harper's cynical use of "terrorism"

First of all, if you haven't seen it already, I think Sabina Becker's take on the recent murders of Canadian soldiers by mentally disturbed individuals is bang-on:

Like this week. These past few days saw us “attacked” by two “terrorists” who, it turns out, were something else altogether. One was a paranoid schizophrenic; the other, a drug addict. But since both were Muslims, and chose to attack and kill soldiers of the Canadian army, with a confused mess of ISIL propaganda and madness roaring through their heads, they just automatically got labelled as terrorists. As if they had flown fully loaded passenger jets into the Peace Tower and the banking district of downtown Toronto on a suicide mission co-ordinated from a cave somewhere near the Pak-Afghan border.
The truth is stranger, and sadder, and nowhere near as dramatic as that.
In fact, the “terrorists” were not foreigners, as was initially reported/speculated. They were both native-born French-Canadians. And they both had mental problems that could easily have been treated. This tragedy was totally avoidable, and neither a war nor even changes to our nation’s security systems was necessary to avert it.

Indeed. I didn't comment about the attacks at the time because I was pretty sure we wouldn't really know much of anything until at least a day or so later.

Not meaning to be provocative here though. I thought at first that this was "blowback" for harper's gleeful participation in various US-imperialist attacks on Muslim countries. Now, I think (as Becker puts it) that these murders were the consequences of mental health problems that could have been treated.

But if a right-winger were to say that these deranged individuals were motivated ("radicalized") by the poisonous culture of "Islamicism," how much different is that from us saying that while Marc Lepine was not just a lone psychotic but someone who imbued the toxic misogyny of our culture?

Leaving that aside, ... isn't it really tragic that the truth Becker exposed, that these individuals would not have murdered those soldiers if they'd had access to treatment for their mental health problems, none of this would have happened? And our mental health services are in serious disarray. So stuff like this is going to happen again and again.

And I think that suits stephen harper just fine. Because, while harper might be too stupid to be conscious of the fact that the "War on Terror" is complete bullshit, he is very much aware of the uses of this war. Fracking, global warming, de-industrialization, mining disasters, rising inequality, banking crises and austerity, ... all of these things are going to cause social unrest. How convenient then, if there are untreated schizophrenics out there shooting cops and soldiers? The better to justify the surveillance/torture state.

Well, that's enough speculation for one night.