The Mainstream Media is Starting to Get It, But....

Looks like the mainstream media is trying to catch up to us now when discussing the threat posed by the Aryan Guard to Calgarians:

Neo-Nazis not so harmless
Calgary blast ignites concerns
By MICHAEL PLATT
The Calgary Sun

Scorched bricks and a parking lot full of pennies and bent nails.

If anything should serve as a wake-up call to the cancer in Calgary's midst, it's this: The remnants of two homemade pipe bombs that exploded harmlessly in a northeast parking lot.

Harmless -- that is, if you didn't own one of the cars peppered with shrapnel when the pipe bombs detonated just after dawn on Saturday, the blasts echoing through the sleepy townhouse complex on Rundlehorn Drive.

Those living in the Pineridge Greene Apartments were jolted awake, and so too should Calgary: The bombs, say police, were planted by members of a local neo-Nazi group, called the Aryan Guard.

Aryan Guard founder Kyle "Pitbull" McKee and a 17-year-old rookie member of the white-power group are facing charges of attempted murder.

And so, a group that once seemed more silly than sinister is now linked to sophisticated weapons, which could have easily killed, if a male resident of the target townhouse hadn't hurled the bombs into the parking lot.

If there is a bright side to this queasy turn of events, it's that the attack wasn't racially motivated -- it was either an internal Aryan Guard squabble or a romance turned sour, depending on who you ask.

The 29-year-old woman living in the townhouse says she has nothing to do with the neo-Nazis, and was targeted because she spurned the advances of a senior Aryan Guard member, who is "best friends" with the accused.

"He's stalking me," said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous.

But police investigators issued a statement stating both the bombers and the victims are white supremacists: "The victims in this case know the offenders and share similar beliefs and values."

Either way, Calgary is lucky.

In Europe, neo-Nazis have killed people with similar devices, trying to further their demented cause.

No one was hurt in this attack, but if the police allegations against McKee and his junior sidekick are proven in court, it shows just how far radical members of Calgary's white-power brigade are willing to go.

Sources say police found enough evidence in the suspects' homes to convince them the bombs were not a one-off experiment either. And so, the question must be asked, who were they arming themselves against?

If you're a visible minority, or of a non-Christian religion, or just a Calgarian who believes in a world where all people are equal, the answer is chilling.

To read McKee's online chat with other neo-Nazis -- most recently where he makes jokes about the anti-Semitic graffiti spree in Calgary -- is to glimpse a twisted mind.

This is the same McKee interviewed by this writer back in 2005, when backlash over his display of a Nazi flag from a Kitchener, Ont., apartment balcony prompted him to say he was moving to Calgary.

That, in turn, prompted Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier to tell him to stay home.

"We don't welcome anti-Semitism and we don't welcome any group that intends to promote hatred against anyone," said Bronconnier. "Stay home."

Unfortunately, McKee didn't stay in Ontario, and while he failed to find the thriving Utopia of intolerance and racism he'd envisioned, he found a handful of equally narrow-minded souls.
They established the Aryan Guard.

Until this weekend's bombing, the Guard was more embarrassing to Calgary than truly scary, with an annual "white pride" march through downtown their main claim to fame.

But if the police charges are right, it's clear something more sinister has been taking place behind the scenes, hidden from public view.

Make no mistake, this isn't something clever or crafty -- any fool can go online and find detailed instructions on how build an effective pipe bomb.

But it takes a special kind of sick to actually construct such a device, and a murderous heart to leave it on the doorstep of a home, fuse burning.

McKee and his partner may end up in jail, if they're found guilty of attempted murder. But there are others who will take their place, if hate and racism are tolerated in Calgary.

The bombs were harmless this time -- but Calgary has had its warning shot.

We're happy that Mr. Platt (thank you for using ARC as a source for your article, by the way) and figures in the mainstream media are now going to take the Aryan Gauard, and we hope the splinter group W.E.B., seriously now and are encouraging the authorities to view the threat as seriously. However, we have to take issue with part of this article:

Until this weekend's bombing, the Guard was more embarrassing to Calgary than truly scary, with an annual "white pride" march through downtown their main claim to fame.

But if the police charges are right, it's clear something more sinister has been taking place behind the scenes, hidden from public view.

"Until this weekend's bombing"? So until this happened, the Aryan Guard were merely a quirky sub-culture on the streets of Calgary?

Tell that to the Japanese woman assaulted by a member of the Aryan Guard in August 2008.

Tell that to Bonnie and Jason Devine and their children who have been subjected to three attacks on their home and family: first a firebomb, next graffiti, and most recently a brick through a window and more graffiti.

Tell that to the other people who have been assaulted but who didn't file a report for fear of reprisal. And Tell that to the anti-racists who were assaulted during this past spring's "White Pride" march. Aryan Guard and W.E.B. members were photographed assaulting anti-racists. The police did nothing.

Tell that to the people who frequent the Jewish centre that was vandalized.

Tell that to the people of colour who were physically intimidated by members of the Aryan Guard on the C-Train.

Tell that to the people complaining about members of the Aryan Guard flagrantly violating the terms of their release (Bill Noble, for example) an the police doing nothing about it, thus emboldening Aryan Guard members who then escalate their criminal activities. Like, oh we don't know, creating bombs.

We've been TELLING people these truths for years. Now they finally appear to be listening.

Better late than never.

Now, once McKee and the "unnamed" minor are captured, will that be the end? Will the media and the police ignore the remainder of the Aryan Guard and W.E.B. members as they gear up for reprisal attacks?

We ask Calgarians, and all Canadians, to hold the police and the media to the fire. Don't let them become complacent again.

UPDATE 1: One captured. McKee is still being sought.

Neo-Nazi bombing suspect nabbed
By DOUG McINTYRE, Sun Media
Last Updated: 24th November 2009, 10:05am

One of two suspects wanted in connection with the detonation of homemade bombs at a northeast apartment complex has been arrested.

Mounties in Portage la Prairie, Man., have arrested a 17-year-old youth, on warrants for attempted murder, possessing, making or controlling explosives, and possession of a weapon or imitation for a dangerous purpose, say Calgary police.

The teen, who can't be named under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was nabbed while getting off a bus in the Manitoba town last night at 6:15 p.m.

Saturday's detonation of two homemade bombs is thought to be linked to infighting between associates of a neo-Nazi group active in Calgary.

The founder of hate group Aryan Guard, 24-year-old Kyle Robert McKee, is the second suspect in the bombing and remains at large with warrants on the same charges.

He is described as 5-ft.-9, 140 lbs., with a slim build, blue eyes and shaved head.