Why Are We Really in Afghanistan?

I saw Robert Fowler from the University of Ottawa on the news recently stating the brilliant obvious: we need to identify why we are in Afghanistan. Are we there to put girls in schools, to save women from wearing burkas (while we fight for their right to wear them in Canada), to defend Afganistan from a Pakistan invasion, to destroy the Taliban who harboured the Al Qaeda who attacked our neighbour, to have a presence in a key oil and pipeline region . . .?

Fowler wrote a very interesting review of The Unexpected War by Stein et al at http://lrc.reviewcanada.ca/index.php?page=Alice-in-Afghanistan. In it he makes a good case between the lines for ending Canada's mission in Afghanistan but he also highlights very important facts, for example: NATO-trained Afghan troops, supposedly there to help perpetuate the Karzai government, number 22,000 while the private militias of warlords etc. number 120,000; “a UN source estimated that of the 249 newly elected deputies [of the Karzai government], 40 were commanders still associated with armed groups, 24 members belonged to criminal gangs, 17 were drug traffickers and 19 faced serious allegations of war crimes;” “after more than five years of increasingly intense warfare, the conflict in Afghanistan reached a grim milestone in the first half of this year: U.S. troops and their NATO allies killed more civilians than insurgents did, according to several independent tallies," and more. . .

We need to educate ourselves since Mr. H. and his minions can't and we need to let him know that listening to the voice of the people of Canada is the right thing to do and that he knows that from the polls, which he scorns as he does our voice.

A Kinder Gentler Harper - I Don't Think So

Harper is pulling a con job - he used Dion on the "nation" issue and he wants to use him again on Afghanistan. As soon as he gets Dion to talk to him, he'll be able to spin it like they're working together and then he'll throw it back in his face when it suits him. Dion has to stand firm on this one, out of combat by 2009, period. Someone other than Mr. H. - any normal human being - it would be two politicians rising above partisansip. With Harper it can only be setting a trap.

Radarsat and ATK

Why has the media been mum on a clearly important story - the sale of Canada's MDA, which invented and made the Canada Arm and Radarsat-1 and Radarsat-2, to the US company ATK "an advanced weapons and space company"? To find some informative articles, google "radarsat overcoat" and "ATK radarsat". Talk about a killer blow to Canada's identity!

Dismantling Canada One Brick at a Time

Harper is not governing Canada he is dismantling it, one brick at a time. The AECL brick was succinctly defined at http://inthehouseandsenate.blogspot.com/

"Or maybe Harper doesn’t give a damn because his plan is simply to get rid of CNSC at any cost, and he expects interest in the Keen business to blow over long before she gets an answer from the courts. CNSC stands in Stevo’s way of plans to sell off AECL and develop more plants according to new models not approved by CNSC."

I think Mr. H. has huge issues with Canada: these comments at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Harper certainly show that what most of us consider this country to be, he considers anathema or irrelevant.

The List Grows - Will We put Up with It?

What I fail to understand is the response to head office attacks on government underlings and arms-length officials that everyone seems to assume will be forthcoming. The press and the pundits are automatically concluding that all the deputy ministers are keeping their heads down, that a chill will run down the spine of all the heads of arms-length institutions, that bureaucrats will be cowed. Surely we think more of our fellow Canadians than that. Why do we not assume that they will continue to stand up to Mr. H., that they will continue to fight, and that Canadians will vote out the dictatorial types? The list will get longer and longer: the auditor at Environment Canada, the Ethics Commissioner, the old head of Elections Canada and the new one, the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission!!! - who have I forgotten?

Lunn - Enough is Enough

How is it possible for Lunn to have known as little about AECL as he claims when his Deputy Minister is on the AECL board?! When does a fudge become an outright shameful lie?

See: Kady O'Malley - kady.omalley@macleans.rogers.com
"I got email from a reader this morning pointing out something of which I wasn't aware, although I'm sure it's hardly a revelation to those with even a nodding familiarity with the inner workings of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd: Cassie J. Doyle, the deputy minister for Natural Resources Canada, and who appeared alongside the minister during yesterday's hearing, is also a member of AECL's board of directors. "

Cheney and Mr. H.

This week I watched Frontline's excellent account of Cheney's life's work trying to transform US democracy, such as it is, into a dictatorship. His techniques: developing new legal interpretations of presidential powers, using existing presidential powers in new ways to achieve control over all legislation, appointing patsies who simply take orders and then take the fall (Gonzales), running roughshod over the judiciary wherever possible. I have to wonder as the AECL isotope story unfolds, does Harper just copy those guys or are they working in concert? They used an Order in Council to get rid of Keene but pretended it was Parliament's wish - only Parliament can dismiss someone in such an arms-length position. Then they sent out their trained seal to take the heat.

It seems that ever since he was elected Harper has worked to weaken every check and balance on priministerial power - we all felt instinctively that this man had a worrisome agenda, did we ever think that it was to transform our democracy into a dictatorship? And do we have any idea why?

Remember Jeff Monaghan in Handcuffs

Remember the public servant led out of his office in handcuffs for leaking a public document prematurely? Maybe someone could dig up those handcuffs for Guergis.

Liberal Outsider http://liberaloutsider.blogspot.com/ associating Guergis with Fox made me think of that bimbo at Fox who argued on the Fifth estate that Canada had fought alongside the US in Vietnam - Guergis would fit right in.

But then maybe Guergis was was put up to leaking Dion's itinerary in Afghanistan - Scooter Libby style - and when she goes to trial and is convicted, Mr. H. will pardon her.

Peter McKay's Bizarre Analogy?

Did anyone else double take when McKay made his bizarre comments on Politics yesterday? He likened a miliary plane due to be replaced to Don Newman in that they are both workhorses approaching their best before date. Newman didn't blink an eye - what a pro. What did McKay think he was doing? Was it foot in mouth disease, an intentional insult . . .? Just when you think there might be one person with a brain amongst the cons - they prove you wrong again.

Sarkozy Unveiled

Well those of you out there who defended Mr. Sarkozy as not one of the dreaded con gang, check this out http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2237466,00.html where Philippe Marliere quotes philosopher Alain Badiou who points out Sarkozy's kinship with Petain :

"has labelled Sarkozy's politics "transcendental Pétainism". This is not to say Sarkozy is a fascist. The comparison helps underline that, like the chief of the Vichy regime, Sarkozy talks of "regeneration" and "rupture", whereas he is the architect of France's capitulation. In Pétain's case, it was capitulation to the Germans; for Sarkozy, it is capitulation to global capitalism and US hegemony. Like Pétain, Sarkozy talks obsessively of "moral crisis" and "decline" - notions conveniently chosen to justify the "inevitability" of (neoliberal) reforms. Pétain thought France should imitate Nazi Germany. Sarkozy wants to emulate the US and UK economic "models". Pétain reckoned the defeat of 1940 was all down to the leftwing government of the Popular Front. Sarkozy sees in the students' and workers' egalitarian struggles of May 68 the starting point of France's decadence.
From an ideological point of view, "Sarkozyism" comes across as an incoherent bricolage. From a socio-economic point of view, it is consistently devoted to implementing the economic agenda of global capitalism."

The French seem to be realizing who they voted in and one can only hope they turf him out.