alpha mike fox: International Politics

Showing posts with label International Politics. Show all posts

Is Canada prepared to go to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked?

Given heated anti-Israel rhetoric emanating from Iran’s leadership, it may be well to ask whether Canada might sign a mutual agreement that would oblige it to go to Israel’s defence should the latter be attacked? As a strong believer that Israel has a right to exist, I’d welcome such a pact.

“The steps that we’re taking today are in fact bringing our countries closer together, and they are also allowing us to further build on a strong foundation of co-operation that will build tangible results, not just to our two militaries, but to Canada and Israel more broadly.”

– MP Peter MacKay
Defence Minister

A mutual-defence agreement, apparently, is not at all farfetched, for, as reported by the National Post, “Canada and Israel are about to complete a number of defence co-operation agreements that will significantly tighten military bonds between the two countries as tensions grow over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” And Defence Minister Peter MacKay refused on Wednesday to rule out such an agreement.

Under the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has dropped all pretence of neutrality in Arab-Israeli dealings. And, as it’s become clear through positions taken at the United Nations and elsewhere, Canada is an Israeli ally. The Conservative government, in fact, has been criticized here and abroad for its unambiguous pro-Israel policy.

With war between Israel and Iran becoming a real possibility—the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency released a report last week detailing Iran’s alleged efforts to build a nuclear arsenal—Israel’s allies need to take tangible steps to confirm their support of the Middle East’s only Western-style democracy. It’s nice to see Canada front and centre in this regard, as Mr. MacKay seems set to cement the bi-lateral relationship with the mortar of international defence co-operation agreements.

Mr. MacKay and his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, said in Ottawa they expect to complete negotiations by the end of the year.

© Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

What “being a conservative” means to me

Most writers have biases of one sort or another, and I don’t pretend to be any different in that respect. My opinions reflect my core values and beliefs. Readers of this blog may therefore find it instructive to know more about my political philosophy, such as it is.

My journey, politically, to the point of publishing this blog has taken some five decades. I consider myself to be old fashioned: I believe in honour, basic decency, individual rights and civic obligations and responsibilities, which, perhaps, is why I lean to the right politically. There was a time when I saw myself as modern and progressive: I voted Liberal federally and provincially—though, sometimes, Progressive Conservative provincially.

Soon after my thirtieth birthday, however, I realized progressivism offered a false promise, and I joined the Progressive Conservative Party (such an unfortunate name) at both the provincial and national levels. I have voted conservative ever since. I have canvassed in support of candidates at all three levels of government, have sat on my local riding’s board of directors and served on a regional committee of the provincial party.

When the federal PCs brought back the ineffectual Joe Clark to lead their fading party, I shifted my allegiance to the relatively new Reform Party and followed it through its attempts to remake itself into a political party Eastern Canadians would feel comfortable supporting.

I now consider myself a Blue Tory, aka, a Mike Harris Tory or a small “c” conservative.

As general principles, my moral compass, so to speak:

I believe in the supremacy of the rule of law—secular law.

I believe in equality of rights under the law for every Canadian man and woman, including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Canadians.

I believe in equal opportunity for all Canadians, but am suspicious of affirmative action programs (based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin) since they too often lead to unfair levels of discrimination against other Canadians.

I believe in freedom for the individual in both the economic and social spheres and that human and civil rights and obligations attach to individuals rather than to groups.

I believe all religions should be tolerated, but need not necessarily be considered equal or even be respected.

I believe Canadian citizenship, though a birthright, is also a privilege that confers equal rights and demands obligations—such as the duty to vote—from all recipients. I also believe Canadians who are serving in federal penitentiaries should have their citizenship and right to vote suspended for the duration of their term of incarceration. And those who take up arms against Canada or a Canadian ally (on the battlefield or in an act of terrorism) should forfeit their citizenship, as should any Canadian convicted of treason.

I believe in lower taxes and smaller governments, with limited government regulation of every-day life, business and investing. I do believe, however, that while individuals should retain primary financial responsibility for personal needs—including housing, childcare, retirement income and health-care coverage—there is a role for governments to provide funding in these areas.

I believe in a mixed economy based on economic liberalism with limited, prudent state intervention and regulation—i.e., a largely free-market economy based on a free price system, free trade and private property.

I am anti-supply management (or other economic planning schemes) and government sponsored or owned monopolies, as for example alcohol and gambling.

I believe the federal government should vacate areas of provincial constitutional responsibility and cease duplication of taxation and costs and other interference in provincial jurisdiction.

Canada should have a Canadian head of state, cutting formal ties with the British monarchy, and an elected senate.

I am pro-life. Though I’d not ban abortion, I’d place restrictions on those performed in the later months of pregnancy and de-fund abortion when it is used as just another form of birth control.

I believe certain crimes are so de-humanizing—extreme cases of premeditated murder, terrorism resulting in loss of life, violent rape and molestation or extreme cases of gross neglect of a child—they should forfeit the perpetrator his or her life. In repeated offences of pedophilia and rape, I’d reluctantly settle for surgical castration.

I believe gays and lesbians should be treated like anyone else and have the same individual rights under the law. I do, however, believe the traditional institution of marriage should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman. Same-gender unions should be provided for and offered similar but separate legal status.

I believe provinces should fund for every Canadian child a minimum of 13 years of schooling (including one year of kindergarten) plus a two-year employment-related post-secondary college or apprentice program. I also believe Canadians should have greater choice in primary and secondary education, and for this reason, I favour allowing “charter schools” as is done in Alberta, or something similar.

Unions should no longer be allowed to represent workers in the public sector, including teachers. Public sector workers, however, should have the right to form non-union-affiliated “employee associations” to represent them in matters of common interest, but should not have the right to withhold labour. And the government of the day should have the final say in all matters of public sector employment, including payroll and benefits.

Public sector departments should only be allowed to perform work not reasonably available from private sector sources, i.e., contracting-out should be the norm, not the exception. Defence and national security departments and police services should be the only exceptions.

Bilingualism (in official languages) should be encouraged, but not mandated unless all provinces accept equal treatment of English and French. Unilingual labeling of products should be accepted in any Canadian province that is not officially bilingual.

Free speech protection should be strengthened in our constitution and criminal code, and only a court of law should be allowed to adjudicate cases of abuse relating to hate speech. Hate speech should be defined legally to specifically exclude “hurt” speech.

I believe immigration should be encouraged, but only so far as it is a net benefit to Canada, both economically and socially. Immigration to meet Canada’s economic needs should be promoted over family unification. And immigration policies should stress obligations as much as rights.

I believe immigrants should assimilate and become Canadians, not remain in economic, religious or social silos. While multiculturalism in diet and generally accepted cultural practices should be tolerated, it should not be officially promoted. Reasonable accommodation of foreign cultural practices should be applied with caution so as not to adulterate Canadian norms, values and practices.

Canada should be able to protect itself militarily at home and abroad, and should have the wherewithal to project power internationally when our vital national interests or international treaty obligations require it. To do so, Canada should allocate an average 2.5% per annum of GDP in every ten-year cycle.

Veterans of Canada’s wars should be treated with respect and dignity and be given the benefit of doubt when dealing with government agencies—better ten veterans get more than they are entitled to than one veteran be denied her or his due.

Canada should maintain a policy stance that recognizes that the science on man-made global warming is not yet settled.

Russ Campbell

When the going gets tough, Obama punts

The Obama administration’s postponement of its decision on whether or not to allow the extension of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline until after the 2012 presidential election provides opportunities for Canada to explore options that may, in the long run, be favourable to our country.

With presidential elections less than a year away, Canada-U.S. relations are pretty well on hold leaving little if any probability for Canada influencing the timing of a decision. Even following the election, there is no certainty a democratic administration will ever OK the pipeline project and face the wrath of its influential constituency among environmentalists.

Given the situation, Canada will do well to consider alternatives to TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline extensions that would have seen crude oil from the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta piped to Cushing, Oklahoma and from there all the way to Port Arthur and Houston, Texas. For a start, there is an option to take oil from Alberta to the Pacific coast and shipping it to Asia and especially China, which is hungry for oil and will probably welcome a way to lessen its dependency on oil from the Middle East.

A West Coast option, though, could face similar difficulties to that which sidelined Keystone in the U.S., since any new pipelines required in British Columbia are likely to be threatened by protests from environmentalists and legal challenges from first nations groups.

So perhaps we need to look also to domestic markets in Ontario and Quebec for a place to sell our western oil. There seems to be an market there for upwards of one million barrels a day that are imported currently from overseas—though I’m not sure if eastern refineries are currently capable of handling the unusually thick crude from the oil sands. I have read that it is technically feasible to convert one of two natural gas pipelines to eastern Canada to carry oil. Such a decision would reduce or eliminate those provinces’ reliance on foreign crude.

Getting oil to Ontario and Quebec, or to the West Coast, will likely require expanding existing pipelines and building new domestic infrastructure projects, resulting in huge investment and job opportunities that will benefit Canadians for decades. This could be an enormous boon to Canada, so maybe the Americans are really doing us a favour.

One of the most promising options Canada has is to ship oil by rail. According to the New York Times:

Last October, in a joint venture with the Canadian National Railway of Montreal, Altex Energy, an oil shipping company, began shipping relatively small amounts of tar sands [sic] crude along Canadian National’s tracks directly to the Gulf of Mexico.

Although it costs more to ship by rail than by pipeline, rail would avoid billions of dollars in infrastructure investment and any of the expensive and time-consuming regulatory reviews in the United States and here in Canada. Pipelines also require crude from the oil sands to be diluted with chemicals to thin it and allow it to flow more easily. Railcars do not.

Regardless of what a future president of the United States may decide, be rest assured that—as Ronald Liepert, the MLA for Calgary-West and former Alberta energy minister, said—“this commodity [Alberta crude] will go someplace.” If the U.S. decides not to take what some there like to call our “dirty oil,” Eastern Canada and China will take every drop of oil Alberta and Saskatchewan can produce.

Is this democracy or merely idiocy?

Not a moment too soon: patience seems to be wearing thin with the Occupy movements across Canada, and city officials in several communities are moving to reclaim public property. In some cases, demonstrators have been given deadlines to leave.

Apparently, patience has already run out in U.S. cities like Oakland, where Occupiers have had tear gas and beanbag rounds fired at them, and in Atlanta, where police arrested about 50 people after protesters were warned to leave a downtown park.

“People have a right to protest, but this is no longer a protest. This is a campground.”

– Charles Gauthier
Vancouver

In Calgary and Halifax, protesters have been asked to relocate, and the mayor of London, Ontario said that it’s time for the protesters to leave a city park. Not surprisingly too, the Occupy protests have become an issue in the Vancouver mayoral campaign.

In Toronto and Vancouver, city spokespersons have made it clear that, while they respect the right of citizens to hold public protests, they will not for much longer tolerate unlawful encampments in public spaces.

Edmonton businessman Ralph Young of Melcor Developments Ltd. gives an example of the public nuisance the Occupy movement typically causes when he noted that there’s a smell that lingers because the only sanitation facilities are a few portable toilets. And, apparently, Young has heard complaints from his corporate tenants about protesters “doing bodily functions outside in the open,” as well as the sudden appearance of syringes and needles nearby.

Who among us would like to have that on or near our property?

I believe we need a better balance between citizens’ right to peaceful protest in parks and other public spaces and the general public’s right to enjoy those spaces. And surely it’s the duty of police services to remove protesters from private property that has been occupied without explicit permission of the owners. I agree with Charles Gauthier, Executive Director, Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Assn., who said recently, “People have a right to protest, but this is no longer a protest. This is a campground.”

In Montreal, about 200 demonstrators have set up camp in a park in front of the Montreal Stock Exchange tower. A spokesman for the city said there are no plans to remove these people.

In downtown Toronto, rag-tag group of people are illegally living in St. James park in tents and makeshift shelters. The protesters have been there for two weeks and are occupying the park without a permit, which makes them squatters.

On the west coast, heavy rains turned Occupy Vancouver’s shanty-town of tents on the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery into a muddy quagmire this week.

So what about those who live and work in those areas, Have they no rights? Why aren’t the policy enforcing laws by which the rest of us abide? Is this democracy or merely idiocy?

Timing not right for public to vote on U.K.’s membership in the EU

U.K. House votes on EU referendum | Video screenshot from www.guardian.co.uk

The vote in Britain’s House of Commons I wrote about yesterday, was held on Monday night, with about half the Conservative backbenchers defying a three-line whip and voting in favour for a motion to hold a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union. The motion lost by 483 votes to 111—all Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour MPs had been instructed to oppose it—but represented the largest rebellion over the EU by Tory MPs against a prime minister.

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron tried to downplay the divisions in his caucus that saw 81 backbench members of his party in open rebellion (15 others abstained) and exposed strains in the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government.

Education Secretary Michael Gove declared support for getting “powers back, so we take more decisions here about employment, about growth, about jobs,” in a statement to the BBC on Tuesday, but insisted that the time was not right for a referendum.

Prime Minister Cameron told the Commons he shared the rebels’ “yearning for fundamental reform,” and promised “the time for reform was coming.” He said the timing was wrong for a referendum, but insisted he remained “firmly committed” to “bringing back more powers” from Brussels.

The Tories confirmed later that two parliamentary private secretaries, Stewart Jackson and Adam Holloway, had lost their posts following their decisions to vote with the rebels.

In the coalition agreement under which the present government was formed, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems—a pro-European party—agreed to “ensure that the British government is a positive participant in the European Union, playing a strong and positive role with our partners.” A new public opinion poll, however, shows strong support for an EU referendum. This, along with the rebellion in the Commons by normally loyal backbenchers, should act as a cautionary note to the prime minister telling him that he must take a tough stance in future EU treaty negotiations, or face further rifts within his caucus.

Has Britain soured on the EU?

There will be a vote in the U.K. parliament on Monday on Britain’s continued membership in the European Union. The vote will decide if the U.K. will hold a nationwide referendum on whether it should leave the EU, renegotiate its treaty with Brussels, or remain a member on current terms.

In 2007, Prime Minister David Cameron—while he was leader of the opposition—chastised then prime minister Gordon Brown for refusing “to give the British people a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty.” Now that he holds the reins of power, however, Cameron is singing a different tune. And, although British MPs have agreed to hold a vote on a referendum, Cameron, who has expressed his desire to take back some powers from Brussels, is now publicly opposed to a referendum and will order his MPs to vote against it.

Dear friends, put not your trust in politicians.

And, while all Conservative MPs, and Lib Dem and Labour MPs have been instructed to vote against the motion for a referendum, the BBC reports 61 Tory MPs have signed it and may defy their party’s whip.

Cameron does have a point, as he argues:

Our [the U.K.’s] national interest is for us to be in the EU, helping to determine the rules governing the single market—our biggest export market which consumes more than 50% of our exports and which drives so much of investment in the UK.

This is not an abstract, theoretical argument, it matters for millions of jobs and millions of families and businesses in our country.

The coalition government is applying what is known in Britain as “a three-line whip”—the strongest order a party can give—on Conservative MPs, meaning that MPs who vote against the government will be expected to resign from government jobs.

A poll published today in theguardian shows that a clear majority of 70% wants a referendum and 49% would vote for Britain to leave the EU, as against just 40% who prefer to stay in.

Earlier this month, Nile Gardiner, a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator, wrote in The Telegraph:

Great Britain has witnessed the steady erosion of its sovereignty and freedom, with the deathly hand of Brussels stifling Britain’s ability to trade freely and act independently on the world stage. A proud nation that won two World Wars, defeated the scourge of Nazi Germany, and helped force the Soviet Empire to its knees now has its counter-terrorism policies dictated by a faceless ‘human rights’ court in Strasbourg, and lacks the freedom to even negotiate a trade agreement with its closest allies such as the United States and Australia.

Gardiner’s words resonate well with this former U.K. citizen. I’d be very tempted to vote against continuing full membership in the EU. A free-trade agreement, yes, but no to the rest.

Bad climate science: IPCC exposed as unreliable reporters

There seems to be an increasing number of media people, especially among conservative writers, who question the role human activity plays in climate change, and, more specifically, anthropogenic global warming. For many like me the idea that the science is now “settled” couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“Before they were sucked into the giant vortex of global warming, environmentalists did useful things. They protested against massive Third World dams that would ruin both natural and human habitats. They warned about invasive species and diseases that could tear through our forests and wreck our water systems. They fought for national parks and greenbelts and protected areas. … They believed in conservation… rather than false claims to scientific certainty about the future, unenforceable treaties and radical utopian social reform.”

– Margaret Wente,
Nov. 27, 2010
The Globe and Mail

Terrance Corcoran and Peter Foster of the Financial Post, Lawrence Solomon of the National Post, Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Sun’s Lorrie Goldstein are among those who write critically of the inconsistencies and flaws in the science of climate change.

To this group I am adding Canadian investigative journalist and photographer Donna Laframboise whose new book, The Delinquent Teenager Who was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert has singlehandedly destroyed the credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—or, if it hasn’t, it should.

Donna Laframboise’s book is published by Ivy Avenue Press (ISBN: 978-1-894984-05-8) and is available as a Kindle e-book for $4.99 at Amazon.com or as a downloadable digital PDF edition, complete with embedded Webpage-like hyperlinks to supporting articles and research. I purchased the PDF edition. The book will also be available soon at Amazon.com as a $20 paperback.

Ms. Laframboise’s excellent exposé is reviewed here, with the first of a two-part excerpt here, and there is another review here. So, given the aforementioned reviews, I’ll limit myself to a few points from the book and not duplicate the excellent efforts of others.

Firstly, let me say for the record that it does seem to me that Canada’s climate has become warmer since I arrived here over 50 years ago. Why else is Prime Minister Stephen Harper so excited about the new promise of the Canadian Arctic? I believe, though, the phenomenon is unlikely to have been caused by human activity and that we’re being bulldozed, if not bamboozled, into wasting trillions of dollars to slow, stop or even reverse the warming trend.

This does not mean I’m not an environmentalist—quite the contrary, I’m a paid-up member of a naturalist and conservation group—notwithstanding the fact such organizations can be like the ones the Financial Post’s Peter Foster calls “professional environmental alarmists and eco-activists.” In that group I’d include the global Green parties, the World Wildlife Fund, David Suzuki and his foundation’s campaign to demonize companies producing oil and gas in Canada, and followers of former U.S. vice president Al Gore, who has managed to turn climate-change into a get-rich-quick scheme.

My hope for the environment can be nicely summed up by Lorrie Goldstein’s suggestion in the Toronto Sun that:

“We need a made-in-Canada policy focusing on clean air, safe drinking water, cleaning up toxic waste dumps, safely disposing radioactive waste, tougher vehicle emission standards, boosting research into practical ‘green’ energy sources such as natural gas, putting scrubbers on coal-fired electricity plants and creating more national parks.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a creature of the United Nations. It is recognized as the world’s leading climate change body. Its mandate is to survey the relevant scientific literature, decide what it means, and write reports—reports that Ms. Laframboise refers to as the “Climate Bible.”

The IPCC’s Climate Bible is referred to and cited by governments and NGOs worldwide. More than any other literature, the Climate Bible is the reason carbon taxes and cap-and-trade schemes are being introduced. And governments in jurisdictions like Ontario, Canada have launched expensive searches for alternative sources of energy—so-called green technology. Because of what they have read in Climate Bible, governments seem prepared to see heating bills rise at rates doubling and tripling the rate of inflation. Furthermore, it is in large measure due to the IPCC’s reported evidence that our government is providing costly financial subsidies to everyone whose green energy can reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

In such high regard is the IPCC held, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to it for its “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change…”.

Yes, the IPCC is a very big deal. As Ms. Laframboise’s tell us:

“The IPCC has lounged, for more than two decades, in a large comfy chair atop a pedestal. When the IPCC is mentioned in broadcasts, newspapers, and books it is portrayed as a paragon of scientific truth and authority.”

But, thanks to Ms. Laframboise’s The Delinquent Teenager, we now know that, far from objectively weighing and selecting the best available science-based evidence, the IPCC—in reviewer Peter Foster’s words—“cherry-picks egregiously to support its main objective,” i.e., to serve its government masters.

“The real moral of this story is that scientists are merely human. They can be as short-sighted and as political and as dishonorable as the rest of us.”

– Donna Laframboise,
The Delinquent Teenager

And contrary to its claims, the IPCC’s lead authors are not always the world’s leading scientists. All too frequently, in fact, they are more recent graduates and/or eco-activists from environmental NGOs. Many of whom are described as owing their selection to their gender and country of origin, i.e., diversity, than to their expertise.

Moreover, The Delinquent Teenager shows this famous boast attributed to Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, to be baseless: “IPCC studies only peer-review science. Let someone publish the data in a decent credible publication. I am sure IPCC would then accept it, otherwise we can just throw it into the dustbin.”

Ms. Laframboise tells us that she oversaw a Citizen Audit of the 2007 IPCC’s report (Climate Bible) and that auditors examined the 18,531 references cited in the report. Of these, an astonishing 5,587 (30%) were determined not to have been peer-reviewed.

I remember that day I first discovered Santa Claus did not exist. I was a heart- broken little boy. My family had fibbed to me, leaving me with a mild sense of betrayal and loss. They’d white-lied for my own sake, it must be said, and keeping me in the dark about my beloved St. Nick’s real identity, or his lack of one, did me no long-term harm, at least as far as I can tell.

Has Ms. Laframboise discovered that, like Santa, man-made global warming is a myth and that governments, Green parties, environmental NGOs and a certain ex-politician have deliberately lied to us? If so, it is not—as in the case of the Santa Claus deception—for our own sakes, but because the truth does not fit their own self-interests. And, for their transgressions, the developed countries of the world will be billions of dollars and millions of jobs poorer. Whether global warming is a myth or not, Ms. Laframboise has called into question the merits of further government reliance on the IPCC for anything.

I’ll close with this quotation from The Delinquent Teenager:

“For years we’ve been told the IPCC is a reputable and professional organization—a grownup in a pinstripe suit. In reality, it’s a rule-breaking, not-to-be-trusted, delinquent teenager.

“Surely climate activists and climate skeptics can agree on this one thing: the future of the planet is too important to be left in hands such as these. Governments should suspend funding immediately. The IPCC must be disbanded.”

And to this I add, amen.

Will Obama’s declaration that America’s war in Iraq will end in 2011 help his re-election prospects?

During his run for president of the United States, Barack Obama pledged “to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end.” Friday, the president confirmed his promise with an announcement that he will pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of this year. This fulfills one of the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement (SFA) with Iraq.

Over 4,400 American military lives have been lost since the Iraq war started in 2003, and the war has already cost the Americans over $806-billion.

According to the Huffington Post, there were reports the administration was looking for ways to renegotiate the SFA with the Iraqi government so as to prolong U.S. presence in that country. Such reports were troubling to many who had supported the Democrats in 2008—at least in part—because of Obama’s pledge to end the war.

Apparently, Americans and the Iraqis wanted to keep up to about 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the Dec. 31 deadline, despite their public protestations to the contrary. Negotiations were prompted by: (a) the Iraqis’ hope for more help in providing internal stability; and (b) the Americans’ fear of further encroachment by Iran. But the Iraq government faced opposition to the idea from Shia groups and Iraqi nationalists, and discussions over the precise number of and legal immunity for troops that would stay behind were stumbling blocks in the negotiations.

Of the 41,000 troops the Americans now have stationed in Iraq, only 4,000 to 5,000 security contractors will remain in the country after Dec. 31. This would end an occupation that, at its height in 2006, saw some 170,000 U.S. soldiers in that country.

The cost in American lives and treasure has been high, with over 4,400 American military lives having been lost since the war started in March, 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush launched the U.S.’s “Shock And Awe” invasion of Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have also been killed. And, according to a study by Amy Belasco, Specialist in U.S. Defense Policy and Budget, released last March, the war had already cost the Americans $806-billion.

Many pundits are convinced President Obama would not have been elected president had it not been for the Iraq War. His victory in the presidential primary elections was owed in no small part to support from his party’s antiwar wing—Hillary Clinton had become tainted by her vote for the invasion and he campaigned to bring the troops home. Now the debate will be over whether the president’s announcement will help him in next year’s election.

The Iraq promise kept and recent foreign policy victories—bin Laden’s and Gaddafi’s deaths—will no doubt play a role in the 2012 election; however, with the American economy in such poor shape and without much hope it will improve over the next 12 months, voters are likely to remember Bill Clinton’s now famous phrase, “It’s the economy stupid,” which seemed to resonate so well with them during his successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H. W. Bush.

I agree with Glen Bolger—a Republican pollster whose firm is working for former governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign—who said, “The election is much more about Americans losing their jobs than about Gaddafi losing his head.” And I’d say much the same about the president’s latest Iraq announcement.

How will Paul Martin remember Gaddafi?

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin (L) shakes hands with Libyan Leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi (R) in his tent in a military compound in Tripoli, Libya.
Dec. 19, 2004
Louie Palu/The Globe and Mail

The death of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi seems to have been greeted with cheers—or at least satisfaction—by our political leaders, including interim Liberal leader Bob Rae.

The Liberal party’s website had this to say, “Ridding Libya of Moammar Qaddafi and his tyrannical regime is but the first step on a long road to transparency, accountability and democracy for the Libyan population.”

This is in quite some contrast to how Paul Martin praised the late dictator and anti-Semite, calling him a ‘‘philosophical man with a sense of history.’’ In the above photograph, the former prime minister glad-hands Moammar Gadhafi in his tent on a military compound in Tripoli on Dec. 19, 2004. And, apparently, a friendship formed between the two men, as evidenced by this quote from Gaddafi, the Jew-hater and defender-protector-instigator of international terrorism:

‘‘On a personal level, we [Martin and Gaddafi] have gained a quite personal friendship. We are friends not just because he is the Prime Minister of Canada but we shall always be friends, even if he is not the Prime Minister.’’

Martin never publicly disclaimed that such friendship existed, at least, not that I can find.

So a former Liberal leader said Gaddafi was a ‘‘philosophical man with a sense of history’’ and the current leader says he was leader of a “tyrannical regime.” I wonder which of these views more accurately reflects the nature of the relationship Grits believe Canada should have had with Muammar Gaddafi?

Just asking.

Excluding image, © Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Isn’t Canada’s Occupy Movement just a sham and a shameless display of hypocrisy?

[This entry was also published by Postmedia Network Canada.com’s The Real Agenda blog under the title, Occupy Wall Street in Canada: The smell of hypocrisy.]

I’ve been following the Occupy movement for the past month and am no closer to an understanding of what is really behind the spread to Canadian shores of this global expression of outrage at bankers in particular and corporate greed and social inequality in general.

In just four weeks, the movement has spread from a relatively small demonstration—1,000 people or so—on New York’s Wall Street to tens of thousands spread over 900 cities around the world. While there are some common threads tying these groups together, they appear to be, at best, only loosely affiliated, with the exact targets of the demonstrations differing depending on the city and the country in which the protests are held. Each movement seems to have its own local flavour.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has said the global financial crisis was the trigger. “What you are seeing all around the world, starting from Wall Street, people are showing their frustrations,” he said. But how real/justified are the frustrations of the protestors, which seem to be growing into wave of global anger at perceived social and economic injustice?

In the United States, Europe and South American countries like Chile, I believe the movement will have a measurable impact.

In the United States, where they are just over a year away from presidential and Congressional elections, politicians will ignore such a wide-spread movement at their re-election peril—though some will find it hard to get behind protestors who are showing a nasty tendency toward anti-Israel, anti-Jewish sentiment. Clever politicians will mine the speeches and slogans to find the “calls to action” they can use in their upcoming campaigns, just as Barack Obama’s spokesman Josh Earnest adopted the protesters’ “the 99%” terminology when he said, “The president will continue to acknowledge the frustration that he himself shares about the need for Washington to do more to support our economic recovery and to ensure that the interest of the 99% of Americans is well-represented.” And, if the Democrats retain the White House and win back the House of Representatives, expect more regulation of banks and corporations in general.

In Europe the situation is more dire. There, as in Israel and Chile, the Occupy Movement seems to owe more of its inspiration to the Arab Spring. Spain’s “indignados”, for example, begun camping out in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square in May, and at least 200,000 people turned out on the streets for last Saturday’s round of protests. The Spanish flavour of the movement is targeting the November general election when it could help defeat the socialist party of the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

While the Israelis targeted housing, the high cost of living and need for “social justice”, in Greece, there was a backlash against austerity measures being imposed. What Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of Greece’s civil-servants’ union called, “heartless economic policies.” In Greece, we have seen the most focused public anger, with strikes, work stoppages and sit-ins as well as a two-day general walk-out. And, I fear, the worst is yet to come. The country is flat broke and other European countries with more frugal and industrious populations are the ones bailing them out—yet Greek civil-servants riot in their streets.

As far as Canada is concerned, the movement, so far, has been underwhelming. The backing of major unions is, though, cause for concern. It is curious indeed that a movement that claims to represent 99% of Canada’s population should be so strongly supported by powerful and wealthy public sector unions, which represent workers who are a privileged segment of our population that has actually grown in size and, in some cases, pay-cheque since the global financial crisis triggered the recent recession with which the whole world grapples.

Rather than being part of the 99%, the several hundred-thousand Canadian public sector employees and their union representatives make up their own privileged “per cent.” They are recession proof, lay-off proof and have fat pay-cheques and generous sick-leave, vacation and pension plans. These folks are no more part of the 99% than are our politicians, the top echelons of the banks and other large corporations. Do they join these protest groups because they hope we won’t notice how well-off they are compared to their fellow Canadians? They sure have nothing in common with the needy, the jobless and the victims of social injustice.

As far as I’m concerned, there are many people in many countries who can be characterized as victims of the social order; but not so much in Canada. And, for the most part, the Occupy Movement here is a sham and a shameless display of hypocrisy.

The Dragon had a tooth or two pulled by CBC ombudsman

The CBC’s ombudsman, Kirk LaPointe, says Kevin O’Leary’s remarks during an interview with author Chris Hedges violated the public broadcaster’s journalistic standards. The ruling followed complaints filed after O’Leary called the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist “a left-wing nutbar” during CBC News Network’s The Lang & O’Leary Exchange on Oct. 6.

Ombudsman LaPointe says e-mailed complaints and comments—many of them demanding an apology and some demanding O’Leary be fired—began arriving the evening the program aired and continued for several days, while video (see below) of the exchange was posted online.

You’d think O’Leary could get through a short interview without resorting to personal insults, wouldn’t you? His attitude here and as an outspoken judge on CBC’s Dragons’ Den reminds me a lot of Don Cherry’s rants on CBC’s hockey broadcasts.

Fellows like these, once they become popular, seem to see themselves as gurus who have the last word on their areas of expertise. Both have been a success in their areas and seem to believe it gives them special license to always be right. At least, in the case of O’Leary, he is most often right except, perhaps, sometimes when he’s showing off.

Except video, © Russell G. Campbell, 2011.
All rights reserved.

The views I express on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of political parties, institutions or organizations with which I am associated.

Unintended consequences

This is reaching I know, but while watching Prohibition, a three-part PBS documentary film, I was struck by similarities I saw between the lead-up to the laws to enact Prohibition in the United States and the campaigns we see to enact legislation to implement a carbon tax, cap and trade or other such schemes.

After nearly a century of activism, Prohibition passed into law early in the last century as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It had been “sold” to Americans as a way to improve their lives and to protect their families from the oftentimes devastating effects of alcohol abuse.

But almost the instant the laws were passed, formerly law-abiding Americans seemed to change their definition of morality and embarked on a binge of lawlessness that saw corruption and criminality spread from the cop on the beat to the White House, making a mockery of the U.S. justice system.

Prohibition was a cautionary tale of unintended consequences. And I fear that we now risk unintended consequences on a world-wide scale as we follow the bleating of climate-change activists just as sheep follow Judas goats to slaughter.

Proponents of Prohibition had important things in common with those of man-made climate change/global warming. They both sought to deal with very real and important problems and to avert what they believed were pending disasters of tragic proportions. And, just as Prohibition zealots quickly silenced anti-Prohibition voices and demonized their owners as purveyors of sin, similarly treated are those who dare question the role mankind has in climate change and man’s ability to slow or reverse what some consider an un-stoppable, irreversible force of nature.

Moreover, we know the heavy toll Prohibition took on American society: law-abiding citizens became criminals, illicit drinking was seen to be glamorous and fun, neighborhood gangs became powerful national crime syndicates, government officials routinely bent and even broke the law. Prohibition fostered cynicism and hypocrisy that corroded a general respect for the law and rent the very social fabric of America—perhaps irreversibly.

And now we are beginning to see a similar pattern emerge from our earliest attempts to deal with carbon dioxide emissions.

One alarm is being sounded by the Toronto Sun’s Lorrie Goldstein who writes:

“One of the great scams of the cap-and-trade market—a regional version of which Premier Dalton McGuinty wants to bring to Ontario some day—is the purchase of carbon credits through the United Nation’s hopelessly inept and ironically named Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).”

As Mr. Goldstein points out, the CDM was one of the mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol. It is part of the UN’s efforts “to save the planet from man-made global warming.” With the CDM facilitating a transfer of wealth from the developed to the developing world, rich nations and corporations can offset their carbon dioxide emissions by investing in greenhouse gas reduction projects in the developing world. Carbon credits generated in the process can then be sold for a profit. That’s the theory anyway—not a great one, but there you have it.

Unfortunately, many so-called emission reduction projects apparently should never have been approved in the first place, and fraud has entered the system. We know this from a report by the science journal, Nature, which is based on a leaked (thank you, WikiLeaks) 2008 U.S. state department cable. According to the cable, while projects are supposed to go through a two-step validation and verification process, officials in India, in this case, take project developers at their word without requiring independent evidence.

Mr. Goldstein’s tale is a cautionary one indeed. You really should read his full story, but here’s part of his conclusion:

“As Eva Filzmoser of CDM Watch, a Brussels-based organization, told Nature: ‘What has leaked just confirms our view that in its present form the CDM is basically a farce … it is no wonder the United States has backed away from emissions trading.’ Canadians should be thankful they just elected a Harper majority government. Had it been an NDP or Liberal one, or an NDP-Liberal minority, Canada would now be setting up a cap-and-trade market. This would have undermined our economy, imposing a new cost on Canadian businesses not reflected in the policies of the U.S., our largest trading partner, towards its industries.

“We would also have been walking, like babes in the woods, into the international carbon trading market, whose sole achievement to date has not been to lower emissions, but to raise consumer prices for electricity and other goods and services.”

I appreciate Mr. Goldstein’s optimism—he’s younger than I and less of a cynic—but I fear that under a provincial Liberal government we will indeed be setting up a cap-and-trade market with all the inherent risks to our economy. And it will be only a matter of time before we see the rise in “consumer prices for electricity and other goods and services” he warns us about.

Ah, those unintended consequences can be killers.

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I’ll not shed a tear over Anwar al-Awlaki loss of his Fifth Amendment right to due process

When American citizens take up arms against their country, they apparently cease to receive the judicial protections normally accorded citizens of that democracy. As aptly put in today’s National Post’s editorial, “Citizenship is not an immunity card against reprisal for those who commit acts of war, or assist others in so doing, against their governments.”

We are, of course, referring to the recent killing in Yemen of Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured), the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, by missile fire from a drone believed to be operated by the CIA.

Many of us applauded when President Obama announced that U.S. clandestine forces had assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But some see this as being different because al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico; he was not a foreign national like bin Laden. And they believe he deserved to be treated like any other American citizen, that is, he had a Fifth Amendment right to due process.

According to a report in The Washington Post, his assignation had been sanctioned by a secret memorandum written by the U.S. Justice Department. The memorandum came after a review by senior administration lawyers, who considered the legal issues raised by the extra-judicial targeting of a U.S. citizen. There was a general consensus, apparently, regarding the legality of al-Awlaki’s killing.

Some Americans already believe too many of their countrymen too easily allow their rights to be sacrificed on the alter of national security and offer too little protest when extra-judicial actions are taken by the state where al-Qaeda and Islamist Extremist terrorism are concerned. How must they be feeling now that they’ve reached the point where a president can order the pre-emptive killing of U.S. citizens overseas as a counterterrorism measure?

This fact, I suppose, should give us all a sense of discomfort, especially when rapists and pedophiles of the worst kind along with serial killers have their constitutional rights protected at great expense and with great danger to law enforcement officers, yet traitors can apparently be executed by presidential edict.

But should I care? Is this a real injustice?

Notwithstanding my sense of unease at the foregoing, I acknowledge we are living with a world order that does not fit easily with many of our traditional legal norms. Our battlefields are not always the traditional ones we once knew, such as those in the Second World War or even those in Iraq or Afghanistan where the enemy seldom wore military uniforms and often passed off themselves as innocent civilians.

Anwar al-Awlaki was an enemy of the United States in every respect. He was a senior leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He has been connected to three recent attacks against the United States. U.S. officials say his e-mails inspired accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan. al-Awlaki helped plan the failed Underwear Bomb attack, and was part of the plot to bring down cargo planes with explosives inside computer printers.

The current war we wage against al-Qaeda, and Islamist Extremist terrorism in general, is more alike a “hot” version of the Cold War between the West and the communist world. Our enemies don’t were uniforms and have co-opted many of our own citizens and are using them against us.

Every nation has a right of self-defence, a right well established under international law. And it is prudent for us to provide our government officials and armed forces the protection of a legal umbrella under which they can execute appropriate responses to this imminent danger in which we who live in Western democracies find ourselves.

When citizens take up arms against their country and/or its allies, they should be deemed to have denounced their citizenship and all the rights and privileges that go with it. So I’ll not shed a tear over Anwar al-Awlaki loss of his Fifth Amendment right to due process. We still have a firm hold on the moral high-ground in our war with Islamist Extremist terrorism.

Will Americans ever trust us again?

The Americans are again musing about building a fence along parts of our mutual border as well as deploying various high-tech surveillance systems. Apparently, some officials in the American Customs and Border Protection Agency believe this will make America safer from terrorism. They’ll never ever forget Ahmed Ressam—who they arrested in 2000, trying to cross into Washington State from British Columbia on a mission to bomb Los Angeles International Airport—and there are Americans who still believe mistakenly some of the 9/11 plane hijackers entered the United States from Canada.

Americans have every right to do so, of course, they can build walls, fences, ditches, moats to their hearts’ content. But one can’t help wondering if this isn’t just another symptom of their apparent helplessness, making them feel that they have to do something. So they believe sealing themselves in—when a far more imminent threat seems to be coming from within the United States itself—will help keep them more secure.

Today, there’s a New York Times report that a U.S. drone attack killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim preacher, this morning in Yemen. al-Awlaki was a leading figure in Al Qaeda in Yemen, and was known to have immense influence within that terrorist group.

Other recent threats-from-within have been well publicized:

A 26-year-old American citizen Rezwan Ferdaus, a graduate of Northeastern University no less, has been charged with planning terrorist attacks against key buildings in Washington. He allegedly planned to attack the buildings with explosives on model airplanes, and to cut down evacuees with gunfire and grenades as they left the buildings.
U.S. citizen Mohamed Osman Mohamud tried Last Christmas to blow up a truck bomb while Portland, Oregon’s Pioneer Courthouse Square was packed with thousands of people.
U.S. citizens, Major Nidal Malik Hasan and Private Naser Abdo, both of the United States Army, planned attacks on Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan killing 13 and wounding 30. Abdo, fortunately, was arrested before he could act.

Thank the Lord none of these maniacs were Canadians—we’d never have heard the end of it and wait times at the U.S.-Canadian border would have become unbearable. And, at least, one U.S. Congressman would have called for an all-out invasion of our country.

The Americans have enormous internal security problems and have nothing short of a real war in progress on their southern border—tens of thousands of casualties have already been suffered—yet some have time to plan a fence between themselves and Canada.

Go figure.