Canada's government is in a failed state
No party is seen as fit to run the country, and yet they think they can do effective "mission"- ary work in other people's countries
The Edmonton Sun says:
The [Manley] panel's recommendation provides political cover to the minority Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for maintaining Canada's present commitment to the UN-mandated and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan, when the opposition parties are pushing for an end to it.
The article goes on to parrot Stephen Harper that if Canadians were properly educated on the issues they would understand why the mission needs to be extended, presumably indefinitely.
But instead of helping to educate, the writer regurgitates the standard propaganda - you know - about how girls are going to school and roads have been built (from Kabul to the pipeline).
As the Seattle Post Intelligencer says, "If only". Girls are going to school now the same way they did under the Taliban, in private homes.
To be sure, there is a road called Highway No. 1 that runs between Kabul and Kandahar - which is situated at the pipeline (see the map) - and that cost a lot to build, but it is a perilous route (NYT) nevertheless. And there is no mention of a Highway No. 2.
The Freudian slip in the use of the term "cover" suggests the Sun is aware of the true purpose of the Manley report - not to provide an unabiased assessment but to bolster the Conservative agenda. Calling the area "strategically important" is a dead giveaway of the reason for the whole debacle, and evoking 9/11 is not enough of a distraction from that.
Who isn't aware that Afghanistan is a jumping off point for restructuring the whole Middle East to suit the interests of transnational corporations?
But the prize for sheer gall and arrogance goes to this statement by the Sun:
But instead of helping to educate, the writer regurgitates the standard propaganda - you know - about how girls are going to school and roads have been built (from Kabul to the pipeline).
As the Seattle Post Intelligencer says, "If only". Girls are going to school now the same way they did under the Taliban, in private homes.
To be sure, there is a road called Highway No. 1 that runs between Kabul and Kandahar - which is situated at the pipeline (see the map) - and that cost a lot to build, but it is a perilous route (NYT) nevertheless. And there is no mention of a Highway No. 2.
The Freudian slip in the use of the term "cover" suggests the Sun is aware of the true purpose of the Manley report - not to provide an unabiased assessment but to bolster the Conservative agenda. Calling the area "strategically important" is a dead giveaway of the reason for the whole debacle, and evoking 9/11 is not enough of a distraction from that.
Who isn't aware that Afghanistan is a jumping off point for restructuring the whole Middle East to suit the interests of transnational corporations?
But the prize for sheer gall and arrogance goes to this statement by the Sun:
Rich democracies, including Canada, have been slow in recognizing the need for intervention and peace-enforcement operations by deploying combat forces in failed states for human security, while assisting in state rebuilding.
Afghanistan was not a "failed state" until the US bombed it to rat poop. But it was ruled by a government that didn't take orders from the US. Had the Taliban nicely complied and shared its rule with American corporations, the US wouldn't have given a fig about little girls going to school, or any of the other choice excuses now used to cover these horrific crimes against humanity.
Little wonder that there is growing support for the Taliban (ABC) in proportion to Afghanis' growing resentment against the foreign invaders.
Saying that the members of the Manley panel are respected merely suggests they know what they're talking about. It doesn't make it so. Manley was supposed to have been a Liberal, but only a hard line conservative can stomach him, or any of the apologists for war that served on his panel.
After consulting privately with Harper, Dion and his Liberals are going to come up with some amendments to the PM's extension proposal, which Dion says the PM had better accept or there'll be an election, so there!
But Michael Ignatieff gave away the game when he
Little wonder that there is growing support for the Taliban (ABC) in proportion to Afghanis' growing resentment against the foreign invaders.
Saying that the members of the Manley panel are respected merely suggests they know what they're talking about. It doesn't make it so. Manley was supposed to have been a Liberal, but only a hard line conservative can stomach him, or any of the apologists for war that served on his panel.
After consulting privately with Harper, Dion and his Liberals are going to come up with some amendments to the PM's extension proposal, which Dion says the PM had better accept or there'll be an election, so there!
But Michael Ignatieff gave away the game when he
... questioned whether it was "in the national interest for us to plunge the country into a bitter election on an issue where Canadians, I think desperately, right across the partisan divide, want us to pull together and do our jobs as politicians."
When the Allcons and the Libcons are pulling together you know they're cut from the same smelly rag. Neither one of them is going to want an election when they know they can't win a majority. So look for a carefully crafted and suitably vague position on the war from the Liberals that will allow for just about anything to happen in 2009 while claiming to want to avoid combat.
No doubt the major contributor to that work will be Ignatieff himself, of whom The Tyee said so eloquently:
No doubt the major contributor to that work will be Ignatieff himself, of whom The Tyee said so eloquently:
I disagree, he seems to say, but it's not what you think.The media, ever sensational and hungry to sell copy, like to make it out as a huge confrontation - which is not to say it can't become one accidentally. With any luck, for them, the story of JFK's illegitimate Canadian son will pick up steam, and Canadians won't even know what hit them with regard to Afghanistan.
But when the US-installed government of Kabul votes against Canada at the UN (NPost) and seems to favour Iran over anything we may contributed to the benefit of Afghanistan, you have to wonder why we keep hearing from the media that we're doing a lot of good over there.
A sign that Canada is on the road to failure as a democracy is that its newspapers actually pay people to parrot war propaganda and warp the truth into virtual lies.
Other stuff of interest:
MWCNews: Let us Prey
"When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "let us close our eyes and pray." When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land.” —Desmond Tutu
Feb. 9/08: NYT: Bhutto’s Party Disputes Scotland Yard Report on Her Death Despite the lack of a full post-mortem and limited X-rays and other forensic material, the two British forensic investigators leading the team were able to draw reliable conclusions, the executive summary said.
YYC: Whoever wrote that could moonlight as a comedian. See the Bhutto Page for earlier news items.
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