Our top Ministers of our Canadian Government are so very disgraceful. They continue to lie to us, after being caught by multiple non-partisan authorities. It’s often claimed that people expect politicians to lie, but there’s been an understanding in Ottawa that it was taboo for Ministers to lie to Parliament rather than simply dodge uncomfortable questions. That’s why Harper’s government fell last year on Contempt, and should again if there were enough Honourable members from the Conservative Party.

MacKay isn’t “muddled,” he’s lying. There are twerps eating up the lie, and defending the indefensible because they’ve invested in the Conservatives and are willing to go down with the ship (to a certain point), rather than stand up for Canadian values of honesty and integrity.

A more accurate accounting can be found publicly, than from our Prime Minister. That’s a disgrace, especially around a critical national issue like defence.

Double-tap that lie.

Since Harper, MacKay, Ambrose, and a few other less significant, lying, Dishonourable Members of Parliament won’t resign given their disgraceful track record of hiding plans to spend at least $10,000,000,000 more than they promised two years ago, Canadians will have to punish the entire Conservative Party instead. Blockheads don’t roll, but if they did, it might save the Harper government for another Conservative to lead it.

Hat tip to Dave

Newcomers to Canadian political watching should note that it’s considered a violation of the rules of Parliament not only to lie, but to claim that another member is a “liar.” The proper channel for such a claim is to raise the issue with the Speaker who chairs Parliament and can decide if there’s a situation where a member has lied to the House of Commons while working. It’s been expected for more than a century that the chances of an MP lying are so remote, that there’s no need to permit other members to rebuke a liar directly. That assumption is being rewritten thanks to Stephen Harper.

It’s not so unusual that a professional can face discipline for telling a lie to their coworkers, even their adversarial coworkers in competition with them for the better jobs at the workplace. Telling lies to keep your co-working competition from legitimately obtaining superior work roles is unethical, and against the rules in our democracy. If there is no punishment levied against liars for breaking this rule, what will keep Canada a free country with the best MPs in Cabinet? Show me a country that gives power to its best open liars, its military everything it desires, and I’ll show you a country that faces the threat of a military coup, or even totalitarianism.

“He simply will not last very long,” Harper said of Muammar Gaddafi back in March, as Canada prepared to drop $27-million of smart money smart bombs on Libya in order to oust him.

As of now Gaddafi controls most of the country, including the capital.

Today Parliament will debate Steve’s resolution to support NATO’s proposal for another three month extension, supported last time by all opposition parties.

One will recall that Steve does not like to miss a parade:

“I noted that there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein operates programs to produce weapons of mass destruction. Experience confirms this. British, Canadian and American intelligence leaves no doubt on the matter.

“In my judgment Canada will eventually join with the allied coalition if war on Iraq comes to pass. The government will join, notwithstanding its failure to prepare, its neglect in co-operating with its allies, or its inability to contribute . . . . It will not join as a leader but unnoticed at the back of the parade.”

As we wait for this war’s versions of uranium yellowcake and “he gasses his own people” to go into spin overdrive, perhaps our opposition politicians — so eager to be onboard this latest “coalition of the willing to protect the people of Libya while ignoring the similar plight of the peoples of Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria” – could take a moment to read Glenn Greenwald’s perusal of the WikiLeaks cables info found in a Washington Post article:

In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war

“The relationship between Gaddafi and the U.S. oil industry as a whole was odd. In 2004, President George W. Bush unexpectedly lifted economic sanctions on Libya in return for its renunciation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. There was a burst of optimism among American oil executives eager to return to the Libyan oil fields they had been forced to abandon two decades earlier . . . .

“Yet even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms . . .

“Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves — 43.6 billion barrels — outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects . . . .

“By the time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited in 2008, U.S. joint ventures accounted for 510,000 of Libya’s 1.7 million barrels a day of production, a State Department cable said . . . .

“But all was not well. By November 2007, a State Department cable noted “growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism . . . . Libya’s oil production has foundered, sagging to about 1.5 million barrels a day by early this year before unrest broke out.

“Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition.”

End of Greenwald.

So let’s hear a rebel yell for the Harbour Group, the Washington public relations firm whose leadership includes former staff director for Hillary Clinton Richard Mintz, and for the Benghazi coalition, represented by former Libyan Ambassador Ali Aujali, seen here with Paul Wolfowitz during his April speech to the American Enterprise Institute.In another pure coincidence, neocon Wolfowitz and his AEI buddies at PNAC, the Project for the New American Century, were the original architects of the war on Iraq, arguing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein back in 1998.  Later Wolfowitz and AEI were supposedly hoodwinked by Iraq’s Ahmed Chalabi and Curveball into thinking the Iraqis would greet their US liberators with roses.  Nudge, nudge, wink, hoodwink.

 
Speaking of Hillary and Iraq:

“Hillary Clinton hosted a meeting of top executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Halliburton, GE, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Citigroup, Occidental Petroleum, etc. etc. to plot how to exploit ‘economic opportunities in the new Iraq.’”

And so it goes . . .

An embassy cable written by US Ambassador David Wilkins the day the Cons were first elected in 2006 suggests Harper would be useful in advancing the US agenda for Canada and that giving him ” a success story” like the softwood lumber deal would “shore up” his ability to stay in office without appearing to “sell out to the Americans”.

It’s pretty well a quid pro quo blueprint for every Canada-US initiative Harper has dutifully followed ever since.

Excerpted :

The election of a new government, after thirteen years of Liberal rule, presents opportunities for advancing U.S. interests in such areas as law enforcement and continental security, and in developing Canada as a more useful partner in the Hemisphere and around the globe.

Significantly, the socially liberal core values of the opposition are more in line with most Canadians than the minority Conservatives, weakening their mandate even further. Given a relatively weak mandate and tenuous hold on power, Harper will move deliberately but cautiously to get a few successes under his belt before doing anything even remotely bold.

Relations with the U.S. will be tricky for Harper, who along with many members of his caucus has an ideological and cultural affinity for America. But as he has done already with many of his core social and fiscal values, he will simply have to sideline this affinity in order to not be painted as “selling out to the Americans” to a skeptical Canadian public. I know Harper will be warm and cordial in his dealings with the U.S., but he also has to demonstrate that he has the ability to advance Canada’s interests with Washington, and he may feel compelled to step back from gestures that could be construed as a close embrace.

That said, I see a real opportunity for us to advance our agenda with the new government. I recommend early on that we look for an opportunity to give Harper a bilateral success story by resolving an irritant such as the Devil’s Lake filter system or entering into good faith negotiations to reach a solution on softwood lumber. Early success on a bilateral issue will bolster Harper and allow him to take a more pro-American position publicly without as much political risk.

Another area where the new government will seek engagement will undoubtedly be border security. Finding a few high-profile SPP-type deliverables to improve cross border movement of goods and services would help our image here as well as shore up Harper’s credentials. Laying this groundwork would then open the way for progress on cross-border law enforcement initiatives of interest to us, such as enhanced information-sharing, joint maritime operations, and more robust counter-narcotics efforts.

Enhanced info sharing on Canadians, the shiprider program, the imported war on drugs.

On other issues, Harper is committed to increasing spending on the armed forces and will do so, making the Canadian Armed Forces a more capable and deployable force; we have little to contribute to this debate and should stay out of it. He has also suggested that the missile defense decision could be re-examined.

With regards to our transformational agenda, there will be numerous opportunities for engagement. However, I suggest quietly working such cooperation with the new government through official, non-public channels, and that we focus on a handful of priority areas — keeping Canada in the game in Afghanistan as the mission turns more difficult and possibly more bloody; continuing to work together to keep the pressure on Iran; increasing support to the new government in Haiti, possibly even taking on more of a leadership role there.

And right about now I’m guessing you’re remembering some of Harper’s more bizarre outbursts on Iran, his caginess about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and Canada’s new “leadership role in Haiti” where DFAIT is buying up property to house an infusion of Canadian officials.

Back to Wilkins’ cable:

“We’re going to be recommending senior level visits and consultations on foreign policy issues to help bring Harper and his new, generally inexperienced team into the fold as more useful partners.

I look forward to helping connect the dots with the new government so we can effectively advance our agenda.”

Afghanistan, Iran, Haiti, enhanced information sharing, war on drugs, joint maritime operations, security perimeter . . . There’s also a section on Canada “engaging more actively in other hemispheric trouble spots such as Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba.”

Has Canada done anything independent of this cable under Harper?

David Emerson, who crossed the floor to the Cons to implement the soft wood lumber deal a week after he was elected as a Liberal in Vancouver, is mentioned in a second Wilkins cable just after the deal was signed with USTR Ambassador Susan Schwab eight months later.

Here they are quoted discussing International Traffic in Arms Regulations, a US law which proscribes Canadian dual nationals from some countries from work on the arms deals that comprise 40% of Canadian defense procurement from the US, and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative:

“It would be better, she continued, if we could look at issues as if there were a common border surrounding Canada and the U.S., rather than as an issue caused by the Canadian-U.S. border. Emerson agreed. He said that policies such as the WHTI are a “running sore” in the bilateral relationship and are inconsistent with policies to integrate the Canadian and U.S. economies to the maximum extent possible.”

So, again, Steve, we ask : How’s that US security perimeter deal with Barry coming along?

I just saw some video of Canadian jets refuelling at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow. I just saw tornado fighters from Lossiemouth, the RAF base next to the Scottish village where I was born, landing in the theatre of action.

I’m glad the world is taking action to stop the degenerate dictator Muammar Gaddafi from slaughtering his own people. But my heart is also heavy.

Because let there be no doubt, the writing is on the wall. Walkom in the Star:

War fits with the Conservative storyline of Harper as a strong, decisive leader. War against a notorious villain contradicts opposition charges of Conservative moral bankruptcy. The inevitable media stories of brave Canadian pilots and grateful Libyan rebels can only distract attention from the Conservative government’s real failings.

If the opposition was thinking of triggering an election this week, now they should reconsider. Because with jingoism sweeping this nation they would be slaughtered.

Most important, voters like wars — or at least those wars that are brief, victorious and relatively costless. They are exciting. They give people a chance to cheer and wave flags.

During the initial days of a popular war, people invariably come together. They support their troops. They support their leaders.

Also, as much as as I welcome military action, I am also troubled by the motives of those leading the charge in this latest “Coalition of the Willing.”

David Cameron needs a war to take the spotlight off his brutal campaign against his own people. Nicolas Sarkozy needs a war to bolster his own polls, and make people forget he has been arming the Libyans. From Liberal Conspiracy:

In France, web outlet Rue89 interviews Jean Guisnel, whose recent book on the arms trade has a chapter devoted to Libya. He names French politicians involved in weapons deals with Libya: president Nicolas Sarkozy, minister of defence Michèle Alliot-Marie and her husband, and the Libyan middle-man Ziad Takieddine.

The UAE welcomes a war, because it will help them dodge responsibility for invading Bahrain to put down the freedom fighters in that country.

And we all know Stephen Harper will do ANYTHING to take the spotlight off his scandal ridden government, and win his precious majority.

Then there’s the troubling military situation. Can air power alone bring down the Gaddafi regime? When the rebels are brave but poorly trained.

And the tyrant could move his forces into urban areas, where attacking them could result in heavy civilian casualties.

Because let there be no illusions, if he is not overthrown, the maniac will try to strike back at Canada and other countries. Just as he did in 1988, when he brought down this plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Killing 259 people on the plane, 11 on the ground. And scattering body parts all over that peaceful little place.

Ever since then, I wanted somebody to kill Gaddafi for that crime alone. Hoped that somebody would bring me his ear, so I could feed it to my dog.

So you can imagine how I feel now. I support our flyers, and the ones from RAF Lossiemouth, to the max. And I’ll be cheering on the freedom fighters.

But what horrible timing, what a cruel twist of fate.

What if we set out to save Libya and lost Canada?

What if we set out to bring down a tyrant?

And ended up crowning our own . . . .

When buying an SLR camera, the price of the unit is not the entire cost. Will you need additional lenses? Tripod? Camera case/bag? Filters? Additional media? Apparently it’s the same thing when buying fighter jets.

You can’t just buy 65 F-35 fighter jets and think that’s the end of it, especially if your excuse is to defend the arctic from the Russians and the runways up north are all too short for the F-35. You’ve got to also budget for either extending those runways, or customizing the jets with drag parachutes.

Then there’s the issue of being able to fuel the jets in mid-air. You have to budget for tanker planes, or else adaptation of existing planes to serve that function, as was recently done in order to refuel the current F-18 jet fighters.

The Liberals have vowed to scrap the deal based purely on the originally estimated price of nine billion, though a recent article in the Ottawa Citizen cites the figure as currently between 16 and 21 billion dollars.

Personally, I’d like to see the Canadian Armed Forces equipped with the latest and best kit to fulfil their missions, but, as with a camera purchase, you have to total the cost of everything, all the extras and bits and pieces. If the figure is more than you can afford, then you either don’t make the purchase, or you figure out where cuts can be made.

Could we defend the arctic against the Russians with 30 F-35s? The Americans are purchasing 2,443 of them, so maybe they could loan us some in the event those evil Russians finally come over the pole as they’ve threatened throughout this long Cold War. (Wait a sec, didn’t the Cold War end some time ago?)

Or perhaps we could think more in terms of land-based defence, say polar bear operated laser installations. Yes, that would be expensive, but you can get a lot for one billion dollars, never mind 21 billion. Plus I prefer a sci-fi element over the old Cold War movie the Conservatives are still playing. If Ignatieff has his way and we suddenly find ourselves fighting off a Klingon invasion with antiquated F-18s and no polar bear operated laser cannons, it will be too late for regrets.

Frankly I don’t think we can be expected to write a whole new blogpost every time Flying Ace “Airshow MacKay” and his trusty sidekick Woodstock Kory climb up on top of the Con doghouse to fight off the Red Baron yet again in the Arctic, so this time we’re just going with what David Pugliese reported last time, 18 months ago (h/t Maclean’s) :

“The military officers I was talking to yesterday were full of kudos for Defence Minister Peter MacKay for a move that one described as ‘playing the media like a finely-tuned fiddle.’

“The officer was referring to the breathless Canadian news media coverage of the flight of two Russian bombers that were ‘intercepted’ by Canadian CF-18s . . . Yesterday’s incident prompted some amusement at NDHQ about how gullible some in the news media can be and how easily some journalists swallowed the government’s bait hook, line and sinker.”

One of the Wikileaks war logs released yesterday contained a friendly fire report filed by the 205th RCAG U.S. military unit which states four Canadian soldiers were killed and seven other Canadians and an interpreter were wounded on Sept. 3, 2006, when a fighter jet dropped a guided bomb on a building they occupied during the second day of Operation MEDUSA [bracketed explanations mine]:

At 030414Z Sept 06 received SAF[small arms fire] & RPGS from sawtooth building. returned fire 1x GBU [Guided Bomb Unit] dropped on it.

Sawtooth building is heavily damaged. only 4x sections remain standing. no activity observed. Casualties 4x CDN KIA [Killed in action] 4X CDN WIA [Wounded in action].

This was later updated to 4 dead and 7 wounded Canadians:

At 030419Z Sep received SAF and RPG fire on op, a total of WIA in these hour 7x CDN, and 4x CDN KIA and 1x WIA interpreter
Attack on: FRIEND

Type : Friendly Fire …. Category : Blue-Blue …. Affiliation : FRIEND

At the time the Canadian military reported that the four Canadian soldiers died in battles with Taliban forces. CBC got official clarification of that last night from Jay Paxton, spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay:

Anyone think the Americans just casually inflate their friendly fire reports? And what about the “guided bomb unit” in the US report? Do the Taliban have fighter jets now?

Meanwhile, at a “media availability” on Monday morning, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon was blindsided with questions on the publication of the Wikileaks war logs. Echoing U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, Taliban Larry said:

“Our government is concerned obviously that operational leaks could endanger the lives of our men and women in Afghanistan.”

Cannon then went on to repeat several times that the “leaked American documents” have “nothing to do with Canada.”

Okay then.

Asked by the G&M if the leaks indicate the government has “misled the Canadian public,” Lawrence replied that they have been very “transparent” and besides, ministers regularly go before the parliamentary Afghanistan committee.

Ahem. Didn’t your government just shut down parliament entirely earlier this year in part to stop that very committee from doing its job, Larry? Is this Afghan committee not the very place from which the word “redacted” assumed its prominent position in the news ?

Meanwhile, over at the Pentagon . . .

Pentagon still reviewing records, but so far finds no threat to U.S. security

“An ongoing Pentagon review of the massive flood of secret documents made public by the WikiLeaks website has so far found no evidence that the disclosure harmed U.S. national security or endangered American troops in the field, a Pentagon official told NBC News on Monday.”

PS: Gotta love Laura Lynch on CBC’s “As it Happens.” She asked Julian Assange whether his release of the war logs was “criminal” and weren’t things “better now under Obama.”

Obama — that would be the guy who just ordered up a 30,000 troop surge for a war that is already costing $7-billion a month to retake Kandahar. Assange called her questions “naive.” I thought that was unnecessarily charitable.

In a 2007 article entitled “The Conference of Defence Associations gets $100,000 a year from the Department of Defence,” CDA executive director Alain Pellerin told Maclean’s John Geddes: “We also have to write a number of op-eds to the press.” Asked if there is any aspect of Tory defence policy the CDA opposes, he couldn’t think of one.

 
Also worth noting is that the comment editor at the Globe and Mail who runs these pieces joined the Advisory Council of CDFAI in 2006.

At 13 university centres across Canada, the Department of National Defence funds defence “studies” through its Security and Defence Forum. This is from Embassy Mag in 2007:

“According to the Department of National Defence, over 600 people, including 183 faculty members, are employed in these centres across Canada. In 2005-2006, scholars from these centres churned out 600 publications, including articles, books, and chapters. In this same period, the centres received funding worth $1,255,000. As of October 2006, DND approved a 25 per cent increase in funding. In the next five years, the funding will shoot up to $1,650,000, a 32 per cent increase.”

Steve Staples, Rideau Institute, Feb 2007:

“It’s not about scholarly journals, peer reviewed articles that they have written — it’s really about appearing in the mainstream media. What you tend to get as a general trend, is a steady stream of hawkish opinion from academics that are all linked together through Department of National Defence funding.”

Not all this hawkish think tank funding is DND of course. CDFAI donors for instance also include Enbridge, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin.

Something to think about given that the media Rolodex seems to fall open so easily to the same DND and corporate funded analysts over and over again.

Over at the Military Police Complaints Commission, Department of Justice lawyer Alain Préfontaine is trying to prove that diplomat Richard Colvin’s emails flagging abuse of Afghan prisoners were so vaguely worded that the government could not possibly be held responsible for failing to understand what he was talking about.

Colvin and MPCC chair Glenn Stannard have the blacked out versions to work from. Colvin is not allowed to divulge what he remembers is under all that black ink.

If we could just all see the unredacted versions, says Colvin, they would reveal the crucial information.

Well, says Préfontaine, representing the government that blacked out the emails, I have seen the unredacted versions, and I can tell you there’s nothing of importance there.

Then why can’t we see them? asks MPCC chair Stannard, who apparently doesn’t have the clearance to see the very emails he’s holding hearings about.

“Because,” Préfontaine answered, “disclosure would be injurious to either national defence, international relations, or national security.”

I do hope you’re keeping up here. Colvin’s emails are apparently so sensitive they must be blacked out while simultaneously being so unimportant there’s no need to see them.

“After 2011, the military mission will end,” said Defence Minister Peter MacKay, repeating the Conservative government’s well-worn line.
“What we will do beyond that point in the area of training, will predominantly be in the area of policing. And that is very much a key component part of security for Afghanistan.”

Training the Afghan National Police. That was contracted out to DynCorp in 2003, wasn’t it? They put together a training program for police that went from being eight weeks long, to six weeks, now down to three weeks.

How’s that going so far?

Afghan Cops — A $6 Billion Fiasco (excerpts):

“More than a year after Barack Obama took office, the president is still discovering how bad things are. At a March 12 briefing on Afghanistan with his senior advisers, he asked whether the police will be ready when America’s scheduled drawdown begins in July 2011, according to a senior official who was in the room.

“‘It’s inconceivable, but in fact for eight years we weren’t training the police,’ replied Caldwell, taking part in the meeting via video link from Afghanistan. ‘We just never trained them before. All we did was give them a uniform.’

“The president looked stunned. ‘Eight years,’ he said. ‘And we didn’t train police? It’s mind-boggling.’ The room was silent.”

“Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who took over in November as chief of the U.S. program: ‘You constantly hear these stories about who was worse: the Afghan police that were there or the Taliban.’”

“Since January 2007, upwards of 2,000 Afghan police have been killed in action — more than twice the figure for Afghan Army soldiers. U.S. officers say as many as half the police casualties were a result of firearms accidents and traffic collisions.”

“Fewer than 12% of the country’s police units are capable of operating on their own. Yet of the 170,000 or so Afghans trained under the program since its inception, only about 30,000 remain on the force.”

“Steve Kraft, who oversees the program for the State Department: ‘Once they leave the training center, we currently don’t know whether they stay with the force or quit. The bottom line is, we just don’t know.’”

“Tracy Jeansonne, a former deputy sheriff from Louisiana who worked for DynCorp from May 2006 to June 2008: ‘A lot of the police officers wanted to be able to extort money from locals. If we caught them, we’d suggest they be removed. But we couldn’t fire anybody. We could only make suggestions.’”

Ann Jones in The Huffington Post: “In many districts, the police recently supplemented their low pay and demonstrated allegiance to local warlords by stuffing ballot boxes for President Karzai in the presidential election.”

And then there’s the missing and unaccounted for billions of dollars in US government contracts. AEY Inc., based in Florida, and described by the New York Times as “a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur,” dispatched to the Afghan security forces 100 million Chinese cartridges, some 40-years old and in “decomposing packaging,” under a $10 million Pentagon contract.

Currently, the Pentagon has given the Space and Missile Defense Command Contracting Office in Huntsville, Alabama the task of deciding between DynCorp and Blackwater/Xe for the new billion-dollar training contract.

On March 12th, President Obama devoted much of the monthly video conference call between his Washington national security team and his senior commanders in Afghanistan to questions about how the police training problem should be tackled.

I guess that’s where we come in. MacKay, today :

“We will work within the parameters of the parliamentary motion, which states very clearly that the military mission will come to an end in 2011. We will then transition into some of the other important work that we’re doing. That includes a focus on police training. The prime minister has been clear in saying our commitment to Afghanistan is for the long-term.”

Training the Afghan police alongside either DynCorp or Xe will be the new parliamentary “parameters” necessary to keep those trucks rolling between Windsor and Detroit .