Similar to what I did in Vancouver on January 11 , the original date of my trial, I went to Ottawa on May 13, just days before my new trial date, to try to get on the news by seeking foreign intervention so that I could have a fair legal process in dealing with the minor charges resulting from my protests of Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up.
The foreign government in my mind was Russia and to a lesser extent, Germany, because, I thought, they were the two most influential countries aside from U.S., U.K., France. They therefore were most likely to stand up against the Bush administration and do the right things for me. Russia doesn't have a mission in Vancouver.
The 'very, very soft ' fix I referred to in my previous blog was, as most of you knew already, the bomb scare incident at Prime Minister "Steve" Harper's residence on the day I arrived at Ottawa.
I learned about the incident on the following day (Monday, May 14) from an Ottawa Citizen report via Norman's Spectator. I immediately realized it was a set-up to disrupt my plan to get on the news. Indeed, I even told an MP's office what I thought of the incident on that day.
The fix was obvious to me.
One clue was the timing. At about 5:00PM Sunday afternoon, I had visited the Russian embassy, thus revealing the intention of my Ottawa trip to the stalking RCMP/CSIS and federal government. (They probably had guessed it anyways the moment I bought a ticket to Ottawa.) It was right after I left the embassy that RCMP/CSIS staged this "bomb scare" incident at 24 Sussex Drive. Its purpose was to put pressure on potential foreign governments, particularly the Russian government, who might consider helping/sheltering me because they would label me as a suspect in a "bomb scare" targeted at the Prime Minister of Canada. That in itself would have been a big story, lavishly manufactured. Recall that RCMP issued an amber alert – when they should not have - after they orchestrated the abduction of Cecilia Zhang on October 20, 2003 in case I went public with my story on that particular day. It looks like RCMP is very experienced in creating this sort of publicity stunt.
The other clue was the description that "the man (had been) observed pacing in front of the residence before he threw the bag over the gate", similar to what I did before I tried to get into a press conference by Prime Minister "Steve" Harper on March 13, which led to the second charge that I have to deal with. -- I hesitated before entering the building because of concern that I might breach my bail condition.
And then came a great moment in Canadian security (via Norman's Spectator):
--A great moment in Canadian security
Sources said last night that the bag included cosmetics, shampoo, Vaseline and a padlock.
Dirty. Just dirty.
A question though: How much money did the police show cost the taxpayers?
andCanada's national police force went into high gear yesterday afternoon -- shutting down Sussex Drive and scrambling canine and explosives units -- after a man threw a gym bag over the security gate in front of the prime minister's residence.
and moreAfter two hours, the Mounties called off the active search, once the explosives unit concluded that the bag was not dangerous.
After [the man fled], RCMP sounded the alarm, calling for assistance from the city's fire department, the paramedic service's tactical response team and the Ottawa police in addition to the Mounties' own bomb squad and canine tracking unit.
After I blogged about the bomb scare fix and said that I had at least one witness who could invalidate RCMP's frame of me, RCMP staged another bomb scare in early Friday evening, June 8, this time at the US embassy. Judging by the brief report filed by Ottawa Sun the following day, I think RCMP learned a lesson from my blog. This time, they did not "disclose" the contents of the bag. And they made sure that I was along when they staged the show. Of course, the timing of the show was not a coincidence: I made contact with the Russian embassy during that week, too.
June 9, 2007
RCMP alerted to bomb threat at U.S. embassy
Police cordon off the street in front of the United States Embassy as they investigate a suspicious package near the building in Ottawa, Friday, June. 8, 2007. (CP PHOTO/Jonathan Hayward) CANADAOTTAWA (CP) — The RCMP and Ottawa police were called to the U.S. embassy Friday night after a suspicious package was found outside the building.
Police say the call came in around 6:36 p.m. when a package was found at the north end of the embassy along the fence line.
RCMP deemed the package suspicious and brought in their bomb squad to investigate.
A nearby bar and the apartments above it were evacuated and several neighbouring streets were closed to traffic while police removed the package.
There was no word late Friday on what was in the package.
(Ottawa Sun)
What these dirty ploys revealed was a cold war mentality of Bush administration and Harper government: They don 't want to make friends. They want to make enemies and as such, they have to demonize good people.
Looking back, I think RCMP was never far away from me during my Ottawa trip. I never had a chance in getting on the news. That's why I decided to give up and turn myself in. Other incidents:
During my stay in Mission shelter, the fire alarm was pulled a number of times. These incidents always occurred in the early morning hours. Each time, the building had to be evacuated when everyone was sleeping. The first false fire alarm went off and woke me up at exactly 4:00AM on a Sunday morning and made me extremely nervous. I became increasingly suspicious that they were the works of the RCMP undercover agents and scared that they would start a rumor in the shelter and blamed these annoying incidents on me.
One evening, because I could not sleep, I went into a bar just across the street from the Mission. I did not drink or talk to anyone. Simply staying in a crowd made me feel a little less depressed. Not long after I went there, a few gay looking people came near me and one of them started snapping pictures. By the time I realized what had happened, they had already left.
Lots of suspicious police movements around me. For example, on my way to the Russian embassy on Monday morning, May 14, a police car apparently wanted to let me know that I was being watched.
The day after I started an application with Ottawa welfare office to try to get a bus ticket back to Vancouver, Greyhound started a strike. Stuck in Ottawa, I later tried to seek similar help from dozens of other embassies. I believe federal government monitored my calls to some or all of them.
Postscript:
Speaking of Harper government and Bush administration playing the sex card to bully or demonize me, I should mention, once again, that RCMP has over the years sabotaged my efforts in attempting to find girlfriends. For privacy reason, I of course can't disclose the names of these woman.
First update 20070718
As I mentioned in my most recent blog, it was very difficult for me to write and publish the above blog posting. The “bomb scare” ploy targeted at me by the Bush administration and Harper government through their national security and law enforcement apparatus was too dirty. (The irony was, before the fall of 2006, the Bush administration’s prepared line of attack on me in case my struggle did become news was that I lacked civility of a politician, similar to Donald Rumsfeld’s ridiculous call on China to join in the “civilized” world.) The dirtiest part of the ploy was, of course, their playing the sex card. However, insofar as the sex card was played, the above incident was only the tip of an iceberg.
When I was booked in by the Richmond RCMP on Sunday evening, June 17, the arresting police officer asked me a strange question: “Do you have STD?” I immediately felt that I was being bullied for a reason because I had visited a Sexual Health Clinic operated by the city of Ottawa while I was there. The reason for my visit was, of course, I was afraid, while staying in a homeless shelter, that I might get some kinds of Hepatitis, which was mentioned several times on Norman’s Spectator while I was in Ottawa. It was a concern for me because I had tested positive for Turbocurlosis the last time when I stayed there back in 2005. (I got the contact information of the clinic from a city clerk when I asked her about Hepatitis. When I went in to the clinic, I had just wanted the information because, frankly, I did not even know the distinctions among various forms of Hepatitis. Then I found out that they offered a free blood test and decided to take one. However, the intake nurse asked me a bunch of ridiculous questions based on her false assumptions. I did not even complete the intake questionnaire.)
I did not write about this incident in my above blog posting because I could not be sure if it was part of a standard procedure to be asked such a question during the police book-in. Having been able to speak to a couple of lawyers in the past week, I am certain that it was not. As such, this incident serves to confirm that I had been carefully monitored by the federal government during my entire time in Ottawa.
Second update 20070718
I had been bullied about a medical condition of mine for a long long time. I was diagnosed with Koro while at SFU and Lawrence Weldon was the only person, aside from my doctors, who knew about it. (I told him only the name of my condition in a couple of sentences in his office, and only in his capacity as my Senior Supervisor before I realized he had something to do with the reference letter that started everything. He would later bully me about it, too. For example, when he could not or would not answer a clear and specific question from me, namely, why I was not encouraged to apply for a position at the Statistical Consulting Service at SFU, during one of our conversations in or around 1997, he would say “I am not a psychoanalyst …” to obstruct.) But as the title of my first report, A Jobless Immigrant without Privacy, suggested, my entire personal medical file was breached.
Although I did not make them clear in my report, Lisa Caruso, Ya-Li Wei and Edward Ng all bullied me about it.
Agent Lisa Caruso
Lisa Caruso claimed in our conversation that she studied Psychiatric Nursing, among many other diverse academic subjects. I do not know whether she really studied PN, but I knew she intended to send me a message about my medical condition. Read the part on my dealings with her in Chapter 6 of my first report.
Gay agent Ya-Li Wei
Also from Chapter 6 of my first report:
Out of nowhere, [Ya-Li Wei] suggested: “No offense, but I think you should see a psychiatrist”, without saying where he got the idea, or, what he thought my problem was. Knowing he was bullying me, I simply replied: “Maybe I should. But I can’t do that without any privacy protection.” He paused for a second and nodded: “I think you got a point.” – This part of conversation was mostly in English.
Note that in Mr. Wei’s case, I did not even mention to him anything related to my mental health. From our conversation, it was obvious that he knew my medical condition.
Lawyer Edward Ng
Again from Chapter 6 of my first report:
[Lawyer Edward Ng] told me that I was going to embarrass myself if I went to the court [with my civil case]. – This was plain bullying.
As it turned out, to embarrass and humiliate me by trying to make my medical condition public was the real objective behind federal government’s meddling of my current court process and they have already partially succeeded in doing so. This is what I called malicious prosecution in my previous blog and one of key reasons I decided to write about it.
Former Prime Minister Brain Mulronry
After I started my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang, I experienced a lot of bullying of a sexual nature by Canadian political and intellectual elites. I documented some of them elsewhere in my blogs. (If I have time, I will put up more.) As for bullying me specifically along the line of my medical condition, I will use former PM Brain Mulroney as an example.
The following was from a report by the Globe and Mail on May 14, 2005 (via Andrew Coyne):
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has denied the claim by controversial Montreal caterer Giuseppe (Joseph) Morselli that they know each other.
Mr. Morselli, portrayed at the Gomery inquiry as an influential Liberal fundraiser, once bragged in an interview with The Globe and Mail that he was a good friend of Mr. Mulroney.
However, through his spokesman Luc Lavoie, Mr. Mulroney rejected that assertion, saying of Mr. Morselli that he "wouldn't know him from Adam or Eve."
Why did the Prime Minister bully me? Because he wanted to save the then Paul Martin government from falling at the wake of explosive testimony at the Gomery Inquiry. If my struggle and cause became news, the Martin government would certainly fall. Note that he, through his people such as Pat MacAdam and Earl McRae, had wanted to help me earlier in my journey. His change of mind, I believe, was due to the influence of the Bush administration, as I mentioned before.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Come back to the “bomb scare” ploy at prime minister “Steve” Harper’s residence right after I left Russian Embassy on the day I arrived at Ottawa. It was reported that the next day, Ms. Rice, in a brief comment on US-Russia relationship aboard a plane, repeatedly used the word big. (For brevity, I hyperlinked other nuts in her comment.)
"It is a big, complicated relationship, but it is not one that is anything like the implacable hostility" that clouded ties between the United States and the Soviet Union.
"It is not an easy time in the relationship, but it is also not, I think, a time in which cataclysmic things are affecting the relationship or catastrophic things are happening in the relationship," Rice said.
…...
"This is a big and complex place that is going through a major historic transformation... things are not going to change overnight, but frankly we would like to see them change faster than they are changing, and for the better," Rice said.
When I read the report, I could not believe it. What was she thinking when she uttered that word repeatedly?
Third update 20070718
As shown above, the federal government knew all along the details of my medical file. As such, they knew I was not delusional and my medical condition had nothing to do with the minor charges associated with my protests of the Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up. The reasons that they, by influencing almost all the parties involved in my case, i.e., at least one of the judges, the Crown Counsel, my second Bail Supervisor, and the court-appointed psychiatric nurse, made my mental health an issue were (1) to discredit my protests; (2) to embarrass and humiliate me for doing the right thing and thus try to force me give up my cause. Their ultimate goal was still to ensure the continued cover-up of this hideous crime against an innocent child.
My second Bail Supervisor
Judi Webber came to the Burnaby Community Correction - the office I had been reporting as part of my bail conditions - at the end of March 2006 and took over my file from my previous Bail Supervisor. I did not suspect that she was an undercover agent for CSIS/RCMP until after she brought a police officer to my residence on July 21, 2006, the day of Dr. Jiang Guobing’s strange death in Toronto. (I later asked her about the rationale behind the visit as I had not had any non-compliance of my conditions. She could not give me a straight answer. )
Afterwards, probably because she felt that her cover had been blown, she became brazen in bullying me. She would ask me smugly, in lieu of greeting, during my reporting: “How is your doctor?” At first, I thought I heard her wrong and asked her repeat herself. She would then correct herself by saying that she was asking about my back pain. That’s was a unusual way to ask about my back pain, I thought initially. However, the same exact exchange would take place a few more times in her office. Indeed, the only time when she asked me straight “How is your back?” was on her last day in this office. My third Bail Supervisor was also present, doing the training and/or file transfer.
By asking me “How is your doctor” repeatedly, she was clearly sending me a message that she and her employer knew my “secret” at my doctor’s.
Judge Angelomatis
He was the judge who threatened me with 18 months jail sentence on December 11, 2006, before my trial had even started. Every lawyer I asked, said that was very unusual.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, I had pleaded for an adjournment on medical ground (because of my back pain) on that day. At first, he said that I needed a doctor’s note. When I responded that I had one, he expressed doubt on the veracity or usefulness of the note. Looking back, I think he was just trying to find an excuse to contact (or threaten to contact) my doctor. Later, when I presented the note to him, he would read aloud the note into the record, and in particular, spell out my doctor’s name. Indeed, he spelled out my doctor’s name again during a later court proceeding on January 11, 2007. Why did he need to do that repeatedly?
The Psychiatric Nurse
I had a meeting with David Bernier, a Psychiatric Nurse at Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission (FPSC) on April 18, 2007 as directed by my Bail Supervisor. It was after the meeting that I strongly suspected that Mr. Bernier had been influenced by the federal government.
The Crown Counsel
As I noted in this blog, it was after the Crown Counsel saw that I was doing rather well in my exchange with the Judge Angelomatis that she brought out the subject of my mental health based on letter(s) written to them by Judi Webber.
And Why did Ms. Webber think that not only I had a mental health problem, but it was “declining”? The reasons she gave in her letters, if I could sum it up, were: (1) I was given a choice of either attend the FPSC or report daily to her and I had chose to report daily; (2) I continued to post articles and remarks about the Cecilia Zhang case on the Internet; (3) I thought she was part of the conspiracy; (4) I posted comments referring to a gun on July 19, 2006.
Of course, as part of the conspiracy, she knew that my cause of protest was valid. And as a very shrewd player of Canadian politics, RCMP knew what my July 19, 2006 blog meant.
As to why Forensic was on my bail conditions in the first place, all the Crown Counsel did was to argue in my very first appearance in court that my Internet postings were "not really suggestive of a mind that is operating sort of on a logical [ground]." Of course, they knew that their argument was nonsense. That’s why they later excluded, or attempted to exclude my website materials from the disclosure documents.
Overall, it is truly a malicious prosecution I am facing.
Update 20070726
I knew the legal process I had so far has not been fair. But frankly, after I decided in Ottawa to turn myself in, I just wanted to get this matter over with. Also, by disclosing above the real, malicious motive behind the prosecution orchestrated by the federal government from behind the scenes, overcoming all sorts of negative feeling I had on disclosing my medical condition, I hoped that I would not be bullied anymore in the court system.
However, my latest experience in court just made me even more upset. After my FTA (fail to appear) charge, the Crown indicated that they would proceed the new information by indictment. Accordingly, I had planned to make a new election of a judge-and-jury trial because it would be more difficult for the government to manipulate such a trial.
On my appearance on July 4, the Crown Counsel, Ms. Lindsay Wold, still maintained that they would proceed by indictment. I did not have a chance to make the election on that day because the Judicial Case Manager adjourned the proceeding so that I could obtain a counsel. (I tried to explain to the JCM why I could not obtain a counsel. But he stopped me as soon as I said the word conspiracy. I also raised the issue of disclosure as well.)
On my following appearance on July 18, I indicated that I would like to have a judge and jury trial. However, the Crown Counsel, Ms. T. Maley, said that she was not sure how they would proceed. The JCM adjourned the proceeding and asked me to come back in 15 minutes so that Ms. Maley could find out how they would proceed. When I came back, the Crown Counsel was still not sure, saying “by indictment” one minute and “summarily” another. When I tried to recount what other Crown Counsels had said on this subject, she yelled at me to go to the Crown Counsel office and talk to somebody there. And she added: “Do you know where the Crown Counsel office is?” The JCM adjourned the proceeding for another week.
During my appearance yesterday, the Crown Counsel, represented by Ms. T. Maley again, was firm that they would proceed summarily. As such, I had no choice but to accept a trial by judge. I was surprised by the change and hesitated to sign the Trial Notice slips. Ms. Maley practically bullied me into signing them: “Things change. Do you understand that, Mr. Yu? Do you understand that?”
Looking back, I think the only reason that the Crown changed the way they would proceed was to deny me a judge-and-jury trial, similar in purpose to their swearing a new information in March 2006.
Update 20070730
Come back to my Ottawa trip again. As usual, our national media followed me every step of the way along my struggle, but they would not report the cause I was fighting for. On the contrary, their tradition has been to work against me ever since I started my journey to seek justice for Cecilia three years ago. (As I said before, some of our journalists are neither pro-Liberal, nor pro-Conservative. They are simply pro-bigotry.)
National Post, in particular, willingly served as a propaganda tool for the federal government. On June 7, one day before the staged bomb scare incident at or near the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, the Post fronted a lengthy report RETURN OF THE SPYING GAME, with the byline: “Russian, Chinese espionage targets U.S. secrets”. Causal readers scanning the headline might get the impression that Russian and Chinese spies were working together in Canada to obtain U.S. secrets. Of course, if you actually read through the article, you won’t find anything in the report to substantiate that impression. This is what I call a case of Headline Sting. Such scams took place more and more often recently, especially in the U.S. media, where China was often implicated in America’s “war on terror” in the headlines, mostly suggesting some kind of linkage to Iran. Only when you actually read through the newspaper articles, you will find that those implicit linkages reflected in the headlines are not backed up by a single shred of fact.
Do newspaper editors know the impression such headlines would give to their readers? Of course they do. In fact, I would suggest that the wording of the headlines were deliberately chosen to invoke just such an impression of linkage in the readers. But why would they do that, you might ask. Simple. Because the Bush administration wanted to link China with terrorism. Just read my analysis of the infamous Boston dirty bomb scare on or around President George W. Bush’s second inauguration and other incidents here.
Now, imagine what a cold war propaganda “scope” it would have been if the Russian embassy in Ottawa had decided to shelter me in June. Canadian public, having just gotten the impression that Chinese and Russian spies were working together in Canada against U.S. interest, found out that a Chinese suspect responsible for repeated bomb scares at the Prime Minister’s residence and the U.S. embassy, sought protection at the Russian embassy. Not only would this have been a bigger story than the cover-up of Cecilia Zhang murder, it would also have been an easier sell to the public due to the Headline Sting days earlier by National Post. I could almost visualize the sensational headline all across the country: RUSSINA EMBASSY HABOURS CHINESE TERRORIST.
Of course, all these would have been manufactured propaganda, orchestrated by our law enforcement and national security apparatus with a die-hard cold war mentality. No wonder the headline of the National Post article, RETURN OF THE SPYING GAME, emitted such a cold-war nostalgia.
I should point out that the story about alleged Chinese spies operating in Canada gained prominence in the media at the end of 2004, two months into my fasting and protesting in Ottawa. I read the National Post front page report by Robert Fife on December 29, 2004 while staying at the Mission shelter in Ottawa at the time. I believe the publication of that report was a pre-emptive measure in advance to the then Prime Minister Paul Martin’s visit to China about 10 days later, as implied in the report. The federal government, especially those responsible for Cecilia Zhang’s abduction and murder, was worried that my cause might become public. (The Mulroneyites had not turned against me at the time.) That report served to create the false impression in Canadian public that China was not a friendly country. To further bully me and put pressure on me, all three national newspapers conspired to publish the exactly same photo on their respective front pages on January 6, 2005, one day I posted my article Summary of connections to Cecilia Zhang case. Margaret Wente also wrote about “a deadbeat brother-in-law” in her notorious Globe column on that day. The message to me was clear: Their camera had been inside my residence.
And who put the camera inside my residence? At the time when I wrote my second report during last general election, I did not know that RCMP/CSIS was the culprit of Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder. I was only highly suspicious of RCMP/CSIS involvement in harassing me and in the sabotage of my career, as I wrote in Chapter 3 of the report, because those incidents were so unusual. Looking back, I can see that RCMP/CSIS has been devoting their resources in this kind of shenanigans long before Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder.
The irony is, in shedding light on the ludicrousness of the Bush administration’s attempt to associate Chinese people with terrorism, I brought along some useful advice that they appeared to have heeded (for a while, at least). Even the head of CSIS cracked some nuts publicly on or around January 17, 2007, as reported by Ottawa Citizen.
Canada's spy master, of all people, is warning that excessive government secrecy and draconian counterterrorism measures will only play into the hands of terrorists.
"The response to the terrorist threat, whether now or in the future, should follow the long-standing principle of 'in all things moderation,' " Jim Judd, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said in a recent Toronto speech.
……
"Over-reaction to terrorism, it should be remembered, is a fundamental objective of most terrorists in history. We should not accommodate their goals in this regard."
So, the next time when you read newspaper report saying 1,000 Chinese spies operate in Canada or half of Canada's counterintelligence efforts are devoted to China, just throw the newspaper into garbage.
Update 20070815
The Canadian and U.S. governments’ primary purposes in staging those “bomb scares” incidents in Ottawa were (1) to minimize the impact of the news of Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up and (2) to demonize me as I am seen as a future leader of China.
However, these incidents also had a deep personal impact on me, which, I believe, was also part of governments' intention. Naturally, I had to ask myself: Since nobody had accused me of anything, should I write about them? If I wrote about them, would it bring me more legal trouble unnecessarily? Of course, when the governments embedded the sex card in those dirty ploys, it just made my decision that much harder. In a sense, I felt, these ploys were extreme tactics of bullying, a major theme of my entire experience in Canada.
And believe me, bullying does have an impact on a victim’s psychology. To me, it made me self-conscious, worried, nervous, aggravated my depression from time to time and generally had a range of negative effects on me. These impacts sometime were reflected in my blogs as well. Here I will present three cases to illustrate.
Case 1
I believe there is a misconception out there that I am for unification of Taiwan by force, despite my clear stand reflected in my writings in Spring 2006 to the contrary. The Bush administration was largely responsible for creating that misconception about me, in line with their repeated attempts to cast me as belligerent. However, a couple of my writings under the negative psychological impact of bullying, may have caused other people to buy into such a misconception, despite the flimsiness of the misinterpretations of my writings.
As I you all know, along my way to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang, I stumbled upon the conspiracy to instigate a conflict across Taiwan Straits on or around the time of last Canadian election. Earlier this year, I stumbled upon yet another conspiracy by the Bush administration and Blair government to instigate a war with Iran. It was around the time when I was writing my analysis of the crisis over the 15 captured British soldiers that I gradually sensed the crazy attack on my motive with respect to Taiwan.
As can be seen from my analysis of the crisis, I pretty much had enough information to bust this conspiracy in early April when Iranian President released those British soldiers. In fact, I knew that the next thing I should do was to inform the U.S. Democrat leaders, even before New York Times published a series of editorials giving me such a hint on April 6 (Guantánamo Follies), April 7 (The Real Fumble in Damascus) and April 8 (Hot and Cold). Indeed, the third Time editorial seemed to convey a sense of frustration that I had not acted fast enough: “ ... costs of doing nothing will be far greater than the costs of acting now.” (I should add that the following day, The Guardian newspaper picked up the Times message and cracked nuts in their editorial In praise of ... hot cross buns with this curious line: “this clearly is a bun with time on its side.”) Of course, my slowness in writing was due to the usual personal reasons I mentioned many times before.
What prompted me to think about Taiwan were two events, both connected to the Bush administration:
- On April 9, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack commented on the “right” UN Security Council sanction against Iran: "What we are looking for are reasonable Iranian leaders who view the cost-benefit calculation and see that …” The phrase “cost-benefit calculation” sounded awfully like a nut from the Times editorial the day before.
- On April 10, Washington Post columnist David S. Broder, who had previously sent me lots of messages on behalf of the White House, wrote a column titled Time For a Bargain on the War.
It took me a while to figure out what the White House was trying to convey. From the April 8 Times editorial, I knew the advice of the editorialist to me was: “Strike the iron while it’s hot, otherwise you will miss another opportunity to get on the news.” So the cost in the message meant my personal cost. But the State Department spokesman was apparently talking about cost and benefit of national importance. And he seemed to telegraph to everyone that my slowness in writing was due to my pondering some issues of national importance. (Wrong, of course.) Examining the title of Mr. Broder’s column the following day, I got the sense that the issue the spokesman was referring to was war. Since the only possible war I knew China would get involved in was for Taiwan, and I had already concluded that “the true aim of Bush administration's Iran policy had always been in favor of military strike”, Bush administration’s message to me appeared to be: “If you keep secret about the conspiracy involving the 15 British soldiers (or maybe wash it down a bit), we would like to be able to continue our plan to attack Iran and in which case, we will let you take Taiwan by force.”
At the time, I thought this message coming from the Bush administration - if that was their message - was crazy, as I had not realized that one of the sentences in my earlier Chinese blog Inside Story Behind China’s ASAT Test could be misinterpreted. I had always advocated peaceful development across Taiwan Straits. Nothing good will ever come out of a war, and I would especially hate to see Chinese attacking Chinese. Bush administration’s “bargain on wars"? I didn’t know what kind of logic was that. Once you are an bandit, I guess, everyone in your eyes is an bandit.
Another reason for my ignoring Bush administration’s message was that, to me, there is no bargain on truth. What I had been doing with my blogs since I embarked on my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang was to report my experience in a straightforward manner, even if such reporting might occasionally have negative impact on me personally. This major event I had just experienced with respect to the 15 captured British soldiers deserved the same treatment, I thought. Besides, I really hoped that U.S. opposition leaders would be interested in this story and thus help make my cause public.
On April 17, I published the third installment (on Tony Blair) of my series Wildly Oscillating Interpretations. As everybody could see, there was enough information in that blog to draw the necessary and inevitable conclusion of a conspiracy to attack Iran by the U.S. and U.K. Not surprisingly, Mr. Bush reacted angrily to my telling the truth by issuing a threat against the Sudanese government in a speech the following day, as China was widely recognized to have some oil interest in Sudan. (I should add that Mr. Blair reacted by pursuing the subject of climate change and convincing Mr. Bush to join him, too. Complaining about China and other developing countries’ greenhouse emissions soon gained momentum in international media and on the world stage, cumulating in a “deal” at the G8 conference in Germany. A senior Malaysian government official called the approach by these western countries “green imperialism”.)
On April 23, I finally published my complete analysis of the crisis over the captured British soldiers. Initially, I noticed that the Bush administration was quite beaten by my solid analysis, as reflected in Mr. Bush’s weak interview on Charlie Rose and his out-of-character dance with a group of African musicians.
However, they soon hit me back. As usual, when they could not find problems in my facts and logic, they attacked my motive, this time on Taiwan. And the only fact they relied upon was a rhetorical question I asked twice in my analysis: “What did I know about such an incident thousands of miles away?” That’s why we saw on May 1, Mr. Bush said in a speech rejecting Congress’ bill in setting a deadline for withdraw from Iraq: “That means Americans' commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C. ” The underlying message was that I, as a “politician”, was directing a military operation thousands of miles away in Taiwan Straits.
Why did I asked the same question twice in my analysis? Here is the story. In my November 24, 2006 blog Nuclear issue redux, I asked a couple of rhetorical questions such as “Who has heard of a Buddhist jihadist?” and “After all, who are we to contemplate what's in God's mind?” The same New York Times - believe it or not -attacked me three days later with the editorial When Don't Smoke Means Do. The smart editorialist gave a complete opposite interpretation to what I intended to mean with those rhetorical questions, i.e., the normal interpretation of a rhetorical question. And I think the bullying attack did left a mark in my sub-consciousness. That’s probably why, when I found that I had written the same rhetorical question twice in my analysis of the crisis, instead of considering deleting one of them, I simply provided the answer so that there would not be any confusion or deliberate attack this time around. Who could have thought that the Bush administration seized this slight untidiness in my writing as evidence that I was directing a military operation thousands of miles away? (Another rhetorical question! Sorry about that.)
After I realized the basis of Bush administration’s misinterpretation, I examined my previous writings and found that a sentence in my Chinese blog Inside Story of China’s ASAT Test published on March 2, was probably misinterpreted:
“先看看伊拉克，再看看下文中布什政府对我和胡锦涛的不同对待，其真正目的就一清二楚了。”
What I meant was, of course, that the Bush administration’s real goal in invading Iraq was about oil, rather than to build a democracy. (A view I still maintain.) The Bush administration probably had interpreted it falsely that, because of their trouble in Iraq, I was calling China to take the opportunity to take Taiwan by force. Of course, I did not think along this line at all.
Why didn’t I mention the word oil in my original sentence? Again, I was too self-conscious, even a little scared of mentioning it.
Frankly, when I wrote my Chinese article for the coming Canadian election in September 2005, Media Bias in Covering Pacific Gateway, oil probably was something in my mind. Objectively, I should have realized that there was nothing wrong for me to praise Mr. Harper’s idea of “exploiting the growing demand of China, India and others for our natural resource sectors” and advocate increased trade in those sectors - including oil - between Canada and other Asian countries. But I had been constantly attacked by Canadian pundits for my Chinese background even before I realized that Chinese government might have a job for me in late Summer 2005, and later, realized that I was a candidate for the next generation of Chinese leadership. These bullying attacks made me exceedingly worried that I would be accused of doing Chinese government’s bidding. Of course, when the Bush administration over-reacted after Mr. Harper’s winning the election by mounting a huge media campaign on the importance of Canadian oil to American interests, that had a psychological impact on me as well.
As I stated many times before, my motivation has always been to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang and to a lesser extend, to seek justice for myself as well. Indeed, not only was doing Chinese government’s bidding not my objective, as I followed Chinese politics more and more, I became more and more disillusioned with CPC’s internal politicking, especially their hypocrisy. For example, on the surface and to the Chinese people, Mr. Hu Jintao, the current party chief, is still paying lip service to his predecessor’s theoretical contribution to the party, i.e., Mr. Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents”. However, his writer would deliberately misinterpret Jiang’s thought as calling for closer ties between the emerging capitalists and CPC in an online article published as recently as on July 18. Even Mr. Wang Lixiong, a famous Chinese dissident thinker, could see “Three Represents” was an attempt - however clumsy it might be, according to Mr. Wang - to set a few principles for the coming political reform in China. Indeed, as I became more and more confused by Mr. Hu’s stand, sometimes I wondered whether he had a stand at all. In short, I am hardly a CPC guy.
Case 2
As I mentioned in the fourth installment (on “Steve” Harper) of my Wildly Oscillating Interpretation series, I had problem coming up with examples of Harper’s nuts-cracking because, for a long time, I thought he was on my side, therefore, I did not take notes on his nuts-cracking. Even with this problem, I decided to pull off an example involving Mr. Harper. The following is from my draft of that blog:
Pulled-off
After I threw my protest flyers into the Commons floor while Paul Martin was speaking during the Question Period on Tuesday, December 14, 2004, the last day of Parliament for fall 2004, after weeks of fasting and protesting, Mr. Harper acknowledged me in a light-hearted way, as reflected in his comments recorded by the Hansard: “Mr. Speaker, I think I heard at least one person who did not believe [what the Prime Minister Paul Martin said].”
Why did I pull it off from my published version? Because just a couple of weeks before I composed that blog, I had a meeting on April 18 as per my bail condition with David Bernier, a psychiatric nurse at the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission. Mr. Bernier, I believe, had been influenced by the federal government, as I mentioned in a update above. He bullied me, among other things, about that incident on Parliament Hill and implied that the federal government could charge me if they wanted to. (The Commons security people who detained me briefly after I threw the fliers, released me with only a verbal warning of not entering any of the Parliament buildings again. I had long thought the incident was over.)
Case 3
You all know I have been burned by the hours of publication of my recent three blogs. As a result, I became very self-conscious of time. I believe the following incident was known to the governments, but probably not to other people, as the government knows everything about me. (By selectively disclosing information to the media, the governments are able to better manipulate them.)
My blog About My Last Three Blogs, published on July 13, was actually finished on July 11. Because of the number 11 in the date, I was quite scared of publishing it on that day. However, I could not stay outside past midnight to publish it as the homeless shelter I was staying had an evening curfew at 11:00PM. So I wondered if there were ways I could send my email (my preferred way of publishing my blogs as it keeps an original copy in my email box) on a specified future date and time. That evening, I did some search on the Internet to try to find out. I learned from a web page that Outlook could do it.
I thought I had Outlook on my computer. (Later, I realized I only had Outlook Express, which was not adequate for the task.) However, being a computer idiot as I was, I did not know how to download my emails from either Gmail or SFU’s Webmail to Outlook. I was at SFU downtown campus at the time. So I asked someone at the computer helpdesk to help me. He did help me download my SFU emails to my Outlook Express. He also made me realize that I needed the full version of Outlook to make “sending email at a specified time” work, according to the instruction of that web page.
If I had had the required software, I would have started publishing my latest blogs at some fixed hour, thus eliminating any chance of misinterpretation of the hours of my publication. For now, I will just have to use the update method to post my writings.
By the way, in the evening of July 29, I “announced” that I would post two updates the next morning around 8:00AM. I did so not to send out some hidden messages but to give myself some real pressure to finish those two updates, because I had found that a mere mental deadline just wouldn’t work for me. Indeed, I forced myself sleep only a couple of hours that evening, a fact you could verify with the shelter staff. Even with that effort, I still could not finish my writings on time. (I think I posted them around noon.) That’s just how slow and difficult it is for me to write.
