Every Canadian should read Bob Rae's column in the Walrus

It is all about Canada-USA relations, and in particular, this uncomforting reality:

"It’s time we understood just how far apart our two countries are and act accordingly"

The whole text is here.

Interestingly, it comes just hours after the publication of this warning for the EU from the Guardian:
EU must 'prepare for worst-case scenarios' under Trump, top official warns

From that article, from European Council president, Donald Tusk:

“More and more people are starting to believe that only strong-handed authority, anti-European and anti-liberal in spirit, with a tendency towards overt authoritarianism, is capable of stopping the wave of illegal migration.”

“If people believe them, that only they can offer an effective solution to the migration crisis, they will also believe anything else they say. The stakes are very high. And time is short.”

Time for all of us to stop ignoring the painful truth. If you're not with Trump, you're not only against Trump,...

you're at war

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Well Israel, you have really lost the PR war now

You have got yourselves perfectly embroiled in an international incident that is not going away until you learn that even you must eat crow sometimes.

So far, it doesn't appear to have sunk in. I notice it only took you a few hours to release some propaganda on youtube, so we know you have a crack PR team working this untenable calamity. In a less imperfect world, the UN Security Council would enforce some strong measures. Against Israel, yes. And if you have the slightest desire to regain the upper hand in this PR war, soon you will have to realize there is only one good course of action for you to take.

It starts like this:

Immediately, Israel should send every one of the detainees from yesterday - and their boats - to Gaza and get that aid distributed.

Second: announce you are relaxing the border controls but reserve the right to re-invade Gaza should any proof of weaponization recur there (UN inspectors on the ground, which would both require Hamas approval, and corner them into transparency).

Third: apologize profusely and allow a third party investigation by Interpol, or China or some disinterested and globally respected NGO. Stop being the bad guys and realize your immense US support can be cut back substantially if your actions continue to be a drag on incumbent congress members during an election year.

Meanwhile, everybody: sit down. Have a cream soda.

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to Resign Now

Let us not beat around the bush: Prime Minister Stephen Harper misled the world about the seriousness of a breach of secret information under his watch that, it turns out was so major, risked compromising Canada's - and NATO's - mission (on several fronts). It also may have provided crucial information to our enemies, according to the lede in le Devoir reporter Bahador Zabihiyan's explosive front page story in this morning's edition.

Yes, thanks to the Montreal daily newspaper, whose editors waited over a year to receive the now heavily-censored documents under the Access to Information Act, we now know that Stephen Harper was at best, disingenuous and completely lacking in judgment in May, 2008, when he dismissed opposition calls for a full inquiry into the matter.

In lieu of the highly sensitive and broad-ranging scope of detailed information we now know was contained therein, it more than stretches credulity to imagine Harper was unaware of the wide-ranging international security implications of the breach - especially given the fact the documents were in the possession of a woman linked to organized crime, and for a period of weeks, before they were retrieved. At the very least, a breach (and possible cover-up) of this importance requires a criminal investigation by the RCMP, since the information may have compromised national security, not to mention that of our NATO allies.

As you'll recall, then Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier was hastily relieved of his portfolio over the incident - but only once the news broke a month after the actual breach occurred, in May of 2008.

Browsing through the points of interest contained within the 560 pages of classified information, Zabihiyan notes that few global flashpoints are absent:

De l'élargissement de l'OTAN aux pays des Balkans à la contribution de celui-ci dans la lutte contre le terrorisme, des prisonniers talibans en Afghanistan à la défense antimissile, du contrôle des armements au conflit israélo-palestinien, de la situation en l'Ukraine à la présence d'al-Qaïda au Pakistan en passant par la position du Canada en ce qui concerne le dalaï-lama et le nucléaire iranien, tous les grands sujets de la politique canadienne à l'étranger y sont abordés de manière détaillée.

The CBC sums that up in english like so:

The documents include classified information about NATO's plans to expand operations in the Balkans, Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan, arms control in the Middle East, security in Ukraine, and al-Qaeda's presence in Pakistan.

Almost every page obtained by the newspaper has large sections blacked out.

The original copies — left at (Bernard's girlfriend, Julie) Couillard's house in April 2008 — were not censored.

Given the seriousness of this breach, there can be no justification for Harper's downplaying of it as being simply a mix of public and confidential material, and briefing notes for meetings, as his government said at the time.

In lieu of the inevitable questions brought up by the scope of the information leaked, the potential damage to Canada's worldwide reputation is incalculable. Our NATO allies must be deeply concerned, with gusts to appalled, that one of their most trusted partners could undermine our collective international security with such flippant disregard for a possibly treasonous breach of secret information - and without any sort of credible investigation having been undertaken into the matter in the 18 months since.

Given what we know today, one imagines that leaders in London, Washington, Brussels, Paris, etc. must be (privately, if not publicly) livid that the Canadians still cannot ascertain:

1) The breadth of the Bernier leak
2) How it was ever possible
3) What was done to mitigate the risk of future breaches (and how come other ministers - hello Lisa Raitt - evidently cannot keep track of their sensitive documents either).

One imagines our allies would be equally unimpressed that Maxime Bernier was allowed to remain in place within the Conservative caucus, then run again for the party mere months later, whence the voters in his riding re-elected him.

So please, Mr. Harper, do it. Visit Rideau Hall and resign as Prime Minister of Canada.

Do it before the Governor-General needs to step in and remove you from power. Because like a chain, NATO security is only as strong as its weakest link. Canada, under the Harper Conservatives, has proven itself unable to live up to its responsibility in regards to its NATO allies' collective security. There may be no way to save our national credibility as a fair partner. But Harper's immediate resignation would be a necessary first step in rebuilding the trust that lies at the foundation of NATO and Canadian security.

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Afghanistan and the cost to Canada in fighting there

This post copied - and expanded on - from a comment I made on John Waugh's blog post: NDP Pathetic on Afghan war

What this adds up to is pretty simple. During this campaign Layton will leave the war on the back burner. He will not make opposition to the war a central plank in his campaign platform. He will not repeat his party's opposition to the war unless he has to. He will not fight for the withdrawal of Canadian forces from Afghanistan.

Progressive Canadians have no party, they have no leader.

In defending the NDP as the party best representing those like me who feel Canada has no business participating in ISAF (the NATO-led combat mission in Afghanistan), leftdog has a point with his comment that the NDP have been the loudest political voice in opposition to our combat role there. But at the same time, it's telling that he had to go back eight months to find any mention of the NDP stance being put forward by the party machinery on Canada's role within the ISAF mission.

I think what this says (and John Waugh was astute to pick up on it) is that the NDP don't see this issue as even cracking the top ten list for them - on the eve of an election campaign to boot.

This cuts to the heart of the matter for a lot of us who may have previously defended/supported the NDP and share much of their worldview; but have found it just as partisanly unwelcome a home as the Martin Liberals had been.

But there is another party with ideas on the subject. I am talking of course about the Green Party.

On page 104 of the Vision Green policy document (updated just last month) you may note on pages 103-104 the GPC maintains the NATO-led mission is wrong and that Canada should withdraw our troops from the effort by this coming February at the latest.

...Despite this disheartening situation, there is also a very high risk that the immediate removal of all foreign troops would lead to the outbreak of a full-scale civil war and a humanitarian catastrophe. Accordingly, the Green Party believes we need to shift as rapidly as possible away from the current US-led NATO command mission, to a more ethnically balanced and regionally represented United Nations command effort and a greater security role for the Afghan National Army. This mission redesign improves the probability that over time the conditions will emerge for a viable political solution to the conflict...

Will this become a central plank in the campaign? I certainly hope I can influence this from within the party. While global warming and its potential for devastation is perhaps the most important issue for humanity right now, the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere must not be dumped out of the discussion merely for politically strategic reasons.

As John rightly points out, this is our biggest international commitment currently, and it sucked up all the resources we had previously spent 35 years building up as world leaders in peacekeeping activities - a shameful about-pace for which the Liberals and Conservatives need to be held to account, and which (one would hope) the NDP, Bloq Québecois and GPC would not let up on.

3:00 p.m. Update: It seems I was even timelier in posting this than anticipated.

OTTAWA — A majority of Canadians still view their soldiers as peacekeepers and would rather see them helping disaster victims than fighting, an internal poll prepared for National Defence suggests.

The results of the exhaustive survey, obtained by The Canadian Press, come despite the best efforts of both the Conservative government and the military to rebrand the Canadian Forces as a combat outfit.

“The image of the Canadian peacekeeper is one that has taken hold in the Canadian national psyche in the decades since the Korean War,” said the Ipsos Reid study, which is expected to be released Monday.

“Recent attempts at repositioning this traditional role toward one that emphasizes a more activist approach which includes the use of force have met with relatively little interest and still less acceptance.”

Why am I not surprised?

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The Afghanistan Mission is Bullshit

Canada is supporting a new government in Afghanistan that is encouraging opium production to supply the world's misguided kids with the heroin that will ultimately destroy them. Canadian kids too. Just lovely. This is not in keeping with the values of most Canadians, and I don't need to wait for a poll to figure that one out.

Peevey Stevie can spew all the Bushco lines he can memorize to shore up support, but at the end of the day, I'm sorry to say, it's all a load of shit. Karzai, the ex-CIA hack, is not a guy we want to prop up. And he's proving it with this policy. I don't want to hear about how we have NATO commitments. Let's put leaving NATO on the table. I don't want to hear about how the UN has sanctioned the mission. There are other places in the world (and at home) where our armed forces could be more useful. The empty threat of attack here from jihadis will not be stemmed from us killing "bad guys" over there. If anything, it makes us a higher-profile target. And our presence has facilitated the United States to draw down their troop-level in Afghanistan,

In the face of Afghanistan's deepening troubles, the US government is now slashing its funding for reconstruction from a peak of $1 billion in 2004 to a mere $615 million this year. And thanks to the military's recruitment problems, the United States is drawing down its troops from 19,000 to 16,000. In short, despite Bush's feel-good rhetoric, the United States is giving every impression that it is slowly abandoning sideshow Afghanistan.

...while reports say more U.S. troops are headed to Iraq.

If I was a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan, I'd be wondering why the hell I'm putting my life on the line for this.

The fact the Conservatives are pulling out all the rhetorical stops to stifle debate of this mission speaks volumes. Do not take it at face value.

Tip of the hat to Robert at MyBlahg for bringing this to the fore.

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