Next up, the “al-Qaeda” connection—or maybe it should be more accurately characterized as the “al-Qaeda” mind-meld phenomena. “Canadian police say there is no evidence the suspect group had ties to al-Qaida, but describe its members as being sympathetic to jihadist ideology. Officials are concerned that many of the 17 suspects were roughly 20 years old and had been radicalized in a short amount of time.” In the murky world of “jihadist ideology,” such short term transformations are common (e.g., the alleged London bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, described as a reserved individual who did not discuss his religious beliefs and worked for a youth outreach project in Beeston, appears to have fallen victim to this strange malady, morphing in short order from a family man into a suicide bomber).

According to the highly suspect neocon newspaper, the National Post, so threatening were the Ontario terrorists, “about 25 highly trained assaulters, part of JTF-2’s counter-terrorism unit” prepared to invade a ‘’training camp” situated on an “isolated rural property just outside the small Ontario town of Washago, an hour and a half north of Toronto,” where a colony of 20-year old Canada haters “dressed in camouflage” supposedly play-acted the role of jihadist misanthropes, apparently frightening the neighbors with “automatic gunfire.” The National Post cites sources revealing “police had the entire area under surveillance while the suspects were at the makeshift training camp and were prepared for the worst, including keeping the commandos of JTF-2 nearby as a force of last resort,” as 20-year old jihadist wanna-bes (fashioned after the CIA asset Osama bin Laden and his clique of dour cave-dwellers) are of course a threat to national security, never mind they were apparently unable to purchase fertilizer to make an Oklahoma City styled bomb on their own and required the help of the RCMP. Moreover, the National Post does not comment on why police needed the assistance of the Canadian Forces, who were outfitted with “a pair of Griffin helicopters [from the] 427 Special Operations Aviation Squadron.” John Thompson, director of the Mackenzie Institute, billed as a defense and security think-tank, attempts to provide an answer. “A couple of guys with assault rifles determined to martyr themselves could cause a lot of trouble, possibly even kill a few police officers.” You’d think Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was hiding out in the woods of Ontario (never mind, as a recent video reveals, Abu, or the actor playing Abu, as the real Abu is dead, is unable to handle an automatic weapon).

Neocon Stephen Harper, Canadian PM, is on script, sounding like his protégé, George Bush. Harper said the Ontario jihadists had allegedly targeted Canadians because of “who we are and how we live, our society, our diversity, and our values … such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law.” Richard Gwyn, writing for the Toronto Star, took a predictable stab at explaining the situation, making sure to mention the purported jihadists have yet to see the inside of a courtroom. “Two commonly cited answers exist to explain how it could be that religious extremism could inspire such inhuman and anti-religious behavior. These are those of a fear and hatred of western-style diversity and democratic liberalism, and all that muddled theorizing about a ‘clash of civilizations’ between the West and Islam.”

Of course, the “clash of civilizations” agenda is not a product of Muslims, but rather Straussian neocons, taking their cues from Israeli Zionists and the “Orientalist” Bernard Lewis, who adapted Samuel P. Huntington’s “civilizational divisions,” that is to say Lewis conflated Huntington’s overarching thesis and turned it into a strident call to arms against Islam (published in the September 1990 issue of the Atlantic Monthly), not surprising as Lewis is an ardent Zionist and advocate of war between Christendom and Islam, or rather he believes Christian nations should attack Islamic nations and slaughter Muslims (it is interesting such grandiose pronouncements leave Judaism out of the equation).

Meanwhile, neocons south of the border have wasted little time exploiting the situation. “A U.S. law enforcement official said investigators were looking for connections between those detained in Canada and suspected Islamic militants held in the United States, Britain, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Denmark and Sweden,” reports the Associated Press. “American authorities have established that two men from Georgia who were charged this year in a terrorism case had been in contact with some of the Canadian suspects via computer, the official said.” Prosecutors “have said the Georgia men, Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed, traveled to Washington to shoot ‘casing videos’ of the Capitol and other potential targets,” according to the Baltimore Sun. “Sadequee, 19, a U.S. citizen who grew up near Atlanta, is accused of lying to federal authorities during an FBI terrorism investigation. Ahmed, 21, a Georgia Tech student, faces a charge he provided material support and resources for terrorism.”

Never mind that Mr. Sadequee was abducted by intelligence agents in Bangladesh, where he traveled to get married, and like the mind-melded Mohammad Sidique Khan, he worked for a community outreach program in Atlanta (thus all Muslim community programs should be regarded with a high degree of suspicion). Sadequee’s sister Sharmin, a student at Michigan State University in East Lansing, told Pacific News her brother’s rendition is possibly the result of Bangladesh being under “tremendous international pressure to crack down on rising Islamic militancy…. They desperately need to show results to prove that they are in control and to reassure Western nations and donors.” It should also be noted that Sadequee is not specifically charged with terrorism.

But never mind. The neocons are busy at work hyping the specter of “al-Qaeda” inspired terrorism, an evil force able to transcend borders, thanks to the internet. “There’s no firm evidence of involvement by the al Qaeda network,” explains CTV. “But at any given moment, there are an estimated 4,500 terrorist-related Web sites accessible on the Internet. And the Internet, in recent years, has become ‘the major hotspot’ for the radicalization of homegrown Islamic terrorists,” a medium where “[b]omb-making techniques and equipment—including the use of ammonium nitrate fertilizer” are readily available (no doubt accessibility of such material will soon eclipse porno).

In addition, we are warned to be on the outlook for Muslims who like the great outdoors. “Camping, canoeing, white-water rafting, paintballing and other outward bound-type activities are of particular interest because they appear common factors for the 7 July [London] bombers and other cells disrupted previously and since,” according to a British report. Another common factor is fastfood, as purported London bomber Hasib Hussain “ate a last meal at McDonald’s before blowing up a No. 30 bus,” as the Independent reported last August.

Thus, as neocon propaganda would have it, a hell-bent “second generation” of jihadists is at work in America, Canada, Britain, and Europe. According to Dr. Walid Phares, interviewed by the Family Security Foundation, it is “crucial as a new stage of the War with Terror develops that the minds of the public are served in as much efficiency as their security is. It is incumbent to authorities and hopefully from the press, to provide the public with as much data as possible about al Qaeda’s ideology, strategy and methodology. Without a mass mobilization of the public and its talents, the next generations of Jihadists already operating within democracies will be wreaking havoc in the lives of our current and future generations.” Of course, we can count on Fox News and the corporate media in America, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere “to provide the public with as much data as possible” about this “second generation” of jihadists, no matter they are uniformly absurd characters, often clueless patsies, or innocent people swept up and fingered as evil-doers who hate us because of “who we are and how we live, our society, our diversity, and our values … such as freedom, democracy and the rule of law,” as the Canadian neocon Stephen Harper would have it.