POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"The evidence is overwhelming: Hugo Chavez is propping up the region’s most unsavoury characters"
This is a truly dishonest piece by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, “a senior fellow at the Independent Institute,” but astute readers know that most American think tanks are nothing but well-financed propaganda mills, many of them depending on American multinational corporations for their funding, and some, on the CIA through covert channels.
The statement rather describes perfectly decades and decades of American policy in South America.
Who helped set up the coup in democratic Chile which killed an elected president and ultimately 15,000 other people?
Who tolerated, without so much as a wrinkling of the brow, the military dictatorship of Argentina which regularly made people "disappear" by kidnapping them and dropping them from planes over the ocean? Thousands and thousands of them.
How about “the disappeared” of Guatamala, international organizations putting the toll there at 45, 000 souls, none of them explained, or even identified to their families, to this day?
How about the American Army’s School of the Americas, now renamed owing to its ghastly reputation for teaching the military and police of such states how to control and torture people?
How about more than seventy years of crooked, murderous government in Mexico under the PRI which rigged every election?
All these events and more were known to American officials. Not only were no steps taken to alleviate the situations, the United States enjoyed the “stability” provided by such activities.
God, such vapid propaganda is tiresome to read.
I would think it must be tiresome to produce also, but those “senior fellowships” with leather chairs, expense accounts, and handsome salaries do ease the pain.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
THE WIKILEAKS AFFAIR AND THE SHORTCOMINGS OF CONVENTIONAL JOURNALISM
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Margaret Wente herself is a perfect example of the shortcomings of conventional journalism.
She does stories such as the fairly recent one about free-injection sites in Vancouver with almost no genuine research and only with the clear purpose of propagandizing against an important experiment.
She does utter nonsense propaganda like her long piece on the Iraq invasion, packed with misinformation and lack of genuine investigation – see: http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-iraq-wars-trashiest-piece-of-propaganda/ .
She shills, again and again, for the return of Conrad Black, a convicted felon.
She defends the indefensible as in Israel’s inexcusable bloody attacks on innocents.
What is the common thread in Ms. Wente’s work when she strays beyond safe and fluffy subjects like the horrors of a backyard barbeque not working?
Defense of the establishment, promotion of a biased right-wing point of view – a defense not done with facts and investigation, which I could respect, but with playful words and personal fantasies.
No wonder people turn to the Internet and unconventional sources. The Ms. Wentes of this world are intellectually and ethically spent.
Wikileaks and the leaker, if ever known, should receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
The truth is that war is the greatest act any government ever undertakes, and yet it remains the act in which the people of every democracy are kept in virtual ignorance.
The press always quietly conspires with the government in suppressing, minimizing, and selecting.
Voters and taxpayers need to understand what is they are voting for and paying for.
The farther we go from this principle, the closer we get to a meaningless democracy with the Pentagon effectively running our affairs.
And that's pretty much the case today in the United States, Obama's election having made not a whit of difference to what the brainless Bush was doing.
Margaret Wente herself is a perfect example of the shortcomings of conventional journalism.
She does stories such as the fairly recent one about free-injection sites in Vancouver with almost no genuine research and only with the clear purpose of propagandizing against an important experiment.
She does utter nonsense propaganda like her long piece on the Iraq invasion, packed with misinformation and lack of genuine investigation – see: http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-iraq-wars-trashiest-piece-of-propaganda/ .
She shills, again and again, for the return of Conrad Black, a convicted felon.
She defends the indefensible as in Israel’s inexcusable bloody attacks on innocents.
What is the common thread in Ms. Wente’s work when she strays beyond safe and fluffy subjects like the horrors of a backyard barbeque not working?
Defense of the establishment, promotion of a biased right-wing point of view – a defense not done with facts and investigation, which I could respect, but with playful words and personal fantasies.
No wonder people turn to the Internet and unconventional sources. The Ms. Wentes of this world are intellectually and ethically spent.
Wikileaks and the leaker, if ever known, should receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
The truth is that war is the greatest act any government ever undertakes, and yet it remains the act in which the people of every democracy are kept in virtual ignorance.
The press always quietly conspires with the government in suppressing, minimizing, and selecting.
Voters and taxpayers need to understand what is they are voting for and paying for.
The farther we go from this principle, the closer we get to a meaningless democracy with the Pentagon effectively running our affairs.
And that's pretty much the case today in the United States, Obama's election having made not a whit of difference to what the brainless Bush was doing.
U.S. NAVAL FORCES IN EXERCISES OFF EASTERN CHINA
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY FRANK CHING IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Someone who thought a little more deeply than Frank Ching would know that the United States has absolutely no business in these waters and that over time its presence can only be dangerous.
Much like its continued presence in Korea, this is nothing more than an expression of global imperialism and, in a very real sense, an insult to the peoples of this part of the world who are perfectly capable of settling their own international affairs.
The United States, time and time again, has pushed the limits there in Cold War fashion.
Recall the American spy plane under the great idiot Bush that was brought down in China.
The previous new government of Japan was elected wanting to remove America's ugly presence in Okinawa - ugly because it includes nuclear weapons aboard ship - but American pressure brought the new leader down.
And readers should know that there is no definitive proof that that South Korean ship was sunk by the North Koreans. It may have been nothing but an accident aboard the ship, afterwards used to stoke up feelings a la "Remember the Maine!"
Indeed, many of North Korea's extreme behaviors are responses to American provocations never admitted.
Someone who thought a little more deeply than Frank Ching would know that the United States has absolutely no business in these waters and that over time its presence can only be dangerous.
Much like its continued presence in Korea, this is nothing more than an expression of global imperialism and, in a very real sense, an insult to the peoples of this part of the world who are perfectly capable of settling their own international affairs.
The United States, time and time again, has pushed the limits there in Cold War fashion.
Recall the American spy plane under the great idiot Bush that was brought down in China.
The previous new government of Japan was elected wanting to remove America's ugly presence in Okinawa - ugly because it includes nuclear weapons aboard ship - but American pressure brought the new leader down.
And readers should know that there is no definitive proof that that South Korean ship was sunk by the North Koreans. It may have been nothing but an accident aboard the ship, afterwards used to stoke up feelings a la "Remember the Maine!"
Indeed, many of North Korea's extreme behaviors are responses to American provocations never admitted.
Monday, July 19, 2010
TOM FLANAGAN SAYS POWER-SHARING WOULD GO A WAY TO SOLVING CANADA'S POLITICAL IMPASSE - AVOIDING POLITICAL SCIENCE TO PROMOTE HIS RIGHT-WING AGENDA
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY TOM FLANAGAN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"We are stuck between a majoritarian political culture and the reality of minority government..."
Tom Flanagan shows a remarkable lack of imagination in political affairs.
There are many steps we can readily take to break up the political logjam in which we find ourselves, but they all require some courage and imagination to do things in new ways.
First, of course, we could have coalition government, a perfectly normal practice in parliaments all over the world. This would end, overnight, the embarrassing and destructive politics now at work in Ottawa.
Second, we could change the way we vote, getting rid of our primitive first-past-the-post system. A number of countries have also made this change, thereby extending the value of a vote and the meaning of democracy.
And there are still other measures possible, but none of these interests Tom Flanagan.
Why would that be you may ask? Especially considering he styles himself a political scientist?
The answer, of course, is that Mr. Flanagan functions first and foremost, not as a political scientist, but as a flak for right-wing causes.
Real political changes almost certainly would not favor the right-wing, and I must say rather anti-democratic, agenda Mr. Flanagan tirelessly serves.
Why do I say anti-democratic? Just look at his advice to Harper and his past newspaper pieces.
He supported Harper in proroguing parliament for the explicit purpose of not getting to the bottom of the abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan.
He ranted against coalition government, impugning intentions he knows perfectly well were democratic in nature.
And there are many such pieces to a puzzle whose picture is that of a tight-lipped, right-wing American who wants to import Gingrichism into our national institutions.
_____________________________________
"The West are using this "the West wants in" just to they can cry like little blubbery babies. It's tiresome and worn out."
Amen, Amen, Amen.
That is a truly dishonest slogan, and the repetition of it is an authentic example of whiney baby American politics.
Alberta represents just under 11% of Canada's population. By what jerry-rigging would it be possible for 11% of a population to substantially influence national affairs? The argument is simply anti-democratic.
But since Alberta was extensively settled by Americans looking for free land at the turn of the last century and since its big contemporary industry, hydrocarbons, is almost totally an American-dominated enterprise with experts, executives, and financial people constantly shipped up from places like Texas and Oklahoma, we see a constant re-inforcement of America’s attitudes and whiney-babyism.
And that ongoing, quiet process includes institutions endowed by oil money, which end up with spokesmen like Tom Flanagan or Preston Manning or our dear Prime Minister, former National Citizens’ Coalition flak, Stephen Harper.
"We are stuck between a majoritarian political culture and the reality of minority government..."
Tom Flanagan shows a remarkable lack of imagination in political affairs.
There are many steps we can readily take to break up the political logjam in which we find ourselves, but they all require some courage and imagination to do things in new ways.
First, of course, we could have coalition government, a perfectly normal practice in parliaments all over the world. This would end, overnight, the embarrassing and destructive politics now at work in Ottawa.
Second, we could change the way we vote, getting rid of our primitive first-past-the-post system. A number of countries have also made this change, thereby extending the value of a vote and the meaning of democracy.
And there are still other measures possible, but none of these interests Tom Flanagan.
Why would that be you may ask? Especially considering he styles himself a political scientist?
The answer, of course, is that Mr. Flanagan functions first and foremost, not as a political scientist, but as a flak for right-wing causes.
Real political changes almost certainly would not favor the right-wing, and I must say rather anti-democratic, agenda Mr. Flanagan tirelessly serves.
Why do I say anti-democratic? Just look at his advice to Harper and his past newspaper pieces.
He supported Harper in proroguing parliament for the explicit purpose of not getting to the bottom of the abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan.
He ranted against coalition government, impugning intentions he knows perfectly well were democratic in nature.
And there are many such pieces to a puzzle whose picture is that of a tight-lipped, right-wing American who wants to import Gingrichism into our national institutions.
_____________________________________
"The West are using this "the West wants in" just to they can cry like little blubbery babies. It's tiresome and worn out."
Amen, Amen, Amen.
That is a truly dishonest slogan, and the repetition of it is an authentic example of whiney baby American politics.
Alberta represents just under 11% of Canada's population. By what jerry-rigging would it be possible for 11% of a population to substantially influence national affairs? The argument is simply anti-democratic.
But since Alberta was extensively settled by Americans looking for free land at the turn of the last century and since its big contemporary industry, hydrocarbons, is almost totally an American-dominated enterprise with experts, executives, and financial people constantly shipped up from places like Texas and Oklahoma, we see a constant re-inforcement of America’s attitudes and whiney-babyism.
And that ongoing, quiet process includes institutions endowed by oil money, which end up with spokesmen like Tom Flanagan or Preston Manning or our dear Prime Minister, former National Citizens’ Coalition flak, Stephen Harper.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
OMAR KHADR SAYS HE WILL NOT GET A FAIR TRIAL IN AMERICA - AND HE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT
POSTED RESPONSE TO A OLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
A fair trial for Khadr, or any other tortured captive for that matter, after eight years of illegal imprisonment is impossible.
Moreover, how can there be a trial in which no proper jurisdiction exists?
That is the very nature of war.
People invade the home of others - as the U.S. did in Afghanistan - and they get killed doing it.
You do not, afterward, "try" the people who may have killed your soldiers.
But topping it all was Khadr's absolute status as a child soldier.
It is the U.S. who has broken many laws in arresting him (after shooting him in the back), abusing him, torturing him, and imprisoning him.
God, what a dreadful example to the world the U.S. has set.
But when you are as arrogant, ignorant, and rich as America, you just do not care about laws and what the world thinks.
__________________
"Was he fair by throwing that grenade?"
"He'll get a fairer trial and more of a chance than the one that he gave to the soldier that he murdered."
It really is too bad people do not even think for one second before writing such ignorant comments.
Yes, throwing grenades is part of war.
No, he murdered no one. Using a weapon in war is not murder.
You do not get tried for doing what's part of war, only for atrocities, like the ones both Israel and the U.S. have committed by the score in recent years.
And, again, Khadr was a child soldier who, in the name of God, has suffered enough. Shot twice in the back, tortured, held with no rights, and in fact falsely accused of the very act he is said to have done.
A fair trial for Khadr, or any other tortured captive for that matter, after eight years of illegal imprisonment is impossible.
Moreover, how can there be a trial in which no proper jurisdiction exists?
That is the very nature of war.
People invade the home of others - as the U.S. did in Afghanistan - and they get killed doing it.
You do not, afterward, "try" the people who may have killed your soldiers.
But topping it all was Khadr's absolute status as a child soldier.
It is the U.S. who has broken many laws in arresting him (after shooting him in the back), abusing him, torturing him, and imprisoning him.
God, what a dreadful example to the world the U.S. has set.
But when you are as arrogant, ignorant, and rich as America, you just do not care about laws and what the world thinks.
__________________
"Was he fair by throwing that grenade?"
"He'll get a fairer trial and more of a chance than the one that he gave to the soldier that he murdered."
It really is too bad people do not even think for one second before writing such ignorant comments.
Yes, throwing grenades is part of war.
No, he murdered no one. Using a weapon in war is not murder.
You do not get tried for doing what's part of war, only for atrocities, like the ones both Israel and the U.S. have committed by the score in recent years.
And, again, Khadr was a child soldier who, in the name of God, has suffered enough. Shot twice in the back, tortured, held with no rights, and in fact falsely accused of the very act he is said to have done.
FRANCE'S NEW LAW ON WOMEN COVERING THEIR FACES
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY GIDEON RACHMAN IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES
This kind of legislation is just one more chilling aspect of the Islamophobia which has descended on Western society like a poisonous cloud of volcanic ash.
It really would be nice to get a break from all this mindless, anti-Muslim hysteria.
What do I care what my neighbor wears so long as he or she is a peaceful member of society?
My experience with Muslims is simply one a sweet-tempered people who pretty much mind their own business.
I wish their critics displayed half their excellent qualities.
A few decades back, in films, the niqab was viewed by our public as alluring and fascinating. There are many scenes exhibiting these aspects in old films and serials, scenes made to appeal to our sensibilities.
Now, it has completely turned around with people attributing the most outlandish motives. It’s just the backwash from America’s insane war on terror, fed by Bush’s lame stuff about women’s rights when what he was about was killing.
Women wearing the niqab or the burka – both not really common in the Islamic world - were admitted as immigrants to France with their garments and customs. What right does anyone have to say high-handedly, after they have moved their lives there, they must do away with it?
This is the attitude of the intolerant and those who do not understand what they are talking about, using flimsy excuses like women’s rights. A woman’s rights include wearing what she wishes, does it not?
The reasons for these garments among a minority of Muslims are complex - social, historical, and not just religious, but for devout wearers religion is very important, more so than secular critics can understand.
Almost all immigrants eventually give up their native dress. It is up to them to decide on that, not shrill accusers in a newspaper column.
Those shrill demands are the way Americans behave. It’s one of their most unpleasant qualities. Live and let live so long as people are not being hurt.
We have women being beaten in their homes by the thousands in all Western countries. We have a world packed with abusive practices towards women – bride burning and horrid shunning of widows in India to female genital mutilation (not a Muslim custom but an African one with 3 million victims a year) to the widespread acceptance of fathers and other elders raping young girls in Africa, and people focus on this insignificant phenomenon?
It wasn’t many decades ago that fashionable women in Britain and the United States wore veils with hats. Would anyone with manners have asked a woman then to remove her veil? Indeed a vestige of this practice remains in our wedding ceremonies with the bride wearing a veil only her husband lifts.
No wonder the Muslim world feels under assault from the West. We bomb their countries. We keep men in secret prisons. We say forms of torture are okay. And we interfere with their religious and cultural practices here. Can anyone blame them for feeling angry?
This kind of legislation is just one more chilling aspect of the Islamophobia which has descended on Western society like a poisonous cloud of volcanic ash.
It really would be nice to get a break from all this mindless, anti-Muslim hysteria.
What do I care what my neighbor wears so long as he or she is a peaceful member of society?
My experience with Muslims is simply one a sweet-tempered people who pretty much mind their own business.
I wish their critics displayed half their excellent qualities.
A few decades back, in films, the niqab was viewed by our public as alluring and fascinating. There are many scenes exhibiting these aspects in old films and serials, scenes made to appeal to our sensibilities.
Now, it has completely turned around with people attributing the most outlandish motives. It’s just the backwash from America’s insane war on terror, fed by Bush’s lame stuff about women’s rights when what he was about was killing.
Women wearing the niqab or the burka – both not really common in the Islamic world - were admitted as immigrants to France with their garments and customs. What right does anyone have to say high-handedly, after they have moved their lives there, they must do away with it?
This is the attitude of the intolerant and those who do not understand what they are talking about, using flimsy excuses like women’s rights. A woman’s rights include wearing what she wishes, does it not?
The reasons for these garments among a minority of Muslims are complex - social, historical, and not just religious, but for devout wearers religion is very important, more so than secular critics can understand.
Almost all immigrants eventually give up their native dress. It is up to them to decide on that, not shrill accusers in a newspaper column.
Those shrill demands are the way Americans behave. It’s one of their most unpleasant qualities. Live and let live so long as people are not being hurt.
We have women being beaten in their homes by the thousands in all Western countries. We have a world packed with abusive practices towards women – bride burning and horrid shunning of widows in India to female genital mutilation (not a Muslim custom but an African one with 3 million victims a year) to the widespread acceptance of fathers and other elders raping young girls in Africa, and people focus on this insignificant phenomenon?
It wasn’t many decades ago that fashionable women in Britain and the United States wore veils with hats. Would anyone with manners have asked a woman then to remove her veil? Indeed a vestige of this practice remains in our wedding ceremonies with the bride wearing a veil only her husband lifts.
No wonder the Muslim world feels under assault from the West. We bomb their countries. We keep men in secret prisons. We say forms of torture are okay. And we interfere with their religious and cultural practices here. Can anyone blame them for feeling angry?
THE LIBERAL PARTY SENDS ARROGANT IGNATIEFF ON A SUMMER-LONG BUS TRIP TO TOUCH ORDINARY FOLK - RICK SALUTIN CALLS IT HIS HUMBLING
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY RICK SALUTIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
He's a bit of a snot actually.
I don't know why he even pursued politics except that backroom boys promised him the top, and Ignatieff thinks being at the top will cap his family's achievement.
Besides snottiness, Ignatieff just really does not like mobs of people. It's obvious in his facial expressions in many, many pictures. Maybe he has Asperger's Syndrome?
You cannot cure a quality like that. It is equipment no politician should have.
Then there is his clear inability to even say anything that excites or interests people.
He's a writer - a man who spends hours a day bent over a keyboard, talking with no one.
He is not a public speaker. He is not a people person.
But above all for me is his groveling - there's no other word for it - posture towards American imperialism.
Essentially that was his master at Harvard. The stuff about human rights was window dressing, much like hearing a man of Bush's quality talk about women's rights.
Ignatieff is simply not a liberal in the best meaning of the word.
His only poor service to Canadian politics is effectively extending Harper's ugly minority rule.
____________________________________________
"Let's face it, the only thing ingrained here is our anti-intellectualism, which borders on anti-intelligence (Canadians are actually proud of it)."
This and similar comments are ridiculous.
Most people who oppose Ignatieff do not do so because he writes books.
They oppose him because he has almost none of the classic political skills. In political terms he’s an idiot-savant.
His only true meaning in the political world has been to extend Harper's time for smashing up Canadian traditions.
And I find an (effectively) appointed leader repulsive to my democratic values.
We need intelligent people in government, and I dearly hope we never go the way America has, taking seriously people like Sarah Palin or George Bush, people with brains the size of a gnat's.
We've had many intelligent leaders, and, truth be told, Harper is intelligent, although I reject his values and the nasty minority crowd he tries to please.
Intelligence in government must be effective - effective for action, not for writing books.
While Ignatieff can write books, he almost totally lacks the kind of effective intelligence required in a good politician.
Intelligence for me is always a primary quality in a politician, but I find Ignatieff utterly unappealing and almost laughably ineffectual.
And apparently so do a lot of other Canadians.
He's a bit of a snot actually.
I don't know why he even pursued politics except that backroom boys promised him the top, and Ignatieff thinks being at the top will cap his family's achievement.
Besides snottiness, Ignatieff just really does not like mobs of people. It's obvious in his facial expressions in many, many pictures. Maybe he has Asperger's Syndrome?
You cannot cure a quality like that. It is equipment no politician should have.
Then there is his clear inability to even say anything that excites or interests people.
He's a writer - a man who spends hours a day bent over a keyboard, talking with no one.
He is not a public speaker. He is not a people person.
But above all for me is his groveling - there's no other word for it - posture towards American imperialism.
Essentially that was his master at Harvard. The stuff about human rights was window dressing, much like hearing a man of Bush's quality talk about women's rights.
Ignatieff is simply not a liberal in the best meaning of the word.
His only poor service to Canadian politics is effectively extending Harper's ugly minority rule.
____________________________________________
"Let's face it, the only thing ingrained here is our anti-intellectualism, which borders on anti-intelligence (Canadians are actually proud of it)."
This and similar comments are ridiculous.
Most people who oppose Ignatieff do not do so because he writes books.
They oppose him because he has almost none of the classic political skills. In political terms he’s an idiot-savant.
His only true meaning in the political world has been to extend Harper's time for smashing up Canadian traditions.
And I find an (effectively) appointed leader repulsive to my democratic values.
We need intelligent people in government, and I dearly hope we never go the way America has, taking seriously people like Sarah Palin or George Bush, people with brains the size of a gnat's.
We've had many intelligent leaders, and, truth be told, Harper is intelligent, although I reject his values and the nasty minority crowd he tries to please.
Intelligence in government must be effective - effective for action, not for writing books.
While Ignatieff can write books, he almost totally lacks the kind of effective intelligence required in a good politician.
Intelligence for me is always a primary quality in a politician, but I find Ignatieff utterly unappealing and almost laughably ineffectual.
And apparently so do a lot of other Canadians.
THE HARPER GOVERNMENT'S PROPOSED PURCHASE OF A GHASTLY EXPENSIVE AMERICAN FIGHTER PLANE ALMOST USELESS TO CANADA
POSTED RESPONSES TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORNTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"F-35 fighters are the price of sovereignty"
Surely this ranks as the most block-headed caption I can recall reading on a Globe editorial. It reads like a quote from some Pentagon-supplied crib book for the press.
What on earth does subsidizing the Pentagon's purchase of these costly planes - which is effectively is just what our purchase represents - have to do with our sovereignty? The Pentagon will be putting them to good use in its endless chain of colonial wars all over the world.
We could not hold off the United States - the only genuine future threat to Canada's sovereignty in both the North and the Great Lakes - for twenty minutes.
The United States has become a military Frankenstein monster, spending - quite literally - more than the entire rest of the planet on the military.
Our purchase of this plane - for which we have almost no use - is a subsidy to the Pentagon's acquisition of them. The small fleet we can afford represents little genuine military capability.
And readers should be aware that the capital cost of acquiring these planes, high as it is, is only the beginning.
Modern high-tech, high-performance military planes require immense and costly maintenance efforts.
They are almost like Japanese Kobe cattle being hand-rubbed and fed beer every day.
America's "stealth" fighter and bomber, for example, must each have special climate-control hangers, and they take the kind of attention to detail of the space shuttle after a flight in orbit. The costs are staggering.
This purchase is about the stupidest waste of money a person could come up with, only excepting a continuation of our dismal mission in Afghanistan, something which also does no more than support the Pentagon’s hormone-driven insanity.
________________________________
"Protection, undefined, as in this editorial, is little more than a racket."
Good line, that.
How very true, much resembling the undefined use of words like security or sovereignty.
Dumb and meaningless, but appealing to the herd instincts of many.
The chest-thumping knuckle-draggers are out in force on this one - mainly, I suspect, aggressive little boys who like expensive, bright toys (so long as others pay for them).
_________________________________
"MacKay's announcement is another indication of a serious minister putting serious tools into the hands of the people who protect us."
Peter MacKay's entire history in cabinet is marked by poor performance in his various roles, childish insults mumbled in Parliament, and a rather feeble effort to appear a forceful figure.
Strong is the last adjective any thinking person would apply to him.
Protect us? From what? The boogey man?
Well, he finally found his niche, the military, where money is thrown around like confetti and everything is justified with totems like “protect” or “security” or “sovereignty.”
Carried to its limit, that kind of thinking gives you the Pentagon, the most wasteful, destructive, and anti-democratic force on earth, and a major contributor to the decline in the United States now clearly underway.
"F-35 fighters are the price of sovereignty"
Surely this ranks as the most block-headed caption I can recall reading on a Globe editorial. It reads like a quote from some Pentagon-supplied crib book for the press.
What on earth does subsidizing the Pentagon's purchase of these costly planes - which is effectively is just what our purchase represents - have to do with our sovereignty? The Pentagon will be putting them to good use in its endless chain of colonial wars all over the world.
We could not hold off the United States - the only genuine future threat to Canada's sovereignty in both the North and the Great Lakes - for twenty minutes.
The United States has become a military Frankenstein monster, spending - quite literally - more than the entire rest of the planet on the military.
Our purchase of this plane - for which we have almost no use - is a subsidy to the Pentagon's acquisition of them. The small fleet we can afford represents little genuine military capability.
And readers should be aware that the capital cost of acquiring these planes, high as it is, is only the beginning.
Modern high-tech, high-performance military planes require immense and costly maintenance efforts.
They are almost like Japanese Kobe cattle being hand-rubbed and fed beer every day.
America's "stealth" fighter and bomber, for example, must each have special climate-control hangers, and they take the kind of attention to detail of the space shuttle after a flight in orbit. The costs are staggering.
This purchase is about the stupidest waste of money a person could come up with, only excepting a continuation of our dismal mission in Afghanistan, something which also does no more than support the Pentagon’s hormone-driven insanity.
________________________________
"Protection, undefined, as in this editorial, is little more than a racket."
Good line, that.
How very true, much resembling the undefined use of words like security or sovereignty.
Dumb and meaningless, but appealing to the herd instincts of many.
The chest-thumping knuckle-draggers are out in force on this one - mainly, I suspect, aggressive little boys who like expensive, bright toys (so long as others pay for them).
_________________________________
"MacKay's announcement is another indication of a serious minister putting serious tools into the hands of the people who protect us."
Peter MacKay's entire history in cabinet is marked by poor performance in his various roles, childish insults mumbled in Parliament, and a rather feeble effort to appear a forceful figure.
Strong is the last adjective any thinking person would apply to him.
Protect us? From what? The boogey man?
Well, he finally found his niche, the military, where money is thrown around like confetti and everything is justified with totems like “protect” or “security” or “sovereignty.”
Carried to its limit, that kind of thinking gives you the Pentagon, the most wasteful, destructive, and anti-democratic force on earth, and a major contributor to the decline in the United States now clearly underway.
MARGARET WENTE HALLUCINATES ABOUT THE POSSIBLE STONING OF A WOMAN IN IRAN - OR HOW TO IGNORE SCREAMING REALITIES FOR A PROPAGANDA POINT
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
‘This regime has taken so many lives. There’s got to be a time when it stops’
Ms. Wente appears now to have exhausted her rational mental faculties in the relentless drive to create propaganda supporting Israel’s military and the Pentagon.
The United States, I remind readers, has killed about a million people in Iraq, unknown tens of thousands in Afghanistan, and three million in Vietnam, and those numbers don’t count all the smaller murderous efforts like Somalia, Pakistan, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and its loving support for Israel’s bloody predations against largely defenseless people.
In the total of all these places, the United States has created millions of refugees and countless cripples.
It has overthrown legitimate governments all over the world, including democratic ones in Chile, Iran, and Guatamala.
But somehow, Ms. Wente assures us, Iran is so terrible?
Iran, which has started no wars in its entire modern history?
Iran, which while a theocracy (just like Israel) is a relatively open place where one may visit and a great deal of information flows (compared to many other societies on earth)?
Iran, compared to the 3 million annual cases of genital mutilation of women in Africa?
Iran, compared to the routine rape of girls by their fathers and other elders in Africa?
Iran, compare to the bride-burning in India?
Iran, compared to the hideous treatment of millions of widows, including young girls who had been married off for profit to old men who die, in India?
Iran, compared to occupied Afghanistan where a majority of women still wear the burka?
The world is filled with cruelties, and Iran is one of lesser parties to them, but Israel wants Iran attacked, so Ms. Wente does her duty churning out more unbalanced rubbish.
_____________________________________
One further thought.
And just whose holy book is it which commands the stoning of unfaithful women?
Israel doesn't stone women, but the Ultra Orthodox there often attack women they regard as "loose."
There have been cases in recent years of prostitutes having been burned alive in homes mysteriously set alight.
‘This regime has taken so many lives. There’s got to be a time when it stops’
Ms. Wente appears now to have exhausted her rational mental faculties in the relentless drive to create propaganda supporting Israel’s military and the Pentagon.
The United States, I remind readers, has killed about a million people in Iraq, unknown tens of thousands in Afghanistan, and three million in Vietnam, and those numbers don’t count all the smaller murderous efforts like Somalia, Pakistan, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, and its loving support for Israel’s bloody predations against largely defenseless people.
In the total of all these places, the United States has created millions of refugees and countless cripples.
It has overthrown legitimate governments all over the world, including democratic ones in Chile, Iran, and Guatamala.
But somehow, Ms. Wente assures us, Iran is so terrible?
Iran, which has started no wars in its entire modern history?
Iran, which while a theocracy (just like Israel) is a relatively open place where one may visit and a great deal of information flows (compared to many other societies on earth)?
Iran, compared to the 3 million annual cases of genital mutilation of women in Africa?
Iran, compared to the routine rape of girls by their fathers and other elders in Africa?
Iran, compare to the bride-burning in India?
Iran, compared to the hideous treatment of millions of widows, including young girls who had been married off for profit to old men who die, in India?
Iran, compared to occupied Afghanistan where a majority of women still wear the burka?
The world is filled with cruelties, and Iran is one of lesser parties to them, but Israel wants Iran attacked, so Ms. Wente does her duty churning out more unbalanced rubbish.
_____________________________________
One further thought.
And just whose holy book is it which commands the stoning of unfaithful women?
Israel doesn't stone women, but the Ultra Orthodox there often attack women they regard as "loose."
There have been cases in recent years of prostitutes having been burned alive in homes mysteriously set alight.
Monday, July 12, 2010
IS ISRAEL A NORMAL STATE? ASKS AN ANALYST - A BRAVE QUESTION BUT IT COMES WITH A WHIMPER OF AN ANSWER
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY IAN BURUMA IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This article starts with a brave question, and I think for most people the answer is apparent with the asking of the question.
But like the famous line of T.S. Elliot, the piece ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
After asking a question which would never pass the lips of Israel’s establishment, the article makes the very claims and assertions the Israeli government would make.
“Israel has never done anything comparable to the late Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad’s 1982 massacre of more than 20,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama.”
While I’m the last to defend dictators, this is a completely unsubstantiated claim of what happened in Syria. Perhaps worse, the assertion about Israel is just false. Israel’s first invasion of Lebanon was just about that bloody.
And what of the achievements of the Six Day War, a war deliberately calculated by Israel’s establishment to win the land of the self-defined Greater Israel – all the Palestinian territories plus slices of Syria and Lebanon - it had failed to grab at its founding?
Israel went so far as to attack ruthlessly an American intelligence ship to suppress information of General Dayan’s movements of armor, the general’s purpose being the quick seizure of all the lands Israel desired and then presenting the world with a fait accompli.
And how do you reckon the toll of misery of decade after decade of hundreds of thousands of refugees plus the forty-plus years of truly abusive occupation?
I could continue, for unquestionably the invasion of Iraq was about and for Israel’s benefit. That’s million people killed and a couple of million refugees, refugees taken, in large part, by poor Syria.
“So is it true, as many defenders of Israel claim, that the Jewish state is judged by different standards from other countries? I believe it is.”
This completely ignores the fact of Israel’s establishment constantly claiming that is the only democracy and representative of human rights in its part of the world.
If you claim one standard but behave by another – truly indistinguishable from the region’s dictators – I do think the world is entitled to comment. Israel holds ten thousand illegal prisoners, imposes a ghastly blockade for over three years, imposes countless checkpoints on people’s ordinary lives in the West Bank, regularly assassinates those with whom it disagrees, and uses every underhanded technical gimmick it can think of to keep stealing other people’s land.
Indeed, it could be well argued that the kind of Israel we see has effectively retarded the development of democracy in the Arab world. Israel’s cooperative friend Mubarak, a dictator of thirty years, is supported by everything the United States can think of, suppressing all genuine democratic movements. For a long time, it was the same with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Opposing Israel’s excesses has provided a rallying cry for every dictator in the region. At the same time, the United States and Israel would prefer these populations suppressed by dictators who in private mind their own business or are even rather cooperative, a la Mubarak.
“That all Jews, including Israeli Jews, should remain haunted by a horrible past is understandable. But it must never be used to justify aggression against others.”
But that is precisely what Israel’s establishment and its army of apologists abroad do, day and night. It is, if you will, a ghastly form of special pleading.
“There are other reasons, however, for the double standard directed at Israel. One is what the liberal Israeli philosopher and peace activist Avishai Margalit has called “moral racism.” The bloodlust of an African or Asian people is not taken as seriously that of a European – or other white – people.”
But isn’t that exactly what happens inside Israel? Day in and out in countless ways, Shepardic Jews are not treated with the same respect and regard as Ashkenazi Jews. And the poor small lot of dark-skinned African Jews are treated with palpable contempt. The world should have higher standards than Israel itself in these matters?
“…the legacy of colonialism works against Israel in another way, too.”
Oh please, this is tiresome old idea to trot out. Besides, in the eyes of most Arabs, Israel is itself an example of colonialism. Here is a tiny enclave – truly a garrison state - living in the midst of many tens of millions of people for whose cultures and aspirations it has absolutely no understanding or sympathy. You could draw a parallel to Israel’s position today with that of European Crusaders who built massive forts in the Middle East at places like Acre.
In the end, if Israel expects to be treated as a normal country, it must behave like one.
Surely, most people, including likely most Jews, know Israel has yet to behave as anything resembling a normal country.
This article starts with a brave question, and I think for most people the answer is apparent with the asking of the question.
But like the famous line of T.S. Elliot, the piece ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.
After asking a question which would never pass the lips of Israel’s establishment, the article makes the very claims and assertions the Israeli government would make.
“Israel has never done anything comparable to the late Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad’s 1982 massacre of more than 20,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama.”
While I’m the last to defend dictators, this is a completely unsubstantiated claim of what happened in Syria. Perhaps worse, the assertion about Israel is just false. Israel’s first invasion of Lebanon was just about that bloody.
And what of the achievements of the Six Day War, a war deliberately calculated by Israel’s establishment to win the land of the self-defined Greater Israel – all the Palestinian territories plus slices of Syria and Lebanon - it had failed to grab at its founding?
Israel went so far as to attack ruthlessly an American intelligence ship to suppress information of General Dayan’s movements of armor, the general’s purpose being the quick seizure of all the lands Israel desired and then presenting the world with a fait accompli.
And how do you reckon the toll of misery of decade after decade of hundreds of thousands of refugees plus the forty-plus years of truly abusive occupation?
I could continue, for unquestionably the invasion of Iraq was about and for Israel’s benefit. That’s million people killed and a couple of million refugees, refugees taken, in large part, by poor Syria.
“So is it true, as many defenders of Israel claim, that the Jewish state is judged by different standards from other countries? I believe it is.”
This completely ignores the fact of Israel’s establishment constantly claiming that is the only democracy and representative of human rights in its part of the world.
If you claim one standard but behave by another – truly indistinguishable from the region’s dictators – I do think the world is entitled to comment. Israel holds ten thousand illegal prisoners, imposes a ghastly blockade for over three years, imposes countless checkpoints on people’s ordinary lives in the West Bank, regularly assassinates those with whom it disagrees, and uses every underhanded technical gimmick it can think of to keep stealing other people’s land.
Indeed, it could be well argued that the kind of Israel we see has effectively retarded the development of democracy in the Arab world. Israel’s cooperative friend Mubarak, a dictator of thirty years, is supported by everything the United States can think of, suppressing all genuine democratic movements. For a long time, it was the same with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Opposing Israel’s excesses has provided a rallying cry for every dictator in the region. At the same time, the United States and Israel would prefer these populations suppressed by dictators who in private mind their own business or are even rather cooperative, a la Mubarak.
“That all Jews, including Israeli Jews, should remain haunted by a horrible past is understandable. But it must never be used to justify aggression against others.”
But that is precisely what Israel’s establishment and its army of apologists abroad do, day and night. It is, if you will, a ghastly form of special pleading.
“There are other reasons, however, for the double standard directed at Israel. One is what the liberal Israeli philosopher and peace activist Avishai Margalit has called “moral racism.” The bloodlust of an African or Asian people is not taken as seriously that of a European – or other white – people.”
But isn’t that exactly what happens inside Israel? Day in and out in countless ways, Shepardic Jews are not treated with the same respect and regard as Ashkenazi Jews. And the poor small lot of dark-skinned African Jews are treated with palpable contempt. The world should have higher standards than Israel itself in these matters?
“…the legacy of colonialism works against Israel in another way, too.”
Oh please, this is tiresome old idea to trot out. Besides, in the eyes of most Arabs, Israel is itself an example of colonialism. Here is a tiny enclave – truly a garrison state - living in the midst of many tens of millions of people for whose cultures and aspirations it has absolutely no understanding or sympathy. You could draw a parallel to Israel’s position today with that of European Crusaders who built massive forts in the Middle East at places like Acre.
In the end, if Israel expects to be treated as a normal country, it must behave like one.
Surely, most people, including likely most Jews, know Israel has yet to behave as anything resembling a normal country.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
FORMER ASSOCIATE MAI PEDERSON EXPLAINS WHY SHE IS CERTAIN BRITAIN'S DR. KELLY WAS MURDERED IN THE RUN-UP TO THE IRAQ INVASION
RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY ANDREW MALONE IN THE DAILY MAIL
This is an excellent article, and the witness is totally convincing. Her knowledge of Dr. Kelly’s physical disabilities and the fact that she conveyed what she knew early in the investigation to British police are important tests of her believability.
I have long thought Kelly was murdered, the general nature of the situation in which he was found having only the most superficial plausibility, but the idea that agents of Tony Blair's government did it always seemed ridiculous.
Cui bono?
It is difficult to imagine a more likely candidate than Israel's secret service.
First, the Iraq invasion was endangered by Dr. Kelly's expert knowledge and willingness to talk.
Second, he had demonstrated his willingness to talk in his BBC experience, something which generated frustrating and unsatisfactory results.
Third, we well know Israel assassinates those with whom it strongly disagrees regularly, and this has included other scientific figures, notably Canadian Gerald Bull, a world authority on big guns who had worked for Hussein.
Fourth, the Iraq invasion was not about oil nor was it about tyranny. It was about Israel and the perceived need by the American establishment to eliminate Israel’s most implacable foe.
Israel was the great beneficiary of the invasion.
Fifth, the method likely used resembles methods used by Mossad, as in its recent murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Abu Dhabi, who was heavily restrained while being injected, with his room being set as though nothing out of the ordinary happened. There, great effort was made to make the event look natural. So too in the case of Yasser Arafat, who was likely poisoned by Israeli agents.
This is an excellent article, and the witness is totally convincing. Her knowledge of Dr. Kelly’s physical disabilities and the fact that she conveyed what she knew early in the investigation to British police are important tests of her believability.
I have long thought Kelly was murdered, the general nature of the situation in which he was found having only the most superficial plausibility, but the idea that agents of Tony Blair's government did it always seemed ridiculous.
Cui bono?
It is difficult to imagine a more likely candidate than Israel's secret service.
First, the Iraq invasion was endangered by Dr. Kelly's expert knowledge and willingness to talk.
Second, he had demonstrated his willingness to talk in his BBC experience, something which generated frustrating and unsatisfactory results.
Third, we well know Israel assassinates those with whom it strongly disagrees regularly, and this has included other scientific figures, notably Canadian Gerald Bull, a world authority on big guns who had worked for Hussein.
Fourth, the Iraq invasion was not about oil nor was it about tyranny. It was about Israel and the perceived need by the American establishment to eliminate Israel’s most implacable foe.
Israel was the great beneficiary of the invasion.
Fifth, the method likely used resembles methods used by Mossad, as in its recent murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Abu Dhabi, who was heavily restrained while being injected, with his room being set as though nothing out of the ordinary happened. There, great effort was made to make the event look natural. So too in the case of Yasser Arafat, who was likely poisoned by Israeli agents.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
MARGARET ATWOOD ASKS WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY YOU WANT - COMPARISON OF POLICE AT TWO DEMONSTRATIONS
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET ATWOOD IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Thank you, Ms. Atwood, well put.
I always treasured the restraint and decency of police in Canada, having come decades ago from a tough part of a tough American city.
The first time I was shocked out of my warm glow was with the OPP shooting at Ipperwash. That pointless and brutal event much resembled the activity of thugs like the FBI, an agency which has a huge list of abuses and violence and stupidity and literally thousands of victims over its history.
The Toronto example however is turning out even worse than first reports, so the contrast Ms. Atwood offers is even greater.
I heard today on CBC Radio the chilling report of a man with artificial legs who was arrested.
The police apparently ordered him up - he was sitting on the ground - but he couldn't stand without the sticks he uses, and he explained all this to the police.
Then some genuinely bad-apple cop reached down and pulled one of his legs off.
Then the disgusting cop ordered him to hop.
The man was under arrest for more than a day without his appliances.
There was also the ugly case – involving genuine police-state brutality – of the man who was arrested while with our highly regarded journalist, Steve Paikin, who witnessed everything.
Such behavior by police ranks with the vicious criminal morons who killed a distraught Polish man in Vancouver's airport.
I know, thank God, that most police do not behave in this way, but policing always is a job which both attracts dangerous personalities - psychopaths of varying degree - and challenges the self-control of those with bad tempers. People who want some “action” are inevitably drawn to policing, much as they are to the military.
Only a tough standard of review of excesses and the absolute determination to rid ourselves of such thugs in uniform are defenses against them.
I do not think we are in danger of all our police behaving the way American cops have a well-earned reputation for behaving in many small towns and poor parts of cities, Amnesty International having cited many times police brutality in America as common.
But I do think our institutions governing police are weak. Those cops in Vancouver, at the very least, should have been rudely dismissed. So too the cop who pulled off the artificial leg and ordered a man to hop.
Show the thugs the door, and I do not think we have to worry about their sickness taking hold. Doing so would serve as a declaration to the world that Canada is determined to remain a decent society, the kind of society where people peacefully protest the closing of prisoner farms as Ms. Atwood did.
Thank you, Ms. Atwood, well put.
I always treasured the restraint and decency of police in Canada, having come decades ago from a tough part of a tough American city.
The first time I was shocked out of my warm glow was with the OPP shooting at Ipperwash. That pointless and brutal event much resembled the activity of thugs like the FBI, an agency which has a huge list of abuses and violence and stupidity and literally thousands of victims over its history.
The Toronto example however is turning out even worse than first reports, so the contrast Ms. Atwood offers is even greater.
I heard today on CBC Radio the chilling report of a man with artificial legs who was arrested.
The police apparently ordered him up - he was sitting on the ground - but he couldn't stand without the sticks he uses, and he explained all this to the police.
Then some genuinely bad-apple cop reached down and pulled one of his legs off.
Then the disgusting cop ordered him to hop.
The man was under arrest for more than a day without his appliances.
There was also the ugly case – involving genuine police-state brutality – of the man who was arrested while with our highly regarded journalist, Steve Paikin, who witnessed everything.
Such behavior by police ranks with the vicious criminal morons who killed a distraught Polish man in Vancouver's airport.
I know, thank God, that most police do not behave in this way, but policing always is a job which both attracts dangerous personalities - psychopaths of varying degree - and challenges the self-control of those with bad tempers. People who want some “action” are inevitably drawn to policing, much as they are to the military.
Only a tough standard of review of excesses and the absolute determination to rid ourselves of such thugs in uniform are defenses against them.
I do not think we are in danger of all our police behaving the way American cops have a well-earned reputation for behaving in many small towns and poor parts of cities, Amnesty International having cited many times police brutality in America as common.
But I do think our institutions governing police are weak. Those cops in Vancouver, at the very least, should have been rudely dismissed. So too the cop who pulled off the artificial leg and ordered a man to hop.
Show the thugs the door, and I do not think we have to worry about their sickness taking hold. Doing so would serve as a declaration to the world that Canada is determined to remain a decent society, the kind of society where people peacefully protest the closing of prisoner farms as Ms. Atwood did.
WESLEY WARK ON CANADA'S RICHARD FADDEN C.S.I.S. AFFAIR AND A RIDICULOUS COMPARISON TO KENNEDY AND DULLES
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY WESLEY WARK IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Oh I do think Wesley Wark has missed something very important, but that is not unusual in Wark’s pieces.
Richard Fadden can't say it, but I'd bet serious money he was given a wink and nod by Harper for his earlier statement.
Traditionally, it is only with such approval that spy agency masters ever speak out in public.
Harper, of course, now cowardly denies having done so, leaving Fadden hanging out to dry, as they say.
No other explanation is plausible for those who understand anything about spy agencies.
As to Wesley Wark’s poorly chosen example of John Kennedy and Allen Dulles – poorly chosen both because the situations are not comparable, CSIS never enjoying the power and resources of CIA - and because Wark fails to offer the full story which involved in part Kennedy using Dulles as a fall guy for a stupid, blundering decision.
‘As JFK famously told CIA director Allen Dulles before forcing him to step down over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, “You might think the buck stops here, but it’s you, Allen, who is going to resign.” ‘
Yes, Mr. Wark, but it was Kennedy who ended up dead.
Oh I do think Wesley Wark has missed something very important, but that is not unusual in Wark’s pieces.
Richard Fadden can't say it, but I'd bet serious money he was given a wink and nod by Harper for his earlier statement.
Traditionally, it is only with such approval that spy agency masters ever speak out in public.
Harper, of course, now cowardly denies having done so, leaving Fadden hanging out to dry, as they say.
No other explanation is plausible for those who understand anything about spy agencies.
As to Wesley Wark’s poorly chosen example of John Kennedy and Allen Dulles – poorly chosen both because the situations are not comparable, CSIS never enjoying the power and resources of CIA - and because Wark fails to offer the full story which involved in part Kennedy using Dulles as a fall guy for a stupid, blundering decision.
‘As JFK famously told CIA director Allen Dulles before forcing him to step down over the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, “You might think the buck stops here, but it’s you, Allen, who is going to resign.” ‘
Yes, Mr. Wark, but it was Kennedy who ended up dead.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
POLITICS AND THE AMERICAN SUPREME COURT - THE ABSURDITY OF THE JUDGE BORK FIDELITY-TO-THE-ORIGINAL POSITION - AND THE ROLE OF MILITARISM
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOK IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES
"With time, society changes, and the gap between justices who believe in fidelity to the original document and those who believe in a “living constitution”–equally defensible positions, regardless of one’s politics–gets wider."
That is absolutely true, with the exception that "fidelity to the original" can be called an equally defensible position.
Not in rational terms. It cannot be.
The Judge Bork view of things is exactly comparable to the Fundamentalist Christians who believe the earth and all it contains was created at one stroke about 6000 years ago.
The world now changes rapidly, and the rate of change only grows more rapid with changing technology. All forms and practices of government must change in response, not necessarily promptly but regularly.
Also, the simple fact is that the American Constitution was a document of compromise, and some of the compromises were with forces we now find utterly unacceptable, as for example, with the very real political power of slaveholders.
Even further still, the Constitution has many flaws. The Fathers were not all-seeing and, indeed, were downright wrong in some important matters. Some of the things they thought they were doing ended up with the opposite effect to what they intended.
Perhaps the greatest single example of that was the division of war-making authorities, the President as Commander-in-Chief and only the Congress as able to declare war.
Of course, in the modern era, none of America's many wars are declared, so Congress's power is vestigial.
And when the Founders made the President Commander-in Chief, Americans largely believed in no standing armies, so his power was only potential for a situation Congress first decided military response as appropriate.
But today, his power is immense and dangerous because of America's Frankenstein military. He is Commander-in-Chief of a thing greater than all the world's armies combined.
In a very real sense, this immense contemporary power violates the fundamental ideas of the Founders because the President's office was deliberately designed to be weak, which indeed it still is in domestic affairs.
But the Bork view very much fits the military-industrial complex America has become. Empires and militarism are quite comfortable with sticking with ways which facilitated their rise.
The great irony is that the sentimental sense of America which is so often cited by Bork-types in fact no longer exists, and, to a considerable extent, never did.
America is barely a democracy at home and literally behaves the part of a tyranny abroad often.
"With time, society changes, and the gap between justices who believe in fidelity to the original document and those who believe in a “living constitution”–equally defensible positions, regardless of one’s politics–gets wider."
That is absolutely true, with the exception that "fidelity to the original" can be called an equally defensible position.
Not in rational terms. It cannot be.
The Judge Bork view of things is exactly comparable to the Fundamentalist Christians who believe the earth and all it contains was created at one stroke about 6000 years ago.
The world now changes rapidly, and the rate of change only grows more rapid with changing technology. All forms and practices of government must change in response, not necessarily promptly but regularly.
Also, the simple fact is that the American Constitution was a document of compromise, and some of the compromises were with forces we now find utterly unacceptable, as for example, with the very real political power of slaveholders.
Even further still, the Constitution has many flaws. The Fathers were not all-seeing and, indeed, were downright wrong in some important matters. Some of the things they thought they were doing ended up with the opposite effect to what they intended.
Perhaps the greatest single example of that was the division of war-making authorities, the President as Commander-in-Chief and only the Congress as able to declare war.
Of course, in the modern era, none of America's many wars are declared, so Congress's power is vestigial.
And when the Founders made the President Commander-in Chief, Americans largely believed in no standing armies, so his power was only potential for a situation Congress first decided military response as appropriate.
But today, his power is immense and dangerous because of America's Frankenstein military. He is Commander-in-Chief of a thing greater than all the world's armies combined.
In a very real sense, this immense contemporary power violates the fundamental ideas of the Founders because the President's office was deliberately designed to be weak, which indeed it still is in domestic affairs.
But the Bork view very much fits the military-industrial complex America has become. Empires and militarism are quite comfortable with sticking with ways which facilitated their rise.
The great irony is that the sentimental sense of America which is so often cited by Bork-types in fact no longer exists, and, to a considerable extent, never did.
America is barely a democracy at home and literally behaves the part of a tyranny abroad often.
Friday, June 25, 2010
TORONTO'S GAY PRIDE PARADE AND THE ANTI-ISRAELI APARTHEID GROUP OF MARCHERS - A SAD ATTEMPT TO DEMONIZE THEM
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JUDITH TIMSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
The only part of this piece worth reading is the way Judith Timson starts it with her and the kiddies having a gay old time at a past Pride Parade, describing it the way some suburban housewife might describe the family’s being at Disney World. She only left out Granny.
“The mood was celebratory on that early summer day as we stood shoulder to shoulder with a gay elementary-school vice-principal….”
Note the use of words like “celebratory” and “early summer day” to set a mood.
And don’t you just love the “shoulder to shoulder” bit, as though Ms. Timson were describing a World War II rally for Rosie the Riveter or describing her participation in a March on Selma Alabama in the 1950s?
This is a classic technique of the propagandist: it might be called the benign, fairy dream, and its purpose is merely to serve as a prop to be knocked over by what follows.
The insincerity here almost grips one like an unwanted waft of heavy cheap cologne.
Gay Pride’s history is not like that at all.
Anything resembling Ms. Timson’s fairy story is a very recent, rather sanitized occurrence. I lived in Toronto during the days of police raids and arbitrary arrests. And anyone knows, or should know, that the Pride Parade was early on treated in Toronto as a somewhat shameful, reluctantly-permitted event.
Much like the way Toronto always had, years ago, a grim King Billy Parade instead of a joyous St. Patrick’s Parade.
The point is that gay people have a history of fighting injustice and oppression, and many of them are still at it, and those latter are the ones who insisted on the right to express themselves on Israeli apartheid.
And I’m sorry, Ms. Timson, but the word “apartheid” is absolutely accurate. We have Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu and Jimmy Carter as just some of our star witnesses for the state of affairs in Israel, all honourable men with an intimate understanding of injustice and abuse, Jimmy Carter, by the way, having been labelled an anti-Semite in Israel for stating the plain truth.
Once Jews very much shared that quality we see in many gays, ready to defend the downtrodden, but today it does seem a majority of them serve as apologists for abuse and injustice and killing instead, just so long as the abuse and injustice and killing are done by Israel.
This is a shameful column, written to defend the indefensible, but I’m thankful there are a lot of others, brave gay people in Toronto, ready to stand both for free speech and against oppression.
The only part of this piece worth reading is the way Judith Timson starts it with her and the kiddies having a gay old time at a past Pride Parade, describing it the way some suburban housewife might describe the family’s being at Disney World. She only left out Granny.
“The mood was celebratory on that early summer day as we stood shoulder to shoulder with a gay elementary-school vice-principal….”
Note the use of words like “celebratory” and “early summer day” to set a mood.
And don’t you just love the “shoulder to shoulder” bit, as though Ms. Timson were describing a World War II rally for Rosie the Riveter or describing her participation in a March on Selma Alabama in the 1950s?
This is a classic technique of the propagandist: it might be called the benign, fairy dream, and its purpose is merely to serve as a prop to be knocked over by what follows.
The insincerity here almost grips one like an unwanted waft of heavy cheap cologne.
Gay Pride’s history is not like that at all.
Anything resembling Ms. Timson’s fairy story is a very recent, rather sanitized occurrence. I lived in Toronto during the days of police raids and arbitrary arrests. And anyone knows, or should know, that the Pride Parade was early on treated in Toronto as a somewhat shameful, reluctantly-permitted event.
Much like the way Toronto always had, years ago, a grim King Billy Parade instead of a joyous St. Patrick’s Parade.
The point is that gay people have a history of fighting injustice and oppression, and many of them are still at it, and those latter are the ones who insisted on the right to express themselves on Israeli apartheid.
And I’m sorry, Ms. Timson, but the word “apartheid” is absolutely accurate. We have Nelson Mandela, Bishop Tutu and Jimmy Carter as just some of our star witnesses for the state of affairs in Israel, all honourable men with an intimate understanding of injustice and abuse, Jimmy Carter, by the way, having been labelled an anti-Semite in Israel for stating the plain truth.
Once Jews very much shared that quality we see in many gays, ready to defend the downtrodden, but today it does seem a majority of them serve as apologists for abuse and injustice and killing instead, just so long as the abuse and injustice and killing are done by Israel.
This is a shameful column, written to defend the indefensible, but I’m thankful there are a lot of others, brave gay people in Toronto, ready to stand both for free speech and against oppression.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
HAMAS IS STILL THE PROBLEM? I DON'T THINK SO
POSTED RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is an absolutely unbalanced editorial, reminding one of the kind of brain-dead stuff Marcus Gee used to pound out on the Middle East, rewrites of official Israeli press releases.
Who is doing the killing?
Who is depriving people of normal commerce?
Who arrogantly commits piracy on the high seas?
Who runs around stealing passports and murdering people?
Who holds 10,000 people in prison without proper legal procedure?
Who, after Hamas was elected in a clean election, immediately arrested members of the elected body?
Who, after Hamas was elected in a clean election, immediately threatened its leader with assassination?
Who keeps Gaza surrounded by automated radar-operated gun towers which blast anything which moves within a couple of thousand yards?
When was the last time Hamas killed an Israeli politician?
When was the last time Hamas arrested members of Israel's legislature?
When was the last time Hamas invaded Israel?
Israel's behavior is the only serious obstacle here.
Every thinking person knows you must talk to your opponents to have peace, yet who refuses to talk to Hamas?
Hamas may not like Israel, but it is not, and never could be, in a position to seriously threaten Israel. To say anything else is paranoid rubbish.
Israel wants the people of Gaza reduced to groveling submission, without even the right to self-determination, and, indeed, it really prefers to make them so miserable they leave their homes.
Hamas does not rule in the West Bank. Do we see peace there? No, every week Israelis steal more homes or farms and continue to keep millions under constant threat and abuse.
This is an absolutely unbalanced editorial, reminding one of the kind of brain-dead stuff Marcus Gee used to pound out on the Middle East, rewrites of official Israeli press releases.
Who is doing the killing?
Who is depriving people of normal commerce?
Who arrogantly commits piracy on the high seas?
Who runs around stealing passports and murdering people?
Who holds 10,000 people in prison without proper legal procedure?
Who, after Hamas was elected in a clean election, immediately arrested members of the elected body?
Who, after Hamas was elected in a clean election, immediately threatened its leader with assassination?
Who keeps Gaza surrounded by automated radar-operated gun towers which blast anything which moves within a couple of thousand yards?
When was the last time Hamas killed an Israeli politician?
When was the last time Hamas arrested members of Israel's legislature?
When was the last time Hamas invaded Israel?
Israel's behavior is the only serious obstacle here.
Every thinking person knows you must talk to your opponents to have peace, yet who refuses to talk to Hamas?
Hamas may not like Israel, but it is not, and never could be, in a position to seriously threaten Israel. To say anything else is paranoid rubbish.
Israel wants the people of Gaza reduced to groveling submission, without even the right to self-determination, and, indeed, it really prefers to make them so miserable they leave their homes.
Hamas does not rule in the West Bank. Do we see peace there? No, every week Israelis steal more homes or farms and continue to keep millions under constant threat and abuse.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL'S MATCHLESS LIGHT-WEIGHT MARGARET WENTE ASKS WHO'S AFRAID OF RIGHT-WING NORTH TELEVISION?
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Well, we sure know you're not, Ms. Wente.
One cannot help believing you keep your television tuned to Fox television around the clock for inspiration in your work.
Inspiration for the right-wing attitudes you so clearly imported from the American Midwest and continue feverishly to promote.
______________________
Everyone should listen to the interview done last Saturday, June 19, by the redoubtable interviewer, Kathleen Petty, on CBC Radio’s The House.
Quebecor’s VP, Kory Teneycke, praised here by Ms. Wente, appeared on the show for God knows what reason since he answered not a single question, and Ms. Petty, as always, was prepared with meaningful questions and hard facts, the kinds of things so notably missing from many of Ms. Wente’s efforts.
Teneycke exhibited impatience, a tone suggestive of anger, and did not answer one factual question. He referred to entertainment value in blubbering about the new network, nothing about honesty or facts. He was genuinely pathetic.
If Teneycke’s performance on The House suggests the new network’s ability to inform, it’s going to be a sad dumb-show.
But fans of the stupidities of Fox - a network which makes no effort at honesty or balance or often even facts, and which specializes in commentary on the level of Rush Limbaugh – apparently including Ms. Wente, will be happy.
Well, we sure know you're not, Ms. Wente.
One cannot help believing you keep your television tuned to Fox television around the clock for inspiration in your work.
Inspiration for the right-wing attitudes you so clearly imported from the American Midwest and continue feverishly to promote.
______________________
Everyone should listen to the interview done last Saturday, June 19, by the redoubtable interviewer, Kathleen Petty, on CBC Radio’s The House.
Quebecor’s VP, Kory Teneycke, praised here by Ms. Wente, appeared on the show for God knows what reason since he answered not a single question, and Ms. Petty, as always, was prepared with meaningful questions and hard facts, the kinds of things so notably missing from many of Ms. Wente’s efforts.
Teneycke exhibited impatience, a tone suggestive of anger, and did not answer one factual question. He referred to entertainment value in blubbering about the new network, nothing about honesty or facts. He was genuinely pathetic.
If Teneycke’s performance on The House suggests the new network’s ability to inform, it’s going to be a sad dumb-show.
But fans of the stupidities of Fox - a network which makes no effort at honesty or balance or often even facts, and which specializes in commentary on the level of Rush Limbaugh – apparently including Ms. Wente, will be happy.
Friday, June 18, 2010
IS OBAMA LOSING THE MODERATE MUSLIMS? A SUMMARY OF WHAT THINGS LOOK LIKE FROM WESTERN ASIA
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY GIDEON RACHMAN IN THE FINANCIAL POST
"...it has provoked some American neoconservatives, previously firm friends of the Turks, into unrestrained fury."
Neo-cons and unrestrained fury are old friends.
This group of crypto-fascists has spent years advocating virtually unrestrained use of American power, wars all over the globe, and especially in the Middle East.
Western Asia - a vast region of many proud and ancient peoples - cannot be expected to keep mildly accepting such stuff - piled high as it has been with many genuine atrocities.
Iraq was a ghastly mistake - a million killed and two or three million made exiles, and the United States didn’t even have the decency to accept a good share of the exiles. They left it to poor lands like Syria to stagger under the humanitarian burden.
Afghanistan was another ghastly mistake: only the goal of vengeance describes what has happened there. Any reasonable expectations by the U.S. of justice could have been met through diplomacy and economic pressures and police work.
Pakistan is being bombed on the flimsiest of excuses. Families and poor villagers are being murdered weekly - under Obama's watch - in the name of trying to get a few "suspected" bad guys. The victims are in the hundreds, and it has terribly increased civil unrest in that land.
Yemen has been bombed. Recent evidence of the use of cluster bombs in the deaths of about fifty people has come to light.
Somalia has been kept under terrible pressure.
Israel has over the last few years called for attacks on Syria and Iran, buzzing the presidential palace in Damascus with jets and weekly making serious threats towards Iran.
Israel has, of course, invaded Lebanon.
It has treated an elected government and a whole people in Gaza to inhumane and anti-democratic pressure.
Somewhere in the heart of every thoughtful person in this region of the world, the idea will have occurred that American policy is just slightly skewed against them, all for the sake of a small new country of immigrants, most of whom have little sympathy with the people or traditions of the place to which they chose to migrate.
Now, most of these events, to one degree or another, center on some concept of keeping Israel going. That certainly, and not oil, was the reason for all that killing in Iraq.
The people of Western Asia are perfectly aware of that. Their views are based on what they see and hear from friends and relatives, not on the sanitized stuff seen on Fox or CNN or ABC.
And then they see Israel behaving even worse than the Somali pirates on the high seas, the pirates generally not killing any of their victims, and they see the United States saying it is just fine.
Well, it is not just fine. It is completely unacceptable.
Of course, coupled with this is everyone’s growing realization that Israel does not play by any rules but its own. It lied, cheated, and stole to build nuclear weapons. It thought nothing of sharing such weapons with a ghastly state like South Africa, all for benefit of some access to strategic materials.
It started the Six Day war to expand its territory, and continues a glacially-paced process of ethnic-cleansing to absorb those captured territories, minus their people. It steals and forges anyone’s passports over and over again to carry out murderous operations. It even ferociously attacked – a two hour assault with every weapon Israel’s air force had - a United States’ military ship in the Six Day war in an effort to drag the U.S. into the war.
And one or two of the most damaging spies in American history were Americans working on Israel’s behalf. Jonathon Pollard was perhaps the worst, yet Israel actually traded in some of the secrets he stole with the Russians and has never stopped asking for his release.
These states see Israel is always forgiven, indeed more than forgiven, Israel being the receiving end of the most extraordinary foreign aid package in history, five hundred dollars per year per Israeli, year after year after year, the virtual subsidy of a society. After all, there are many poor lands where the annual per capita income is not that large.
Erdogan has been friendly and reasonable in the past towards Israel, especially considering the fact that conservative Muslims are a large part of his secular state. But Israel’s behavior kicked him in the teeth, it having been Turkish forces (NATO) that inspected the convoy to make sure there were no weapons. Also, of course, Turkish humanitarians were on board and some were killed, others having been defamed by Israel’s early efforts afterwards to squirm out of what it had done before the eyes of the world.
What is one to make of these events, if you are a reasonable person who loves peace and democratic values?
I can only conclude Israel’s hubris and utterly unethical behavior and America’s unjust favoritism have driven the world pretty close to the brink of despair, and that likely is more keenly felt in those lands than elsewhere.
More unrest would be felt were more of these countries democracies. But many like “moderate” Egypt are hidden dictatorships, and people do not readily express their frustration and disillusion. Ironically, it is a place like undemocratic Egypt where Israel finds its best partner, while never stopping to remind everyone of how Israel is the only democracy in the region (and many might say, judging by acts rather than words, it’s a good thing there are not more such).
The Obama experience also undoubtedly adds to the great weight of these matters. With a name like his, and being the first black man elected president, Obama naturally raised new hopes for justice, and, indeed, Obama sounded good on the Mideast originally, seeming to understand that only American pressure on Israel can produce genuine peace.
But in far less than two years, all that has changed. Obama seemingly accepts every insult (Biden’s treatment on a visit) and bloody excess of Israel’s, just as Bush did, and Obama is the Commander-in-Chief whose orders see Muslims bombed in several countries.
In most important matters, Obama has proved himself little different to Bush, just a more polished and charming version.
He has left all those people with perhaps less hope than ever, a very dangerous situation.
"...it has provoked some American neoconservatives, previously firm friends of the Turks, into unrestrained fury."
Neo-cons and unrestrained fury are old friends.
This group of crypto-fascists has spent years advocating virtually unrestrained use of American power, wars all over the globe, and especially in the Middle East.
Western Asia - a vast region of many proud and ancient peoples - cannot be expected to keep mildly accepting such stuff - piled high as it has been with many genuine atrocities.
Iraq was a ghastly mistake - a million killed and two or three million made exiles, and the United States didn’t even have the decency to accept a good share of the exiles. They left it to poor lands like Syria to stagger under the humanitarian burden.
Afghanistan was another ghastly mistake: only the goal of vengeance describes what has happened there. Any reasonable expectations by the U.S. of justice could have been met through diplomacy and economic pressures and police work.
Pakistan is being bombed on the flimsiest of excuses. Families and poor villagers are being murdered weekly - under Obama's watch - in the name of trying to get a few "suspected" bad guys. The victims are in the hundreds, and it has terribly increased civil unrest in that land.
Yemen has been bombed. Recent evidence of the use of cluster bombs in the deaths of about fifty people has come to light.
Somalia has been kept under terrible pressure.
Israel has over the last few years called for attacks on Syria and Iran, buzzing the presidential palace in Damascus with jets and weekly making serious threats towards Iran.
Israel has, of course, invaded Lebanon.
It has treated an elected government and a whole people in Gaza to inhumane and anti-democratic pressure.
Somewhere in the heart of every thoughtful person in this region of the world, the idea will have occurred that American policy is just slightly skewed against them, all for the sake of a small new country of immigrants, most of whom have little sympathy with the people or traditions of the place to which they chose to migrate.
Now, most of these events, to one degree or another, center on some concept of keeping Israel going. That certainly, and not oil, was the reason for all that killing in Iraq.
The people of Western Asia are perfectly aware of that. Their views are based on what they see and hear from friends and relatives, not on the sanitized stuff seen on Fox or CNN or ABC.
And then they see Israel behaving even worse than the Somali pirates on the high seas, the pirates generally not killing any of their victims, and they see the United States saying it is just fine.
Well, it is not just fine. It is completely unacceptable.
Of course, coupled with this is everyone’s growing realization that Israel does not play by any rules but its own. It lied, cheated, and stole to build nuclear weapons. It thought nothing of sharing such weapons with a ghastly state like South Africa, all for benefit of some access to strategic materials.
It started the Six Day war to expand its territory, and continues a glacially-paced process of ethnic-cleansing to absorb those captured territories, minus their people. It steals and forges anyone’s passports over and over again to carry out murderous operations. It even ferociously attacked – a two hour assault with every weapon Israel’s air force had - a United States’ military ship in the Six Day war in an effort to drag the U.S. into the war.
And one or two of the most damaging spies in American history were Americans working on Israel’s behalf. Jonathon Pollard was perhaps the worst, yet Israel actually traded in some of the secrets he stole with the Russians and has never stopped asking for his release.
These states see Israel is always forgiven, indeed more than forgiven, Israel being the receiving end of the most extraordinary foreign aid package in history, five hundred dollars per year per Israeli, year after year after year, the virtual subsidy of a society. After all, there are many poor lands where the annual per capita income is not that large.
Erdogan has been friendly and reasonable in the past towards Israel, especially considering the fact that conservative Muslims are a large part of his secular state. But Israel’s behavior kicked him in the teeth, it having been Turkish forces (NATO) that inspected the convoy to make sure there were no weapons. Also, of course, Turkish humanitarians were on board and some were killed, others having been defamed by Israel’s early efforts afterwards to squirm out of what it had done before the eyes of the world.
What is one to make of these events, if you are a reasonable person who loves peace and democratic values?
I can only conclude Israel’s hubris and utterly unethical behavior and America’s unjust favoritism have driven the world pretty close to the brink of despair, and that likely is more keenly felt in those lands than elsewhere.
More unrest would be felt were more of these countries democracies. But many like “moderate” Egypt are hidden dictatorships, and people do not readily express their frustration and disillusion. Ironically, it is a place like undemocratic Egypt where Israel finds its best partner, while never stopping to remind everyone of how Israel is the only democracy in the region (and many might say, judging by acts rather than words, it’s a good thing there are not more such).
The Obama experience also undoubtedly adds to the great weight of these matters. With a name like his, and being the first black man elected president, Obama naturally raised new hopes for justice, and, indeed, Obama sounded good on the Mideast originally, seeming to understand that only American pressure on Israel can produce genuine peace.
But in far less than two years, all that has changed. Obama seemingly accepts every insult (Biden’s treatment on a visit) and bloody excess of Israel’s, just as Bush did, and Obama is the Commander-in-Chief whose orders see Muslims bombed in several countries.
In most important matters, Obama has proved himself little different to Bush, just a more polished and charming version.
He has left all those people with perhaps less hope than ever, a very dangerous situation.
CANADA'S POLITICAL IMPASSE AND THE FUTURE OF THE LIBERAL PARTY
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"Desperate measures don’t have to be stupid measures..."
Jeffrey Simpson, as one who regards your analyses often with admiration, I must say you could not be more wrongheaded here. This column suggests a party insider blubbering.
Getting rid of a political liability like Ignatieff is not extreme: it is the most usual, work-a-day politics, much like dumping a poorly performing minister.
Even further, since Ignatieff was never properly elected as leader, being parachuted into both his riding a few years ago and then into the leadership by backroom insiders, he is owed nothing by most voters.
And one might perhaps have developed a different view, had he taken command and proved a Trudeau of Chretien, but, no, he has proved a Stanfield. Actually that is unfair to Stanfield, because, despite his weaknesses as a politician, he was an admirably honorable man.
Ignatieff is uninspiring and even boring, and he is unimaginative, surprisingly so, considering his much-vaunted academic background.
And when it comes to honor, Ignatieff stands before us in a badly tarnished suit of armor indeed. I can never respect a man who has said the things he has said in the past, most especially one pretending to be liberal (in the best sense of that word).
He is a crypto-neo-con. He is anti-democratic. His is no genuine voice for human rights, despite the risible pretensions of his past chair at Harvard. He comes off as a wine-and-cheese fop without having any of the devastating wit of a Disraeli.
I think my views in this have some valid application, because I’m the kind of voter the Liberals are seeking, progressive in all social matters and traditional and sound in finances, as well as one who votes for integrity and character regardless of party.
And for me, those qualifiers mean I can never vote for Ignatieff.
I am deeply distressed over the national political impasse we are at. Ignatieff can never be elected prime minister. Harper can never command a majority.
Yet the narrow extremist Harper is cunning and aggressive, and he is permitted to rule much as though he had a majority, and the man is trashing all our traditions of civility and decency in politics, aping every shabby view and technique of Newt Gingrich twenty years ago.
We need change, but not just empty gasbag change.
Until sentiments in Quebec come into a new balance, the only genuine changes I see possible are leadership change in the Liberal Party and a merger or coalition with the NDP.
Parties appear and disappear over time. They are not a set of Egyptian pyramids to stand forever. In Britain, the Whigs disappeared, the Peelites disappeared, the Liberals disappeared, and today Labour is fading.
"Desperate measures don’t have to be stupid measures..."
Jeffrey Simpson, as one who regards your analyses often with admiration, I must say you could not be more wrongheaded here. This column suggests a party insider blubbering.
Getting rid of a political liability like Ignatieff is not extreme: it is the most usual, work-a-day politics, much like dumping a poorly performing minister.
Even further, since Ignatieff was never properly elected as leader, being parachuted into both his riding a few years ago and then into the leadership by backroom insiders, he is owed nothing by most voters.
And one might perhaps have developed a different view, had he taken command and proved a Trudeau of Chretien, but, no, he has proved a Stanfield. Actually that is unfair to Stanfield, because, despite his weaknesses as a politician, he was an admirably honorable man.
Ignatieff is uninspiring and even boring, and he is unimaginative, surprisingly so, considering his much-vaunted academic background.
And when it comes to honor, Ignatieff stands before us in a badly tarnished suit of armor indeed. I can never respect a man who has said the things he has said in the past, most especially one pretending to be liberal (in the best sense of that word).
He is a crypto-neo-con. He is anti-democratic. His is no genuine voice for human rights, despite the risible pretensions of his past chair at Harvard. He comes off as a wine-and-cheese fop without having any of the devastating wit of a Disraeli.
I think my views in this have some valid application, because I’m the kind of voter the Liberals are seeking, progressive in all social matters and traditional and sound in finances, as well as one who votes for integrity and character regardless of party.
And for me, those qualifiers mean I can never vote for Ignatieff.
I am deeply distressed over the national political impasse we are at. Ignatieff can never be elected prime minister. Harper can never command a majority.
Yet the narrow extremist Harper is cunning and aggressive, and he is permitted to rule much as though he had a majority, and the man is trashing all our traditions of civility and decency in politics, aping every shabby view and technique of Newt Gingrich twenty years ago.
We need change, but not just empty gasbag change.
Until sentiments in Quebec come into a new balance, the only genuine changes I see possible are leadership change in the Liberal Party and a merger or coalition with the NDP.
Parties appear and disappear over time. They are not a set of Egyptian pyramids to stand forever. In Britain, the Whigs disappeared, the Peelites disappeared, the Liberals disappeared, and today Labour is fading.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
FURTHER TO IRAN SANCTIONS: THE INSANE IDEA OF ISRAEL ATTACKING IRAN - THE CONSEQUENCES ARE INCALCULABLE
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY GIDEON RACHMAN IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES
"Either way, Israel doesn't necessarily need Saudi airspace as it has other capabilities"
Do Israel and its apologists ever learn anything?
I think not, because it is the nature of ideologues and extremists virtually to be unable to alter their dark obsessions.
The threat to attack Iran is dangerous, destabilizing, and truly reflects unbalanced thinking.
It only confirms the world's growing view of Israel as out of control and acting outside all the laws of nations.
First, Iran is in a position to do some very unpleasant things in retaliation for an attack. This is not an impotent little country, possessing as it does some pretty sophisticated missiles and armaments, and it sits on one of the world's most important arteries of commerce.
Second, it is extremely doubtful for many reasons that Israel has the capacity to carry out its threats.
Only this morning, the Saudis characterized The Times' report on use of Saudi airspace as flatly wrong and against national policies. The deception work of Mossad?
Third, Israel, despite its twenty four hour-a-day garrison-state status, has many vulnerabilities, being a small geographical area loaded with possible targets.
Iran does not need nuclear weapons to successfully target places like the Dimona nuclear facility, Israel's illicit nuclear weapons factory. Or Israeli power plants.
Iran is perfectly able to send not puny homemade rockets with firecracker tips - the dreaded Qassams which provided Israel's shabby excuse for killing 400 children and a thousand others.
[see:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVOzkMPj4kP8cmb9LlBGIRRZbzThpnZgeJuTymJHkjpB8LnllaE_bPbrvgg_F7devyPsOEFdihb1bzxTEFJgyHUwFGa5HwlzvRBS_IeNS6VnM31pVhCleC13ULgcxDP_fsoSr/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg ]
No, Iran's arsenal includes missiles like Shahab-3.
[see:
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/militarysumfolder/shahab-3.html ]
Iran also has capable anti-ship missiles, as Hezbollah demonstrated by nearly sinking an Israeli military ship during Israel's atrocity in Southern Lebanon.
Fourth, the knowledge for nuclear operations does not go away. They are classic examples of the genie and the bottle.
Fifth, even were a strike possible for Israel, the chance of destroying all of the existing protected and distributed facilities with effect is remote.
Sixth, Iran would certainly set about on its own Manhattan Project after any strike, a priority national program. Indeed, it is quite possible Iran is not working towards nuclear weapons now, but after any strike, it would set them at the highest priority, and they do have the human and material resources to do so.
Seventh, the entire world would react to Israel’s hypocrisy. Only today we have another story in The Guardian about Israel’s proliferation activities with apartheid South Africa.
[see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/south-africa-nuclear-trigger-israel ]
These stories and indeed South Africa’s recent publication of papers concerning its secret dealing with Israel on nuclear weapons reflect changing attitudes towards Israel, for they would previously have been suppressed as Israel tried hard to do.
Israel is an illicit nuclear power – having lied, cheated, and stolen its way to getting there - and it is no longer possible to hide that fact. In the current IAEA talks, Israel as a subject is insisted upon despite the pathetic efforts of the U.S. to suppress the subject.
You can live outside rule of law for a while, as Israel clearly demonstrates, but you cannot sustain an indefinite position of hypocrisy and threat and deception towards much of the world. Even Ghadaffi learned you eventually have to come in from the cold.
The only sensible approach to preventing proliferation in the Middle East is to make the region a nuclear-free zone, and that very much includes Israel.
"Either way, Israel doesn't necessarily need Saudi airspace as it has other capabilities"
Do Israel and its apologists ever learn anything?
I think not, because it is the nature of ideologues and extremists virtually to be unable to alter their dark obsessions.
The threat to attack Iran is dangerous, destabilizing, and truly reflects unbalanced thinking.
It only confirms the world's growing view of Israel as out of control and acting outside all the laws of nations.
First, Iran is in a position to do some very unpleasant things in retaliation for an attack. This is not an impotent little country, possessing as it does some pretty sophisticated missiles and armaments, and it sits on one of the world's most important arteries of commerce.
Second, it is extremely doubtful for many reasons that Israel has the capacity to carry out its threats.
Only this morning, the Saudis characterized The Times' report on use of Saudi airspace as flatly wrong and against national policies. The deception work of Mossad?
Third, Israel, despite its twenty four hour-a-day garrison-state status, has many vulnerabilities, being a small geographical area loaded with possible targets.
Iran does not need nuclear weapons to successfully target places like the Dimona nuclear facility, Israel's illicit nuclear weapons factory. Or Israeli power plants.
Iran is perfectly able to send not puny homemade rockets with firecracker tips - the dreaded Qassams which provided Israel's shabby excuse for killing 400 children and a thousand others.
[see:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVOzkMPj4kP8cmb9LlBGIRRZbzThpnZgeJuTymJHkjpB8LnllaE_bPbrvgg_F7devyPsOEFdihb1bzxTEFJgyHUwFGa5HwlzvRBS_IeNS6VnM31pVhCleC13ULgcxDP_fsoSr/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg ]
No, Iran's arsenal includes missiles like Shahab-3.
[see:
http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/militarysumfolder/shahab-3.html ]
Iran also has capable anti-ship missiles, as Hezbollah demonstrated by nearly sinking an Israeli military ship during Israel's atrocity in Southern Lebanon.
Fourth, the knowledge for nuclear operations does not go away. They are classic examples of the genie and the bottle.
Fifth, even were a strike possible for Israel, the chance of destroying all of the existing protected and distributed facilities with effect is remote.
Sixth, Iran would certainly set about on its own Manhattan Project after any strike, a priority national program. Indeed, it is quite possible Iran is not working towards nuclear weapons now, but after any strike, it would set them at the highest priority, and they do have the human and material resources to do so.
Seventh, the entire world would react to Israel’s hypocrisy. Only today we have another story in The Guardian about Israel’s proliferation activities with apartheid South Africa.
[see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/south-africa-nuclear-trigger-israel ]
These stories and indeed South Africa’s recent publication of papers concerning its secret dealing with Israel on nuclear weapons reflect changing attitudes towards Israel, for they would previously have been suppressed as Israel tried hard to do.
Israel is an illicit nuclear power – having lied, cheated, and stolen its way to getting there - and it is no longer possible to hide that fact. In the current IAEA talks, Israel as a subject is insisted upon despite the pathetic efforts of the U.S. to suppress the subject.
You can live outside rule of law for a while, as Israel clearly demonstrates, but you cannot sustain an indefinite position of hypocrisy and threat and deception towards much of the world. Even Ghadaffi learned you eventually have to come in from the cold.
The only sensible approach to preventing proliferation in the Middle East is to make the region a nuclear-free zone, and that very much includes Israel.
IGNATIEFF RAISES HIS WEAK VOICE ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY HARPER IS DELIBERATING USING UP TIME IN REACHING AN AGREEMENT OVER PAPERS ON ABUSE OF DETAINEES
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
My, how refreshing to read Ignatieff actually speaking to an important issue.
It could not be clearer what Harper is doing.
The Globe has even published one of Tom Flanagan's trashy columns in which the American neo-con advisor to Harper said in defending prorogation that it was a good idea not to let discrediting information be released concerning Canadian military activities.
Of course, the trouble is that Ignatieff is utterly impotent to do anything.
He can't normally even speak to great issues, much less act on them.
When we need a hero, we have a clownish idiot-savant.
A coalition or merger cannot come too soon.
Harper is a miserable Republican extremist with a tyrant's temperament, and he is a good chess player with Ignatieff no match.
Harper's behavior reminds me of a saying by the late Lyndon Johnson, "It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in"
Only in Harper’s case, he is inside the tent pissing in.
My, how refreshing to read Ignatieff actually speaking to an important issue.
It could not be clearer what Harper is doing.
The Globe has even published one of Tom Flanagan's trashy columns in which the American neo-con advisor to Harper said in defending prorogation that it was a good idea not to let discrediting information be released concerning Canadian military activities.
Of course, the trouble is that Ignatieff is utterly impotent to do anything.
He can't normally even speak to great issues, much less act on them.
When we need a hero, we have a clownish idiot-savant.
A coalition or merger cannot come too soon.
Harper is a miserable Republican extremist with a tyrant's temperament, and he is a good chess player with Ignatieff no match.
Harper's behavior reminds me of a saying by the late Lyndon Johnson, "It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in"
Only in Harper’s case, he is inside the tent pissing in.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
AMERICA'S PERILOUS FINANCIAL SITUATION
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOK IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES
Wendell Murray is right: there is a huge capacity in America for increasing taxes.
It has been a race to the bottom for years in cutting taxes. From old man Reagan to lunatic Bush, there has been no limit to cutting the sources of nourishment for society’s bones and sinews, the infrastructure of government.
On top of that insanity, there has been the imposition of wars and increased military budgets – to the point, by the way, where the U.S. now spends more than the entire rest of the planet on the means of destruction - with no responsible method of accounting for their payment.
I believe Americans will not accept the kind of taxation required. Their sense of entitlement and the "I want it now, and I want it all," syndrome are still throbbing away, much resembling teenagers with crushes, despite the economic crisis.
Obama has backed off one issue after another in response to less-than-rational pressure, and I cannot see him being tough in this matter. The truth is Americans do not want a tough president, unless by “tough” you are talking about bombing foeigners somewhere.
He sounded good on the Middle East in the beginning, looking for a genuine peace, and now I'm not sure I can tell him from George Bush, but then the mid-term Congressional elections would be sorely affected by a loss of contributions from the apologists for Israel.
He sounded good about war in the beginning, although his main stress was only the suggestive fact that he did not vote for the atrocity in Iraq, but still he runs two wars, and he has lowered himself into the ethical hell with his horrible drone attacks on Pakistan, killing many civilians and de-stabilizing that society.
He has responded in an almost ridiculous fashion to the whining complaints about the BP blow-out. I say “whining” because it is Americans themselves who insist on consuming as much gasoline as they possibly can, driving lumbering pick-up trucks and buying homes with three-car garages.
The attacks on BP are, so far as I can tell, unwarranted. Was BP indeed doing anything different to the many other operators in the Gulf? If not, then the blow-out is just bad luck, one of those one-in-a-thousand possibilities inherent in any risky business, which is certainly the nature of drilling for oil more than a mile beneath the sea.
And the attacks on Obama are unwarranted. This was not a case of a cabinet-level official totally failing to do his job, and a president just blithely going about things as usual while a city sinks and a thousand people die.
But Obama, again with mid-term elections ahead, has responded as though these attacks were warranted. His heavy-handed treatment of BP has been inappropriate and hostile to a major company from a friendly nation.
No, I don’t expect much from Obama, and that is part of the reason I expect America is headed for a dark chapter, a serious decline, dragging the rest of us with it. This is a people who appear from countless examples in their history to learn only by banging their heads into walls.
Wendell Murray is right: there is a huge capacity in America for increasing taxes.
It has been a race to the bottom for years in cutting taxes. From old man Reagan to lunatic Bush, there has been no limit to cutting the sources of nourishment for society’s bones and sinews, the infrastructure of government.
On top of that insanity, there has been the imposition of wars and increased military budgets – to the point, by the way, where the U.S. now spends more than the entire rest of the planet on the means of destruction - with no responsible method of accounting for their payment.
I believe Americans will not accept the kind of taxation required. Their sense of entitlement and the "I want it now, and I want it all," syndrome are still throbbing away, much resembling teenagers with crushes, despite the economic crisis.
Obama has backed off one issue after another in response to less-than-rational pressure, and I cannot see him being tough in this matter. The truth is Americans do not want a tough president, unless by “tough” you are talking about bombing foeigners somewhere.
He sounded good on the Middle East in the beginning, looking for a genuine peace, and now I'm not sure I can tell him from George Bush, but then the mid-term Congressional elections would be sorely affected by a loss of contributions from the apologists for Israel.
He sounded good about war in the beginning, although his main stress was only the suggestive fact that he did not vote for the atrocity in Iraq, but still he runs two wars, and he has lowered himself into the ethical hell with his horrible drone attacks on Pakistan, killing many civilians and de-stabilizing that society.
He has responded in an almost ridiculous fashion to the whining complaints about the BP blow-out. I say “whining” because it is Americans themselves who insist on consuming as much gasoline as they possibly can, driving lumbering pick-up trucks and buying homes with three-car garages.
The attacks on BP are, so far as I can tell, unwarranted. Was BP indeed doing anything different to the many other operators in the Gulf? If not, then the blow-out is just bad luck, one of those one-in-a-thousand possibilities inherent in any risky business, which is certainly the nature of drilling for oil more than a mile beneath the sea.
And the attacks on Obama are unwarranted. This was not a case of a cabinet-level official totally failing to do his job, and a president just blithely going about things as usual while a city sinks and a thousand people die.
But Obama, again with mid-term elections ahead, has responded as though these attacks were warranted. His heavy-handed treatment of BP has been inappropriate and hostile to a major company from a friendly nation.
No, I don’t expect much from Obama, and that is part of the reason I expect America is headed for a dark chapter, a serious decline, dragging the rest of us with it. This is a people who appear from countless examples in their history to learn only by banging their heads into walls.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
NEW SANCTIONS IMPOSED ON IRAN
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY GIDEON RACHMAN IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES
Hillary Clinton has steadily moved down from "crippling" to tamer language, and the simple reason is that at first she was nodding to the Israel Lobby and now she is dealing with the reality of other Security Council members who do not view things the same way.
I believe sanctions rarely work, and rightly so: they are an inappropriate interference, invariably by America, into the economic affairs of others.
The interests of others, especially China and Russia, are not the same as the interests of the United States. Others have incentives to go around sanctions - after all, that kind of effort is the essence of capitalism at work.
There is a very great deal of hypocrisy and hubris in all such efforts as that against Iran.
I would love a world in which nuclear weapons either did not exist or were effectively neutralized by a new technology.
But we do not have such a world, and I am not comforted by the United States - a nation with the world’s worst record of aggression and overthrows and imperial expansion over the last fifty years - claiming for itself the role of God in international affairs.
And I am equally disturbed - as we all should be - by Israel's aping the American attitude in its area of the world, playing the role of miniature geo-political replica of a superpower, determining everything that happens within a thousand miles of its borders and doing so with an illicit stock of nuclear weapons.
I cannot stress enough that Iran’s entire modern period is one without its ever attacking anyone. Indeed, it fought the aggression of others – egged on by the same United States – and in the 1950s had its democratic government overthrown by the CIA complicit with British oil interests.
And then America supported for many years, and armed to the teeth, a soulless dictator whose secret police, Savak, used to pull out the fingernails of victims in their basement torture chambers.
And today on Iran’s border, Americans, who do not belong there, occupy a neighboring country. Israel is reported to have two or three of its German-supplied Diesel submarines, armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, off the coast. America also has an armada there.
How does that look from the Iranian perspective, the world’s two biggest bullies waving weapons and harsh rhetoric at them regularly? Again, an Iran which has no record of aggression?
I’d want nuclear weapons too, and so long as others are free to brandish them, it is the correct response.
It is almost certain that the rise of another nuclear power in the region will stabilize, rather than de-stabilize, things. Europe reached a peaceful state under MAD, and there is every reason to believe the same would be true in this region.
It would, of course, mark the end of Israel’s mini-reign of terror over the region, but that would be a good thing. As we can plainly see in the Israeli case, bullies do not make peace, and well-armed bullies with no one able to resist them, are downright dangerous and continuously de-stabilizing.
The example of North Korea is extremely important. If ever there were a government which has behaved in odd ways, it is the world’s last Stalinist state. Yet clearly North Korea is not going to use its nuclear weapons to attack anyone: that would be national suicide. But clearly too, America does not treat North Korea with the same contempt it does some other states, and it is not going to invade the place any time soon.
All the Israeli propaganda about Iran is of the poorest kind, effective propaganda always being based on some truth. Iran threatens no one. President Ahmadinejad’s statements in the past have been deliberately mistranslated, and, besides, the President in modern Iran has absolutely no military authority. The man likes to poke fun at the West’s shibboleths, but that makes him neither a criminal nor a danger.
At any rate, when a country like Israel - which has attacked every neighbor that it has, many twice, occupies the land of others for over forty years, imposes whatever rules it pleases such as blockades or check points or identity cards or Berlin walls – shouts continuously about a country with Iran’s peaceful record, it would be laughable, were it not dangerous. In any event, it is not credible in the least.
Hillary Clinton has steadily moved down from "crippling" to tamer language, and the simple reason is that at first she was nodding to the Israel Lobby and now she is dealing with the reality of other Security Council members who do not view things the same way.
I believe sanctions rarely work, and rightly so: they are an inappropriate interference, invariably by America, into the economic affairs of others.
The interests of others, especially China and Russia, are not the same as the interests of the United States. Others have incentives to go around sanctions - after all, that kind of effort is the essence of capitalism at work.
There is a very great deal of hypocrisy and hubris in all such efforts as that against Iran.
I would love a world in which nuclear weapons either did not exist or were effectively neutralized by a new technology.
But we do not have such a world, and I am not comforted by the United States - a nation with the world’s worst record of aggression and overthrows and imperial expansion over the last fifty years - claiming for itself the role of God in international affairs.
And I am equally disturbed - as we all should be - by Israel's aping the American attitude in its area of the world, playing the role of miniature geo-political replica of a superpower, determining everything that happens within a thousand miles of its borders and doing so with an illicit stock of nuclear weapons.
I cannot stress enough that Iran’s entire modern period is one without its ever attacking anyone. Indeed, it fought the aggression of others – egged on by the same United States – and in the 1950s had its democratic government overthrown by the CIA complicit with British oil interests.
And then America supported for many years, and armed to the teeth, a soulless dictator whose secret police, Savak, used to pull out the fingernails of victims in their basement torture chambers.
And today on Iran’s border, Americans, who do not belong there, occupy a neighboring country. Israel is reported to have two or three of its German-supplied Diesel submarines, armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, off the coast. America also has an armada there.
How does that look from the Iranian perspective, the world’s two biggest bullies waving weapons and harsh rhetoric at them regularly? Again, an Iran which has no record of aggression?
I’d want nuclear weapons too, and so long as others are free to brandish them, it is the correct response.
It is almost certain that the rise of another nuclear power in the region will stabilize, rather than de-stabilize, things. Europe reached a peaceful state under MAD, and there is every reason to believe the same would be true in this region.
It would, of course, mark the end of Israel’s mini-reign of terror over the region, but that would be a good thing. As we can plainly see in the Israeli case, bullies do not make peace, and well-armed bullies with no one able to resist them, are downright dangerous and continuously de-stabilizing.
The example of North Korea is extremely important. If ever there were a government which has behaved in odd ways, it is the world’s last Stalinist state. Yet clearly North Korea is not going to use its nuclear weapons to attack anyone: that would be national suicide. But clearly too, America does not treat North Korea with the same contempt it does some other states, and it is not going to invade the place any time soon.
All the Israeli propaganda about Iran is of the poorest kind, effective propaganda always being based on some truth. Iran threatens no one. President Ahmadinejad’s statements in the past have been deliberately mistranslated, and, besides, the President in modern Iran has absolutely no military authority. The man likes to poke fun at the West’s shibboleths, but that makes him neither a criminal nor a danger.
At any rate, when a country like Israel - which has attacked every neighbor that it has, many twice, occupies the land of others for over forty years, imposes whatever rules it pleases such as blockades or check points or identity cards or Berlin walls – shouts continuously about a country with Iran’s peaceful record, it would be laughable, were it not dangerous. In any event, it is not credible in the least.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
AFGHANISTAN - JUST WHAT IS IT THAT CANADA IS SUPPOSED TO SEE THROUGH? IN TRUTH AFGHANISTAN IS A FOOL'S MISSION
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEFFREY SIMPSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
You lose when you choose the wrong battles.
America is fighting the people of Afghanistan, at least a very large portion of them.
That is a battle you can never win unless you are prepared to behave like Stalin's Russia and crush everyone.
Sadly, America is being pulled in that direction. Its drone killings and air attacks have almost certainly killed far more innocent people than suspected "bad guys."
There never has been a definable "mission" in Afghanistan, other than not-to-be-uttered task of American vengeance.
America went there, against the advice of many wise people at the time, as a response to arm-pumping bullies sitting in bars across the land watching images of the twin towers endlessly repeated over beer. It was the same belly-over-belt battle cry you get for the Superbowl.
The effort gained a modicum of international respectability by Bush-Cheney strong-arming the United Nations into passing a resolution, something which at that time, with America’s great financial and economic strengths and calling in many markers with threats and promises, was not overly difficult to achieve and something it has done a number of times.
But the real test of the international community’s belief in America’s “cause” is the numbers of troops they committed and the nature of their assignments.
The numbers are so small and the assignments are so limited that it becomes a very black joke when America sounds its trumpet about a mission vital to the whole world.
It clearly is not, else millions of troops would have poured into Afghanistan and completely occupied it. NATO fully engaged would be an awesome event, but it was never more engaged than press briefings and contingents of troops the size of a Remembrance Day parade.
Canada went there, having offended the Bush-Cheney sensibilities a few times (thank you, again, Mr. Chretien, for keeping us out of the dirty, murderous hell of Iraq) because it felt the pressure – the same kind of pressure with which the U.S. obtains U.N. resolutions – that it “owed one to the Pentagon.”
The Liberals expected the commitment to be similar to that of other NATO countries – that is, minimal – but our current wannabe-Republican government managed to put them in the worst possible spot. Pure incompetence, as was the turning over of detainees, mostly poor farmers – for torture, something they continue to hide.
Ours is a fool’s mission. Canada’s forces have done their best, but doing your best in a pointless task goes nowhere, and that is where we are, nowhere.
The Taleban need never have been our enemies. They attacked no one. And the guys we allied ourselves with are every bit as backward. Indeed, few seem aware of the fact but it was the Northern Alliance – “our” guys – who first let bin Laden stay in the country.
The Taleban, formed in the face of a murderous chaos after the Russians left to provide what locals regarded as clean government, only refused to extradite bin Laden because the U.S. provided not one scrap of evidence against him, the provision of such evidence being the normal procedure in extraditions everywhere.
The measure of American dissimulation is the absurd occasional recording of bin Laden, a man who was certainly killed in the air bombardment at the beginning, a bombardment so awful the U.S. never wanted to reveal the details, just as it has always hidden the extent of its victims in Iraq.
All the garbage about women and backwardness is just that, garbage: it was Bush-Cheney propaganda to win over soccer moms for war. Yes, Afghanistan is backward, but we have done very little in reality to change that – actually an impossible task for a vast land of 30 million – and the world is screaming with backward places and abuse against women.
In Africa, 3 million women a year suffer genital mutilation, and in many places there young girls are routinely raped by the older men in their village who are in no way held accountable. Where are the calls to invade and sort that horror out? There are none, of course, but we kid ourselves that that is why we are wasting lives and great treasure in Afghanistan.
Again, Afghanistan is a fool’s mission.
You lose when you choose the wrong battles.
America is fighting the people of Afghanistan, at least a very large portion of them.
That is a battle you can never win unless you are prepared to behave like Stalin's Russia and crush everyone.
Sadly, America is being pulled in that direction. Its drone killings and air attacks have almost certainly killed far more innocent people than suspected "bad guys."
There never has been a definable "mission" in Afghanistan, other than not-to-be-uttered task of American vengeance.
America went there, against the advice of many wise people at the time, as a response to arm-pumping bullies sitting in bars across the land watching images of the twin towers endlessly repeated over beer. It was the same belly-over-belt battle cry you get for the Superbowl.
The effort gained a modicum of international respectability by Bush-Cheney strong-arming the United Nations into passing a resolution, something which at that time, with America’s great financial and economic strengths and calling in many markers with threats and promises, was not overly difficult to achieve and something it has done a number of times.
But the real test of the international community’s belief in America’s “cause” is the numbers of troops they committed and the nature of their assignments.
The numbers are so small and the assignments are so limited that it becomes a very black joke when America sounds its trumpet about a mission vital to the whole world.
It clearly is not, else millions of troops would have poured into Afghanistan and completely occupied it. NATO fully engaged would be an awesome event, but it was never more engaged than press briefings and contingents of troops the size of a Remembrance Day parade.
Canada went there, having offended the Bush-Cheney sensibilities a few times (thank you, again, Mr. Chretien, for keeping us out of the dirty, murderous hell of Iraq) because it felt the pressure – the same kind of pressure with which the U.S. obtains U.N. resolutions – that it “owed one to the Pentagon.”
The Liberals expected the commitment to be similar to that of other NATO countries – that is, minimal – but our current wannabe-Republican government managed to put them in the worst possible spot. Pure incompetence, as was the turning over of detainees, mostly poor farmers – for torture, something they continue to hide.
Ours is a fool’s mission. Canada’s forces have done their best, but doing your best in a pointless task goes nowhere, and that is where we are, nowhere.
The Taleban need never have been our enemies. They attacked no one. And the guys we allied ourselves with are every bit as backward. Indeed, few seem aware of the fact but it was the Northern Alliance – “our” guys – who first let bin Laden stay in the country.
The Taleban, formed in the face of a murderous chaos after the Russians left to provide what locals regarded as clean government, only refused to extradite bin Laden because the U.S. provided not one scrap of evidence against him, the provision of such evidence being the normal procedure in extraditions everywhere.
The measure of American dissimulation is the absurd occasional recording of bin Laden, a man who was certainly killed in the air bombardment at the beginning, a bombardment so awful the U.S. never wanted to reveal the details, just as it has always hidden the extent of its victims in Iraq.
All the garbage about women and backwardness is just that, garbage: it was Bush-Cheney propaganda to win over soccer moms for war. Yes, Afghanistan is backward, but we have done very little in reality to change that – actually an impossible task for a vast land of 30 million – and the world is screaming with backward places and abuse against women.
In Africa, 3 million women a year suffer genital mutilation, and in many places there young girls are routinely raped by the older men in their village who are in no way held accountable. Where are the calls to invade and sort that horror out? There are none, of course, but we kid ourselves that that is why we are wasting lives and great treasure in Afghanistan.
Again, Afghanistan is a fool’s mission.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
ISRAEL REFUSES TO ACCEPT AN INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION OF ITS ATTACK ON A HUMANITARIAN CONVOY
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY PATRICK MARTIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This is only what we would expect of Israel, one of the most close-minded societies on earth.
They know the grotesque facts of the convoy massacre, soldiers acting like savages, and they know any impartial investigation will only document that.
Look at the character assassination which has been a small industry among Israeli apologists over the Goldstone Report into the Gaza atrocity.
Judge Goldstone is an honorable man, yet Israelis have gone to lunatic extremes, including taking back honors, to smear him.
Here are some of the early accounts of the many brave passengers on the convoy ships. These are all highly reputable sources, and Israel comes off smelling badly, to say the least:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=129190§ionid=351020202
http://www.france24.com/en/20100605-gaza-flotilla-turkish-activists-bodies-riddled-with-bullets
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/australian-student-tells-of-his-flotilla-ordeal-20100606-xnbh.html?autostart=1
_________________
"Why don't these "humanitarians" help Palestinians build schools and peace."
The poor writer seems unaware that Israel won't let building supplies in!
That seized cargo included the most basic kinds of things, including donated wheelchairs and medicine.
This is only what we would expect of Israel, one of the most close-minded societies on earth.
They know the grotesque facts of the convoy massacre, soldiers acting like savages, and they know any impartial investigation will only document that.
Look at the character assassination which has been a small industry among Israeli apologists over the Goldstone Report into the Gaza atrocity.
Judge Goldstone is an honorable man, yet Israelis have gone to lunatic extremes, including taking back honors, to smear him.
Here are some of the early accounts of the many brave passengers on the convoy ships. These are all highly reputable sources, and Israel comes off smelling badly, to say the least:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=129190§ionid=351020202
http://www.france24.com/en/20100605-gaza-flotilla-turkish-activists-bodies-riddled-with-bullets
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/australian-student-tells-of-his-flotilla-ordeal-20100606-xnbh.html?autostart=1
_________________
"Why don't these "humanitarians" help Palestinians build schools and peace."
The poor writer seems unaware that Israel won't let building supplies in!
That seized cargo included the most basic kinds of things, including donated wheelchairs and medicine.
ON THE SUBJUGATION OF WOMEN BY RELIGIONS
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
The subjugation of women has been a feature of all major Western religions.
Christianity has a history of everything from iron chastity belts to trading women for payment, dowries.
Orthodox Judaism treats women as totally subservient to men, even today in Canada.
There is nothing unusual about Islam, except in the minds of the prejudiced, in this matter.
In general Muslims come from less-developed countries, so naturally their customs reflect ours of a few hundred years ago.
_____________________
By the way, genital mutilation is not a Muslim custom.
It is an African custom, by Africans some of whom happen to be Muslim.
There are about 3 million women each year in Africa mutilated in a village ceremony.
Actually the backwardness there makes Afghanistan look good.
The subjugation of women has been a feature of all major Western religions.
Christianity has a history of everything from iron chastity belts to trading women for payment, dowries.
Orthodox Judaism treats women as totally subservient to men, even today in Canada.
There is nothing unusual about Islam, except in the minds of the prejudiced, in this matter.
In general Muslims come from less-developed countries, so naturally their customs reflect ours of a few hundred years ago.
_____________________
By the way, genital mutilation is not a Muslim custom.
It is an African custom, by Africans some of whom happen to be Muslim.
There are about 3 million women each year in Africa mutilated in a village ceremony.
Actually the backwardness there makes Afghanistan look good.
Monday, June 07, 2010
A RIDICULOUS EDITORIAL ON CANADA IN AFGHANISTAN - AND A COMMENTER REVEALS JUST HOW ARROGANT AND UNINFORMED AMERICANS CAN BE
POSTED RESPONSES TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"The refreshing openness shown by some MPs to continuing Canada's military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2011 is welcome"
Welcome by whom?
Who writes such rubbish as an editorial?
Afghanistan is the biggest waste of life and treasure in Canadian modern history.
We have no purpose there at all, other than "owing one to the Pentagon."
President Karzai and the other parties there are perfectly capable of sorting things out themselves.
One thing is sure, occupation by foreign soldiers hinders Afghanistan's ability to mend its affairs.
____________________
Americano reminds us, if we needed reminding, of the mindset that gave the world the holocaust of Vietnam, the atrocities of Cambodia, the savagery of Iraq, and the stupid blundering of Afghanistan.
Along the way, there were countless lesser Appalachian Throwback works, from Chile to Somalia.
And America crowned its glories by so steeping itself in debt that it caused a financial collapse.
Truly, is there any country on earth more poorly run or more destructive in its actions?
China is almost a model world citizen by comparison.
And why does everyone not treat the U.S. as though these truths were obvious?
Only because of its wealth, and nothing else.
But all its stupidities are putting stress even on that for the future.
Some clown calling himself or herself "Americano" should give Canadians advice?
It's just more proof of arrogance and ignorance beyond measure.
"The refreshing openness shown by some MPs to continuing Canada's military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2011 is welcome"
Welcome by whom?
Who writes such rubbish as an editorial?
Afghanistan is the biggest waste of life and treasure in Canadian modern history.
We have no purpose there at all, other than "owing one to the Pentagon."
President Karzai and the other parties there are perfectly capable of sorting things out themselves.
One thing is sure, occupation by foreign soldiers hinders Afghanistan's ability to mend its affairs.
____________________
Americano reminds us, if we needed reminding, of the mindset that gave the world the holocaust of Vietnam, the atrocities of Cambodia, the savagery of Iraq, and the stupid blundering of Afghanistan.
Along the way, there were countless lesser Appalachian Throwback works, from Chile to Somalia.
And America crowned its glories by so steeping itself in debt that it caused a financial collapse.
Truly, is there any country on earth more poorly run or more destructive in its actions?
China is almost a model world citizen by comparison.
And why does everyone not treat the U.S. as though these truths were obvious?
Only because of its wealth, and nothing else.
But all its stupidities are putting stress even on that for the future.
Some clown calling himself or herself "Americano" should give Canadians advice?
It's just more proof of arrogance and ignorance beyond measure.
THE NOAH'S FLOOD OF FALSE CLAIMS AND ARGUMENTS IN THE WAKE OF ISRAEL'S GAZA CONVOY ATROCITY - SOME FACTUAL CORRECTIONS
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY PATRICK MARTIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"Hamas does not maintain an independent judiciary with rule of law.
"Homosexuality is a crime in Gaza, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. Gays are lucky to make it to prison, they are frequently murdered if exposed.
"There have been no free elections in Gaza since Hamas overthrew the Presidential Authority."
Oh, please, spare us the highly selective statistics.
A Palestinian who marries an Israeli and the children of such a marriage are punished under Israeli law in a number of ways.
A Christian, under Israeli law, who goes to Israel to do the same proselytizing he or she does anywhere else is to be deported.
Israel is 19% Arabic - not by choice but because those people are the descendents of Palestinians who refused to run from Irgun and Stern Terror in the 1940s – but under Israeli law these Israeli passport holders are second-class citizens.
Israel has an elaborate set of discriminatory rules against non-Jewish citizens. Just holding a passport is not enough for what anyone anywhere else would call equal treatment. You must be part of the class of “the Jewish nation” which Israeli law and courts recognize as something higher and more exclusive than mere citizenship by birth.
Indeed, a senior minister of Netanyahu’s government, Lieberman, favors the deportation of Arabs with Israeli citizenship, and his is a view with a good deal of support in Israel. There are many quotes from prominent Israelis, even rabbis, calling the Palestinians, vermin. How would you like to try making a life with that hanging over your head?
Those are just some of the unfair laws against Arabs and others living as part of Israel proper. The other 4 million or so Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation – Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem – are treated terribly as is plain to the whole world.
Any backward law in Gaza, as against homosexuality, rather pales in comparison to the endless abuse of 4 million people with check points, arrests, assassinations, torture, stealing more land, stealing more water, and a set of regulations against these people designed to make them frustrated enough to leave.
___________________________
"And now, it would appear that some believe the Israelis will be defeated by obtuse and willfully- ignorant remarks."
No thoughtful person wants Israel "defeated,” whatever that means anyway.
That is a classic straw-man argument, against the rules of logic.
What honest critics want is an Israel which returns to its borders and treats its neighbors as human beings.
What critics want is the end of Israel's string of atrocities.
And what Israel's critics want is an end of the ghastly lies and misrepresentations which stream like Noah’s flood from Israeli apologists with every incident of Israel’s behaving the bloody bully.
_____________________________
"Israel will get through this, alone as in the past."
Another Israeli apologists' myth.
Alone? When has Israel ever got through anything alone?
With $3 billion assistance per year from America?
Plus a great power’s guarantee of defence?
With billions in gifts and loans from the Jewish people of North America?
With billions in reparations from Germany – deserved, of course, but hardly standing-alone stuff?
With a free-trade treaty with the United States that many countries would give a great deal to have?
With a constant flow of technical and intelligence assistance from the United States, something no other place on earth receives?
With favorable treatment for its products in Europe?
So bent in Israel's favor are international arrangements that Israel exports farm produce which is the most subsidized on the planet, using precious water in a dry region whose actual economic cost is many times the value of exported produce.
And, of course, when you can just take someone else's land and water for your economy, you do have a remarkable advantage, don’t you?
And even more, when everyone is afraid to criticize your most brutal actions, you have still another special advantage.
Stand alone is the last thing Israel does: it’s rather like claiming bravery for what is basically cowardice.
____________________________
"Funny how those who stole land from the Jews 1200 years ago are complaining how those people stole land from them 70 years ago."
No one stole land from Israelis 1200 years ago.
The Roman conquered the region in the first century of the Common Era.
There is no record of the Roman's turning out the inhabitants, and, indeed, expelling the natives was not the practice of Rome.
One Israeli professor eloquently argues that the Palestinians are the true descendants of the ancient Israelis.
Now, as for the “70 years ago,” that is precisely the point of Israel’s critics.
The whole world, including Arab states like Saudi Arabia, accepts or is willing to accept Israel’s existence, despite the rather bloody and unfair events of 70 years ago.
But do we see Israel within the borders of 70 years ago?
No, we see it spreading constantly, its borders always changing, more land and more homes seized from others. Land taken, farms taken, people turned out with nothing.
We see a suppurating wound of abuse to approximately 4 million people (Gaza and the West Bank) who do not live inside the recognized borders of Israel.
We see Israel not permitting even a democratic government (Gaza) to exist without arrests, assassinations, and a horrible blockade.
There would be no problem were Israel to return to its proper borders and to begin treating its neighbors with respect and decency.
Saying anything else just is just ignoring reality.
And saying anything else supports the efforts of an imperial apartheid power imposing its will on everyone a thousand miles around its ever expanding borders.
Which all means insisting that Israel is a democracy only makes one glad there are not more such democracies
"Hamas does not maintain an independent judiciary with rule of law.
"Homosexuality is a crime in Gaza, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. Gays are lucky to make it to prison, they are frequently murdered if exposed.
"There have been no free elections in Gaza since Hamas overthrew the Presidential Authority."
Oh, please, spare us the highly selective statistics.
A Palestinian who marries an Israeli and the children of such a marriage are punished under Israeli law in a number of ways.
A Christian, under Israeli law, who goes to Israel to do the same proselytizing he or she does anywhere else is to be deported.
Israel is 19% Arabic - not by choice but because those people are the descendents of Palestinians who refused to run from Irgun and Stern Terror in the 1940s – but under Israeli law these Israeli passport holders are second-class citizens.
Israel has an elaborate set of discriminatory rules against non-Jewish citizens. Just holding a passport is not enough for what anyone anywhere else would call equal treatment. You must be part of the class of “the Jewish nation” which Israeli law and courts recognize as something higher and more exclusive than mere citizenship by birth.
Indeed, a senior minister of Netanyahu’s government, Lieberman, favors the deportation of Arabs with Israeli citizenship, and his is a view with a good deal of support in Israel. There are many quotes from prominent Israelis, even rabbis, calling the Palestinians, vermin. How would you like to try making a life with that hanging over your head?
Those are just some of the unfair laws against Arabs and others living as part of Israel proper. The other 4 million or so Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation – Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem – are treated terribly as is plain to the whole world.
Any backward law in Gaza, as against homosexuality, rather pales in comparison to the endless abuse of 4 million people with check points, arrests, assassinations, torture, stealing more land, stealing more water, and a set of regulations against these people designed to make them frustrated enough to leave.
___________________________
"And now, it would appear that some believe the Israelis will be defeated by obtuse and willfully- ignorant remarks."
No thoughtful person wants Israel "defeated,” whatever that means anyway.
That is a classic straw-man argument, against the rules of logic.
What honest critics want is an Israel which returns to its borders and treats its neighbors as human beings.
What critics want is the end of Israel's string of atrocities.
And what Israel's critics want is an end of the ghastly lies and misrepresentations which stream like Noah’s flood from Israeli apologists with every incident of Israel’s behaving the bloody bully.
_____________________________
"Israel will get through this, alone as in the past."
Another Israeli apologists' myth.
Alone? When has Israel ever got through anything alone?
With $3 billion assistance per year from America?
Plus a great power’s guarantee of defence?
With billions in gifts and loans from the Jewish people of North America?
With billions in reparations from Germany – deserved, of course, but hardly standing-alone stuff?
With a free-trade treaty with the United States that many countries would give a great deal to have?
With a constant flow of technical and intelligence assistance from the United States, something no other place on earth receives?
With favorable treatment for its products in Europe?
So bent in Israel's favor are international arrangements that Israel exports farm produce which is the most subsidized on the planet, using precious water in a dry region whose actual economic cost is many times the value of exported produce.
And, of course, when you can just take someone else's land and water for your economy, you do have a remarkable advantage, don’t you?
And even more, when everyone is afraid to criticize your most brutal actions, you have still another special advantage.
Stand alone is the last thing Israel does: it’s rather like claiming bravery for what is basically cowardice.
____________________________
"Funny how those who stole land from the Jews 1200 years ago are complaining how those people stole land from them 70 years ago."
No one stole land from Israelis 1200 years ago.
The Roman conquered the region in the first century of the Common Era.
There is no record of the Roman's turning out the inhabitants, and, indeed, expelling the natives was not the practice of Rome.
One Israeli professor eloquently argues that the Palestinians are the true descendants of the ancient Israelis.
Now, as for the “70 years ago,” that is precisely the point of Israel’s critics.
The whole world, including Arab states like Saudi Arabia, accepts or is willing to accept Israel’s existence, despite the rather bloody and unfair events of 70 years ago.
But do we see Israel within the borders of 70 years ago?
No, we see it spreading constantly, its borders always changing, more land and more homes seized from others. Land taken, farms taken, people turned out with nothing.
We see a suppurating wound of abuse to approximately 4 million people (Gaza and the West Bank) who do not live inside the recognized borders of Israel.
We see Israel not permitting even a democratic government (Gaza) to exist without arrests, assassinations, and a horrible blockade.
There would be no problem were Israel to return to its proper borders and to begin treating its neighbors with respect and decency.
Saying anything else just is just ignoring reality.
And saying anything else supports the efforts of an imperial apartheid power imposing its will on everyone a thousand miles around its ever expanding borders.
Which all means insisting that Israel is a democracy only makes one glad there are not more such democracies
Saturday, June 05, 2010
AMERICA'S GHASTLY USE OF ASSASSINATION DRONES AND THE COLOSSALLY DISHONEST WORD "INSURGENTS"
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY PAUL KORING IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Absolutely true.
I've said many times that it is sickening to imagine the buzz-cut CIA thugs at consoles in a locked room pumping their arms after blowing up a target they know very little about.
Then maybe they go out for lunch.
Indeed, we know they kill many times more innocents - family members or neighbors - than suspected bad guys.
And that word "suspected" is very important. This kind of killing with no legal procedure and no field of combat is plain murder.
Imagine our cops doing the same thing to "suspects" after a drug killing in northwest Toronto?
The "Go get 'em USA" represents precisely the utterly unethical attititude that is the cause of so much of our woe.
It is an Israeli attitude, and the drones represent the Israelization of American policy.
__________________
"...insurgents..."
What a stupid, meaningless word you've added to your vocabulary, Winston Churchill.
What is an insurgent?
Many of these people are in every way legitimate freedom fighters, the expression Ronald Reagan so loved.
Others are just doing what they can to hurt the soldiers who occupied their land. They are, if you will, the resistance.
None of them are alien invaders which is what that phony word ever-so-slightly suggests.
Many might benefit by reading or re-reading Orwell's great essay, “Politics and the English Language.” It's as fresh and meaningful as ever.
Insurgents is a cheat word invented by Pentagon PR touts.
As for a general analysis of so-called terror, read:
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/how-terror-has-lost-its-meaning/
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/when-terror-is-just-fine/
Absolutely true.
I've said many times that it is sickening to imagine the buzz-cut CIA thugs at consoles in a locked room pumping their arms after blowing up a target they know very little about.
Then maybe they go out for lunch.
Indeed, we know they kill many times more innocents - family members or neighbors - than suspected bad guys.
And that word "suspected" is very important. This kind of killing with no legal procedure and no field of combat is plain murder.
Imagine our cops doing the same thing to "suspects" after a drug killing in northwest Toronto?
The "Go get 'em USA" represents precisely the utterly unethical attititude that is the cause of so much of our woe.
It is an Israeli attitude, and the drones represent the Israelization of American policy.
__________________
"...insurgents..."
What a stupid, meaningless word you've added to your vocabulary, Winston Churchill.
What is an insurgent?
Many of these people are in every way legitimate freedom fighters, the expression Ronald Reagan so loved.
Others are just doing what they can to hurt the soldiers who occupied their land. They are, if you will, the resistance.
None of them are alien invaders which is what that phony word ever-so-slightly suggests.
Many might benefit by reading or re-reading Orwell's great essay, “Politics and the English Language.” It's as fresh and meaningful as ever.
Insurgents is a cheat word invented by Pentagon PR touts.
As for a general analysis of so-called terror, read:
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/how-terror-has-lost-its-meaning/
http://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/when-terror-is-just-fine/
THE RIGHT DISHONORABLE BRIAN MULRONEY AND HIS ILL-GOTTEN MILLIONS
POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY TABATHA SOUTHEY IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"...the man's sense of honour isn't worth appealing to."
That about perfectly sums up the character of Brian Mulroney.
Should be the epitaph on his tombstone.
P.S. why don't we take down Mulroney's portrait in Ottawa and hawk it on e-bay?
That would likely fetch a decent sum from those who collect the grotesque and go a little way to recovering the millions he stole.
"...the man's sense of honour isn't worth appealing to."
That about perfectly sums up the character of Brian Mulroney.
Should be the epitaph on his tombstone.
P.S. why don't we take down Mulroney's portrait in Ottawa and hawk it on e-bay?
That would likely fetch a decent sum from those who collect the grotesque and go a little way to recovering the millions he stole.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
AN EDITORIAL SAYING THE BLOCKADE OF GAZA SHOULD PERMIT THE FOOD AND NOT THE GUNS - A PRETENSE OF FAIRNESS WHICH IS EITHER DISHONEST OR UNINFORMED
POSTED RESPONSES TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Indeed, this editorial misses the point.
Gaza is a concentration camp.
Gaza is not Israeli territory, at least not yet, although for many in Israel that is the ultimate goal – to gain the territory without its people. Gaza was a refuge for huge numbers running from the murderous terrors of Israel’s founding, the work of Irgun and Stern, and it has remained a nightmare for Israeli politicians ever since.
The current and past savage Israeli governments have figured a way to pressure the people of Gaza into surrendering everything, even their right to self-determination – there is no other logical way to see the situation.
I don’t care how many guns were imported into Gaza, they could never become a serious threat. Gaza is surrounded by automated Gatling gun towers, and Israeli Merkava tanks and F-16s equipped with Hellfire missiles are on call within minutes.
Anyone who thinks small arms are a threat to Israel is either dishonest or does not appreciate the situation in this place. Please remember, how do Americans – Israel’s provider of billions in subsidy - keep their own sense of personal security with nearby violent cities? Small arms.
Yet, here are the people of Gaza surrounded by a country armed to the teeth, a country which over the years has killed thousands of them. A country which practices such dark arts as secret service assassins, dressed as Arabs, walking the streets seeking prey (a fact not a fantasy, and many of the killings attributed to Palestinian rivalry are the work of such thugs).
Blockades are considered acts of war.
What have the poor people of Gaza done to deserve this inhuman treatment?
Some hotheads fired homemade rockets into Israel in return for Israel’s godawful policies - my, what a threat.
Now, if you lived in a place where someone treated you the way Israel does the million and half people of Gaza, do you not think you might express your frustration at endless abuse?
And consider what else Israel has done to these people. Arrested a major portion of a democratically elected government. Assassinated dozens of political suspects, along with dozens of family members and neighbors along the way. Deprived them of electricity. Deprived them of water. Deprived them of sanitation. Slaughtered 400 children plus a thousand others in the atrocity called Operation Cast Lead. Holds thousands in its prisons, mostly improperly arrested. Has them surrounded with machine guns and fencing. Puts the pressure on Egypt, who loves its American annual bribe, to stop them crossing into the border with Egypt. And still more.
This all constitutes a monstrous crime against humanity and democratic values, yet newspapers like the Globe, who would undoubtedly make noises about such crimes somewhere else, simply go along for the ride.
It is time for Israel to treat its neighbors as human beings, to reach a modus Vivendi, to talk openly even to Hamas members. Never mind the stupid, phony, endless “peace process” – a cover for delay while more land is taken - just act fairly.
There is no Hamas in power in the West Bank and Jerusalem, yet does Israel do any better there? It steals people’s homes and farms almost on a weekly basis. It treats the non-Hamas government there as beggars. People need permits and permissions to do almost any ordinary task, and they often don’t get them. They are humiliated with countless checkpoints.
No, Hamas and security are clearly not what is at work in the Gaza blockade. They are the excuse.
____________________
The editorial is inherently dishonest.
The silly business over small arms is simply an excuse to maintain the blockade, while sounding superficially humanitarian about food.
A blockade is a blockade. Who in God's name would police Israel in its agreement to the Globe's silly proposal?
No one. The UN? Israel has already shown what it thinks of the UN, having murdered a number of UN workers when they stood in its way.
Israel has no right to blockade these poor people, full stop.
The blockade is a technique to make them give up all rights or leave, full stop.
Indeed, this editorial misses the point.
Gaza is a concentration camp.
Gaza is not Israeli territory, at least not yet, although for many in Israel that is the ultimate goal – to gain the territory without its people. Gaza was a refuge for huge numbers running from the murderous terrors of Israel’s founding, the work of Irgun and Stern, and it has remained a nightmare for Israeli politicians ever since.
The current and past savage Israeli governments have figured a way to pressure the people of Gaza into surrendering everything, even their right to self-determination – there is no other logical way to see the situation.
I don’t care how many guns were imported into Gaza, they could never become a serious threat. Gaza is surrounded by automated Gatling gun towers, and Israeli Merkava tanks and F-16s equipped with Hellfire missiles are on call within minutes.
Anyone who thinks small arms are a threat to Israel is either dishonest or does not appreciate the situation in this place. Please remember, how do Americans – Israel’s provider of billions in subsidy - keep their own sense of personal security with nearby violent cities? Small arms.
Yet, here are the people of Gaza surrounded by a country armed to the teeth, a country which over the years has killed thousands of them. A country which practices such dark arts as secret service assassins, dressed as Arabs, walking the streets seeking prey (a fact not a fantasy, and many of the killings attributed to Palestinian rivalry are the work of such thugs).
Blockades are considered acts of war.
What have the poor people of Gaza done to deserve this inhuman treatment?
Some hotheads fired homemade rockets into Israel in return for Israel’s godawful policies - my, what a threat.
Now, if you lived in a place where someone treated you the way Israel does the million and half people of Gaza, do you not think you might express your frustration at endless abuse?
And consider what else Israel has done to these people. Arrested a major portion of a democratically elected government. Assassinated dozens of political suspects, along with dozens of family members and neighbors along the way. Deprived them of electricity. Deprived them of water. Deprived them of sanitation. Slaughtered 400 children plus a thousand others in the atrocity called Operation Cast Lead. Holds thousands in its prisons, mostly improperly arrested. Has them surrounded with machine guns and fencing. Puts the pressure on Egypt, who loves its American annual bribe, to stop them crossing into the border with Egypt. And still more.
This all constitutes a monstrous crime against humanity and democratic values, yet newspapers like the Globe, who would undoubtedly make noises about such crimes somewhere else, simply go along for the ride.
It is time for Israel to treat its neighbors as human beings, to reach a modus Vivendi, to talk openly even to Hamas members. Never mind the stupid, phony, endless “peace process” – a cover for delay while more land is taken - just act fairly.
There is no Hamas in power in the West Bank and Jerusalem, yet does Israel do any better there? It steals people’s homes and farms almost on a weekly basis. It treats the non-Hamas government there as beggars. People need permits and permissions to do almost any ordinary task, and they often don’t get them. They are humiliated with countless checkpoints.
No, Hamas and security are clearly not what is at work in the Gaza blockade. They are the excuse.
____________________
The editorial is inherently dishonest.
The silly business over small arms is simply an excuse to maintain the blockade, while sounding superficially humanitarian about food.
A blockade is a blockade. Who in God's name would police Israel in its agreement to the Globe's silly proposal?
No one. The UN? Israel has already shown what it thinks of the UN, having murdered a number of UN workers when they stood in its way.
Israel has no right to blockade these poor people, full stop.
The blockade is a technique to make them give up all rights or leave, full stop.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
NONSENSE BY THE POUND: ISRAEL TRIED TO NEGOTIATE PEACEFUL BOARDING? HAMAS THREATENS TO DESTROY ISRAEL? ISRAEL WAS WILLING TO LIFT BLOCKADE?
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY PATRICK MARTIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"No mention here of the fact that the Israelis tried to negotiate a peaceful boarding, were refused"
And would you or anyone in their right mind permit scores of heavily armed soldiers aboard your boat on the high seas, at night moreover?
Of course not.
But I say that assuming the correctness of the writer's assertion.
We already have many reports that the Israelis muscled their way on board, indeed started shooting while some people slept in their bunks. And anyone who knows how commandos or SWAT teams work knows which version is more likely.
We have several hundred eye witnesses. Let's see what they say.
I would be surprised if one word agrees with the assertions of Netanyahu or the Israeli Ministry of Truth or Israel's apologists writing here.
The history of Israel's dissimulation is so vast - from the truth about the Six Day War and Israel's attack on the USS Liberty spy ship, at the time, to the work of spies like Jonathon Pollard against its chief benefactor or Israel’s current president’s agreeing to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa - that no one can ever believe the official word on anything.
You earn your reputation in this world, and Israel has certainly worked hard to earn hers.
Attacking every neighbor, abusing millions, assassinations, illegal mass arrests, blockades, regular theft of the property of others, building atomic weapons, lying, spying on friends, etc, etc.
Just look at Netanyahu’s words on cutting short his trip to Ottawa: the man slurred the humanitarians by asserting reports of gunfire when there were absolutely no guns on that ship, a fact ascertained in Turkey.
You work hard for a reputation the way Israel has, it seems to me you should enjoy what you've earned.
_______________________________
"Israel can not give Hamas what it wants; the total destruction of Israel."
Surely, those qualify as the most ridiculous words written here, but they are not just here, they are repeated mindlessly everywhere.
But they are utterly false, pure rhetoric.
Hamas has never attempted to destroy Israel, nor would it even be remotely capable of doing so if that were its desire. Yes, it has anti-Israel propaganda, but what else does it have, other than abuse and frustration?
Hamas has the military capacity of a mid-sized town's police force, at best.
Facing it is a garrison state equipped with sophisticated jet fighters, sophisticated guided missiles, sophisticated tanks and artillery, advanced radars, access to spy satellites, a vast spy network, poison gas supplies, even nuclear weapons, plus a guarantee from the world's superpower.
To get just a notion of Israel’s overwhelming position, see this image of one of the radar-controlled Gatling gun towers which surround Gaza, ready to riddle anything that moves:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/04/e2ca3bc6713642d99f3d33082d3d7072lar.jpg
Except for those pathetic homemade rockets fired out of frustration and hopelessness, Hamas has no record of in any way attacking Israel.
To see just how pathetic those homemade rockets are, see this:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVOzkMPj4kP8cmb9LlBGIRRZbzThpnZgeJuTymJHkjpB8LnllaE_bPbrvgg_F7devyPsOEFdihb1bzxTEFJgyHUwFGa5HwlzvRBS_IeNS6VnM31pVhCleC13ULgcxDP_fsoSr/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg
Now, what is Israel’s record by comparison? It has assassinated many leaders of Hamas, often wiping out families and neighbors in the process. It illegally arrested a major part of an elected government. It refuses even to talk with reasonable men, for many of the leaders of Hamas are genuinely professional people, not guerilla fighters.
Indeed, the measure of Hamas is Israel’s own past treatment of it. Israel’s secret services helped nurture it as a potential opposition to Fatah, Arafat’s party. You don’t subsidize what you are afraid of.
Well, the policy worked in achieving destructive in-fighting between Fatah and Hamas, and Israel just stands back and says look what bad people they are.
Hamas was elected for clean government. Palestinians were tired of Fatah’s corruption, but Israel never gave it so much as an opportunity to talk. Does that sound like an honest desire for peace?
Israel’s extreme response to the election actually caused Hamas to enter into a national unity government with two other parties in 2007. All Israel has done is impose an inhumane and illegal blockade, always yapping about “terrorists.” You never get peace that way, as Northern Ireland and many other examples prove.
But Israel does not want peace as most people understand that word. Israel wants more of other people’s property, minus the people. There is no other rational explanation for its whole set of behaviors.
They don’t deal with Hamas in the West Bank, do they? But do we see peace, or even decent treatment there? No, we see homes and farms seized week after week.
____________________________
"Didn't the author say that Olmert had negotiated to lift the blockade very quickly, in return for a cessation of hostilities, but was refused when he asked for Hamas to return a kidnapped soldier as part of the deal???”
That is a perfect example of the kind of poor information and deliberately incomplete information which Israel's apologists repeat and repeat.
The Palestinians agreed to a ceasefire: Israel broke the agreement.
No, the Palestinians would not include the return the one valuable asset they hold, the Israeli soldier. But they are perfectly ready to release him for reciprocal Israeli action as is widely known.
Remember, Israel holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 to 10 thousand Palestinian prisoners, most improperly arrested, some held in secret facilities, and many tortured. Even members of the cleanly-elected Hamas government were arrested shortly after the election.
The soldier is the only possession the Palestinians hold valued enough by Israel to trade for the release of a small portion of its illegal prisoners. There is nothing irrational or improper about that desire.
"No mention here of the fact that the Israelis tried to negotiate a peaceful boarding, were refused"
And would you or anyone in their right mind permit scores of heavily armed soldiers aboard your boat on the high seas, at night moreover?
Of course not.
But I say that assuming the correctness of the writer's assertion.
We already have many reports that the Israelis muscled their way on board, indeed started shooting while some people slept in their bunks. And anyone who knows how commandos or SWAT teams work knows which version is more likely.
We have several hundred eye witnesses. Let's see what they say.
I would be surprised if one word agrees with the assertions of Netanyahu or the Israeli Ministry of Truth or Israel's apologists writing here.
The history of Israel's dissimulation is so vast - from the truth about the Six Day War and Israel's attack on the USS Liberty spy ship, at the time, to the work of spies like Jonathon Pollard against its chief benefactor or Israel’s current president’s agreeing to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa - that no one can ever believe the official word on anything.
You earn your reputation in this world, and Israel has certainly worked hard to earn hers.
Attacking every neighbor, abusing millions, assassinations, illegal mass arrests, blockades, regular theft of the property of others, building atomic weapons, lying, spying on friends, etc, etc.
Just look at Netanyahu’s words on cutting short his trip to Ottawa: the man slurred the humanitarians by asserting reports of gunfire when there were absolutely no guns on that ship, a fact ascertained in Turkey.
You work hard for a reputation the way Israel has, it seems to me you should enjoy what you've earned.
_______________________________
"Israel can not give Hamas what it wants; the total destruction of Israel."
Surely, those qualify as the most ridiculous words written here, but they are not just here, they are repeated mindlessly everywhere.
But they are utterly false, pure rhetoric.
Hamas has never attempted to destroy Israel, nor would it even be remotely capable of doing so if that were its desire. Yes, it has anti-Israel propaganda, but what else does it have, other than abuse and frustration?
Hamas has the military capacity of a mid-sized town's police force, at best.
Facing it is a garrison state equipped with sophisticated jet fighters, sophisticated guided missiles, sophisticated tanks and artillery, advanced radars, access to spy satellites, a vast spy network, poison gas supplies, even nuclear weapons, plus a guarantee from the world's superpower.
To get just a notion of Israel’s overwhelming position, see this image of one of the radar-controlled Gatling gun towers which surround Gaza, ready to riddle anything that moves:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/04/e2ca3bc6713642d99f3d33082d3d7072lar.jpg
Except for those pathetic homemade rockets fired out of frustration and hopelessness, Hamas has no record of in any way attacking Israel.
To see just how pathetic those homemade rockets are, see this:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVOzkMPj4kP8cmb9LlBGIRRZbzThpnZgeJuTymJHkjpB8LnllaE_bPbrvgg_F7devyPsOEFdihb1bzxTEFJgyHUwFGa5HwlzvRBS_IeNS6VnM31pVhCleC13ULgcxDP_fsoSr/s1600-h/ROCKET+qassam37.jpg
Now, what is Israel’s record by comparison? It has assassinated many leaders of Hamas, often wiping out families and neighbors in the process. It illegally arrested a major part of an elected government. It refuses even to talk with reasonable men, for many of the leaders of Hamas are genuinely professional people, not guerilla fighters.
Indeed, the measure of Hamas is Israel’s own past treatment of it. Israel’s secret services helped nurture it as a potential opposition to Fatah, Arafat’s party. You don’t subsidize what you are afraid of.
Well, the policy worked in achieving destructive in-fighting between Fatah and Hamas, and Israel just stands back and says look what bad people they are.
Hamas was elected for clean government. Palestinians were tired of Fatah’s corruption, but Israel never gave it so much as an opportunity to talk. Does that sound like an honest desire for peace?
Israel’s extreme response to the election actually caused Hamas to enter into a national unity government with two other parties in 2007. All Israel has done is impose an inhumane and illegal blockade, always yapping about “terrorists.” You never get peace that way, as Northern Ireland and many other examples prove.
But Israel does not want peace as most people understand that word. Israel wants more of other people’s property, minus the people. There is no other rational explanation for its whole set of behaviors.
They don’t deal with Hamas in the West Bank, do they? But do we see peace, or even decent treatment there? No, we see homes and farms seized week after week.
____________________________
"Didn't the author say that Olmert had negotiated to lift the blockade very quickly, in return for a cessation of hostilities, but was refused when he asked for Hamas to return a kidnapped soldier as part of the deal???”
That is a perfect example of the kind of poor information and deliberately incomplete information which Israel's apologists repeat and repeat.
The Palestinians agreed to a ceasefire: Israel broke the agreement.
No, the Palestinians would not include the return the one valuable asset they hold, the Israeli soldier. But they are perfectly ready to release him for reciprocal Israeli action as is widely known.
Remember, Israel holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 to 10 thousand Palestinian prisoners, most improperly arrested, some held in secret facilities, and many tortured. Even members of the cleanly-elected Hamas government were arrested shortly after the election.
The soldier is the only possession the Palestinians hold valued enough by Israel to trade for the release of a small portion of its illegal prisoners. There is nothing irrational or improper about that desire.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
DISPROPORTIONATE FORCE FEEDS ANTI-ISRAEL PROPAGANDA? DISPROPORTIONATE? PROPAGANDA? TROJAN VIRUSES WRAPPED IN A SEEMINGLY HARMLESS DOWNLOAD
POSTED RESPONSES TO AN EDITORIAL IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"Disproportionate force feeds propaganda against Israel"
That is a truly cowardly and utterly inappropriate statement.
It is worse than that because it contains two carefully-phrased lies, like vicious Trojan viruses wrapped in a seemingly harmless download.
First, there was no “disproportionate force,” because the humanitarians on those boats used no force. None.
Their boats had been searched in Turkey. They contained no weapons whatsoever.
And if you read or hear about some of these people, you know they are genuine humanitarians and lovers of peace.
There can be no question of that except in the corrupt lies which come from Israel's Ministry of Propaganda and its lobby in North America.
Netanyahu’s slurs about “reports of gunfire” are about as low as it gets, using innuendo against a victim who cannot even answer, much like the attacks on the poor courier, Mr. Sheppard, by sympathizers of the well-connected Mr. Bryant who killed him in a set of behaviors that can only be called criminal by clear-thinking people.
Of course, those Bryant sympathizers and special pleaders included the Globe, didn’t they?
Propaganda against Israel? Where does one see that in these events?
You don’t need propaganda against someone who behaves like a savage. Facts are quite enough.
We’ve had half a century of word games from Israel and her apologists, all the motherhood load of peace and democracy.
The reality is half a century of war, illegal arrests, torture, assassinations, and abuse of millions of people. Israel has attacked every neighbor it has, some more than once. Israel spits in the face of the very country that subsidizes its existence. And Israel again and again shows contempt for the rule of international law, basic humanitarian decencies, institutions like the United Nations.
People must not let this ugly story hide the ghastly revelation that Israel was ready and willing to sell missiles and nuclear warheads to apartheid South Africa. Indeed, its current President led the way on that outrageous matter.
____________________
I just love the folks who use words like "staged" to describe this humanitarian catastrophe.
Nothing could better reveal the desperate thinking and lack of ethics trying to justify piracy and murder.
Indeed, nothing sounds more like the late master of lies and dissimulation, Joseph Goebbels.
When Germany attacked Poland in 1939, a group of prisoners were dressed in Polish uniforms and killed at the Polish border.
That was touted as the excuse for unleashing a blitzkrieg and rolling over a nation in six weeks.
Those people on that boat had all trained in peaceful resistance.
And even if some of them buckled in deadly fear, as scores of heavily armed men boarded their boat in the night, and raised fists or clubs, so what? Shooting a bunch of them is somehow okay?
They did nothing wrong. They were in international waters. They made, for weeks in advance, their totally peaceful intentions clear. Their cargo had been searched.
Israel only used those weeks to plan a way to smother their efforts.
No, the real problem with the brave souls on that boat was precisely that they were liberal-minded, decent supporters of human rights – the very kind of people most hated and reviled by Israel’s defenders as “lefties” or “terrorist sympathizers.”
They had to be shown who is boss, right? Just like the 400 children slaughtered in Gaza.
"Disproportionate force feeds propaganda against Israel"
That is a truly cowardly and utterly inappropriate statement.
It is worse than that because it contains two carefully-phrased lies, like vicious Trojan viruses wrapped in a seemingly harmless download.
First, there was no “disproportionate force,” because the humanitarians on those boats used no force. None.
Their boats had been searched in Turkey. They contained no weapons whatsoever.
And if you read or hear about some of these people, you know they are genuine humanitarians and lovers of peace.
There can be no question of that except in the corrupt lies which come from Israel's Ministry of Propaganda and its lobby in North America.
Netanyahu’s slurs about “reports of gunfire” are about as low as it gets, using innuendo against a victim who cannot even answer, much like the attacks on the poor courier, Mr. Sheppard, by sympathizers of the well-connected Mr. Bryant who killed him in a set of behaviors that can only be called criminal by clear-thinking people.
Of course, those Bryant sympathizers and special pleaders included the Globe, didn’t they?
Propaganda against Israel? Where does one see that in these events?
You don’t need propaganda against someone who behaves like a savage. Facts are quite enough.
We’ve had half a century of word games from Israel and her apologists, all the motherhood load of peace and democracy.
The reality is half a century of war, illegal arrests, torture, assassinations, and abuse of millions of people. Israel has attacked every neighbor it has, some more than once. Israel spits in the face of the very country that subsidizes its existence. And Israel again and again shows contempt for the rule of international law, basic humanitarian decencies, institutions like the United Nations.
People must not let this ugly story hide the ghastly revelation that Israel was ready and willing to sell missiles and nuclear warheads to apartheid South Africa. Indeed, its current President led the way on that outrageous matter.
____________________
I just love the folks who use words like "staged" to describe this humanitarian catastrophe.
Nothing could better reveal the desperate thinking and lack of ethics trying to justify piracy and murder.
Indeed, nothing sounds more like the late master of lies and dissimulation, Joseph Goebbels.
When Germany attacked Poland in 1939, a group of prisoners were dressed in Polish uniforms and killed at the Polish border.
That was touted as the excuse for unleashing a blitzkrieg and rolling over a nation in six weeks.
Those people on that boat had all trained in peaceful resistance.
And even if some of them buckled in deadly fear, as scores of heavily armed men boarded their boat in the night, and raised fists or clubs, so what? Shooting a bunch of them is somehow okay?
They did nothing wrong. They were in international waters. They made, for weeks in advance, their totally peaceful intentions clear. Their cargo had been searched.
Israel only used those weeks to plan a way to smother their efforts.
No, the real problem with the brave souls on that boat was precisely that they were liberal-minded, decent supporters of human rights – the very kind of people most hated and reviled by Israel’s defenders as “lefties” or “terrorist sympathizers.”
They had to be shown who is boss, right? Just like the 400 children slaughtered in Gaza.
Monday, May 31, 2010
GAZA HUMANITARIAN AID MAKES IT TO SHORE - IN THE FORM OF BONE FRAGMENTS AND POOLS OF BLOOD
POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY PATRICK MARTIN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
Such brave soldiers of Israel, killing more innocent people, these for the crime of attempting to deliver humanitarian assistance.
I'm afraid Israel has degenerated into nothing more than a criminal enterprise.
What distinguishes Israel from Cosa Nostra or the Russian Mafia?
Israel kills more people.
________________
"I thought Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza? Did they or didn't they?"
The only thing withdrawn from Gaza was the small tribe of insane "settlers" - immigrants looking for free land at someone else's expense - walking around with machine guns and the razor wire and troops which protected them.
That was a perfect example of Israeli duplicity.
They removed their violent idiots from an unsustainable position and instead turned all of Gaza into a giant concentration camp.
Gaza is surrounded by high-tech fences and there are towers with automated gun emplacements in a "killing zone." The guns are radar controlled and are the similar to the Gatling guns used to protect American Navy capital ships.
Anything which moves within 1500 yards or so of one of these robot sentry towers is riddled with tons of lead. For a picture see:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/images/2008/12/04/e2ca3bc6713642d99f3d33082d3d7072lar.jpg
Israel controls all access by air and sea also. The monetary aid sent from Europe is taken by Israel and doled out in only the most dire of situations.
Israel also controls to a considerable extent the small border with Egypt, because President Mubarak - an undemocratic dictator in effect - loves his big aid/bribe cheques from Washington.
If that doesn't describe a concentration camp (for a million and a half people, many of whom were refugees from Israel's original wave of terror inflicted at its "founding") I don't know what does.
_______________________
Meanwhile, that excellent man, Harper who represents only 1/3 of voters, was glad-handing the criminal responsible for this, assuring himself of a generous flow of campaign contributions for the next election.
Ontario's Political Weasel-in-Chief, McGuinty, was wandering around on a "trade mission" in a country whose trade for Ontario is less than the amount spent on security for the G20/G8.
Again, undoubtedly assuring himself of a heavy campaign-finance chest.
Now, the importance of money in politics is immensely greater in the U.S.
The Israel Lobby has money and lobbying down to an art, and so America not only supports Israel's brutality and spurning of peace, it actually subsidizes them heavily.
That's democracy for sure.
___________________
Post script: The cowardly Netanyahu hurriedly flew home to Israel after news broke of Israel’s atrocity on the high seas against people trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Such brave soldiers of Israel, killing more innocent people, these for the crime of attempting to deliver humanitarian assistance.
I'm afraid Israel has degenerated into nothing more than a criminal enterprise.
What distinguishes Israel from Cosa Nostra or the Russian Mafia?
Israel kills more people.
________________
"I thought Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza? Did they or didn't they?"
The only thing withdrawn from Gaza was the small tribe of insane "settlers" - immigrants looking for free land at someone else's expense - walking around with machine guns and the razor wire and troops which protected them.
That was a perfect example of Israeli duplicity.
They removed their violent idiots from an unsustainable position and instead turned all of Gaza into a giant concentration camp.
Gaza is surrounded by high-tech fences and there are towers with automated gun emplacements in a "killing zone." The guns are radar controlled and are the similar to the Gatling guns used to protect American Navy capital ships.
Anything which moves within 1500 yards or so of one of these robot sentry towers is riddled with tons of lead. For a picture see:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/images/2008/12/04/e2ca3bc6713642d99f3d33082d3d7072lar.jpg
Israel controls all access by air and sea also. The monetary aid sent from Europe is taken by Israel and doled out in only the most dire of situations.
Israel also controls to a considerable extent the small border with Egypt, because President Mubarak - an undemocratic dictator in effect - loves his big aid/bribe cheques from Washington.
If that doesn't describe a concentration camp (for a million and a half people, many of whom were refugees from Israel's original wave of terror inflicted at its "founding") I don't know what does.
_______________________
Meanwhile, that excellent man, Harper who represents only 1/3 of voters, was glad-handing the criminal responsible for this, assuring himself of a generous flow of campaign contributions for the next election.
Ontario's Political Weasel-in-Chief, McGuinty, was wandering around on a "trade mission" in a country whose trade for Ontario is less than the amount spent on security for the G20/G8.
Again, undoubtedly assuring himself of a heavy campaign-finance chest.
Now, the importance of money in politics is immensely greater in the U.S.
The Israel Lobby has money and lobbying down to an art, and so America not only supports Israel's brutality and spurning of peace, it actually subsidizes them heavily.
That's democracy for sure.
___________________
Post script: The cowardly Netanyahu hurriedly flew home to Israel after news broke of Israel’s atrocity on the high seas against people trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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