING VIA THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR HELP - FOR A LIFE THAT IS NOW SO UNCERTAIN.

I HAVE ASKED IRELAND TO HELP - AS ITS THE MOST HUMAN COUNTRY- YET THE DUE DILIGENCE ON ALL PARTS - BRINGS ME CLOSER TO DEATH. THE OTHER REFUGEES DON'T HAVE DUE DILIGENCE- MAYBE A LITTLE - BUT ONLY AFTER THEY ARE IN CANADA. ME A CANADIAN - AM TREATED LESS THAN A REFUGEE FROM THESE ASYLUM SEEKING COUNTRIES. WHY CAUSE I AM CANADIAN? OMG- HOW TOXIC IS THAT? SO MESSED UP.

CANADIAN GENOCIDE IS + 150 YEARS OLD .

THIS WAVE OF #WHITEGENOCIDE IS NOT NEW

TRUDEAU LOVES #GENOCIDE

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https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-withdraws-from-the-rome-statute

https://youtu.be/6d6C8Br0nE8

https://youtu.be/qYXv9em-DRk

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icharchivist · 5 years

Note

Thanks! I do see posts on fans who like Chaoji or at least sympathizing w/him when it comes to disliking Allen. Most of them state he has reasons for it and it makes sense. But I don't think that's a reason to excuse Chaoji. Chaoji's a interesting character to have just to see how fans react to him. You have plenty who hate him. You have a number who like him. You have some who dislike him but think he's in the right for how he feels. Me? I don't think his reasons excuse him. Chaoji is a -

2 well meaning guy who isn't a leader or a critical thinker. Under a good force he'd be a great soldier against evil. But he's not. He went from being under a fair minded independant thinking angel like Anita to the Order; A machine that expects you to be a expendable cog for it's own mysterious agendas beyond kill akuma. Chaoji is not merciful or unconditional to those who disagree w/him. He saw how much Allen protected and comforted in the Ark to the point of nearly dying. How much effort he-

3 into not hurting Lavi. How much Allen fought (even all alone) to stop Lulubell's invasion. How Allen sacrificed his fragile standing w/the Order to protect Kanda (and Alma). Allen was tortured and betrayed by the Order, locked in a prison for possible weeks. But none of that matters. Chaoji instantly buys the story Allen killed Link and betrayed the Order. People are complicated. We can't always pronounce judgement for a few acts we don't understand. I've defended Chaoji on several issues -

3 before. But this is one issue I never will. It's good to pick a side and have standards. But Chaoji is too severe on anyone outside his world view and I think that unmerciful and unwillingness to understand is going to be directed back at him and he won't be prepared for it. Look at Allen, his mercy and willingness to care/understand others has won him so many strong allies in his darkest moments. Kanda of all characters is trying to repay Allen by being merciful/understanding right back. -

4 Reasons do not equal excuses and depending on what you do might determine how you get treated someday in return (not always but sometimes). Chaoji can dislike Allen's or Krory's (who I'm noticed Chaoji's getting a beef w/lately) views but dies that really give Chaoji a right to ignore all the good they've done or blind themselves to any wrong committed against them? Again, that's a potentially dangerous and self destructive mentality to take in life. It's also a easy one to fall into. =/

While i agree on your reasoning and that’s kinda how i see Chaoji there’s just a couple of things i want to come back onto:

Chaoji buys on Allen killing Link also because it is known that the 14th can come out at any moment: Allen asked all the exorcists to kill him if he becomes a threat. Without specifically being “Allen killed Link” Chaoji could just think “this one time he let the 14Th out” and in that case it doesn’t matter what good deeds Allen has done: if the 14th is put on a murder rampant, he has to be stopped. Sure Chaoji buys on the story while everyone else don’t, but it’s not like it was completely against Allen.

Chaoji has no reason to know Allen more than anyone else does, Allen never had a heart to heart with Chaoji to make him realize things were different in his life and such, Chaoji may not have critical thinking but in this particular point i really don’t see how he could have done anything else since he has no reason to doubt it?

Chaoji’s actions are generally the case of someone who is misguided and who had blinded himself into thinking clearly in black and white and showing anger toward anyone showing nuances and yeah those are huge flaws that has to be discussed when touching Chaoji.

However I do feel like “not finding him excuse” is... not specifically something to hold against fans in general? Because most of the time those are more attempt at justification to see his side of things, not a question of “he’s secretly right” and by principle it means that people don’t approve of his behavior. People are just saying “yeah, but those are the points that kickstarted it” and it’s essential in character reading to acknowledge the past of a character on how it shaped their lives: especially when it’s the approach taken for every single character of the series and i find it a shame to ignore it the moment it’s a character we dislike.

Most people who defend Chaoji, from what I can gather, are mostly just people who are tired of the very intense hatred because trust me most people don’t discuss Chaoji when they bash on him. They just kinda boil down to “he dislikes Allen so he’s bad”. Trying to make an attempt into understanding why he dislikes Allen isn’t making him excuses, but it explains stuff and for some people who likes their morally grey characters, this dilema is interesting.

Idk i feel like a lot of character reading that gives justifications get swipped under the rug with the “giving him excuse” if we don’t paint him in a negative light by the end of it which i find a bit unfair? A lot of people can discuss Road, Tyki, Nea and the Earl’s fascinating personality or “why they came to be who they are” without having to bring up all the time “of course that doesn’t excuse the fact they’re trying to accomplish mass genocide”. There are tons of reading on those characters that focus on the positives or justifications for their behaviors without having to recall all the time that their actions are Bad still.

Character discussions are just that - discussions. they’re not endorsment and I think it’s unfair to the fandom experience to consider them the same way when someone talk about a negative character in a positive light or trying to figure out why. It’s a part of fiction that allows us to safely approach different facet of a characters and dig into them in a way we will never do with irl people and it is an interesting exercise.

So don’t get me wrong either i agree with your main points concerning Chaoji, i’m just saying that it’s a little unfair to picture the “people who like him” in that light, because they’re honestly just a handful (Chaoji is one of the most hated character of the saga by fans along with Lveille and Sheryl from my experience) and it’s mostly just a “y’all are a little exagerating making him a malicious devil” which is something that happens after all.

idk sorry i’m sure it wasn’t exactly what you wanted to say but i’ve seen fandoms be a little hard on people who likes controversial characters so it’s something that peeves me, even now with a character i really don’t like all that much. Wanting to find jutifications is a way to try to understand the world, that doesn’t specifically atone them from every sins. idk perhaps i’m just rambling.

Anyway aside from that I agree with your reasoning for all that matters o/

#ichafantalks dgm #Anonymous #ichareply

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clubofinfo · 5 years

Text

Expert: Disproportionate numbers of First Peoples are in Canadian prisons. Society arranges this fact to not seem that extraordinary. It could be argued that aboriginal peoples are political prisoners in North America, in or out of prison. Or that this is true for all minorities. Or that as the war on terror proceeds all Canadians may find themselves in a political prison. Privilege and prejudice are clarified when we note that aboriginal men and women damaged in government (police) custody are not often plaintiffs in trials for damages. And properly, this account would run to several thousand pages listing the individual cases of First Peoples’ imprisonment, rising out of a society which feels compelled to treat the education of, the medical care of, the social services for, the nourishment of, the housing of, the remuneration for, First Peoples unjustly. Unlike the U.S., Canada hasn’t used extreme long term incarceration of Indigenous leaders to discourage Indigenous movements’ protest actions. In the U.S. Leonard Peltier was sentenced to two life imprisonment terms for a crime he likely didn’t commit. Non-Indigenous U.S. leaders of the people such as the Kennedy’s, Dr. King and Malcolm X, were simply shot, and Canada’s historical icon of revolt Louis Riel was simply hanged. The many indigenous leaders in Canada maintain relatively low profiles and are more diffusely represented in these vast spaces of the land. Currently, the only group of Canadian political prisoners which approaches the length of sentences given U.S. political prisoners is Canadians who are Muslim.1 They have been treated poorly in domestic prisons or left to the dogs in the custody of foreign agencies. In some cases Canada’s security agencies seemed to be outsourcing torture for information. Of Canadian Muslims damaged in custody, Maher Arar was awarded 11.5 million dollars in an out of court settlement concerning the Canadian government’s responsibility for his torture in Syria. Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin settled for about half of what each asked, 31.25 million apiece because of Canada’s assistance to the Syrian government in having them falsely arrested and tortured. Omar Khadr was to receive 10.5 million for Canada’s cooperation with the U.S. on Khadr’s incarceration and torture in Guantanamo while a minor. One lawsuit filed by Abousfian Abdelrazik, whom the Canadian government left in the hands of Syrian torturers, was settled out of court in 2017. In 2015 the Canadian government settled out of court a suit by Benamar Benatta whom it had turned over to the FBI as a terrorist suspect: he was imprisoned 5 years before they decided he wasn’t a terrorist. Daniel Ameziane, who sought political asylum in Canada from Algeria, is suing Canada for 40 million dollars2, after his torture in U.S. Guantanamo which he alleges was reliant on Canadian supplied information. and yielded the Canadians in turn information obtained by his torture (Ameziane, denied asylum in Canada, was subsequently arrested in Pakistan by a bounty hunter and sent to Guantanamo). The five Muslim men detained (arrested without charge) for varying lengths of time in extreme conditions, under the mechanism of Canadian Security Certificates, were not found guilty of any crime and have not, to my knowledge, initiated suits to compensate them for their arbitrary loss of rights, their suffering and the government’s attempts to ruin their lives. What is unusual about the Canadian persecution of Canadian Muslims is that they have some chance for redress in Canadian courts for severe violations of their human rights. Here I’ll try to update several cases Night’s Lantern has encountered in the past, and these of Muslims, targeted under the U.S./ NATO programs of the wars on terror and Muslim countries. The cases suggest a domestic application of an aggressive foreign policy which has the intention of corporate resource acquisition by force. Entirely ignored by the media is the case of Said Namouh who was arrested in 2007 and is serving a sentence of life imprisonment with parole possible after ten years (yet facing deportation if paroled). The charges against him were for participating in terrorist activities. But he committed no crime of violence against anyone.3 There was no evidence linking him to alleged bomb-making or making real the prosecution’s suppositions of active terrorism. The star witness against him was an Israeli CEO of a U.S. defense industry intelligence provider who analyzed Namouh’s computer hard drive. Namouh’s “crimes” were primarily of internet communication, personal declarations, extremist associations, in other words – his beliefs, convictions. This case puzzles innocents because it is entirely legal to have beliefs and convictions and it is legal to share them. In 2018 Namouh was denied his first application for parole; the parole board noted his record in prison wasn’t exemplary, and it wasn’t, but he didn’t try to kill anyone and he didn’t steal anyone’s dessert. The parole board (“La Commission des libérations conditionnelles”) isn’t likely to hear his case again until 2023. Yet there is a forfeit of the prisoner’s human rights and civil rights here, not because Namouh’s beliefs are unwise, unsafe, in some instances illegal, or against Canadian security interests, but because the punishment is the same as a mass murderer’s. He was in no way proven guilty of mass murder or any act of violence. His was a propaganda trial with a propaganda punishment. Another level of shame is reached in the more obvious injustices of Canadian Security Certificates. One recognizes Stasi or Gestapo tactics which aren’t Canadian practices, and the government has restrained itself from using the certificates since early in the new millennium. All five of the Muslim men arrested under Canadian Security Certificates back in 2000 to 2003 have been released from prison through the efforts of their lawyers in one trial after another. Despite government challenges Canada’s judicial system has safeguarded some of humanity’s progress since the dark ages. The government’s attempts to justify in court application of Canadian Security Certificates has cost Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars. Mohamed Harkat, former Canadian Security Certificate detainee, imprisoned without a charge against him in 2002, now lives at home protected from prison by judicial decisions, with his Quebec born Canadian wife of nearly twenty years. Their lives are under threat every day with complete disruption by the government’s continuing intention to deport him to Algeria, where it’s believed he is in danger of torture or death.((“Justice for Mohamed Harkat: stop his deportation to torture.)) Aside from the label of suspected terrorist assigned him by Canada’s security agencies, any refugee returned to Algeria is known to be at risk. In June 2018 Al-Jazeera reported 13,000 migrants left by Algeria in the Sahara desert within the last 14 months, subject to forced marches without water and food.4 The ordeal of Mohamed Harkat’s arrest without charges or public evidence against him has lasted year after year, placing him in prison, in solitary, on hunger strike, in house arrest with court ordered regimens, has subjected his wife to suffering and police abuse, subjected the family to legal expenses, debts, and charity without compensation. (Summary). If one wanted to inflict the conditions of a lasting torture on a family, either to obtain information or as one more threat to encourage the Muslim community to cooperate with government policies bordering on genocide in several Muslim countries, one might imagine inflicting on them the lives of Mohamed and Sophie Harkat. In a report to the UN Human Rights Council last Spring, Nils Melzer (the UN Special Rapporteur on torture) noted: “Whenever States failed to exercise due diligence to protect migrants, punish perpetrators or provide remedies, they risk to become complicit in torture or ill-treatment.”5 The injustices inherent in the government’s prosecution of a group branded the “Toronto 18” in 2006 by the press are less clearly defined and are difficult to explain. People are afraid to ask obvious questions about the group of minors and young men who were quite possibly guided into a horrible conspiracy by the several police agents among them to plan and organize a series of terrorist acts beyond the abilities of any in the group who weren’t police agents, to execute. As soon as early reporting of the arrests entered court, the judge placed a gag order on reporting details of the trial or revealing the defendants’ names. Portions of the ban protecting minors seem to remain in force. The mechanism has also provided a means to keep out of public scrutiny any low-profile informants and the role they played in a “conspiracy” which some of the defendants were unwilling to recognize. The alleged crimes the “conspiracy” was charged with were horrific and frightening, particularly to a population with misgivings about U.S. and Canadian wars against Islamic countries, crimes against international law, guilt from Canada’s role in “Operation Desert Storm,” the initial US and Coalition bombing of Iraq, the destruction of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure, depriving the country’s children of a future. By the time the US and its coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 Canada refused full participation. Canada’s commitment to fighting in Afghanistan may also be considered complicity in a war of aggression and a number of the “Toronto 18” expressed anger at Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. So the script for the “Toronto 18” was noticeably muzzy, vague except in the allegations of dastardly plots and plans, and the curiousness that young Canadian citizens who were in other respects bright students and entrepreneurs could be manipulated into over-expressing their imaginations and feelings about injustice. In court eleven Canadian citizens accused were sentenced to prison. Charges against others were dropped or withdrawn. Of the accused, most just pleaded guilty. Four claimed their innocence but were convicted. Interestingly each case was different which one would not expect of a conspiracy. Charges relied heavily on the actions and testimony of a police informant (one is featured in official narratives) considered by some to have been a causative agent. The convicted did not have the knowledge or means to execute the terrorist actions they were found guilty of, and their actions required the professional help of the police informant(s). This troubled my own understanding of the case as it was revealed in the press, and the presence of this basic injustice may explain why post sentencing information about members of the “Toronto 18” remains scarce. The justice of their trials in 2009-2010 may be further questioned after a recent ruling in Vancouver BC which found the RCMP basically responsible for the terrorist acts committed by John Nuttall and Amanda Korody.6 The couple were recent converts to Islam and recovering drug addicts, guided into a terrorist plot and supplied the knowledge and materials to commit terrorist crimes by RCMP undercover. A three judge appeals court affirmed the decision of the lower court that the RCMP had basically entrapped the defendants, who were then freed. The RCMP’s case was found to be “a travesty of justice.”. To begin to gather then this disparate group of the “Toronto 18” I mention eight of the eleven who were found guilty and sentenced: Arrested when he was 18, Saad Gaya pleaded guilty in court in 2010 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison with pre-sentencing imprisonment of 3.5 years credited double. Gaya was to serve a remaining 4.5 years but was parole eligible in 18 months. However, the Crown was able to increase his sentence to 18 years. In 2016 the National Post reported he was granted day parole to attend graduate school.7 Mohamed Dirie convicted for weapons smuggling in the “Toronto 18” plot was sentenced to seven years including pre-sentencing time served. He was released in 2011, and is reported to have died fighting for “an extremist group” in Syria, 2013.8 Unconfirmed. Zakaria Amara9 pleaded guilty in 2009 to charges in the “camp plot” conspiracy and to charges in the “bomb plot” conspiracy. In 2010 he was sentenced to 21 months in addition to time served for the first, and for the second, life imprisonment. He was incarcerated in Quebec and eligible for parole in ten years. In 2013 the Supreme Court of Canada refused to review his sentence. Fahim Ahmad, sentenced to 16 years with double credit for pre-sentencing time served, was previously denied parole but will have completed his sentence and should be freed in 2018, according to The Toronto Star, and released early in 2018 according to the National Post. By 2019, I’ve found no notice of his release.10 Shareef Abdelhaleem who maintained that he “had no intention of causing injury or bodily harm” and asked the judge to sentence him as the judge would a white Catholic…, was sentenced to life in prison, and with pre-sentencing time included, was parole eligible in ten years. His father was an engineer with Atomic Energy of Canada who had posted bail for Mohammad Mahjoub, the Security Certificate detainee. The father’s implication in the “conspiracy” was attempted. Of his son, the prisoner, Wikipedia quotes him: “I am the last person to be a threat…this whole thing was staged to impress the public, to give them fear.”11 Steven Vikash Chand, a former Canadian forces reservist and new convert to Islam, was found guilty of participation and advising a financial fraud to assist a terrorist group. He was sentenced to 10 years including time served, yielding a release in 2011. Despite a recognized lack of serious involvement with the conspiracy group, Asad Ansari was sentenced in 2010 to six years five months for participating/contributing to a terrorist group, which amounted to time served. Like several others in the “Toronto 18” group, the government’s threat to withdraw his Canadian citizenship was canceled under a change in government and Royal Assent granted to Bill C-6 June 19, 2017. Saad Khalid pled guilty in 2009 to intending to cause an explosion and was sentenced to 14 years in prison including 7 years served. He was said to be radicalized in prison and the Crown increased his sentence from 14 to 20 years. These are long sentences in mens’ lives. This listing leaves three of the accused and found guilty prisoners uncounted, as well as the seven of those arrested and one way or another released. We can guess that most of those found guilty have by now served their time or reaching their parole date were quietly released. No one asks why children and young adults who were so normal in other respects leading the lives of innocents, imagined such horrific responses to their country’s crimes against innocent men women and children abroad. * “Canada and the politics of Islamophobia,” J. B. Gerald, February 5, 2017, nightslantern.ca. * “Guantanamo: Ex-inmate sues Canada for alleged torture,” Jillian Kestler-D’Amours,” November 10, 2017, Al-Jazeera. * “Pas de libération conditionnelle pour Saïd Namouh,” Louis Cloutier, February 7, 2018, TVA Nouvelles / MédiaQMI. * “Deported by Algeria, migrants abandoned in the Sahara Desert,” Victoria Gatenby, June 25, 2018, Al-Jazeera. * “Migration policies can amount to ill-treatment and torture, UN rights expert warns,” UN Human Rights Council, March 1, 2018, Reliefweb. * “B.C. Court of Appeal: Couple convicted in Victoria terror case entrapped by RCMP,” Amy Smart, Canadian Press, December 19, 2018, Vancouver Sun. * “Toronto 18″ convict granted day parole so he can go to graduate school,” January 1, 2016, National Post. * “Man convicted as part of Toronto 18 plot reportedly killed in Syria,” The Canadian Press September 26, 2013, Macleans. * “Bomb plotter sentenced to 12 years,” Michael Friscolanti, January 18, 2010, Macleans. * “Toronto 18 plotter reflects on a decade in prison,” Michelle Shephard, May 29, 2016, Toronto Star. * “Toronto 18″ member released on day parole in middle of 18-year sentence,” The Canadian Press, January 2, 2016, CBC. http://clubof.info/

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