COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER
Please, my Russian friends, do not think most Canadians
believe this American-generated garbage about threats from Russia. Many of us
know Russia’s government today is one of the sanest on the planet.
But we are a small country (one-tenth America's population
and less than one-tenth its wealth) living next to an immensely powerful bully,
and our economy is terribly dependent upon the bully.
Even a liberal-minded and decent man like Trudeau cannot
resist the pressures which are quietly applied in private.
After all, this Canadian government of decent people has
already felt the pressure to carry out a large armaments order ($15 billion)
for Saudi Arabia that had been arranged by the darkest, most unpleasant
government in our history, Stephen Harper's.
Men like Trudeau and Dion know full well the Saudis are
committing atrocities in Yemen and suppress their own population. It would
never be their choice to complete such a sale.
But when the manufacturer involved is an American
subsidiary, you can just imagine what would happen if the government acted on
its own beliefs and morals.
This is an excellent example of the kind of world in which
we live. America's vast foreign investments and financial weight give it a very
big stick with which to threaten governments in private.
There was a time when Canadian governments would have
resisted. Remember, Lester Pearson refused Lyndon Johnson's demands that Canada
send troops to Vietnam, and it is reliably reported that Johnson literally
grabbed Pearson by the lapels of his jacket and pushed against the wall, using
foul language.
Remember, too, Jean Chretien refused the US's demand that
Canada send troops to the illegal Iraqi invasion. The UN had not supported the
invasion, and Chretien said Canada could only work under UN approval.
But today the bully is unusually active and aggressive, and
on many fronts. This is the work of the neo-cons for the past decade and a
half. It also reflects the American establishment's fears of its influence
declining in the multi-polar world which is emerging. So they are acting
ferociously and dangerously, now even having organizations like the UN securely
under their thumb. The Secretary General today is a hopeless American choice who
speaks out on nothing.
And look at the Dutch, traditionally a very honorable and
intelligent people. Yet under America’s furnace breath today, they carry on
with a phony, never-ending investigation of MH-17, a plane certainly destroyed
by Ukraine’s reckless new government, something which could have been
ascertained in weeks.
Sending troops to Latvia near Russia’s border is not the way
Canada historically behaves, but in these days, there appears to be little
choice.
