Paul S. Graham

Photo: John D. McHugh/AFP/Getty Images. Soldiers from the 1st Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry handcuff and search a suspected Taliban prisoner. Ottawa revealed that it stopped the transfer of Afghan detainees in November. Caption: National Post, Oct. 3, 2008

Like a mangy cat with diarrhea, the federal government is trying, so far unsucessfully, to cover up its role in the torture of prisoners taken by Canadian troops in Afghanistan. According to the Canadian Press:

The federal government wants the courts to block public hearings into the transfer of Afghan detainees.

At issue is whether Canadian soldiers were ordered to transfer prisoners to Afghan security, despite knowing the detainees would likely be tortured.

The government had promised full co-operation, but is now asking the Federal Court to outlaw the hearings.

Government lawyers say the independent Military Police Complaints Commission can only investigate individual cases of tortured prisoners.

They want a court order barring the agency from probing allegations that transferred prisoners were tortured and that Canadian officials knew it would happen.

Commission chairman Peter Tinsley ordered the public hearings last spring, saying it was the only way to ensure a full investigation of the allegations.

“It’s troubling and disappointing, but not at all surprising, that the government is again trying to obstruct the holding of a public hearing,” said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada told the Globe and Mail. “They are always looking for ways to avoid transparency and accountability.”

There have been several instances of Canadian soldiers refusing to turn over prisoners to Afghan security for fear they would be tortured.

But the federal government has refused to say how many prisoners it has turned over and whether it can account for all of them.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2215007&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release – Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

On November 12, thousands of volunteers distributed 1.2 million copies of a “special edition” of the New York Times, datelined July 4, 2009, that declared, among many other wonderful developments, that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were over and that the troops would be coming home within weeks. Other articles revealed plans for universal healthcare, free post secondary education, rebuilding the nations crumbling infrastructure, and the nationalization of the oil industry to pay for climate change adaptation.

This highly creative work of political satire was the product of a group that calls itself the “Yes Men” — perhaps as a riff on Obama’s “Yes we can!” election slogan. In the words of the publishers:

This special edition of The New York Times comes from a future in which we are accomplishing what we know today to be possible.

The dozens of volunteer citizens who produced this paper spent the last eight years dreaming of a better world for themselves, their friends, and any descendants they might end up having. Today, that better world, though still very far away, is finally possible — but only if millions of us demand it, and finally force our government to do its job.

Part belly laugh, part bolshevism, this is political agitation on a grand scale; it will be difficult to ignore. Check out the web version of the July 4, 2009 New York Times here.

We get so caught up in discussing the “big issues” of the day we can easily forget that all politics are local and personal before they make it onto the world stage.

In that spirit, here are some actions and activities I hope local (Winnipeg and area) readers will find time to support.

Alternative Remembrance Day Ceremony – Nov. 11

View the film “Breaking Ranks,” a moving documentary about the plight of U.S. soldiers seeking sanctuary in Canada as part of their resistance to the war in Iraq. With intimate access to four American military deserters, their lawyers and families, this film documents their experiences as they try to exercise their consciences amidst profound emotional, ethical and international consequences. This will be followed by a discussion and a candle lighting vigil.

Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: St. Matthews Anglican Church, 641 St. Matthews Avenue (at Maryland St.)
Please help promote this event. Click here to download a poster that you can distribute.

War Resister Joshua Keys to speak in Winnipeg, Nov. 13, 14

Joshua Key’s autobiography, “The Deserter’s Tale,” written with Lawrence Hill (House of Anansi Press, 2007), raises disturbing issues concerning the conduct of the Iraq war and the status of those seeking asylum in Canada as conscientious objectors. Joshua will be speaking at several locations.

* Thursday, Nov. 13, 7:00 p.m. at Mondragon Books (91 Albert St.)
* Friday, Nov. 14, 2:30-4:00 p.m., 310 Tier Building, University of Manitoba

He will also be at at Menno Simons College – 520 Portage at Spence St, on Friday, November 14 at 6 p.m. for the screening of the film “Close the School of the Assassins” — an event sponsored by the Student Christian Movement and Menno Simons College.

Rally Against the Harper Agenda, Nov. 15

The Majority Agenda Coalition is holding a rally at the national convention of the Conservative Party of Canada. According to the organizers:

“We urge all progressive organizations in Manitoba to mobilize their members to attend the rally! We invite you to join the coalition organizing the rally – The Majority Agenda Coalition – or to endorse the rally. The approach we are taking is that “we are the majority” – we are the 62 per cent of people who did not vote Conservative in the last election! Even worse, the Conservative Party plunged 185,000 votes compared to 2006 yet has 19 more members in Parliament.

“As the rally organizers, we have agreed that the rally will be peaceful and respectful of the law.

“Much is at stake! The majority of people voted for parties that promised action to create jobs during the economic crisis, improve the lives of Aboriginal peoples, create a child care program support equality for women, save the Wheat Board and protect the family farm, keep funding the Arts, and save our public Post Office.

“We are the majority of Canadians who want our soldiers out of Afghanistan and for Canada to meet its Kyoto commitments. We are the majority who oppose further deep integration with the United States and who want an end to the secret “Security and Prosperity” talks. We are the majority who want more affordable access to higher education and action to end poverty and homelessness. These are all policies that the Harper government is trying to block. So we the majority need to block his agenda!”

When: Saturday, November 15, 12 Noon

Where: Winnipeg Convention Centre, York St. between Carleton and Edmonton

More Information: (204) 947-9334

Please help promote this event. If you click on the image you will get a downloadable poster that you can distribute via email and post wherever you like.

Annual Meeting of Peace Alliance Winnipeg, Nov. 16

Date: Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008
Time: 1:30 pm
Place: Workers Organizing Resource Centre, 180 Smith, Mezzanine Level
Press the buzzer to get access to the building.

The AGM will discuss the work the Peace Alliance has engaged in during the past year and set priorities for the coming year. To be eligible to vote at the AGM you must have paid your membership for 2008. If you are not a member you can join by submitting the membership form at the web site by Friday, November 14 so that your membership can be processed. Current members can direct inquiries about their membership status to “info [at} peacealliancewinnipeg [dot] ca.”

Winnipeg Citizens Coalition General Meeting – Nov. 26

The Winipeg Citizens Coalition would like to invite members and the public at large to its upcoming general meeting!

Date: Wednesday, November 26th

Time: 6:30 PM

Location: Silver Heights Community Centre, 2080 Ness Avenue

The agenda will include a presentation on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Alternative Municipal Budget by University of Manitoba Professor Ian Hudson.

Villagers in Wech Baghtu, Kandahar say 37 people have died, including 23 children and 10 women after planes flattened houses shortly after US troops had fought Taliban insurgents nearby on Monday afternoon. Photo: EPA/UK Telegraph

While messages of congratulations to President-elect Obama flowed in from heads of state from around the world, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had something somewhat less festive to say:

We cannot win the fight against terrorism with air strikes. This is my first demand of the new president of the United States to put an end to civilian casualties.

Karzai was responding to the latest U.S. military outrage in Afghanistan, an airstrike on a wedding party in southern Kandahar province on Monday that killed mainly women and children. Reports of the death toll range from 37 to 40, but there is no doubt that it happened.

While Obama is believed by many to be a force for peace in the world he made it clear during his election campaign that he will escalate the war in Afghanistan, while withdrawing US forces from Iraq. Obama has also pledged to continue the Bush policy of hot pursuit of insurgents into Pakistan.

The defense industry, which has benefited from a 70% increase in military spending since 2000, appears confident that Obama will keep is promise to build America’s military forces. Obama’s platform says

Obama and Biden will complete the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines. They will also invest in 21st century missions like counterinsurgency by building up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, foreign language training and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply.

I’ve lost count of the number of Afghan wedding parties that have been bombed out by the Americans. Unless Obama can be convinced to shrink his Empire, marriage will continue to be a risky affair in Afghanistan and the new President’s name will acquire a new spelling: O-BOMB-A.

While I do not believe that a Democratic POTUS will behave that much differently than a Republican one, I am encouraged that millions of US voters could overcome a racist history and elect a black President. There is jubilation tonight in many parts of the United States because of this, and deservedly so.

The fact remains, though, that however much President-elect Obama promises change, his record, his platform and the system he has been elected to administer point to a reaffirmation of the status quo.

It only stands to reason that a candidate who could raise $454 million for his Presidential primary and election contests owes a huge debt of gratitude to the interests that bankrolled his campaign. Obama raised twice as much money as his rival, John McCain, and he will have to make good on that debt.

How will the American people respond to their new President as the economy collapses around them and scarce resources are spent on interminable war and Wall Street swindlers? It’s perhaps to early to say. But there are early signs that the American Left (yes, Virginia, there is an American Left and no, Obama is not a socialist) is moving in two different directions.

Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader appears to be the first off the mark. In an open letter to Obama, Nader writes

In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words “hope and change,” “change and hope” have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not “hope and change” but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.

Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?

I think we can count on Nader (who at this point has polled over half a million votes) to continue to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.

Nader’s make-no-concessions approach is in sharp contrast to the soft cop stylings of Avaaz.org. In an email that I (and bazillions of others) received tonight, Avaaz’s Rick Patel exclaimed (almost breathlessly)

After 8 long years of Bush – finally a fresh start!

Obama’s victory brings a chance for the US to finally join with the world community to take on pressing challenges on climate change, human rights, and peace.

After years, even decades of distrust, let’s seize this moment of unity, reconciliation and hope to send a message of warm congratulations and invitation to work together to the new President and the American people.

We’ve built a huge wall near the White House in Washington DC where the number of signatures on our message and personal messages from around the world will grow over the next several hours. We’ve also asked Obama to personally receive our petition from a group of Avaaz members. Let’s get to 1 million signers and messages to Obama! Sign on at the link below and forward this email to others:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/million_messages_to_obama

While the email goes on to outline some of the major, progressive-sounding commitments Obama made to Americans, nowhere does it mention that Obama intends to beef up the US military and send more troops to the Land Where Empires Go To Die, aka Afghanistan.

In a country where the public political discourse is so narrow that “liberals” are the far left and Wall Street bailouts are “socialism” it will be difficult for the Real Left to find its voice, much less make itself heard. This will be doubly difficult if outfits like Avaaz, who have developed a substantial Internet reach, continue to avoid some inconvenient truths about Obama’s politics and his corporate friends.

By now, most folks have heard the silly telephone encounter between Sarah Palin and the Masked Avengers. Avengers Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudelare are reportedly becoming international media darlings outside of their native Quebec, where they are already stars. For political junkies and everyone who enjoys a good practical joke, this was a winner.

Like many, I chuckled through the audio clip and shook my head at Palin’s credulity. And then I began to feel sympathy for Palin, not because she was (yet again) exposed as vacuous, but because, once again, the media was applying a sexist double standard.

Cast your mind back to the 2000 election campaign where the CBC’s Rick Mercer ambushed then-Governor George W. Bush with the news that Canada’s Prime Minister Jean Poutine was backing his bid for the presidency. Bush beamed his gratitude for Poutine’s “strong statement” and blabbered something about free trade and promised to “work closely together.”

It was Mercer at his best, and the chattering classes in this country, anyway, enjoyed the prank. I don’t recall that it got nearly as much attention south of the border. This is in stark contrast to the exposure Palin’s gaffe is getting.

At this point, thankfully, it doesn’t seem likely that Palin will get to be vice president. Nonetheless, as you watch this collection of moments from Mercer’s “Talking to Americans” (which includes the Poutine Endorsement), bear in mind that millions will still vote for her and her phony war hero running mate, proving once again that while it takes only a village to raise an idiot, it takes a whole nation of idiots to elect one.

Here’s hoping America’s experiment with collective idiocy is over.

I had dinner with Stephen Lewis last night, me and 400 other folk who gathered to support development projects in Uganda at a dinner sponsored by Friends of Uganda, a Winnipeg-based group of individuals and organizations with strong ties to Uganda.

Lewis is well known in Canada and abroad for his work on behalf of Africa, and in particular, the support his foundation gives to community-based organizations that are working against HIV/AIDS in Africa. A passionate orator who exudes wit, charm and a fierce commitment to social justice, Lewis spoke movingly for about 45 minutes on the enormous obstacles Africans confront and on the progress they are making.

In a lighter vein, he reported on a recent trip to the Yukon where, he said, he too could see Russia. It was vintage Stephen Lewis.

You can listen to his speech here.

And perhaps when you are finished you will contact the Friends of Uganda to offer your help and/or financial support. Or visit the Ugandan Canadian Association of Manitoba for more information.

“A week is a long time in politics” is the popular aphorism that causes pundits to nod sagely and political operatives to reach deeper into their bag of tricks for manipulating the short attention spans and even shorter memories of the electorate.

Ample evidence demonstrates that political bloggers of all stripes are not immune.

Evidently, attention spans are getting shorter across the pond. Commentators such as George Monbiot and Andrew Rawnsley have noted that British PM Gordon Brown has become fond of quipping that “an hour is a long time in politics.”

Monbiot laments the inability of politicians to think beyond surviving the next election and proposes a solution: a new, independent Parliamentary committee — a Hundred Year Committee — whose purpose would be

to assess the likely impacts of current policy in 10, 20, 50 and 100 years’ time. Like any other select committee, it gathers evidence, publishes reports and makes recommendations to the government. It differs only in that it has no interest in the current political cycle. Its maximum timeframe is roughly the residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This got me thinking. (Monbiot always gets me thinking!) I’ve heard this somewhere before. Buzz phrases stated rolling through my attentionally deficient mind: sustainable development, government watch dog, arms-length whoohaws, reports to Canada, sustainable development, hold their feet to the fire, annual reports — AHA, YES! AUDITOR GENERAL! SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT! WE’RE SAVED!

In Canada, we don’t need a Hundred Year Committee. We have the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, who annually reports to Parliament on the state of federal government management of our tax dollars. Included in their mandate is the responsibility to assess how effectively departments are fulfilling their “sustainable development plans.” When they find problems, they report them to Parliament and departments are supposed to respond with their strategies for remedying the deficiencies.

This year, after a decade of performing these audits (70 in total), the OAG decided to take a look at how well federal departments were doing in terms of fulfilling their commitments to comply with their own sustainable development plans. In their words, they “followed up on selected recommendations and findings from prior reports to determine if satisfactory progress has been made in addressing them.”

Bureaucratese is a deadening language. It rarely conveys the sense of urgency that it purports to describe. Commenting on governmental progress on the sustainable development front, they write

We found mixed progress by departments and agencies in addressing and resolving the recommendations and findings included in this Status Report. Of the fourteen chapters in the report, five show satisfactory progress and nine show unsatisfactory progress. Where satisfactory progress was made, four success factors were present—realistic objectives, strong commitment at senior levels, clear direction, and adequate resources. Where progress was unsatisfactory, some or all of these factors were absent.

Translation: Goverment — you have flunked! The last ten tears of Liberal and Tory administrations have been proven incapable of ensuring that federal departments meet their objectives for sustainable development. What’s the holdup? In the OAG’s cautious prose

Of particular concern is the poor performance by departments and agencies in conducting strategic environmental assessments when developing policy and program proposals. These assessments are required when proposals that are submitted to Cabinet have an environmental impact.

In addition to finding the last decade of governments guilty of failing to meet important environmental commitments, the OAG points to chronic, short-term thinking as an additional problem:

But as important as it is to address environmental challenges that exist today, it is equally important to anticipate new challenges and new opportunities that may arise tomorrow. Doing this would help the government get ahead of the curve and develop policies and programs to mitigate the challenges and exploit the opportunities. Strategic environmental assessments and sustainable development strategies are management tools put in place to get departments and agencies to do this. Unfortunately, both tools are broken; they need to be fixed. [my emphasis]

There you have it. Our government sufferes from attention deficit disorder; it can’t or won’t do proper environmental assessments, it can’t fix identified problems, it does not even try to anticipate what is on the horizon, much less beyond it.

In the unforgettable words of American writer Jim Kuntsler, our governments (and the folks who elected them) are “sleepwalking into the future.”

Nothing focuses one’s attention on the fate of future generations quite so effectively as the birth of one’s first grandchild. Mine was born last year and I alternate between the joy I derive from watching her grow and the despair I feel when I consider the world she will inhabit after I am gone.

I don’t imagine my feelings are unique. There may even be politicians who share these sentiments, but in the world of five-second sound-bytes and six-point platforms (each with three talking points, max) it is difficult to discern who these folks might be.

Among politically active friends and acquaintances, I think I am on firmer ground. I know more than a few who make a sustained effort to puzzle through what we need to do to create a sustainable world where my grandkid can raise her kids in peace and justice.

I extend my circle of folks I can count on in this way to the blogosphere, where there are many thoughtful, analytical voices for social justice. But we have to do better.

We’ve all guilty of publishing the smart-ass one liners that pass for political wisdom — the pithy denunciations of political rivals that prove we belong to the same club. We’ve all helped feed the rumour mills with less than rigorously researched facts at one time or another.

Somehow, we (and here I am talking to “progressive” political bloggers and others who visit here) have to wean ourselves off the steady diet of cheap thrills, hysterical language and gotcha sensationalism that pass for political analysis these days. We need to resist the urge to score easy points on the seemingly hapless fools who aspire to lead us. We need to become more thoughtful, deliberate and long-term in our own thinking and writing, and demand that our politicians do the same.

In other words, progressive political bloggers need to lead by example when we call on politicians to replace their short-term opportunism with planning and authentic concern for the well being of future generations.

End of rant — for now.

According to Rideau Institute president Steven Staples “I have heard that there are memos being produced inside the Canadian government today that are saying that the [Afghan] war has already been lost.”

Staples made the statement speaking at an Oct. 18, 2008 forum sponsored by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Canadian Federation of Students entitled “Canada after Bush: What’s at Stake?”

In his 45 minute address, Staples compared the programs of Barack Obama and John McCain and speculated on the implications of their platforms for Canada in terms of trade and the environment, climate change strategies, energy security, border issues and national security and foreign policy, especially as it pertains to Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Commenting on Bush’s tragic legacy, Staples said:

In Canada, the Liberal Government of Jean Chrétien after 911 quickly implemented far reaching national security measures to harmonize our policies with US priorities with terrible results – as Canadians saw what happened when Maher Arar was trapped and tortured by the post 911 secret security apparatus that had been thrown up in the weeks that followed those attacks. While Chrétien famously refused to join the invasion of Iraq after tremendous protests, he sent us deeper into Afghanistan. One hardly notices the difference now, with so many soldiers killed and billions of dollars spent on that failing Afghan war, that we didn’t go into Iraq; the results are pretty much substantially the same.

Staples noted strong similarities between the spending policies of Bush, the two presidential candidates and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

As many commentators, such as the Globe and Mail’s Jeffrey Simpson have pointed out, neither candidate has a plan to deal with the massive US budget deficit which has been driven by Bush’s policies of big military spending and tax cuts. This may sound familiar because its these same policies that the Globe and Mail has said under Steven Harper has cost us our budget surplus. Harper’s big tax cuts and his big military spending increases now risk driving Canada into a budget deficit and an economic downturn.

Staples said it was time for Canada to develop a national energy policy that addressed Canadian needs and made it clear that Canadian oil belongs, in the first instance, to Canadians. He said this approach is not one recognized by U.S. leaders.

US leaders look at Canadian oil as part of US domestic sources; they don’t really think of Canada and all the oil we’re pumping down there as being a foreign source. They just assume it’s kinda theirs’. In fact Canada is now the number one source of oil imports to the United States and there is already a tacit agreement that tar sands production will increase five-fold by 2020 to increase the supply to the United States.

Staples expressed grave fears regarding Obama’s plans for Afghanistan and the implications for Canada.

This Obama policy of shifting thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is probably the most worrisome for us in the short term. For all of the positive changes that an Obama presidency could bring, this would be a huge mistake. By simply pumping in thousands of US troops to contribute to the same counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan that they have been following all this time, Obama will only make matters worse. And that’s not all; he will try to pull other countries down with him in Afghanistan. The US will seek greater allied contributions to the war. Already – I don’t know if you saw it on CBC the other night: a senior adviser to the Obama campaign told the interviewer that he will be looking for more support from Canada. And remember, we’ve committed to another three years of fighting, to December 2011.

Wrapping up his speech, Staples outlined what he saw as Canada’s priorities following the election of a new US president. These would include renegotiating NAFTA to incorporate environmental and labour protections, developing a made-for-Canada energy policy, support for Canada’s devastated manufacturing sector, and pushing for peace in Afghanistan.

Listen to Steven Staples here

To hear Steven Staples entire address, click on Canada After Bush. (Hint: For streaming audio, click on the little red arrow.)

The Rideau Institute on International Affairs is an independent research, advocacy and consulting group based in Ottawa. It provides research, analysis and commentary on public policy issues to decision makers, opinion leaders and the public. It is a federally registered non-profit organization, established in January 2007.

Steven Staples is the president of the Rideau Institute. In the past 15 years, Steven Staples has acted as the Director of Security Programs for the Polaris Institute, the Issue Campaigns Coordinator for the Council of Canadians and the Coordinator for End the Arms Race. He is well known for his work on international defence, disarmament and trade issues.

By Carl Boggs, Counterpunch, Oct. 18, 2008

The arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in July 2008 for war crimes allegedly committed in the 1990s took the Western (especially United States) media by storm, a case that was upheld as a watershed moment in the struggle for global justice. Demonized by the Western media as an “architect of genocide” in the former Yugoslavia, Karadzic was quickly extradited from Serbia to the Hague to be prosecuted before the NATO-funded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a court that had already put on trial 66 Serbs for assorted war crimes. Despite a paucity of evidence showing that Karadzic was actually involved in anything resembling genocide, the media and political elites were quick to celebrate his arrest as a triumph of international legality. Whatever Karadzic’s ultimate fate before this politically-charged tribunal, the truly odd feature of this drama is that a relatively minor figure like Karadzic could be the target of so much moralizing scorn –likened by some to another Hitler – while leaders of the most powerful war machine in history, planners of an illegal, catastrophic war and occupation in Iraq lasting almost six years, are treated with the dignity and respect of statespersons instead of being held accountable for criminal behavior dwarfing anything that took place in Yugoslavia. Within American political and media culture, of course, it has long been an article of common belief that war crimes must be the work of evil others, never Americans whose taken-for-granted noble intentions serve to immunize them legal accountability.

Might it be possible that President George Bush and his co-conspirators in military aggression will some day be held to the same international standards as the designated enemies – to the very norms that U.S. leaders themselves so righteously champion when it comes to Serbs and others? Could Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and the entire gang of neocon ideologues responsible for bringing the Iraq debacle to the world ever be judged according to the principles of Nuremberg, the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Charter, and other canons of international law? Within prevailing American discourse, the very idea that U.S. leaders might be prosecuted for war crimes is, more than ever, beyond the scope of tolerable debate.

Article continues . . .