Afghanistan: Canada's Iraq?
by C. L. Cook
 [ By way of an end of year, or end of times article, I dug deep and came out with this old potato, sprouting questions of Canada's wisdom in getting further involved in Afghanistan. From the end of Canada's beginning as an occupying force in Afghanistan. - ed]
former Liberal defence minister Graham
May 22, 2005 - Defence Minister, Bill Graham says the plan to re-deploy Canadian operations currently in and around the northern capital city of Kabul are to go ahead. He also announced, an additional 1250 troops by early next year.
Last week, in a speech to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs and the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, National Defence Minister Graham reiterated how Canada will face its "new" role in global military affairs.
He cited the completion of a new Defence Policy Statement and its central document, A Role of Pride and Influence in the World.
Afghanistan:
Canada's Iraq?
by C. L. Cook
May 22, 2005
According to Graham, that pride and influence will be expanded in Afghanistan first, then on to other "failed and failing states" around the globe. How those "failed and failing" will be chosen, or by whom, was left unsaid, but the minister did make it clear, Canada will move towards a "more sophisticated" operational integration with the U.S. military. Presumably, enhanced sophistication isn't necessary on the diplomatic front.
Graham informed the assembled worthies, Canada recognizes, "security at home often begins with security abroad," adding the new policy means his government will be "enhancing Canada's contribution to global security and peace building." The new direction is, in Graham's view, "informed by the rich operational experience of the Canadian Forces, both in Canada and locations ranging from Afghanistan to the Balkans, to Haiti.
That that "rich operational experience" includes the death and maiming of Canadian soldiers, as in Afghanistan; providing assistance to murderous thugs in the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Haiti; allowing the world's fastest growing human trafficking region in the Balkans; uselessly witnessing the explosion of heroin production, again in Afghanistan, and the of course, Somalia; or Rwanda. Minister Graham will excuse a lack of enthusiasm for his proudly announced new initiatives.
Never mind the more than $600 million cdn price tag for Afghanistan alone that comes with Mr. Graham's new found muscularity. Never mind that what the minister and his government recognize as splendid achievements are less charitably described in the countries where his largesse is experienced. The problem with Mr. Bill Graham's Role of Pride and Influence in the World is the precise diminishment of Canada and Canadians it will bring. Unleashing well-heeled NGO's like CIDA, in accompaniment with military logistic support, a la the U.S.A., will undoubtedly put Canada in the sights of the very terror groups he so sonoriously warns against. But, there is a more immediate problem with Graham's thinking: Afghanistan.
After four years of occupation, the coalition occupiers have little "influence" beyond the city limits of Kabul. Hamid Karzai is in Washington, D.C. at this very hour, readying to break the news to George Bush. But Bush's knows this. His pre-emptive jab at Karzai for allowing the heroin trade to flourish, designed to take some of the steam out of Karzai's "demands" that justice be brought against American soldiers involved in Afghanistan's Abu Ghraib-like abuses against prisoners at U.S. air-base/detention centre Bagram, tacitly acknowledges as much. Now, Bill Graham will preside over the relocation of the Canadians from their secure base, Camp Julien, to the south and west of the country, both areas seeing a resurgence of Taliban rebel activity; activity bearing more resemblance to Baghdad than the relatively calm Kabul.
Though Graham may like to believe all's well in Afghanistan, and Haiti for that matter, due to Canada's foreign adventurism, the fact is: things are not rosy in Afghanistan, and they're poised to get worse. Canadians are being marched into the mouth of the lion, while the pied Bill Graham pipes merrily away.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor to PEJ.org. You can check out his blog here.
Addendum: M25-- Now too, I hear, the Israeli Defense Force will send pilots to "train" Canada's pilots to better bomb cities.--Proud and Influentionally yours - ape
Into
the Mouth of the Lion: More Canadian Troops for Afghanistan
PEJ
News - C. L. Cook - Overshadowed in the media by events in Iraq, the
situation in Afghanistan worsens by the day. Yesterday, a U.S. helicopter
ferrying in Navy SEALs reinforcements was downed, with all 17 aboard missing and
feared dead. Also yesterday, Canada began sending a new contingent made up of
soldiers, RCMP, and Foreign Affairs officials to establish a base near
Kandahar.
http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com
Into the
Mouth of the Lion
C. L. Cook
PEJ
News
June 29, 2005 - In mid-May, Canada's Defence Minister,
Bill Graham announced a historic new foreign policy direction and the role to be
played by Canadian Forces to implement it. Speaking to the Standing Committee on
National Defence and Veterans Affairs and the Standing Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Minister Graham reiterated how Canada will
face its "new" role in global military affairs. He cited the completion of a new Defence Policy Statement and its central
document, A Role of Pride and Influence in the World. What this pride
means in essence is Canada becoming more "muscular" in its prosecution of the
'War on Terror.'
It's a new direction George Bush and America's
stretched military must appreciate, even if most Canadians don't. It means the
freeing up of U.S. military resources for deployment in Iraq, or elsewhere in
the Middle East, possibly leading to the U.S. Army's eventual departure from
Afghanistan. At a time when attacks
are increasing sharply and ISAF casualties following suit, the prospect of
another force sharing garrison duties, and the more perilous search and destroy
missions, is the only good news the U.S. military in Afghanistan has received
lately.
Just yesterday, 17 more Americans,
most from the elite Navy SEALs, were downed, purportedly by a Taliban
rocket. The 17 are currently listed as "missing in
action."
Though Canadian troops have been in Afghanistan for years,
unitl now they have been operating out of Camp Julien, near Kabul in the north
of the country. According
to David Rudd, of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, deploying to
Kunar province is "significantly" more dangerous for troops. He says, "The
potential for casualties is much more in the south than in Kabul." Adding:
"Kandahar is the wild west compared to Kabul."
The redeployment of
Canadians from the relative safety and stability of Kabul to Kandahar, seat of
power for the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and reputed locus of
al Qaida, is just one part of Canada's new role in the world, as elucidated by
Mr. Graham in his speech to the Standing Committees.
On the occasion of
his address, Graham informed the assembled worthies, Canada recognizes,
"security at home often begins with security abroad," adding the new policy means his government will be
"enhancing Canada's contribution to global security and peace
building."
This new direction is, in Graham's view, "informed by the
rich operational experience of the Canadian Forces, both in Canada and locations
ranging from Afghanistan to the Balkans, to Haiti. The irony of this statement seems
entirely lost on Graham.
It's an irony apparently lost for the Canadian
public too, that while America's citizens are increasingly turning away from the
war and the attitudes that spawned it, Canada, who refused overt involvement in
the war in Iraq, is now moving in the opposite direction.
In an echo of
expectations expressed by Rumsfeld prior to Iraq, Graham and Foreign Affairs
seem convinced the so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams mission will be
well received by a local population in the south currently schooling themselves
on Iraq's "Occupation for Dummies.'
So far, Canadian troops have
been lucky, the only deaths reported being those killed in 'friendly fire' by an
American Reserve pilot, and two others killed by a suicide bomber, but now
Minister Graham is commiting to a greater, and more dangerous role for Canada
that seems bound to see further Canadians coming home in 'transit
tubes.'
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio,
broad/webcast from the University of
Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor at PEJ.org. You
can check out the GR Blog
here.
[Update: Today (June 30) 16 bodies were
recovered from the
crash site in Kunar province. The U.S.
military had originally said there were 17 on board the ill-fated flight, but
later revised that figure. Among the dead are reported 8 Navy SEALs and 8 flight
crew. It's still unclear how the helicopter was brought down, with Taliban press
releases claiming a "new weapon" was used, and the U.S. military speculating a
"lucky" shot by a Rocket Propelled Grenade.]
[Further developments: The
violence in Afghanistan
continues to escalate, promising a second front for America's War on
Terror.]
As Canada Prepares for Battle
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - In recent months, the
Canadian government has rejigged foreign policy; foreign policies that have
stood since the end of the Second War, more than sixty years ago. "Integration"
is the catchword here, and whether through NATO, or directly with the U.S. as in
the Northern Command and Missile Defense, it means suborning both our soldiers
and diplomats to the dictats of the United States and its "national interests."
http://www.waramps.ca/military/
memorials/images/soldiers.jpg
www.PEJ.org
As Canada again prepares to do battle as a
proxy force for its Imperial masters, perhaps it's wise we know exactly what
we're in for .
As Canada Prepares for
Battle
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
July 21, 2005
This new direction for Canada is most perfectly illustrated by both the
redefining of Canada's mission in Afghanistan, seeing thousands of
reinforcements beginning to be shipped out this week (JUL 21), and the
redeployment of the current force in-country from the relative stablity of the
Kabul area to the volatile west and southern reaches, (where a resurgence in
Taliban resistance to the occupation makes Afghanistan look more like Iraq every
day). It's also made apparent through the public displays of our new number one
military man, General Rick Hillier. Hiller held forth recently before the press,
veritably foaming at the mouth with his anxiousness to go get the Afghani
"scumbags." By that of course, he means "send someone's sons and daughters to
"Go Gittim!" Hillier will be directing the charge from his comfortable rear
position in "Ottawashington."
"Peacekeep THIS mo' fo!"
Up 'til now, Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been fortunate,
not in small part due to the nature of their mission, locale, and perhaps
because Canadians have so far taken a different approach to rapproachement with
the people; different that is from the generally witnessed "shoot 'em all and
let God sort 'em out!" American philosophy.
There have been Canadians
killed, most tragically when bombed accidentally by a speed-crazed reservist
pilot just couldn't say "Yessir" to orders not to drop his bombs on a
field-training exercise. But, our government's mission redefinition promises to
change that luck.
If we are to become our southern cousin's little emulator, perhaps we can
first learn from their myriad missteps. You know, do a little homework on our
enemy-to-be, BEFORE we make one of them.
There has been a marked upsurge in violent, "Iraq-style" attacks in
Afghanistan over the last few months. As ever, our "public" broadcaster has been
loath to bring bad news into your living room, (try a CBC.ca search on
Canada-Afghanistan) nervertheless, the fact is: We are marching our young men
and women into a fully blossoming Iraq sequel, best described by one of the men
leading it.
Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban "military coordinator," talking to Al-Jazeera a
couple days back, had some interesting things to say. His comments were not
available on Canadian airwaves, the CRTC having ruled already our collective
ears too sensitive for the likes of foreign sourced news. Pity, because Ottawa's
nabobs may have found it instructive.
When asked, "What is the rational behind the sudden escalation of Taliban
operations in Afghanistan?" Dadullah said;
"Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders have already stated that attacks
against the infidels and the apostate government of Afghanistan would escalate
as soon as the harsh winter weather gives way to warmer one. There have also
been significant changes in tactics, types of weapons, financial support, and
support of the Afghan people."
The "significant" change in "types of weapons" may be a point to stress to
the troops before their Private Lyin' landing on the beaches of Afghanistan. At
least two U.S. helicopters have "crashed" in recent weeks. The Taliban press
pool bragged of "new weapons" after a Chinook carrying a near-platoon of special
force types was shot down a few weeks back, but the U.S. flacks decided it was
likely a Rocket Propelled Grenade's "lucky" shot that brought down the chopper.
Another Chinook "crashed" last week. Luckily, Canada doesn't have many
helicopters capable of sustained flight, so that may not be a worry; unless
those freakishly-fortunate "RPG's" get pointed at other stuff.
But, you may say; "The States are an ally. They wouldn't lie to
us about the nature of the commitment we're signing onto. Would they?"
The Mullah thinks so. He informed Al-Jazeera;
"Americans have lied from the beginning and continue to lie, especially about
their casualties. The number of Americans killed by Mujahideen in Afghanistan is
much greater than what the American media disclose."
One unfortunate American scout captured by the "Mujahideen," (remember Sly
Stallone's Rambo Does Afghanistan? The Mujahideen are the guys that toppled the
other evil empire.) and rumoured by the Pentagon as having been rescued brought
this response from the dubious Dadullah;
"The Americans did not ask for his release and we knew that they would not
because they do not want to admit to the fact that we captured one of their own
and they are not able to free him. It is part of hiding their casualties and
part of their false propaganda about winning the war in Afghanistan.
Propaganda galore; enough for all sides. Which side do you want
to believe? The Bush administration's credibility is certainly no greater than
Mullah Dadullah's: We know they've lied about... Everythng! Knowing your enemy
is always a good idea, but knowing your allies is even more vital.
The
real tragedy of all this is not that it never need have happened, but now that
it has, the best we can come up with after two generations of knife-edged Cold
War diplomacy and third world despotism is Rick Hillier's mad dog antics for the
camera, and Mullah Dadullah. Quite a pair. They should take their act on the
road.
A question for General Hillier, the one displalying the
veritably Pattonesque enthusiasm for the coming carnage: Who will the "scumbags"
be that Canadians bomb, bag, and bugger for Uncle Sam?
Mullah Dadullah
explains;
"All Afghan people are Muslims; they all have weapons and know how to use
their weapons. The majority of them are supporter of Taliban and their Jihad
against the enemies of Islam. Few have been drawn to the dollars. There are also
Arab Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Faithful Muslims will always join the fight to
eradicate the enemies of Allah."
Great.
There are solutions to the problems dividing the peoples of the world;
solutions that allow we all live and thrive in peace, but are there the people
to pick them up and employ them? Obviously not in Canada, where a country once
known for peacekeeping, has redesigned and redeployed its military for warmaking
instead.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves
as contributing editor to PEJ.org. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Afghanistan Fatalities: "We Didn't Want Canadians to
be Aware"
PEJ News - C. L. Cook -
Brigadier-General Mike Ward, the head of Canadian Forces operations summed up
Canada's continued involvement with American wars in the Near East yesterday,
telling reporters Joint Task Force 2 (JTF2), a secretive commando unit, had
killed and captured Afghani
"insurgents."
www.pej.org
Canadians Made Ready for Afghanistan Death
Toll
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Defence
Minister, Bill Graham has again warned Canadians they should expect soldiers
serving in Afghanistan to be killed and wounded. Speaking from Germany, following
this week's NATO meetings, Graham says he's about to embark on an extensive
tour in Canada to "explain the nature of the mission" to Canadians.
www.pej.org
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/Graham.jpg
Canadians Made Ready for Afghanistan Death Toll
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
September 15, 2005
The nature of the
Afghanistan mission has transformed
somewhat in the past few months, as has the nature of Canada's military. No
longer focused primarily on "peacekeeping," Canada's forces are
being restructured to more resemble the American model.
Graham
recently ordered Canadians out of the north of Afghanistan, where they've
operated out of Camp Julien for several years, patrolling the streets and near
environs of the capital, Kabul. The bulk of the Canadian contingent, one of more
than a dozen international military forces in the country, is to be redeployed
to the more volatile south and west of the country.
Military
insiders, report Mike Blanchfield and David Pugliese of CanWest News Service,
refer to Mr. Graham's travel plans as a "pre-body-bag speaking tour." Though,
Mr. Graham would certainly disagree: Nobody calls them "body-bags" anymore;
the au courant term in the United States is "Transit Tube." And, Mr.
Graham wants nothing more than the complete
integration of Canadian and American military terminology, and more.
Seven
Canadians have so far officially returned home via transit tubes since the
2002 launch of 'Operation Enduring Freedom.' Four of those perished when bombed
by an American warplane that mistook a live-fire practice range exercise for
enemy hostility. That pilot was charged, tried, and found guilty of negligence
causing death. It was later discovered he was "high" on amphetamines, or "Go
Pills" at the time of the bombing. The drug, known on the street as "speed," is
routinely issued to U.S. pilots undergoing long missions.
There are
reportedly 250 Canadian soldiers, and an unknown number of the secretive JTF2
commandos unit in and around Kandahar presently, but that number will increase
to more than 1300 when deployments begin in earnest. Camp Julien is scheduled to
be evacuated after this week's general election in Afghanistan.
The
Canadian mission shift has not gone unnoticed by Taliban
and reputed Al Qaida elements in the country. Just today, a Canadian patrol
in the relatively calm capital city, Kabul, came under attack. Two soldiers were reported
as being "lightly wounded" when a remote control road-side bomb was
detonated as they passed by.
The Defence Minister brushed off growing
political pressure to bring troops home, saying "they're well-trained, they're
well-equipped, they're ready for this mission, and I think the Canadian public
is supporting it on that basis."
How far that imagined support will go
when the transit tubes start rolling home is something the minister would rather
not discuss, for fear of damaging morale.
Chris
Cook host Gorilla Radio,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a
contributing editor at PEJ News. You can check out the GR Blog here.
We Didn't Want Canadians to be Aware
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
September 21, 2005
http://www.norad.
mil/images/image_home.jpg
"We
didn't specifically want Canadians to be aware that special operations were
operating abroad." - Brigadier-General Mike Ward on Canadian
involvement in Afghanistan. (Sept. 20, 2005)
In a rare moment of
candidness, the Canadian government disclosed just what they are doing with the
people's "Defense" ministry in Afghanistan. Brigadier-General Mike Ward,
describing details untold to Canadians, said: "We have to engage in combat
operations that take the offensive into the mountains, into the remote regions
where they have their bases and their sanctuary, and keep them off guard."
Hardly headline news, but that's been the government's strategy all
along.
A concentrated and complicit corporate media in this country has
all but canned news and analysis of Canada's
changing military. Imagine if the U.S. corporate media failed also
to provide news from the war, save a brief and terse appearance before a select
press conference, and you've got the picture of just how much Canadians don't
know about what is being done with their tax dollars, and pronouncedly in their
names.
Canada's new (sic) self-definition, is a redesigned military
command and control, to better "assimilate" with the U.S. This assimilation,
though sold to the country as merely an extension of the North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the
Cold War remnant of continental cooperation to deal with threats thought likely
to emanate from the former USSR, is actually a profound redefinition of both the
make-up of Canada's Forces, and the nature of future
deployments.
Needless to say, from the government's position, ethical
consideration is ceded to legal arcanum, morality reduced to a question of what
best serves Canada's "share holders." In the media, this extreme makeover
is presented solely in strategic and financial terms. What Canadians think about
this sea-change in foreign policy, or if they're even aware of it, goes
unreported.
And now those changes are set to bear the bitter fruit of
Canadian blood spilt far from home and in the service of dubious
masters.
Defense
Minister, Bill Graham has been talking up Canadian casualties for months,
and is now set to take his mortician's dog and pony show nation-wide. This as
the new "Canada Doctrine" sees troops in Afghanistan sent to the country's most
volatile regions with a newly-minted playbook; a playbook made in America.
And, playing by American rules means paying like American troops.
Graham
and his fellow Liberal quislings know a train of "transit-tubes," filled with
the remains of Canadian soldiers, is leaving the station, setting in motion
a sad and certain journey from the world-away fields of Afghanistan to the
cemeteries of Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Regina, Victoria, and all corners of
the nation between.
It's just as Brig.-Gen. Ward says: "Casualties do
occur. That's the nature of war. That's certainly the nature of operations."
Naturally. But why?
What petrifies Mr. Graham is the prospect of
a "shit happens" answer to the inevitable question to come:
"Why, Mr.
Graham did my son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, father, uncle,
grandmother, mother die?"
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University
of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor to PEJ News. You
can check out the GR Blog
here.
Canadians Target of Afghani Suicide
Bombing
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Three
Canadian soldiers were injured today, none seriously, when their convoy was
rammed by a suicide car-bomber. At least one bystander, a young child, was
killed, as was the bomber.
www.pej.org
Canadians Target of Afghani
Suicide Bombing
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
October 5, 2005
If there were any
hopes Canadian troops would be received in their new home away from the comforts
of Kabul congenially by the inhabitants of Kandahar, they were quickly dispelled
today with the
attack against a three vehicle convoy of Canadian soldiers. The Canadians
were lucky, escaping with reported "burns and minor injuries," and were also
reported to have returned to duty within hours. Fate was less fortunate for
the hapless Afghani motorists and pedestrians travelling the same road; at least
one is dead, and several others injured.
In the Spring, Canada's Minister
of Defense, Bill
Graham announced a restructuring of the country's military and its
traditional, world famous role as 'peacekeepers.' The redefinition of Canadian
military parameters of "operationability " coincides with the redeployment of
troops that have spent the last four years trying to keep the capital city
quiet.
By most accounts, they've accomplished this without
incurring local resentment common to American missions. The Canadians have been
pulling up stakes in the north, and are headed to the heart of Taliban country
in the south.
Graham has since been touring Canada, telling anyone
who'll listen to get ready for body bags. That is to say; Canadians not used
to Maple Leaf flag and coffin parades should get used to the idea. How Canadians
will react once witnessing their fellow citizen's final journey, brought to
their pitiful demise through yet another colonial adventure in the service of
empire, is yet to be seen. Thus Graham's pre-emptive death watch
warnings.
It's as though no-one remembers what the poppy
means.
Today's Canadian Liberal government is setting a century's
agenda. Most are clueless about what's going on, let alone the intricacy of the
grand design, or what it will mean for their future, and that of the nation. The
news has been remarkably yawned over by Canada's renowned pinky pacifist
citizenry. That may be attributed to the summer season, where the House of
Parliament is turned over to the echoes of its history.
But, the wheels
of government do grind on, even if unobserved by the House, and while the Loyal
Opposition lolled in sultry summer hammocks and media Fat Cats vacated Ottawa,
Prime Minister Paul Martin and his chief lieutenant, Bill Graham perverted
Canada's recognized mission on the World stage as one dedicated to peace and
justice.
No longer; Canada is now officially an apposite of Them. That
is to say, we are Us. With you, George!
This isn't a necessarily new
stance, only one kept on the cuff for the duration of this disaster movie of an
administration south of the border. In large part, this is thanks to the masterful
policy hypocrisy practiced by erstwhile P.M., Jean Chretien. The Little Guy
from Shawinigan's place in the pantheon of fallen Canadian heroes is unrivalled,
save for Brian Mulroney. Both served the long-simmering ambition within certain
quarters for a North American 'Continentalism.'
Now, with Paul Martin,
the millionaire son of a millionaire elite familiar, the final spike is struck
to the heart of Canadian sovereignty and the values we so treasured for, if
nothing else, differentiating ourselves from the behemoth next door.
Mr.
Graham's "warnings" are less that than a promise; a promise to bear the bitter
fruit of war to this land; a promise to prove the besmirching of Canada's name
for years to come.
Whether the minister's profile will rise or fall on
that inevitable occasion, remains to be seen.
Chris
Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast fromt the University of Victoria,
Canada. He also serves as Senior Editor to PEJ News. You can see the GR Blog here.
Afghanistan: Media Fiddles While Canadians Come Under
Fire
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The "muscular"
new Canadian approach to fulfilling the foreign policy objectives of the
Bush administration today again bore bitter fruit for Canadian soldiers serving
in Afghanistan. Dismissing the damage to troops and their Light Armoured Vehicle
(LAV) as "minor," the national
broadcaster missed entirely the damage being done to Canada's international
image.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/
military/ops/images/oef-logo.gif
www.PEJ.org
Afghanistan:
Media Fiddles While Canadians Come
Under Fire
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 9,
2006
Four Canadian soldiers were hurt when their convoy, on what was
described as a joint U.S.- Canadian reconnaissance mission, was struck by an
Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted along their route. The Canadian
contingent, dubbed 'Task Force Orion,' are recently arrived in the Taliban
heartland city of Kandahar, and are expected, according to the Canadian general
slated to take command of the greater, 'Task Force Afghanistan,'
Brigadier-General David Fraser, to both "kill
and die" there.
Indeed, just last month, Glyn
Barry, Canada's head diplomat to the country was killed, and three
Canadian soldiers wounded when their convoy was hit by a suicide car
bomber. Attacks have been on the increase for at least a year in Afghanistan;
attacks increasingly emulating the tactics seen in Iraq.
The
Brigadier-General minces no words about Canada's involvement and his upcoming
role as the Number One of the Multinational Brigade in Regional Command
South, adjunct of the greater, American-led 'Operation
Enduring Freedom,' saying; "This is a dangerous mission. This is a dangerous
environment, and I cannot reduce the risk to zero."
Neither Canada's number
one commercial broadcaster, nor Brig.-Gen. Fraser seem overly concerned with
the greater danger the country's
military adventurism poses for Canadian citizens, at home and abroad, or
Canada's squandered reputation as mediator and peacekeeper on the world stage.
Instead, as Stephen
Thorpe of Canadian Press reports, the increase
IED and suicide attacks have led to "more liberal rules of engagement" for
NATO troops, allowing they "fire on suspect vehicles and other attackers in
Afghanistan." It can only be hoped, NATO will take more care than their American
counterparts in Iraq, where un-tolled numbers of civilians have been killed at
checkpoints, and just last week, a car
carrying Canadian diplomats was shot at.
There will doubtless be more
stories to come of Canadians wounded to a less "minor" degree as the campaign in
Afghanistan continues, but few published by Canada's over-concentrated media are
likely to explore their role in down-playing the nature of the conflict before
the fact, the sea-change in Canadian foreign policy it represents, or the new
understanding of Canada's role in further military
deployments to Afghanistan, and those other "hot spots" around the edges of
America's burgeoning empire.
Chris Cook is a
contributing editor to PEJ News and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Canadians Too Thick to Support Afghanistan Mission:
Defence Minister
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - By way of getting
to know his new subjects, freshly minted Conservative Defence Minister, Gordon O'Connor summed up what he
sees as his greatest challenge: How to get through to the sixty-two percent of
Canadians who don't believe the country should be involved with the worsening
occupation of Afghanistan.
http://pm.gc.ca/grfx/
ministry/oconnor_s.jpg
"The
population out there doesn't really understand right now why we're there and
what we're doing. You have to say the thing five, six, seven, eight times before
it really gets through to a large number of people." - Defence Minister O'Connor
instructs the foreign press.
Canadians Too Thick to Support Afghanistan Mission:
Defence Minister
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 25,
2006
A Globe and Mail/ Strategic Counsel poll published yesterday ( G&B,
Fri. Feb. 24, 2006) pronounced, 'Majority Opposed to Afghan Mission.' As the
Canadian Forces prepare to pick up the mantle of the NATO mission in-country
this week, and as the nation expands its fifth year of picket duty for
Afghanistan's effective occupation, a bewildered Defence Minister can merely
shake his head. Or, so Gordon O'Connor would have it.
With his bum
barely in the chair at the head of Canada's armed forces, rookie
Cabinet Minister O'Connor
is holding forth to the world's press, complaining of the dumb-asses, in the
form of the majority of Canadians polled, he has to deal with. More amazing
perhaps to O'Connor is the desire of an even greater number of Canadians
asked that demands be made of Parliament to debate war issues before committing
troops, a novel notion sure to displease the Freshman Tories.
But, put
on the spot, O'Connor bleats:
"Our policy is that, in future, if we're
committing troops somewhere in substantial numbers
we would go to Parliament
and we'd basically seek the support of Parliament."
But, that future is
happening fast. It's a miracle no more than eight unfortunate Canadians have
seen their futures end in Afghanistan to date. If not for the professionalism of
the Canadian military, and a deployment in the relatively calmer capital region,
the only place effectively ruled by the Karzai government put into power, it
would be much worse.
But, it's about to get worse. And, Saturday's
wounding of a Canadian in a grenade attack near Kandahar is evidence of
that.
For those Canucks too stupid to fail to support Minister O'Connor,
or to see the gathering cloud, and what it is likely to mean for Canadian
families from Victoria to Saint John, prepare for terrible
news: Canada is taking over in the heart of the Taliban-led
resistance.
So, what makes Afghanistan worth it? Yes, Gordon do tell
we, your dimmer fellow citizens: Why is Canada occupying a nation shattered in
an illegal blitzkrieg, employing nuclear weapons of mass destruction, all
carried out in the name of avenging the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks
of 2001. Explain now please, what your party failed as the official opposition
to mention.
Why Gordie, after four and more years of trying to teach the
Afghans the glory of our superior ways, are the locals lobbing grenades and
firing AKs' at "our" boys and girls?
And what about the suicide bombers?
Are they ingrates? Or maybe too dumb to know what's good for them, too? Tell us
do, Mr. Minister. But, speak slowly please, we're Canadian.
O'Connor's dismissive opinion of the mental alacrity of the citizenry is
an attitude shared by Canada's number one military man, General Rick Hillier, as
witnessed by his gape-jawed statement of wonderment:
"Many Canadians do
not know or understand the complexities of what the Afghan mission is about, why
we are there, and its importance, its critical importance to
Canada."
Those not yet brain-dead denizens of the Great White North may
recall Hillier
as the author of Canada's answer to George W. Bush's famous "Bring 'em on"
performance regarding that other bunch of recalcitrant converts in Iraq. Clever
tactical move, General. Original too. For more on Hillier, please see Justin Podur's
piece, posted at KillingTrain.com.
With the exception of some
sorrowfully late complaint by the NDP regarding the need to hold open
parliamentary debate concerning matters of war in Canada, the house has sat
largely silent on the Afghanistan "mission" through two elections. Despite
wide-spread rejection of the official line doled over by the Liberals and now
reiterated by their superior heirs, Canada and Canadians are being frog marched
into George Bush's vision of global militarism.
Maybe O'Connor is right:
Canadians just don't understand.
is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs
program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check
out the GR Blog
here.
Afghanistan: What Does it Serve
Canada?
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Five Canadians were injured, one "seriously," today when their convoy was struck by a suicide attacker driving a
bomb-laden car outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. The incident comes as Prime
Minister Stephen Harper engages in an increasingly vitriolic Ottawa shooting
match over the legitimacy of 'Operation Enduring Freedom' and only days after
the death
of Corporal Paul Davis in an auto accident. Davis was the second Canadian
killed in the Kandahar redeployment. Nine Canadians have been reported killed in
Afghanistan since 2001, four of those in the infamous "friendly fire" U.S.
bombing of an active target range.
Afghanistan:
What Does it Serve
Canada?
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
March 3, 2006
Just a year ago, while holding the Defence portfolio, the now nominal leader
of the Liberal party, Bill Graham went on a ghoulish
public relations tour, warning every rubber-chicken devotee who would listen
about the coming Canadian casualties. The effort seemingly designed to "soften
up" a public already dubious of Afghanistan. That unease was magnified today by
Canadian Forces honcho, Rick Hillier who says Canada could expect to be in Afghanistan for at
least a decade, or more. Hillier is the shoot from the lip General who
marked his arrival on the Aghan scene last year, talking tough
as George W. "Bring 'em on!" Bush, who last week lamented in the national
press the too-dumb public's failure to grasp the vital importance impoverished,
distant, hopeless Afghanistan poses Canada, and why a "decade, or more" military
occupation is its duty.
This past week, Stephen Harper
too sputtered across the front pages, outraged that "any Canadian" would
challenge the country's commitment to "its men and women in uniform, etcetera
..." That commitment has deepened with Canada's leadership ascension of Nato's
ISAF mission in the Kunar, centre of Taliban activity. Until recently, Canadians
had it relatively easy, based at Camp Julien, outside the capital, Kabul. But,
that all ended last year, when Defence Minister Graham, addressing another
banqueting gaggle of camp followers, pronounced Canada's improved military,
apparently equipped with a spanking new set of marching orders; orders bearing
an unmistakable echo.
What Graham outlined, and Stephen Harper is executing, is the
end of Canada's "traditional" Peacekeeping role. Today, Nato, not the UN is
where Canada's foreign "commitments" are drawn up. Brussels, not Ottawa decides
where, when, and how many of Canada's soldiers will take the field. As for why,
it depends on who you listen to. But, the most scarifying question, a query
naturally left untended by the "mum's
the word" media, is the question gnawing at the conscience of, according to
a Globe & Mail poll, at least 62% of Canadians is: "What?"
Just what
will Canada be doing?
Will it look like what America is doing in Iraq? Or, will it
look like what Israel is doing in Palestine? Will it look like Gaza? Groszny?
Llassa. Or, perhaps it will be another Port-au-Prince,
with countless Somalia-like instances of random torture and murder thrown
in.
Yes.
Port-au-Prince where
blue-helmets kick in the doors of the poor, pouring hundreds of rounds of
automatic rifle fire, and a shock grenade, or two into and through where the
tarpaper-shacked populace cowers in terror sounds more the future of Canada's
Afghanistan Mission. Besides the ludicrous notion Afghanistan bears any threat
to the security of Canada; and, ignoring the situation, worsening after four
years of liberation from the despotic religious zeal of the Taliban regime, is
commiting thousands of soldiers for years sound reasoning?
Can history teach us anything?
Following the aerial destruction of Afghanistan's military and
infrastructure, the infantry started collecting prisoners. Thousands were bagged
and tagged in the manner now made familiar through Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and
the long list of other chambers of horror located, seemingly, everywhere. The
least fortunate we know of being those finding
themselves at Shebarghan
Prison. Thousands of men, rounded up in village sweeps by U.S. forces, were sent
on a death journey across the wastes of Afghanistan, crammed into unventilated semi-trailers.
Three thousand souls now inhabit shallow graves in the desert beyond
Shebarghan, a crime left largely unaddressed yet. And, now in the news,
revelations Bagram Airbase still hosts facilities at least as gruesome as those
in Guantanamo, or Iraq. Kandahar, now under titular Canadian control, too has
an airbase, and attendant prison/torture centre. Will Canada, a willing supplier
of prison/torture fodder until now, also oversee the America's prison
methodology?
Shall Canadians become further mired with a demented president
bent on a program the scope of which even the bravest dread mention? How long
before Canadians serve picket duty in Iraq, or Iran?
George W. Bush is even now busy lighting fires. He's today
reported in Pakistan, following his jaunt to India, where he pledged U.S.
nuclear technology. Something of more than passing interest to bitter India foe,
Pakistan, and regional rival, China. Some analysts warn this is a move promising
a renewed nuclear arms race. Bush's stop in India brought hundreds of thousands
in protest. In Pakistan there was a suicide bombing attack that killed a
high-ranking American diplomat, and three others.
Canada's facade of independence is now its only hope of
side-stepping the American march to self-destruction. When America falls, Canada
will too be economically wounded, but how much worse for the nation should it
now abandon its soul to only forestall the inevitable American demise?
The Canadian rabble is finally rousing to Afghanistan, as
reflected in some major media. The country's most influential newspaper, The
Toronto-based, Globe & Mail, picked up the gauntlet last week, promising to
run a "talking to Canadians" campaign to gauge public opinion. A campaign they
maintain necessary due to Parliament's failure to adequately debate the
issue.
In the meanwhile, Canadians are at grave risk, and as Minister
Graham told all who'd listen last Spring:
It's to be expected.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and host Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. His writings are also
featured at Chris Floyd's Empire
Burlesque. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Friendly Fire: Pat Tillman Inquiry
Called
PEJ News - The U.S. military has announced
a probe into the death of professional footballer turned Army Ranger, Pat
Tillman, killed in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan nearly two years
ago. From the files: this is a piece from 2004. - lex
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/tillman.jpg
www.PEJ.org
Peter
Mansbridge: Carrying the Torch of the New Told Lie
PEJ News
- C. L. Cook - Is it possible, after nearly three years of the war and
occupation in Iraq, after the millions of words written and uttered regarding
the lies leading to that illegal act, and the bald-faced perfidy that has
followed, anyone with half an eye to what is going on could still believe the
Iraq "campaign" was a result of the September 2001 attack against the World
Trade Center and Pentagon? Is it possible someone working at the apex of the
Canadian media could seriously ask the nation to swallow this demonstrably false
premise?
"9/11 was, of course, the event that prompted the military
campaigns both here in Afghanistan, and in Iraq." - Peter Mansbridge, The National Mar. 6,
2006
www.PEJ.org
Peter Mansbridge:
Carrying the Torch of the New Told
Lie
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
March 6.
2006
Fascinating, now Canada has moved into the war-footing we've
witnessed south of the border these past terrible years, to hear Canada's
government news organ, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, importing
propaganda from the mired U.S. The grossest of the lies designed to lend
credibility to America's murderous rampage through benighted Iraq was George
Bush's ludicrous allegation implicating Saddam Hussein with the 9/11
attacks.
For Peter's sake, and for Canadians who may have spent the past
three years lost in the wilds; the
connection between Iraq and 9/11 has been dismissed by everyone. Even the
Bush camp never went as far as Mansbridge did tonight; having the good sense to
merely mention, time and time again, Iraq and 9/11 together, leaving it to the
feeble-minded to fill in the blanks.
Maybe Peter is onto something;
maybe Afghanistan and Iraq are connected afterall. As Canada's role in-country
becomes "more robust" in nature; and, as "our" generals appear on television,
telling Canadians the mission could last more than a decade, and saying we
should be prepared for more casualties, Afghanistan is starting to look a lot
like Iraq.
And, isn't Ottawa starting to sound a lot like
Washington?
Conservative Party Foreign Affairs minister, Peter McKay
refuses to waver on the policies drawn up by his Liberal predecessors, while the
freshly sworn Defence minister and former General, Gordon O'Connor refuses to
consider debating Canada's Afghan adventure in Parliament. The Liberals have
little to say, beyond that they too support the deepening mire that is the
occupation. The New Democrats, arrived to the debate a day late and dollar
short, having allowed the war issue disappeared through two elections, now
have Jack Layton bleating for public hearings, though not going so far as to
call for troops to be removed.
Canadians are dying and killing in
Afghanistan. The death will continue, and for what?
The generals tell us
"defence begins abroad," and if the Taliban take back the country, what country
will fall, domino-like next? The C.B.C. promises more stories from Afghanistan
to explain better to too-dumb Canadian opponents of the glorious little war
beginning there.
And, the Prime Minister tells us today, it is the
generals, not Parliament, not the government, not the people, that will
determine how long Canada stays in Afghanistan.
Perhaps it is all
connected.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor
at PEJ News and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check the GR Blog
here.
Navigating Afghanistan's Propaganda
Minefields
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - An e:mail press
release from no less an august body than the irreproachable Canadian Landmine
Foundation found its way recently into my in-box, informing: "Canadians Support
Canada's Commitment to Afghanistan." Being a Canadian singularly unsupportive of
Canada's support of an immoral and illegal invasion and occupation of a
once-sovereign nation, I was anxious to discover what changed "my"
mind.
www.PEJ.org
Navigating Afghanistan's
Propaganda
Minefields
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
March
9, 2006
On its face, the Canadian Landmine Foundation is the perfect
example of a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) doing good in the world.
Who could argue with the cause of the saintly Lady Diana (RIP), or its mission
statement: "to raise awareness and funds to end the human and economic suffering
caused by anti-personnel landmines," after all?
Queer then the CLF would
join the Public Relations battle currently being waged for the hearts and minds
of Canadians regarding an always unpopular decision by the former Liberal
government to send Canadian soldiers, reconstruction, and civil infrastructure
specialists on an open-ended mission to Afghanistan - unpopular not because
Canadians don't care about the deprivation of those necessities suffered by the
people of Afghanistan, but more due to how those deprivations came about - to
many of the "Canadians" scooped wholesale into the CLF's news release headline,
Canada's military deployment, an incumbent requirement for any
humanitarian effort, served to legitimize the ruthless and bloody senseless
American aerial annihilation of what little infrastructure remained in war-torn,
Taliban Afghanistan on September 10th, 2001.
Queer until you probe the
groundcover.
The CLF is an affiliate of the larger Adopt-A-Minefield
organization. The AMA is, as cited on the CLF website: "an initiative of the
Canadian Landmine Foundation in partnership with the United Nations Association
of the United States of America (UNA-USA) and the Better World Fund (BWF)."
Those affiliated with the CLF's affiliate are not largely the group of peaceniks
one might expect. They include: spookworld notables from perennial conspiracy
theorist favourite, the Council on Foreign Relations; State Department
officials; ex-diplomats; Reaganites; and oily businessmen of all
stripe.
A look at the UNA-USA's
board reveals principles: President
Ambassador William H. Luers, "active" CFR member, who cut his diplomatic
teeth in communist Czechoslovakia, (shortly before it becoming the tipping point
that brought down the USSR in Eastern Europe), and Venezuela. Luers served in
South America during the opening days of Reagan and George H. W. Bush's reign of
terror there, 1978-82. When not busy ridding the world of landmines, William
spends his time championing other humanitarian efforts, such as those led by
the Harriman Institute and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
And, on his
right-hand: John
C. Whitehead, former Deputy Secretary of State in the Reagan
administration, so highly held in fact was "the Gipper's" regard for the work
Mr. Whitehead carried out for on-again-off-again G-Man/Bechtel Corporation CEO,
Secretary of State George Shultz during those sticky Iran-Contra years,
Reagan awarded Whitehead the Presidential Citizens Medal. The former head of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Whitehead is a current confrere to blue-blood
trusts, institutes, and foundations too numerous to mention. He's also serving
as appointed chair of the Board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
That's the outfit overseeing the reconstruction of the World Trade Center lands.
It seems a little less strange that an humanitarian organization would
be trying to deliver the soul of Canada wholesale over to, as Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation icon and 'The National' anchor, Peter Mansbridge refers
it, a "more
robust mission," in Afghanistan, when looking at some of the personalities
at the Canadian Landmine
Foundation itself. It reads like a Who's Who of the Canadian Public
Relations industry and the companies it represents; companies that spend more of
their time flogging "Genetically Modified" Frankencrops, munitions, drugs, and
eager to cover any number of malefactions their commited pursuit of pure profit
engender. Luckily, the equally eager PR sweepers are there, ready to brush the
latest outrage under the media rug.
Among the crop at CLF are: Gaetan
Lussier, President of Gaetan Lussier and Associates. You can catch Gaetan at the
upcoming 'Smarter
Regulation of Foods in Canada' conference in Ottawa later this month. He's
scheduled to present, "The Impact of Regulation on the Business of Food in
Canada" lecture.
I'll bet that impact is BAD!
The conference is
sponsored by notable humanitarians, Nestle, Unilever, and General Mills, amongst
others.
Joining Gaetan at the CLF: The mysterious Dr. Irene
Sage, Director of the shadowy, U.K.-based, 'Foundation for International
Security.' Her name appears on
lists, and as a funding friend of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, itself
another gaggle of Council on Foreign Relations; State Department
diplomats; Reaganites; and, oily businessmen of all stripe types.
With
Irene and Gaetan: Remi Bujold, Senior Counsel for GPC
International, an adjunct of Canadian Public Relations firm,
Fleishman-Hillard Canada, subsidiary of Omnicon Group Inc. Fleishman-Hillard
sums up their company values and culture in the pithy (and copyright phrase):
"To make ourselves as valuable to our clients as they are to us."
They
list some of their areas of special service as: government affairs and advocacy
consulting; issues management; government communications, and of course; crisis
communications. As the "robustness" of Canada's mission in Afghanistan
increases, there will no doubt be a great need of some of that "crisis
communications" stuff. It could be just the job for an upright sounding
organization, staffed with a raft of operators operating from a spider's web of
cross-referenced do-gooder organizations.
The recent redeployment of
Canadians, sent to fill the boots on the ground of departing Americans, has
already meant death for both Canadians and Afghans. Just tonight, (M9, 2006),
the CBC announces a massive military mobilization of Canadian soldiers in an
operation to scour the countryside around Kandahar for Taliban "insurgents."
They're reported to begin the operation in the village where a Canadian soldier
was recently wounded in an
axe-attack.
Yes, it seemed passing queer an organization so
concerned with "human and economic suffering," as the CLF proposes to be, would
stand behind a massive military campaign currently ramping up in benighted
Afghanistan; queer until considering the pedigree of the Canadian Landmine
Foundation's stable of corporate promoters.
And who supports
the Canadian Landmines Foundation and its President and CEO Scott Fairweather,
another PR operative, when he says "Canadians support Canada's commitment to
Afghanistan?"
Polls reveal a large and growing discomfort with the
already four plus-year Canadian commitment in Afghanistan. But, Scott does hit
the nail on the head when he says: "Landmines are a significant threat to
Canadians serving in Afghanistan..."
And what better way to alleviate
that threat than to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans?
The Canadian
Landmines Foundation news release is reproduced in full
below.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University
of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
O!
Wretched Canada: A Patriot's Sick-Making Revelation
PEJ News
- C. L. Cook - Springtime in Kandahar, Afghanistan: In India they call them
"tuk-tuks," but everywhere the wee, three wheeled, two-stroke taxis ply their
trade throughout Asia, there's a variation of the name, based on the distinctive
sound of the motor... tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk ...
www.PEJ.org
O! Wretched Canada:
A Patriot's Sick-Making
Revelation
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
March 17,
2005
That "tuk-tuk" was likely the last sound Nasrat Ali
Hassan heard, the lethal shot, fired from a Canadian rifle, that ended the life
of the father of six coming without warning.
.
Canadian military
forensic specialists, tap-danced the riddling of a taxi-cab in Kandahar this
week, explaining it away. But, it was a shot not gone unnoticed in Afghanistan,
where Canadian marching orders are transforming not only the duties of "our"
boys and girls in service, but the way they are perceived by "the Natives."
Canada is now experiencing the media frog-march to battle.
So far,
the state, and corporate press remain less than critical.
Following
tediously along the tired America propaganda campaign witnessed before the
atrocity of Iraq's destruction and humiliation, Canada's "military-media
complex" can do little better than to ape the long discredited 9/11 scripts,
dusted no doubt from the depths of the files of the last true Bush believers. It
would be laughable, but for the near billion CDN-dollar per year
publicly-financed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's propaganda blitz in
support of Canada's "New Role in the World."
So, Canada, we stand at a
threshold crossed yet by those who would rule; but do you too, fellow Canadian,
not feel an imminent finishing? Canada's habitual supine posture, vis a vis the
U.S., shouldn't surprise, but Canada's au courrant Tories are moving this
country at lightning speed towards American full-integration; in essence,
surrendering the long-held sovereignty of the nation.
And, that
surrender is first and foremost coming from within Canada's armed
forces.
What Canadians want now is an open discussion, not only about
Afghanistan and Haiti, but too about the radical restructuring
of both Canada's military, and its new mission in the world. These are
topics the "ruling party" would, it seems, prefer left
unaddressed.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor
to PEJ
News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs
program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check
out the GR Blog here.
Comments are welcome at:
info(AT)pej.ca
A
"Good" Day in Afghanistan
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Who are
these men? What manner of man could survey the killing of dozens of people, and
observe it a "good" day's work? Has our moral compass been so perverted we can
as a society not only accept this twisted attitude, but laud the men who view
the world through this skewed lens, and promote them to positions of
authority?
www.PEJ.org
A "Good" Day in Afghanistan
C.
L. Cook
PEJ News
April 5,2006
Today, last
month's death of Canadian soldier, Private Robert Costall is being investigated
as a possible case of "fratricide." Fratricide is neo-Military-speak for the old
familiar, "friendly fire." What it means in both contexts is, "killed by one's
own colleagues."
But, Canada's number one military man in Afghanistan was
philosophical about the untimely death of Pte. Costall. Speaking
to reporters, Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, overall commander of Task Force
Afghanistan covering six of that country's southern provinces, says of the
incident that left Costall dead;
"We killed over 30 Taliban. We had a
good day. But good days come at a cost. This is the cost of the business that
the Afghan authorities have asked the international community to come here to
put back in the legitimate authority."
The Brigadier's sentence, besides
revealing his cavalier understanding of what death means, speaks volumes for the
overall "Canadian mission" in Afghanistan, and the "business" Canadian's tax
dollars are providing there. To be fair, Fraser did show his human side during
his press briefing, saying of Costall's death;
"Our hearts and our
prayers go out to the families, but those soldiers who died there that night and
who were wounded there that night did a great job."
Adding;
"If
someone dies, that matters. Canadian, American, British, Dutch, Afghan, it all
matters to me, because casualties mean there's a family that doesn't have a mom
or a dad."
Or, more likely, it means a mom or a dad that doesn't have a
son or daughter.
I doubt it's a great comfort to the twenty-two year
old Costall's grieving friends and family in Thunder Bay, Ontario to know he
died doing a "great job." One wonders if it was the kind of job he thought he
was getting into when he enlisted in the Canadian Forces?
Until last
year, Canada's military focussed on "peacekeeping, not "peacemaking" missions.
The difference is more profound than the linguistic similarity suggests. "Peacekeeping" means a third party, being agreed by both belligerent parties in a conflict, to
ensure a peaceful resolution is given a chance to succeed. "Peacemaking"
is, on the other hand, merely the au courant term for "war
waging," thinly veneered with declarations of "good intent," but not
necessarily conducted at the behest of either parties to the conflict
in question.
Brute force is the only recognized lingua franca in such
missions, with the "peacemakers" reserving for themselves the "right" to destroy
any they perceive as a threat to the "peace." Of course, there are always the
regrettable cases of innocents either caught in the cross-fire, or mistakenly
targeted. This "collateral damage" is endemic to these types of operations, and
the examples of it in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Occupied Palestine are too numerous
to document here.
Ultimately, there is no way to make the peace with
"peacemaker operations" short of annihilating one of the conflicting parties.
And, Brigadier-General Fraser, and his bosses in Ottawa acknowledge as much.
Says Fraser of the Canadian Forces' new role, and its recently launched
'Operation Peacemaker' mission;
"All the fighting that you're seeing is
fighting that we've generated. We've initiated this fight. We have gone out into
the areas and put the pressure on them. So, instead of having them just sit back
in the hills ... we're going out and assisting the Afghans to re-establish
control of those areas."
A strange way to make peace.
This
week, a newly reinforced operation, 'Mission Dagger' will commence where
'Operation Peacemaker' left off, and will likely mean more "good days" for
Brigadier General Fraser to savour. But, it will bring peace no nearer for
Afghanistan.
As the name of this new effort suggests, this has nothing
to do with peace.
Private Robert Costall has been posthumously honoured
by his colleagues by the naming of a garrison gate in his memory. The
investigation into the exact nature of his death, and the death of American
medic, Sergeant John Thomas Stone, is ongoing.
Chris
Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ
News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly
public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada.
You can check out the GR Blog
here.
Media Cheers Canada's Military Future
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Child of the myth, I
clung to the idea taught: Canada was a lesson to the world. Therein, despite
gruesome history, resided hope we Canadian apes all could finally live together
in something resembling peace. Peace, the Big "P" could we achieve in our
unassuming way. How different our history is turning to
be.
www.PEJ.org
Media Cheers Canada's Military
Future
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
April 13,
2006
What is this place we've found ourselves in? Am I alone in
discomfiture?
Canada's flower, "our" young men and women
serving in uniform far afield demand support. They beg, so their spokesmen would
have me believe, I cheer they and their mission for fear of otherwise being
deemed a coward, or worse. They demand, as the body count rises, I keep council
of my grave doubts and trust the men at their head have my and mine's best
interests at heart.
And yet, I doubt.
Though I would enjoin my
fellow's enthusiasms for the latest season's heroes and their exploits, I find
myself nagged by images of exploding babies, their entrails splayed against
nursery walls, and find I can find no comfort, while considering this, in
media diversions. While my peace-loving Canada moves into the play-off season,
agents paid by We, and named as working in our interest are moving ever deeper
into the dark water.
Aside the moral midgets, nominally emplaced atop the
pyramid of "our" system, (General Rick Hillier and his ilk spring immediately to
mind), America trained torture and its Nazi-minded settle, incumbent it seems
for the prosecution of perpetual warfare. It is they and their vision
that commits Canada to the "long war." Yet, Canada's public seem content too to
disregard civic and humanitarian duty, and allow the nation subverted, as long
as it serves a cosseted comfort. Comforts in service, entirely coincidental to
service of the new realization of Empire?s pre-eminence.
Last week, as
the rockets and artillery fell upon the hapless residents of ?Concentration Camp
Palestine,? the ?Canadian? government, under steerage of our own Jaruzelski, denied
humanity through its denied support of Hamas, the duly elected rrepresentatives
of the Palestinian people. The vicitims whose daily fate is too gross for the
tender tummies in Ottawa, too base to display in the evening paper, or State TV.
But for those whose tum tums are not so weak to withstand the widespread blitz
currently underway, courtesy of Israel?s armed actors, I pray you, fellow Good
Canadians, look at what is wrought in your name. All while the Good people of Canada, you quietly pay the piper
for these outrages.
Another hump for the furtherence of "Canadian"
militarization was proferred tonight by the weasels presiding over 'The
National,' Canada's pre-eminent news progam. It seems, the hub city media would
have you believe all that is worthy to publicise is Prince Harry's debut in the
military; dutiful youth, head-long diving onto the pyre of 21st Century large
"I" Imperialism.
Right Speech
Right speech
dictates I consider the whole, and meditate the issue
before emoting. So, I
ask: What does it serve Canada?
Very well...
There be glory in
defeat. We, Canadians, the most glorious example of this, having snatched
through our ever-surrendering to the diktats of imperial masters a
collective prosperity, serve exemplar of how far one can go, simply by going
along. Never mind, going along now means booting in doors, and delivering sacked
prisoners into the hands of the infamous jailors. We are making safe the world
for the principles of emancipation, though sacrificing its avowed principles.
All in an noble effort, no doubt.
Yet, I still
doubt.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ
News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public
affairs program, broad/webast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can
check out the GR Blog
here
Completing the Cycle of Usefulness: Harper Doing his
Master's Bidding
PEJ News - C. L. Cook
- Newly forged Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper is peeved with the
country's bleeding heart media reports to the people of their fallen fellow
citizens overseas. Echoing his philosophical master in Washington, Harper
demanded "No pictures, please!" of the sombre casket bearing processions certain
to grow only more frequent. Indeed, so frequent are those processions expected
to become, Canada's dead young will too pass unmarked by half-mast flags in the
nation's capital. Mr. Harper sees no practical use for ceremonies of this
nature.
www.PEJ.org
Completing the Cycle of Usefulness:
Harper Doing his
Master's Bidding
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
May 7,
2006
Naturally, Stephen Harper is not always miffed at the media, it has
proven useful to his [sic] cause for the most part. As Canada's little remarked overhaul
of the Canadian Forces under the vacated Liberal government of Paul Martin,
the media silence serves still to further Harper's American dream of Canada's
[sic] global muscularity, military conquest, and perhaps one day he being
referred to as the "Wartime P.M."
As the plan lain out by his Liberal
predecessors began to bear its terrible fruit, Canada's [sic] media, led by
State television's flagship news program, The National, rushed the breach,
inundating the airwaves with tales of the good-hearted intent of our [sic] armed
actors sent to Afghanistan. Peter
Mansbridge went so far as to obscure the facts of history, reminding
Canadians the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq were due to
the 9/11 attacks in America. An extra bit of disingenuousness on Pete's part, no
doubt to ensure the continuance of his six figure salary.
Little mention
in the media though, that the majority in Canada opposed "The Mission" when it
was strictly an American show; opposed it when the U.N. relented, granting the
patently illegal retribution bombing campaign a patina-thin imprimatur; opposed
when Canadians followed orders and marched into northern Afghanistan to
"reconstruct" the country, once affording it "stability;" opposed as our fellow
Canadians, since redeployed to the hot zones in the south and west of
Afghanistan began killing and dying more regularly; and oppose it still. As the Globe
and Mail reported yesterday, (Sat. May 6, 2006), the Globe being one of the
few major media players in the country to seriously question Canada's role in
the burgeoning quagmire of Afghanistan, "Support Plummets for Afghan Mission."
But for the most part, it's been silence from the fourth estate; a
useful silence, from Mr. Harper's perspective.
Harper makes no bones
about his support of all things Bush.
Aping the policies of George W. Bush on media access and flag-dipping for
the dead, killed in the wars they share enthusiasm for is not the only
similarities der two "leaders" share. Both men reveal a sneering contempt for
their respective constituencies, Harper made a career, before his ascension
to Sussex Drive, of hammering all things
Canadian, and now has the temerity to tell Canadians opposed to the war and
continuing occupation of Afghanistan they're too dim to understand
the nation's purpose there, and the import of "The Mission."
Harper
also shares the Bush's belief that the best place for the citizenry is filling
jail cells. Parroting the D.C. Machiavelli, Harper now wants to emulate his
spiritual guru's expansion of not only Gulag America abroad, but too in
bringing home the benefits of a more broadly criminalized electorate to the
corporate interests invested in the so-called 'prison-industrial complex,' in
the form of the disastrous "Mandatory
Minimum" sentencing policies of the U.S. It's a place, no doubt in Stephen's
mind to house an indigent population of slackers, as he characterized the nation
when addressing his pals from the U.S.-based, Council for National
Policy.
"In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a
million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They
don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social
assistance and unemployment insurance." - Conservative leader Stephen
Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, June
1997
Harper's generosity seems less limited when it comes to spending
billions of public dollars growing his proposed prison industry in Canada.
Neither does he hesitate to send troops across the planet, or in doling out
billions more for what Canadian Forces honcho, General Rick Hillier says will be
a decade-long mission in Afghanistan for Canada. But when it comes to those
nasty, Northern European social programs, his purse-strings tighten faster
than a sphincter at a border crossing.
On Medicare a pre-Conservative
Harper informed the same gathering: "Then there is the Progressive
Conservative party, the PC party, which won only 20 seats. Now, the term
Progressive Conservative will immediately raise suspicions in all of your minds.
It should... They were in favour of gay rights officially; officially for
abortion on demand. Officially -- what else can I say about them? Officially for
the entrenchment of our universal, collectivized, health-care system and
multicultural policies in the constitution of the
country."
Stephen Harper's fifth column tendencies were no secret
before his minority-election. With approval ratings only George Bush and Tony
Blair could envy, Harper has sallied forward, ramming down the collective
Canadian gullet mirror image policies of the above mentioned war criminals both
at home and abroad. And he's been able to get away with it so far because a
complacent public, complicit media, and non-existent "opposition" allow
it.
And, in that we are all Stephen Harper's, and George W. Bush's, and
Tony Blair's useful idiots.
Chris Cook is a
contributing editor to PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Afghan Anniversary; This Date in
History
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - [from the way back file]
Canada's pretence to non-alignment, or at least nothing more than a loose
affiliation, with Bush administration ambitions of global energy domination lost
another veil with Bill Graham's announcement of a Canadian troop deployment to
the oilfields of Darfur. -{lex}
www.PEJ.org
Inexorable War Creep
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
May 9th, 2005
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/
department/pr_2003/site/images/bill.gif
PEJ
News - There's been thunder and bluster coming from the Tory benches
for more than a year demanding the humanitarian situation in Darfur requires an
immediate military response. The risk we take in waiting, they insist, is
another Rwanda in Sudan But that logic begs belief in the necessity to spend
Canadian lives and taxes to avoid the possible repeat of an event they
didn't care about when actually happening in Rwanda.
Saving black African lives has never been a priority here, not among the men
making policy. Who cares today about Congo, where nearly ten times as many have
died as have in the tragic Sudan, and continue to do so ? No, the real tragedy
of Darfur is its unfortunate proximity to a great black sea of oil. As in other
theatres of the grand global turmoil: Iraq; Colombia; Venezuela; it's oil
putting Sudan in the octopus' sights. The humanitarian disaster is
simply side-show, another Kosovo.
Canada's tentacles do great agency to the Bush administration's great work:
Canadian troops engaged in the illegal war and regime change in Afghanistan. Canadian war ships, under U.S. command running
search and seizure patrols in the Persian Gulf, federal police and Canadian
military aiding an illegal and brutal regime in Haiti, a regime Canadian machinations helped implace.
Yugoslavia, Somalia and now Darfur; it would be just another sad and too typical
foreign policy story Canadians have endured these past years, but there's more
to Darfur than meets the media eye. Because, there's more than one monster
lurking in the tar.
Both China and India haven't rested on their
sweatshop laurels. The two most rapidly growing economies in the world have been
going abroad, investing, greasing palms, doing the ugly deeds need done to cut
deals. China has been especially industrious,
securing much of coveted Darfur, and they're determined to
keep it. With the "Stans" gone Uncle Sam's way for now, China has to make a play
in Africa. They've supported the government there with equipment and, depending
on the source, some thousands of Chinese troops. Are Canadians really up for the
Red Army? Is the final gambit in the great game a WWIV scenario over control of
Africa's oil and minerals?
Clearly there is a humanitarian crisis in Darfur, but it has
little to do with the story being peddled to "justify" another bloodbath for oil
and reconstruction contracts. The infamous dastards this time are the Janjawid, an
"anti-government militia" much in the style of Colombia's AUC; they are conveniently
classified as enemies, while being used to do the government's dirtiest work. In
this case, as in the wilds of Colombia, their job is to clear the indigenous
from the riches they happen to reside atop. Meanwhile the emperor's agents have the ears and balls of
the "rogue" leadership firmly in hand. It's a crisis, but not without a
calculated cause.
Judging by ongoing Canadian interventions around the
world,
is it reasonable to expect positive results from a Canadian-style
operation?
Afghanistan is still a disaster three and half years after their liberation.
Haiti worsens by the day; Iraq and the Persian Gulf boil hotter now than ever,
and Central America is poised on a hair's edge, Castro and Chavez calling
militias to readiness.
And now, Canada is to sally 150 hapless souls
into the emperors breach. Just the first of more hundreds of handfuls of fodder
to feed the indefatigable maw of war?
And barely a murmur. The great
opposition to our collective march into the 19th century coming from Ottawa is a
political slingshot sent at Minister Graham, purporting his announced intentions
are merely a move to appease a dissaffected defector of the Liberal
party.
Like the Gomery hullaboo, it's a stain on a blue dress to keep
the "dogs of the press" busy while Martin dons the steel.
Chris Cook hosts the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla
Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada
and serves as a contributing editor to the progressive news site, PEJ.org. You
can check out his blog,
here.
House
Folds: Harper Lip-Syncing Canada to War
PEJ News - C. L.
Cook - It's fair to say, the honeymoon phase of Stephen Harper's minority
government is over, and the bride's none too happy with his less than
upright performance. Undeterred, Harper has urged his party rise again to make
of Afghanistan the stick to assert his mastery of the House of Commons. Tonight
Harper risked his party's newborn power, putting the Afghan Question in the
crucible, making of it a test of
confidence.
www.PEJ.org
House Folds:
Harper Lip-Syncing Canada to
War
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
May 17, 2006
With
scant notice given his partners in the Parliament, Harper has put forward a
motion to the House proposing legislation to ensure an extension of Canada's
commitment to the United States, and a continued supply of troops and treasure
for Afghanistan through 2008. He's betting the opposition fears forcing another
federal election, the third, should his gambit fail and the government fall, in
just more than two years; he's betting Canadian voters would punish such a move,
and he thinks the Liberals think so too.
Stephen Harper's short tenure
at Sussex Drive has some who supported the Conservative/Reform party union
wondering today if they chose their man wisely. From the start, Harper displayed
an arrogant willingness to set procedural precedents in a manner more suiting a
president than prime minister; that is, if George W. Bush is to be considered
the exemplar of presidential behaviour. He's made an enemy of the Ottawa press
corp., and now refuses to consider anything, or anyone that falls outside his
"stay the course" mantra.
The Harper
Doctrine
" We cannot walk away quickly. If we need further
efforts or further mandate to go ahead into the future, we will go so alone and
go to the Canadian people to get that mandate.'' - PM Stephen Harper tells
Parliament
Enjoying a mandate slimmer than the debatable 50%
plus one granted Bush in 2004, Harper has shown, in the early days of his
government (has it been only four months!), a dogged determination to make of
Canada a perfect emulation of his philosophical hero, George W. Bush's America.
Today in Canada's Parliament, Harper held forth, accusing any who would oppose
his pledge, a blank cheque of blood and money, to commit the nation to Bush's
disaster in Afghanistan.
Buoyed following the faux debate on the
Afghanistan debacle that brought not a single party's censure, Harper's
inherited military muscularity must seem to he and his ruling tyros a
bullet-proof shield they can hide all manner of "adjustments" to the country
behind, and employ as cudgel to wield against the opposition. In his now
revealed secret identity, Stephen 'Hawk' Harper is on the offensive, attacking
any who would challenge "The Mission," charging they don't "support the
troops."
NDP leader, Jack Layton reacted to the prime minister's
innuendo, saying:
"This Prime Minister has refused to answer these
questions and has said in no uncertain terms that if you question the mission
you're against our troops. Well, let me be very clear, Canadians will not be
lured into this false trap of the prime minister's borrowed
sloganeering."
Layton, who was slow to wade into an Afghanistan debate
while the Liberals, the initiators of Canada's calamitous policy there, were in
power, has finally found voice, and an easy target in the person of Bush
impersonator Harper. But, I doubt Harper's "sloganeering" was borrowed; the kind
of spin coming out of Ottawa these days costs.
Stephen has been given a
professional make-over by the same idealogical flackery practiced south of the
49th that has served George, Tony, and Howard of Oz so well for so long. One
only hopes Harper didn't pay full fare for the over-worn rhetoric and practiced
outrage he's currently inflicting upon the country. Or, for that matter, full
price for his newly elevated head flack, former corporate
lobbyist, Sandra Buckler, whose political imagination seems limited to FOX
News reruns of the base propaganda that has sustained the war against Iraq,
while denying yet the proven fictions that led to it.
Ms. Buckler's
resume includes service to De Beers Canada, Coca Cola, and Power Corp. She
endeared herself further to the aforementioned miffed Ottawa press gang Monday,
coyly insinuating the Harper administration would follow the George W. Bush
template not only in its treatment of returned dead and wounded soldiers
from foreign adventures, but ape too its methods of managing press
access, blithely saying:
"[the Tories are] getting to know the press
corp, [discovering] what we like, and what we don't like."
For their
part, the press is complaining about lack of access to the government, and an
insulated PMO, reticent to inform the press, or the people of what they're
getting up to.
Denial
The core of the
administrations in the United States, Britain, Australia, and now Canada is the
refutation of the popular will by those in power. The majority of Canadians
polled on the Afghanistan issue have consistently rejected the country's
involvement. Turning the democractic paradigm on its head, the few pulling the
levers of public policy deny the will of the majority, deny in fact such
a majority exists. As George W. Bush would say, (doubtless to be soon echoed by
an increasingly embattled Harper)
"I don't do focus groups."
Blair can blunder along, keeping the course charted for him by the
certifiable Maggie Thatcher, heedless of the hundreds of thousands marching in
the streets as his party bleeds white; while John Howard is free to harumph in
antipodal agreement, regardless of his fellow citizens.
Democracy it
seems is meant only for the Iraqi's and Afghans.
And Stephen's
schtick?
From the House of Commons today, Harper offers this to
Parliament:
"Canadians accept risks when those risks are in the service
of a greater good, and we honour those who take risks and make the ultimate
sacrifice by staying the course and supporting their mission. The events of
September 11, 2001 was a wake up call, not just to Americans but to people in
all free and democratic nations. Two dozen Canadians were killed as result of
the attacks on the twin towers . . . Canada is not safe from such attack and we
will never be safe from such attacks as long as we're a society that defends
freedom and democracy."
Harper's hypocrisy is as transparent within the
House as without. The prime
minister continues to insist Canada's involvement in the occupation of
Afghanistan is a United Nations supported, and NATO-run mission, though
'Operation Enduring Freedom' is explicitly and solely an American operation. As
does his defence
minister, Gordon O'Connor, Stephen Harper must believe Canadians too dim to
know the truth of the matter; too stupid to recognize his Charlie McCarthy act
on the Rideau.
And maybe he's right in that.
The House voted
tonight on Harper's "two year extension" to Canada's commitment to the
American-led occupation, winning their effort 149-145. With this landslide
mandate, Harper promises to reshape the country, one confidence vote at a time,
until molded into a tiny replica of his Republican ideal.
Step One:
Ensuring an open-ended, illegal war abroad.
Check!
Two: Get Tough
on stuff.
Check!
Three:
Fix the laws; create private
prison industry at home.
Pending.
With
this endorsement, Harper needn't worry for at least another two years about
"debating" Afghanistan; it's a done deal. How many Canadians will kill and die
in those two years is something he will also fail to debate.
As if
marking this dark passage, tonight, as the House sat, another Canadian
soldier died in an offensive against "Taliban elements" west of Kandahar.
Capt. Nichola Goddard has now the distinction of being the first
Canadian woman in uniform to die in combat since WWII, and the seventeenth
Canadian killed in Afghanistan.
Speaking of the fallen woman, Brig. Gen.
David Fraser told the cameras, she died:
"Doing a job she liked; she
loved."
Chris
Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ
News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a
weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria,
Canada. You can check out the GR
Blog here.
Canada's First War President: All Hail Chief
Harper
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - That Stephen Harper hates
Canada: It's wet insistence on social safety nets; healthcare; public education;
and lame Peacekeeping traditions, is manifest in speeches to his right wing
think tank pals in the United States, and many publicly expressed disaffections
with the country of his birth. Preaching for the end of the Canadian Social
Democratic experiment, and rabble-rousing Red State righties is one thing when
in opposition, but its quite another when sitting at the helm of the
nation.
www.PEJ.org
Canada's First War President:
All Hail Chief
Harper
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
May 25, 2006
As
the leader of the opposition, Stephen's harping criticisms of the government
serve a purpose; for our system to work, the rulers of the day must be held to
account for their actions, and inactions on issues important to the continued
prosperity of the greater nation; but leading the country requires a defter
hand.
The first minister of the government must think beyond the
political confines of his caucus, his party, and even too his
closest supporters. It is the Prime Minister's duty to govern for the whole
country, recognizing that not all Canadians share her vision. As the leader of
all of Canada, the PM must respect both the subleties of the multi-cultural,
mult-racial, pan-political nature of Canada, while too respecting its
traditions. Being granted the latch-key to Sussex Drive is, for any Prime
Minister, a caretaking agreement: Take care of this house for the next tenant,
take care with this country for all of its tenants.
But then, Stephen
Harper doesn't do Subtle.
No; the precedent setting, president
following Prime Minister, who would over Canada preside a complete alteration of
the country, willing into being the subsuming of, along with its already
surrendered financial and political independence, the soul of the nation, making
of it a Northern Republic, fashioned whole from star spangled cloth, merely a
colder companion to the philosophies of George W. Bush, and his criminal
collaborators. In his first 100 days, Stephen "W." Harper has made his 'Project
for a New Canadian Century' plain to see.
And it looks a lot like an
American nightmare. But, he's just getting started. Along with his "justice"
measures, Harper would have the nation devote more of its young, and more of its
treasure, to engage forever in war, endlessly inflicted upon the weakest of the
world, for little more than the enrichment of his dear brothers in the arms
trade, and its attendant profiteers, hanging around the fringes as jackals who
shadow the death-dealing lions of war to the south. With a flaccid minority
government, American idolater, Harper would attempt to complete the long sought
"Continentalist's" dream, and deliver finally Canada into the Washington
consensus.
Fortunately, as with his political role models, Richard
Nixon, and the George's Bush, Harper's inherent contempt for the popular will,
and disdain of the precepts of democracy, will undo him too. Now, it's up to the
marginalized media in Ottawa, and the rest of the country, (CanWest Goebbels
excepted) to dispel Mr. Harper's facade, revealing to the citizenry the disaster
he, and his Liberal Party supporters pose the nation.
We've all witnessed
the terrible ascension of the killers of democracy these last awful years. The
fall of decency at the apex of America, Britain, Australia, Canada, and a host
of more minor collaborators, all utilizing the terrific, open-ended
possibilities the 'War on Terror' provide to justify horrific abuses of power.
The writing, writ large on the world's burgeoning new walls says: The
battlefield is everywhere. The war is to preserve "our freedoms," etc.
This gruesome graffiti appears prominently in the bombed out villages of
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Darfur; it's seen in the shot up "ghettos" of
Mogadishu and Port au Prince, and in the Halls of [sic] Justice in the capital
cities of the Untied States, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, and those of their
willing allies, who would turn their faces from the outrages being commited
today with impunity.
Without "terrorism," the end of this dark period of
human history can never be won. So "terrorism" will remain, and where it does
cease, it will be created.
It's a future, prime minister Harper promises
Canadians. In Afghanistan, ruling America is making clear, (if not to the
play-off distracted at home), is Canada's complicity in the atrocities of the
"Mission" there. Mourning their dead family members, neighbours, and fellows,
erased recently in an American air attack against yet another village in
Afghanistan, the survivors indicated: They see no distinction between America
and its allies currently complicit in the killings of the innocent in their
homeland.
It's a similarity more apparent to them than to the
citizens of the, largely sleeping country's dropping the
bombs.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor at PEJ News, and host Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University
of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog her.
This
Revulsion Will Not Be Televised: America Do You Think it's Bad Enough
Now?
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - What it takes
and when it will happen is a mystery, but history has shown: America does have a
"disgust threshold," a moment of grotesque self-discovery, an involuntary
recoiling from itself, an automatic reflex against the "new normal," manifest as
a desire to flee ugliness and be home returned; headed back to the America of
better days. Is the Haditha Massacre My Lai-esque enough to jolt the
nation's conscience out of its blinkered
denial?
www.PEJ.org
This Revulsion Will Not Be Televised:
America Do You
Think it's Bad Enough Now?
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
May 30,
2006
Many believed Afghanistan's death march, where three thousand or
so men were stuffed into semi-trailers, and taken on a ride to nowhere, would do
it. Some thought 'Shock and Awe,' with its rain of cluster bombs, depleted
uranium munitions, Tomahawk rockets, and heartless snipers was enough. For
others, awakening waited Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base, and Abu Ghraib. But,
Americans are a patient people.
Millions still believe. Millions in
America still want to think their president, George W. Bush would never lead
the country to ruination for the seeming benefit of only a close coterie of
international businessmen. These voters don't want to think anyone could so
cynically destroy so many, for the betterment of so few. Who could? But, more,
much more than this, they don't want to believe it is their
way.
Prove the tipping point!
Today, tales of a U.S. Marine Corp.
killing spree; the brutal and calculated murder of men, women, and children; the
murder of entire families, executed while in their dressing gowns and P.J.'s,
standing and kneeling in their own living rooms, carried out last
November knells, an old familiar bell ringing in the heads of Americans, peals
not kenned since the terrible end days of America's war against Vietnam.
Whether these "new" revelations are revolting enough to move the nation
to quit its abominable "war" or not though is moot: America has sown the seeds
of its imminent defeat in Iraq and if, my fellows, you think the daily parade
home of the dead and maimed, or the wanton destruction of innocents in Iraq and elsewheres is bad now, the first reel has already begun to roll on the
singularly most ignoble end for the United States of America and what She has practiced against Iraq, its predecessors, and the world. What's
now is the end of the American Century.
And, thank God.
Though the
horrors of last November's Haditha Massacre are gruesome enough to revolt any
sentient being with a modicum of empathy, it doesn't matter in and of itself. It
doesn't matter when Haditha's happen in Iraq everyday. Yes, the names
and details change, but the mentality of the killers, and the mortality of their
victims exists in a continuum. It is Terror's routine, as intrepid
American, self-made journalist, Dahr Jamail reports. Jamail is one of the few,
and I expect only American reporter, to have penetrated the truth behind the
resistance in Iraq and survive to tell the tale says:
"There have been
countless My Lai massacres, and we cannot blame 0.1% of the soldiers on the
ground in Iraq for killing as many as a quarter of a million Iraqis, when it is
the policies of the Bush administration that generated the failed occupation to
begin with."
Jamail reminds; even if the Pentagon's well-worn mea culpa
of " bad apples" run amok soothes the digestion of those who
still defend the "war" and its "war president" at home, in Iraq, in the real
world, where both morgues and hospitals overflow, the systemic destruction
and the true nature and scope of the suffering this grand Bush adventure exacts
on the people is known better.
None in Iraq can credit the American
effort there without seeming utter fools; or agents. That includes the nominal
prime minister, emplaced by the universally hated United States, and every
soldier, or policeman trained and armed to service the occupier's demands. While
it's true, the Anglo-American covert car bombing campaign has succeeded in some
measure to turn the more thick-headed sectarians against one another in Iraq,
most Iraqis, sectarian and lay, recognize this crude manoeuvre for what it is,
and will not be fooled again.
The media ballyhooed "civil war" will not
happen as predicted. But the civilians will go to war in greater numbers,
bringing with them their brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers, and sons now
serving the puppet government. The time is coming soon when Iraqis will unite in
their efforts to rid the nation of the festering wound inflicted upon them by
George W. Bush and his backers.
History is not an abstract to a nation
similarly invaded and brutalized by the forces of empire. Iraqis remember the
British, they remember the promises, lies, and brutality. And, they remember
expelling the odious influence, if not completely then, gradually over the
generations that make up the Iraqi Century past.
Inching Toward
Liberation
Slavery was ended, the story goes, back when Abe
Lincoln destroyed the economy of the South. Newly free men made free to slave in
the factories and farms of the nation renewed can inform still the breadth of
their freedom, (as can the millions of "tired and hungry," swarmed to the 'Land
of Liberty,' to find themselves welcome only to fill labour shortages created by
America's Civil War; recruited just to keep the engines of commerce
whirring), their freedom from oppressive poverty and privations meted
out at home, proved only to be as cruel a joke on the shore of their hopes
across the sea as it was in their native lands. And, those freemen of yore say:
"Freedom and Liberty is a crock!"
But the wardens too are
prisoners, their incessant, craven, infantile desire
for attention penning
them from their higher aspiration. Mind-locked in a prison built of fear and
doubt, bars made and reinforced daily through overt and less so messaging from
State and corporate media, the people of America too feel incarcerated, and they
also long for 'Freedom' and 'Democracy' and "Dignity.' And, in their collective
heart, they know they can never fulfill for others a world away and by force of
arms the 'Freedom' their "leaders" promise, when no such animal has been seen in
these woods, their homeland. They know it's a sham.
So, Have You Seen
Enough, America?
Haditha is the word now that marks your effort in Iraq.
It will rise and fall, briefly fluttering across your television screens and
newspaper headlines, then to be subsumed by other trivia. On St. Patrick's Day
of this, 2006, I wrote a sequel to Hidatha, titled 'Root
and Branch: American Forces Wipe Out Family,' In that article are the
details of Haditha repeated, exactly: A mob of soldiers kicks in your windows,
and kicks in your doors. There inside your home, they bind, beat, and berate you
for information. Then you watch your family die, one by one before your eyes.
When they come to end you, it doesn't matter anymore, you've witnessed your
life's end already.
Can you, my fellow Americans, look through this
mirror darkly without feeling revolted? Can you hold a stare long enough without
turning your gaze to the blue blare of your televised reality, forgetting the
awful truth long enough to return to the order of your daily duty? Can you laugh
and love and live in a paradise made of misery, torment, and
blasphemy?
It doesn't matter
No one is calling on America's absent
conscience in Iraq today. Today, that nation is nursing an outrage unseen.
Tomorrow, that outrage will be loosed upon the occupation.
And, God help
us all.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor for PEJ News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog
here.
Four out of Five Surviving Iraqi Dentists
Agree:
"War is bad for teeth."
Bad Apples
Notations
Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
While the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha
massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness
of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally
decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily
slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces
had not stopped either.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13427.htm
===
Spreading Democracy in Haditha
By Mike Whitney
Who?ll believe Bush?s rosy scenarios after they?ve heard the
testimony of children who watched while their parents and siblings were
butchered in front of their own eyes?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13421.htm
54
killed in Iraq violence :
The worst bombing hit the market as Iraqis were doing their
evening shopping in Husseiniyah, 95km south of Baghdad. At least 25 people were
killed.
http://tinyurl.com/ofsg3
===
U.S. Increases Number Of Troops In Iraq:
The top American commander in Iraq has decided to move reserve
troops now deployed in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar province in western Iraq
to help quell a surge in insurgents attacks
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/14697487.htm
===
Iraq PM impatient with US troops killing civilians:
Iraq's prime minister said on Tuesday his patience was wearing
thin with excuses from U.S. troops that they kill civilians by "mistake" and
said he would launch an investigation into killings at Haditha last year.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13430.htm
===
Haditha Massacre:
Was it an Isolated Event and Did the Military Try to Cover it
up?
Must listen : Audio and transcript
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13434.htm
===
New details found in deaths of Iraqis:
Investigators say they have found drone video from the same day
when Marines allegedly killed civilians after bombing
http://tinyurl.com/oacv9
Video:
Murtha: Military Still Trying to Spin Haditha Massacre :
Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha appeared on CNN America
Morning where he expressed outraged at military's handling of the massacre of
innocent Iraq's by Marines in Haditha, Iraq.
http://tinyurl.com/oqr9x
===
Photo Gallery: Chaos in Kabul :
US troops reportedly shot dead at least four people when they
opened fire on a crowd of Afghans demonstrating after an accident involving a
coalition military vehicle.
http://tinyurl.com/ngyvf
===
Afghan parliament demands arrests after US crash : I
t was still uncertain how many people were killed in the
violence, in which gunshots rang out throughout the city as security forces
tried to control the crowds.
http://tinyurl.com/luwu5
Root and Branch:
American Forces Wipe Out Family
PEJ News - C. L. Cook -
News of just one event in a doubtless eventful military operation was reported by Reuters today. U.S. forces taking
part in the so-named, 'Operation Swarmer' entered the home of a
suspected al Qaida in Iraq operative, bound his entire family, lined them up and
shot them dead. The house containing the bodies was then demolished with
explosives.
www.PEJ.org
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4373
Clumsy Fuckers, Fly My
Prospect!
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Hurrah!
It's the Oak Bay Teaparty in Victoria, wherein the well-heeled inheritors
of their forefather's occupation of the lands of the dirty indigents celebrate
infamy. And, to accentuate that victory, we're today treated to a fly-over of
vintage death-bringing machines of the WWII era.
http://www.zoobooks.com/newFrontPage/animals/
virtualZoo/animals/c/cityanimals/images/swallows.gif
www.PEJ.org
Clumsy Fuckers, Fly My Prospect!
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
June 4, 2006
Here we are, 51 years
past the culmination of the awful war, ostensibly meant to liberate us all.
Millions perished, we're told, to bring at last decency to the conduct of global
affairs; to end, finally, the baser urges of the human psyche, that would take,
and take, and take for itself, irregardless of morality. Emblems like the
Swastika, now banned in its adopted land, of this philosophy survive
yet, paraded today before our gawking kinder in the form of fighter
planes.
Watching from my stoop the birds go about their daily
business, while the skies o'er quaint Victoria are rent by the roar of the
relics of past warfare. They turn, formations of killing efficiency, attempting
to delight the groundlings their artistry. As I witness the swallows, sparrows,
crow, and yes, the obnoxious starlings sail, above the cranking behemoths of
man's ingenuity lumber.
Oh, to have a gun!
Bruce Cockburn, a
fellow citizen of this once Canada once wrote:
"If I had a rocket
launcher..."
Bruce then spake of the disaster wrought against the South
Americans by "America's" legions in the terrible, largely forgotten,
Nineteen-Eighties. But, today, as Canada's [sic] blood and treasure are devoted
to the 'oldest profession,' become war whores, loosed upon the world to kill and
be killed in foreign adventure, I comfortably purvey the technological ancestors
of today's military mayhem as they entertain.
Beneath the testimony to
carnage, pedestrian Canada sleep-walks, ne'er a heaven-ward glance as "we" are
conscripted to the horrific enacting of war, death, and destruction. All most
see is a flying-circus, circumventing our role and responsibility; our
collective complicity.
The swallow fly, soaring off my balcony, dodging
and weaving, an air show no clumsy spitfire could emulate. As they continue
their nature, so unnatural minions of hatred and death drive the nation to
oblivion.
I pray you, clumsy bastards:
"Fuck
Off!"
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ
News, and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast
from the University of Victoria, Canada.
Canada Following Down the Rabbit Hole: Harper's
Succession
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The tales emanating the
estimable "intelligence" agencies in Canada tonight inform of the thwarting of
a plot to no less than: decapitate the
nominal Head of State, destroy the Parliament Buildings, and take over the
head offices of the State media, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Ambitious plans for a gang of young adults, and five teenagers. But, they had
help, in the form of the best terrorist experts around, the very ones that made
the huge bust; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
http://www.cbc.ca/includes/promos/
promo/images/toronto-bombplot_190.jpg
www.PEJ.org
Canada Following Down the Rabbit Hole:
Harper's
Succession
C. l. Cook
PEJ News
June 6, 2006
Though the CBC
hasn't included that kernel of truth in their latest reportage on-line, to
their credit, CBC Radio has reported on this, and the fact the families have
been denied visitation of the incarcerated "terrorists;" bail too "deferred."
Thankfully, the
Toronto Star newspaper thought the pre-raid involvement of Federal law
enforcement something worthy of a line, or two. The fact that the reported
raids, carried out by "400+" armed agents against the 17 accused suggests a high
level of intelligence activity prior to the alleged plot(s) is something too
absent from CBC on-line coverage. Disappeared now from most State and corporate
versions is the nature of the RCMP's
involvement, and their changed story.
Friend Kurt Nimmo, writing
from Another Day in the
Empire, is well familiar with "Black Flag" covert intelligence operations,
and has worked to expose the dubious claims of Government in Britain, the Untied
States, Spain, Italy, and of course, Iraq. Invariably, these plots hatched from
the deepest recesses of State power, are proven gross attempts to manipulate the
popular mind; an effort to instil a desire amongst the "electorate" to bolster
both the responsibilities and budgets of said "intelligence" agencies.
In a country like Canada, with its devout self-belief it
operates within the parameters of justice and fair play, it's a politically
dicey thing to play a card already seen laid in the U.S.A., (with such
disastrous effect) to terrify Canadians. It stinks of the South. Harper's
southern counsel may yet be unaware: Canadians ken media more sharply than their
cousins do. This likely a result of generations prior casting a dubious eye to
their gargantuan neighbour.
As the saw here says: "When the mouse and
the elephant go to bed, the mouse gets little sleep."
One Would Think
As though Canadians have lived in a vacuum these last years, the
Harper regime repeats verbatim, ad nausea, messages taken straight from the
stale repositories of the American PR enablers of post-9/11 reversals of
democracy at home and international law abroad, not bothering even to change the
script. Now, Canadians are told they must "fight vigilant" the deleterious
effects of "Activist Judges," bent the story goes, on perverting our nation's
purity. This while the State is saying, as in America, they're not interested in
following the law, and inform they will be devoting greater percentages of the
national budget to buck-up defence, policing, and lading the rich with tax
breaks, to ease the Creme's discomfort with investing in the nation.
In essence, America 'Land of the Brave,' these last years proving anything
but, is the new exemplar the Conservative challenge would offer Canada. Will
you, Canada mine, fold to the Goebbels-esque campaign, determined to undermine
Canadian democracy here as it has in "America?"
True North
Now, back to the heroics.
Depending on who you believe: 17 were "taken down" by a joint force of the
RCMP, CSIS, etc. Five of those appear to be juveniles. Whether these will be
"transferred" to Syria, Guantanamo, Bagram, or any of the other myriad torture
facilities currently working overtime to abate the destruction of western
society is uncertain, though Canada's minority, and clearly compromised
"government" did announce last week, they thought 'Geneva,' as in conventions,
quaint too.
As George before them, it seems [sic] Canada will free its
forces to enjoin the slaughter with impunity of dusky foreigners, kicking in
their windows, and breaking down their doors; as their "American" leaders do.
And now, Canada.
What Nimmo discloses is an uncomfortable coinciding of western spy networks in
efforts to thwart "terrorist attacks" targeted against, primarily honest
citizens, who have an interest in truth and peace, democracy and the political
and physical environment we must share. Worse though, he reveals how bombings,
and other outrages use civilians victims to "justify" draconian "legal measures"
in the countries where these nefarious deeds succeed. These measures are
ostensibly needed to "protect the citizenry."
That these measures erode the essence of democracy is at the crux of the
geopolitical shift witnessed these last tragic years. It's a global phenomenon,
effectively erasing what we've come to know as "democracy."
The peoples of the Americas, Europe, and the World, are suffering a veritable
propaganda barrage, across the burgeoning media spectrum. It's a battle for the
hearts and minds to be sure, but really only for insurance. The Powers ruling
today care little for either public opinion, or jurisprudence. If enough of the
herd can be convinced to play along, along the path to apparent ruination, so
much the better.
Or at least, so much the easier.
Stephen Harper's pedigree is amply available on-line; not least some of which
here at PEJ News, and other
places. It's clear, Mr. Harper does not like "Canada," as defined by the
majority of its citizens, and indeed others around the world. Harper doesn't
like "socialized" medicine, something of a point of pride for millions of
Canadians. The creation of guaranteed, affordable medical treatment to all
citizens was, and is, seen in most quarters of this country as a seminal social
achievement. And not won easily.
Likewise, the Social Insurance, taken from all, so that the few would not in
old age be reduced to dog food, or choosing between the medication and the rent,
Stephen Harper and his predecessor governments would have our elders supine,
wondering where their next meal is coming from; they would support the extension
of copyright protections, protections that ensure generic palliatives can't
trickle down to the poor, and sick. He and his party would have the nation
reduced to a plenary not seen since the 19th Century.
War on the Poor
Signally, among the myriad outrages PM Harper would heap upon the heads of
us, we Canadians, is averred in his stolid determination to bring God, and the
force of the prison-industrial
complex North to Canada. This of course, through "get tough" seminaries,
replete with media magnification.
Tonight, 12 men and five boys wait and wonder what 'Canadian Justice' holds
for them. They know already of the secret complicity the nation is guilty of.
They know of others, held in horror camps around the world, delivered by the
agency of "their" government. They doubtless too have heard Canada's new
leadership proclaim objections to 'Geneva,' and might wonder what that may mean
for them.
But behind the media circus, left largely unattended, is: What
does this mean for the rest of us?
While Harper hunts, or ensnares,
domestic ?terrorists? what privations of law and rights are Canadians willing to
accept?
Will this country too fall victim to Public Relations, and
finally "succeed" the South now?
From Your Pocket to War: Canada's Burgeoning Military
Complex
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Well hurrah! Canada is to,
if Mr. Harper gets his way, dole out an approximated 15 billion dollars next
week to "beef up" the country's military. Though the Canadian Forces has seen
annual budget increases through three administrations over the last few years,
it's still many tax dollars short of attaining its goals. What, harried
tax-payer, are those goals? Well you may
ask.
www.PEJ.org
From Your Pocket to War:
Canada's Burgeoning
Military Complex
C. L. Cook
PEJ
News
June 24, 2006
It costs money to kill people. Think of it:
There are bullets and bombs, rifles and airplanes; soldiers, sailors, and spooks
to be paid. Then, those good boys and girls, our good boys and girls,
needing feeding, clothing, toilet papering, etc. But, then you have to get those
masters of democracy to the killing fields; far-flung locales most of those
picking up the tab have never heard of, and certainly couldn't afford to holiday
in.
But there's more, much more to be paid to get a good killing spree
off the ground. And, this week, Canada's new prime minister, Bush apparatchik,
Stephen Harper
promised to provide the moola required to wipe out the Mullahs. Hee hee,
it's off to glory we go.
Already in the hole for more than a reputed four
billion supporting the occupation of Afghanistan, and military geniuses like
Canada's Numero Uno at defence, Rick Hillier opining a decade, or more
"in-country" commitment required to bring at last freedom and democracy to the
too dumb to form a society on their own Afghanis, Stephen's 15 billion dollars
would appear just a down payment on the full cost of this misguided adventure
in Central Asia. But the costs are to be greater by magnitudes less easily
measured through pure accountancy.
Some of you older Canucks may recall
travelling the world in your youth. You may remember encountering
American backpackers in Europe, who would affix little Maple Leaf insignia to
their gear in hopes of "passing" as Canadians. They would abandon their
citizenship for safety, knowing "their" government's policies abroad were so
repugnant to so many around the world, it better to play Peter and deny
affiliation, three times before the cock crows. What little emblems will
the young intrepid denizens of the Great White North eager to see the wider
world affix their backpacks, as they must now because Stephen Harper, and his
previously corrupted predecessors, acquiesced Canadian sovereignty, adopting
whole the horrible precepts and repugnant realities of the foreign policy of the
United States?
Don't Shoot! I'm Irish, eh?
Lucky
charms will not save those daring a venture. You see, we're seen in the lands of
those oppressed as a monolith too: The West, a bunch of rich, white, Christian
men; a maniacal uber mensch that would have the Prophet dragged through the dirt
and the mud, His adherents put to sword and flame; man, woman, and child
together smote, while not even the animals, the lands and waters spared the
scorched earth crusaders. And who, looking at the annuls of atrocity these last
terrible years has writ, could disagree?
Like they are presented to we,
we too look to them as a polyglot singularity; as if there are no secular
"Muslims;" as if there exist no Agnostics east of Constantinople. Here, we
perceive they a homogenous blob, religious fanatics, unreasonably threatening we
that would take their hand and lead them from their dismal darkness of ignorance
to the shining New Jerusalem on the hill: The Free Market.
Hallelujah! Amen.
Well Stephen, more bullets and
bombs, and the means of their deliverance will not accomplish your stated
tenets. What "Canada" is promising is a mere reflection of the disaster, in all
terms, of America. And you, gentle tax-payer can go quiet into your good night
knowing you are contributing to the Great Project, promising to pay the piper
for this abortion of humanity, guaranteed to continue for generations to
come.
Before I vomit at the thought of what's become of us, a shout out
to the CBC, and their conspirators in the corporate media, for all your diligent
work assisting the mass murders abroad.
Didn't they hang 'Tokyo
Rose?'
Sleep well fellow Canadians, knowing your labours
are put to such good use.
Chris Cook is a
contributing editor to PEJ News,
and host of Gorilla Radio,
broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog
here.
An
Open Invitation to Jack Layton: Why Do We Not Fight?
PEJ
News - C. L. Cook - It's said: "A hero dies once, but a coward dies a
million deaths." If true Jack, how many of those millions of deaths have you yet
died? And, how many more dead are required before you and the vaunted inheritors
of the "peace" party currently marking time at NDP HQ stand on your stated
principles?
www.PEJ.org
An Open Invitation to Jack Layton:
Why Do We Not
Fight?
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
June 25,
2006
Beside the cretin-like complicity of the current crop of
so-called Liberal party members wearing the varnish off their privileged chairs
in Canada's House of Parliament, no other single entity bears more
responsibility for what has come to pass in Canada than the New Democrats. The
country is now nominally ruled by a cadre of blatant Republicans, killers that
would have our treasury devoted to the kinds of death and destruction policies
so evident in our tortured neighbour to the south.
Is that O.K. with you
and yours? Apparently so with Jack Layton and the NDP.
How many
thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of maimed and killed Afghani,
Haitians, and others will it take, Jack before you and your pitiful party find
legs to stand against this? Shall I support my local NDP federal candidate, (a
decent and truly concerned woman) here in Victoria, while hoping the political
machinery behind your machinations turn finally to this issue? Well, forget
it.
There's a poster of Tommy Douglas pinned on my wall. Do you know him,
Jack? Tommy reminds me daily of the promise of this nation, and the courage of
those who would stand against outrageous calumny to forward an agenda that
would, finally, serve the people's best interest. You, Jack, are the beneficiary
of that nobility. And what have you done with that great privilege and
responsibility? Nada
And what does the New Democratic Party have to say?
Nada.
There's a piece of mail sitting in my crowded 'mail-crutch'
sporting a smiling visage. It's Denise Savoie, "my" duly elected Member of
Parliament from Victoria. I didn't vote for Denise, though I know her intents to
be true, because of you, Jack.
I can stand the liars, and the cons, those
that would present themselves to their fellow citizens as concerned and
conscientious, while lining their own pockets; one expects that of the lying
Liberals, and their radical twins, the Conservatives; what I can't accept
though, Jack, is cowardice. That you can face the mirror of public expectation,
pretending to promote the concerns of your constituents, and do nothing is
unforgivable.
The NDP's role in the ascension of Stephen Harper is
irrevelant in this; your party has proven itself a traitor to its principles for
decades, but now, as Canada careens towards what can only be accurately
described as an fascist future, will you yet not peep? How far must we
slide before courage is rediscovered on the Rideau?
I expect little of
you and yours, Jack. You remind of the Toronto Maple Laughs, and all those other
unfulfilled ambitions vexing our nation - do you think it "yours" too? -
but still I implore you to heroic, if doomed,
effort.
The majority of Canadians polled are against the gruesome
transformation going on in the country. How safe must your message be before you
dare open your pie hole?
Or do you disdain the populace as your
"opposition" and privileged forebears?
There is no wiggle room left,
Jack. You stand now, or fall forever remembered as Benedict Arnold is
south.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ.org, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs
program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada.; You can checkl
out the GR Blog
here.
http://www.ndp.ca/contact
Another Canadian Killed in Afghanistan: Dying Doing
"What He Loved"
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - As
they report the "repatriation" of another Canadian soldier killed, the CBC
Online News hasn't got up to speed on the latest known Canadian killed in the
deepening disaster that is Afghanistan today. They do however present a report
written by Canadian Press (CP), an organization that has failed to grant PEJ
News republishing privileges. The link to the "CBC" story appears
below.
www.PEJ.org
Canadian soldier killed in fiery suicide attack
identified as medic
16:22:02 EDT Aug 12, 2006
Canadian Press: TERRY
PEDWELL
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The Canadian soldier killed
Friday in a fiery suicide attack has been identified as a medic, Cpl. Andrew
James Eykelenboom, who served with 1st Field Ambulance based in Edmonton. He was
killed when a suicide bomber plowed an explosives-laden pickup truck into a NATO
convoy near Spin Boldak, about 100 kilometres south of Kandahar.
The
Unknown Fodder: "NATO" Soldier Killed in
Afghanistan
PEJ News - C. L. Cook
- Canadian State media is repeating today NATO reports of the death of yet
another soldier in Afghanistan. The CBC blandly reiterates, "A roadside blast
killed one NATO soldier and wounded eight others in southern Afghanistan, the
alliance said Sunday, without disclosing the nationality of any of the
soldiers." So, is this how it is to be; will we the citizens of
contributing [sic] countries in the Afghani disaster now be shielded from the
knowledge of the destruction of "our troops," they being lumped instead into an
amorphous NATO non-entity? The CBC story is below.
www.PEJ.org
Canada at War: You Must Remember This
PEJ
News - C. L. Cook - More than 5,000 Victorians attended
American ex-president, Bill Clinton's book fair yesterday, if the Times-Colonist
newspaper is to be believed. The gathered scions of the city heard the
unindicted war criminal, and butt of countless lewd water-cooler comments
commend Canada its rapine entanglement in Afghanistan, but urge we too further
our [sic] efforts, and send more young men and women soldiers to that benighted
nation to kill and die, and terrorize the too stupid to govern themselves in
"our" interest locals.
www.PEJ.org
Canada at War:
You Must Remember This
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
November 11, 2006
"I know it is painful for you when you lose your soldiers
there, but you are doing a good thing." - Praise for Canadian military
involvement in Afghanistan from former Caesar, William Jefferson "Slick
Willie" Clinton
Sadly, I couldn't afford to take the day off
work, and fork out the couple hundred bucks required to witness Bill delivering
his pearls before the rubes at the Save-On-Food cultural mecca, but I was
blessed with the traffic snarl that followed; a mass exodus of Lexus' and
Benz's, and troops of Sunday best-dressed aspirants over-flowing sidewalks and
"don't walk" blinking intersections. So these, thought I, are the 28% of the
populace willing to send the children of anonymous fellow citizens to their
spiritual, and in at least 43 cases, physical doom in foreign adventures. They
too must be among the estimated 71,763 Victorians still subscribing to the
city's only daily, CanWest Global organ the Victoria
Times-Colonist.
Happily, the lobby of my building contained several
extraneous copies of the T-C today, left-over trees, shorn from our [sic]
forests, pulped, bleached, and printed with poison ink that we may be informed;
lest we forget the price our [sic] society's continuance demands: Today's
bulletin says that cost is endless slaughter and sacrifice. Be proud
of holocausts past and, reminds the rag, be proud to send your sons and
daughters into the fires of war burning now in Afghanistan, and the
elsewheres the Imperium and its spokespersons like the scandal and blood-tainted
Bill Clinton dictate.
Blood red poppies adorned their lapels in the
front page picture of the War Paper today; two old men, grey-haired and
blue-suited standing, buttoning their jackets in unison following a job well
done. One can imagine the applause emitting the rich citizenry echoes in their
ears, as the pair congratulate each other. Bill and fellow traveller, premier
Gordon Campbell, the backwater politico currently steering British Columbia into
the corporate fold, twins though ostensibly from opposite sides of the political
and continental divide, clasp hands, smile for the cameras, and wave to the
fools desperate to receive marching orders, promises they hope to carry them and
theirs through a chaotic time; desperate enough to shell out hundreds of dollars
for the privilege of hearing a killer preach peace and plea the carnage
continue.
Lest we forget, it was this same Clinton ordering the
destruction of Serbia,
a phoney war necessary he said to remove the "new Hitler" Milosevic, that dead-in-custody
"dictator" and World Bank denier; the same Clinton who signed into law the
predecessor to the onerous Patriot Act, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996; the same Clinton who, as governor of Arkansas allowed
the prisons there become blood "milking"
stations, the tainted products of which were then exported to Canada and
around the world, infecting and killing untold millions; the same Clinton who
now calls, between protestations for peace and the brotherhood of man, for not
less but more war in Afghanistan and Iraq; the same Clinton who admitted issuing
assasination orders against his enemies; the same Clinton whose wife, Hillary now
presides as one of the newly made majority Democrat senators in Washington
too calling Afghanistan the "good war." And for this, the doyens of Victoria and
their saddled husbands stand and cheer.
11/11
11:11
The moment of silence is past on this day of remembrance.
For those not taught the meaning intended by that sombre clock marker; the
eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
is a moment meant as a silent yet determined resistance to war. Lest we forget
war's horrors and repeat the folly that all but destroyed a generation, we will
make war no more.
The youngsters in the crowd can be forgiven if that
sentiment is news to them; they are excused if they believed this day is meant
to glorify and not condemn war and the men that make it; they are innocent if
they believe war is good and fun and exciting and the road to higher education
and public service, because that is what they are told,
repeatedly.
Canada's titular leaders, both past and present, have set a
course for permanent warfare for this nation. There will, they contend, be no
peace in our time, nor for the times of our children, and their children. There
will be endless parades every November 11th from here until eternity, though
fewer than a handful of the Great War's, the War to End All Wars, combatants
survive today. There will be veterans of other wars guaranteed to fill the ranks
and grandstands as the pipes play mournful, and the politicians bravely salute
for forever to come Remembrance Days: So dictate the grey-haired, blue-suited
men, their lapels adorned with blood-red poppies.
"Lest we forget, the
guns will be silent on Remembrance Day," wrote Canadian bard, Bryan
Adams. Are they silent today in Afghanistan?
Chris
Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio,
broad/webcast from CFUV
Radio, at the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the Gorilla Radio blog
here.
[Richard Sanders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade
(COAT) has put up this informative slide presentation to educate Canadians as to the true nature of the nation's involvement in
Afghanistan - lex]
Two
Canadians Killed in Afghanistan
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The
Canadian Press (CP)
is reporting tonight the deaths of two Canadian soldiers, part of
the roughly 2500 soldier-strong contingent in Afghanistan. The pair were killed
in a suicide bomb attack against a convoy in Kandahar.
www.PEJ.org
Two Canadians Killed in Afghanistan
C. L.
Cook
PEJ News
November 27, 2006
While CBC television
news flagship The National's lead tonight was Stephen Harper's latest gambit to
dismantle Canada, the recognition of "the Quebecois people" as a nation within
Canada, two more Canadians died fighting for the national integrity of
Afghanistan today.
In the first fatal casualties for Canadian soldiers
following a spate of deaths in September and October, the pair, identified only
as serving with the Royal Canadian Regiment based in Petawawa, fell following a
suicide car attack against their Bison armoured vehicle as it rode in convoy on
the road outside Kandahar Airfield.
Speaking of the attack, Brigadier
General Timothy Grant, commander of Canadian Forces in Afghanistan called the
attack an act of desperation by the Taliban, saying it would only strengthen the
Canadian's resolve;
"Although they have lost good friends, it will only
harden them more to make sure they carry on with the mission and bring it to a
successful conclusion."
Lieutenant Comander Kris Phillips was more
matter-of-fact, saying;
"It's simply a suicide attack. I don't want to
make light of it but this is something they have deployed in the past and this
is something they will deploy again in the future."
Unknown Soldiers: NATO's Non-Nation
Casualties
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Two more
"ISAF" soldiers were killed today in Afghanistan, reportedly by an "improvised
explosive device." Where the two dead men called home was not released, "as per
NATO policy." NATO's secrecy is a convenient policy for NATO-member governments
whose support
for "The Mission" in the troubled country is failing, even as "their"
soldiers are falling.
[Update
November 30th - Canada names two soldiers]
www.PEJ.org
Unknown Soldiers:
NATO's Non-Nation
Casualties
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
November 29, 2006
Two more NATO soldiers killed in
Afghanistan
Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)
reports tonight, "two soldiers of the NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) have been killed in a roadside bomb explosion in central
Afghanistan, the foreign military announced on Wednesday." Though the KUNA story
is technically correct, parsing the spaces between the lines of its lead
sentence is revealing.
As George W.
Bush made clear at the recent meeting of NATO members in Riga, America calls
the shots for the North Atlantic Treaty Organziation. Calling ISAF
"NATO-led" may be salve enough for the sensibilities of Old Europe, but it
doesn't fool anyone in Central Asia, least of all in Afghanistan. As for just
whose "security" the International Security Assistance Force protects is also
not a mystery in Kandahar, or around Kabul where the roadside bomb was detonated
Tuesday.
Of course, neither KUNA, nor any other "credible" news
agency would lead one of their, increasingly frequent, dispatches of soldiers
killed in Afghanistan truthfully, as: "Two of America's proxy garrison occupying
Afghanistan died today following resistance actions." KUNA, and the rest will
continue to reiterate the acceptable myths of what the invasion and Afghanistan
is, and who it serves until the end.
Canadians have been more intent on
learning the truth of the situation "in-country" than most of NATO's
contributors; this because there are currently more than 2500 Canadian soldiers
in harm's way, with 44 officially reported killed; the latest two dying over the
past weekend in a suicide bomb attack.
Officially: "According to a
statement released from the headquarters of the multinational force, a bomb
struck a military patrol in Puli Alam, capital of Logar province, on Tuesday
afternoon. Two soldiers were killed while the two injured included an ISAF
soldier and an interpreter. Nationalities of the casualties are withheld as per
policy of NATO. Two days back, two foreign soldiers had [been] killed in a
suicide attack in Panjwayee district of the southern Kandahar
province."
The previous two "foreign soldiers" killed proved to be
Canadians; a likely case with those killed Tuesday. But, it's not NATO's policy
to release the names and histories of those killed under the all-encompassing
NATO mantle. Like-wise, it's not Canada's place to determine the fate of
Canadian soldiers, nor necessary the Canadian people know of their
fate.
[The Canadian administration today named the
two "NATO" soldiers killed Tuesday last in Afghanistan. Corporal Albert
Storm and Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard became the 43rd and 44th
Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, according to official sources. -
lex]
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