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.

While waiting for the moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf to be lifted, the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Services, these guys, have approved five new offshore drilling projects since June 2.

On more than one occasion watching American news coverage of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, I’ve heard it referred to as the greatest disaster of its kind in US history. One might think it is the worst in world history. One would be wrong.

Reuters has published a piece by Robert Campbell providing some very interesting background and context. The worst disaster of this kind was the explosion of the Mexican Ixtoc offshore well 31 years ago this month, back in 1979. According to the article, Ixtoc poured three times more crude into the Gulf than has gushed out so far in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. What happened with Deepwater was not only conceivable, it had precedent. Why, then, were its lessons not learned?

I’ll let you read the fine article for the details, but it boils down to hubris and wishful thinking. Something like that wouldn’t happen if an American (or in this case, a British based mulinational) company was running the show. And if you discounted Ixtoc as the result of inferior third world effort, then you could say that nothing like that had happened before, and therefore it was extremely unlikely anything like that would happen in the future, thus making adequate safety measures “prohibitively expensive” relative to likelihood.

The article is chilling not only for the insight provided into the slack standards and head-in-the-sand perspective of everyone involved, both government and industry, but also for the questions it raises concerning current operations of deep water rigs put into service under exactly the same terms of this same period of slack oversight and cutting of corners.

Campbell observes,

Macondo, the scene of BP’s spill, is 30 times deeper than Ixtoc — 4,993 feet, or about a mile down in the dark, freezing depths of the Gulf. Special robots able to resist the crushing pressure of the deep that would destroy a modern navy submarine are the only way to get close to the leak.

then later notes that some of these deep water wells are drilling at 7,500 feet. It’s hard not to feel that what’s going on is a form of madness. It’s difficult to say where the most responsibility should lie — with blithely unprepared companies conducting dangerous operations whose failure could be regarded as a major crime against the planet, or governments, who should be safeguarding the environment, paving the way for these sorts of operations.

Obama rails at BP hoping he can make all that oil stick on them, but both the Clinton and Bush administrations are clearly implicated, and his administration can’t claim to be squeaky clean either, if only for the policies it has inherited. Hopefully his Deepwater Horizon oil spill commission is more than just a PR move.

The lessons of Ixtoc were dismissed and forgotten. Let’s hope the lessons of Deepwater are learned and acted upon.

~ o ~

In happier news, I would be remiss as a tech writer not to give a shout out to Hayabusa, the little Japanese space probe that wouldn’t quit no matter what. It made an impressive entrance, returning to Earth yesterday with a display of fireworks totally in keeping with the happy occasion.

All of the trials and tribulations it faced on its five year journey to a comet and back are outlined in this article of the Daily Yomiuru Online (still no word on the payload, hopefully it brought back a little comet matter to study). The team in charge of the project faced challenge after challenge with creative thinking and the true hacker spirit. Omedetō gozai masu!

Hands Across the Sand began in Florida in February to “protest the efforts by the Florida Legislature and the US Congress to lift the ban on oil drilling in the near and off shores of Florida.”

Well it’s a global movement now and here’s the Vancouver Canada page.

But don’t we already have a ban on tanker traffic and offshore drilling in BC?

Nope.

Natural Resources Canada – Review of the Federal Moratorium on Oil and Gas Activities Offshore British Columbia ERRATA :

The Terms of Reference for the “Report of the Public Review on the Government of Canada Moratorium on Oil and Gas Activities in the Queen Charlotte Region of British Columbia” state that “in 1972, the Government of Canada imposed a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic through the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait, and Queen Charlotte Sound due to concerns over the potential environmental impacts.” However; the moratorium on oil and gas activities offshore British Columbia does not apply to tanker traffic.

Prior to 1972, a number of permits for oil and gas exploration were issued for offshore British Columbia. Due to environmental concerns, rights under those permits were suspended as of 1972 by way of Orders in Council, thus forming a de facto moratorium.

Thank you, Pierre Trudeau, for suspending those offshore oil and gas exploration permits in 1972.

However in 1982 the Canadian government brought in the Canada Oil and Gas Act which allows the permits to be “renegotiated into exploration agreements” and “the time frame for renegotiation to be extended and the rights continued to be valid.”

In 1987, the Canada Petroleum Resources Act grandfathered the waiting exploration agreements.

“Thus, the moratorium continues to be maintained through government policy. No activity can occur until the former permits are converted to exploration licences. The decision not to negotiate with industry to convert those permits is a pure policy decision. There is no statutory impediment to carrying out those negotiations.”

Shorter Con: No actual laws against oil tankers or offshore drilling in BC.

The above “Errata,” by the way, were added to the Natural Resources Canada webpage just last year.

If it was my home uses Google Maps and the current situation of the Gulf oil spill to show what the extent of the disaster would look like overlaid on your neck of the woods. Click and it will find you..

Gosh, was it only 18 months ago that US Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci was recommending “constructing huge aqueducts to carry Canadian water to the US” ?

Ho hum, responded the Cons, as they continued to obstruct any and all opposition motions to protect Canadian water from bulk export, including the recommendation to do so from the parliamentary trade committee.

John Baird said the threat was too insignificant to bother with, while Jim Abbott said the issue was too explosive to risk opening up at all. Don’t go nears the NAFTA, warned the Cons.

Then in the Throne Speech, Steve suddenly promised to put some protections for water in place, and, on May 13th, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon tabled Bill C-26, An Act to amend the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty Act and the International River Improvements Act.

As noted in news reports via Pogge: Actual product may not be as shown.

This amendment
1) does not cover bulk water exports from waterways that aren’t boundary waters, in effect only extending the protection on the Great Lakes to include boundary rivers as well, and also
2) still permits bulk removal of 50,000 litres in the form of bottled water and beverages.

That’s 50,000 litres per day. And presumably — per company.

Also worrying is this new clause about Schedule 3, which covers over 82 waterways including Lake Champlain and the Colombia and Red Rivers:

The Act is amended by adding the following after section 21:

Clause 9: New. Order — Schedule 3
21.01 (1) The Governor in Council may, by order, on the Minister’s recommendation, amend Schedule 3 by adding, deleting or amending the name of any transboundary waters.
Consultation
(2) Before recommending that Schedule 3 be amended, the Minister is to consult with the appropriate Minister of the province where the transboundary waters are located.

So the Minister, after consultation with which ever province wants to start up bulk water sales, may delete a waterway from the list of prohibited transboundary waters. Got it.

Also exempt from protection is short-term not-for-profit exporting of bulk water for fire-fighting — okay — and “humanitarian purposes.”

It still has to get through committee, another two readings in the House, and the Senate before it becomes law.

In the past, Canadians have shown considerable outrage at any variation on the idea of aqueducts carrying bulk water exports to the US. Indeed, this amendment actually bothers to list “aqueduct” as a prohibited means of exporting water — along with “pipeline, canal, tunnel, or channel” — but does not mention containers.

Expect this amendment to have a rough go in committee. Stay awake, Canada.

I love me some bias and hyperbole, which is why I’m such a fan of Fox News.  JUST jokes!  I like my nonsensical news sources to be a little more upfront about their nonsensicalness (all of whom are, I’m sure, rubbing their hands in unfettered glee at this newsy tidbit).  But I may have to start tuning in to ye olde Foxe now that former Governor of Alaska, one-time VP candidate, and all-around soccer-mommy winkster Sarah Palin is gracing the newsdesk.

That’s right, Her Lipstick-Wearing-Pitbullness is returning to the public eye. (Being Alaska’s governor doesn’t count.  They may get our news, but we sure don’t get theirs.)  In a move that hearkens back to her mid-election-run accusations against the great big media meanies, La Palin has stepped down partway through her term as governor due to a barrage of ethics lawsuits that she claims are draining her of “her ability to govern” (by which she means “of teh moneys”), in favor of “serving the public” outside of the political playground.

If Palin can’t handle the heat, it’s probably for the best that she abandon the lonely, frozen ship that is Alaska (if you will pardon a ridiculously mixed metaphor).  And if she’s stepping down as Gov to spend more time with her young son who has Downs Syndrome and her teenage-mama-daughter (and mebbe her other three kids, who are probably just as needy but make for less spectacularly inflammatory headlines), I would have taken that.  Hell, even if that weren’t the truth, it’d sound a thousand times more realistic AND altruistic than her claim that she’s taking this higher-profile, higher-paying, fewer-hours-working job to “serve the public.”  Although, to be fair, I am going to go serve the public by becoming champion of the World Poker Tournament.  Just so we’re transparent about my motives.

She is sure going to serve Fox News’s ratings, anyways.  Senior VP of Programming Bill Shine is quoted as saying “Governor Palin has captivated everyone on both sides of the political spectrum,” which FOR ONCE is totally true, if by “captivated” you mean “amused and annoyed in equal measure.”  I doubt it’ll last, but for now Palin is an attention-getting-magnet.  An entire generation of pop-culture bloggers and late-night talk-show writers will be tuning in regularly to see what fresh inanity they can poke fun at.  If this was an attempt to escape the scrutiny of Alaska, Palin seems to have overlooked the long (ok, at least a year) memory of the news-hounding public.  I’m surprised her own memory doesn’t extend back to that time her new employer outed her for not knowing that Africa is a continent.

But she wasn’t hired for being world-savvy.  Palin may have had a tenuous and mavericky grasp of geography, and when asked what newspapers she reads may have come back with the dubiously true if ambitious reply of “All of them, any of them.”  She may have had only a loose working knowledge, not only of domestic or international policy, but the word “policy” itself.  But no one flung jingoistic phrases like “job creation” and “shoring up the economy” with such verve and fanaticism.

So bring back Joe Sixpack!  Bring back the oddly unsettling winks!  Bring back Tina Fey in her Palin wig!  Let the “fair and balanced” commentating begin!

Oprah Winfrey has announced that she is quitting while she’s ahead, and putting her immensely popular talk show to rest. For real this time. Not like in 1997, when she said she was done, but was just psyching us out. Or like in 2004, when she did it again. This time she’s finished for realz. Probably.

And even those who don’t spend their afternoons spellbound by the Queen of the Couch can’t deny the lady her influence. Oprah has been a staple of afternoon television for 25 years, preceding Dr. Phil by a long shot and outlasting Ricky Lake by miles. Her plush sofas have been soaked in more heartfelt tears than Jessica Simpson’s pillow.

So what do we do now? Who will tell us what to read? And how to decorate for fall? And how to be our healthiest us, while her own weight boomerangs? (Whazzat? Kirstie Alley is still around?)

Fear not, world. The Hand of Oprah will still guide us through her magazine, her website, her radio channel, and her television network, OWN. There is little chance of us being left alone. Ever.

We’ve now seen, for the second time in recent memory, a journalist being harassed by Canadian border guards while trying to enter the country. Three years ago, American talk-radio host and filmmaker Alex Jones was detained for four hours, in the middle of the night, by Citizenship and Immigration Canada agents in Ottawa who confiscated his passport, camera, and belongings. They ordered him back the next morning for further grilling.

Now U.S. public-radio star Amy Goodman, co-host of Democracy Now!, has received a similar hazing while trying to get to a speaking engagement in Vancouver. Goodman got off a bit easier — apparently the guard who interrogated her was mostly concerned that she might say something nasty about the Winter Olympics — but what they have in common is that they were stopped because they might be bringing across the border, not fruits or vegetables, but ideas.

Those ideas could hardly be more opposite — Jones is an extreme libertarian while Goodman comes from the far left — which suggests that it is not a particular ideology but thinking itself, not to mention any opposition to state authority, that causes our border police to become unhinged. We are unlikely to get an explanation or defence out of Citizenship and Immigration over this embarrassment; when Jones was detained, all they had to say was that they could say nothing because “we are forbidden from discussing individual cases.” But it’s time various knuckleheads-in-a-uniform started getting disciplined or fired for their behaviour. Telling them that trade in ideas is not criminal behaviour is not likely to work. Telling them their paycheques are on the line might.

And yes, border guards, if you’re reading this at some point in the future, because I’ve been flagged in your system for speaking ill of your fine work, I did write this. And I’d be glad to discuss it with you — though preferably not while in detention in the middle of the night.

Just three months shy of 2010 — the date by which the Canadian Council of Chief Executives originally projected the goals of the SPP would be completed — some people have been mourning and others celebrating for years already.

The SPP is dead  (a short history):

Oct. 10, 2007 “The Security and Prosperity Partnership is dead,” wrote John Ibbitson in the G&M. “Nothing’s going to happen anytime soon.”

Aug. 1, 2008 “The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead,” says Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force “Building a North American Community” available in book form with co-author John Manley.

Feb. 25, 2009 “The SPP is probably dead,” Canadian Council of Chief Executives President Tom d’Aquino tells the foreign affairs committee, adding that “something else” will replace it.

July 13, 2009 “The SPP is in hibernation” — Chris Sands, Canada-U.S. relations expert at the Hudson Institute, in Toward a New Frontier which recommends “rebranding a revived SPP.”
.
Aug. 2009 “The SPP’s Death Knell has Sounded” — Embassy Mag. “The Security and Prosperity Partnership, as we knew it, is dead. May it rest in peace.”

Aug. 19, 2009 “The SPP is dead, so where’s the champagne?” — Stuart Trew, Council of Canadians, at Rabble.

Sept. 24, 2009 “The SPP is dead. Let’s keep in that way.” — Murray Dobbin, Canadian author, long time foe of deep integration, and one of my personal heroes.

That’s two whole years of announcements about the SPP nailed to its perch and pining for the fjords.

The most recent — Dobbin and Trew — do not imagine for a moment that the push towards deep integration is over by any stretch, yet Dobbin does not see any successor on the horizon:

“Some on the left are so accustomed to losing that they make the claim the SPP will just re-emerge with another name.”

And indeed I do so here — Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas.

Bush’s outgoing gift to Obama has been embraced and described by Hillary Clinton as “a multilateral initiative to promote shared security and prosperity throughout the Americas.”

Stockwell Day has already begun dutifully using the phrase “pathways to prosperity” in the House, while ex-PM Paul Martin, Chris Sands, d’Aquino, David Emerson and other fans of deep integration assure us of the inevitability of some future SPP rebrand and relaunch.

But what worries me is: do we even need a rebrand and relaunch anymore?

In 2003 the Canadian Council of Chief Executives came up with the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative to shape Canada’s future within North America. It called for “reinventing borders; regulatory efficiency; resource security; and a North American defence perimeter.”

Here’s how that agenda has been achieved through the SPP so far:

Joint RCMP-Homeland Security “Shiprider” pilot project
Civil Assistance Plan signed in Feb. 2008 allows the military of one nation to support the other during a civil emergency
Passenger Protect no-fly list
Sharing military responsibilities in the arctic
“Smart Borders” and unmanned drones patrolling the Canada US border
The exile and/or detainment in Canada of persons of interest to Homeland Security
Canada’s cats paw FTAs with countries the US hopes to reach
The Canada Israel ‘Homeland Security’ pact
Canada helps the US occupy Afghanistan

Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
Biometric data into visas for foreign nationals
RFID drivers’ licences – a de facto continental ID
Run-of-river projects and ramped up tarsands extraction for energy export
Proposal for national Canadian energy or water policy blocked
Streamlining regulations on food, drugs pesticides, genetically modified seeds.
“Intermodal transportation concept for North America”
Integrated North American energy and resource program

Does anyone really think just because 30 odd CEOs from the North American Competitiveness Council aren’t meeting as a designated SPP group anymore that that’s the end of it?

Ten days ago Harper stood in the White House and said:

“Today, Canada is announcing a major hydroelectric project, a big transmission line in northwestern British Columbia, which has the capacity down the road to be part of a more integrated North American hydroelectric system.

“Canada is not leaving Afghanistan; Canada will be transitioning from a predominantly military mission to a mission that will be a civilian humanitarian development mission after 2011.”

So, no, I’m not celebrating anything until the SPP and the groundwork already laid by the CCCE — plus the unseen continued integration of its facets throughout the public service — can be stopped and rolled back.

Paul Manly is taking his film ‘You, Me and the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule’ on the road.

The tour, which will visit 33 cities across Canada, will be launched with an Ottawa Premiere on Parliament Hill on October 1st. hosted by NDP International Trade Critic, Peter Julian.

The Ottawa screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q & A, featuring Peter Julian, Teresa Healy (Senior Researcher, Canadian Labour Congress), Bruce Campbell (Executive Director, Canadian Council for Policy Alternatives), Maude Barlow (Chairperson, Council of Canadians), Louise Casselman (Common Frontiers) and Paul.

The screening and panel will be streamed live by Rabble.ca — see promo page

From Ottawa, the tour will be working its way east to Newfoundland and then back across Canada to British Columbia. You can see all the tour dates on the film website here.

Each confirmed screening date has a pdf poster, handbill and press release that can be downloaded and used to promote the screening. Please help out where you can. All of the screenings are either free or by donation.

This ain’t over yet.

“A bit useless” is how 23-year-old Private Jonathan Couturier, the 131st Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan, described the Afghan “mission” that took his life.

If we are to have standing armies, the very least we can do, the absolute minimum responsibility we have to them, is not send them off to die in the useless occupations of nations who have done nothing to us.

Why are we occupying Afghanistan again?

Not, as Gordon O’Connor foolishly announced in the HoC in April 2006, to prevent “them from coming here.”

Not, as recent elections there attest, to bring democracy to the people.

Not even apparently to improve their lot in life.

Fisk:

“Every three months, the Canadian authorities publish a scorecard on their military “progress” in Afghanistan . . . .  The latest report, revealed this week, proves that Kandahar province is becoming more violent, less stable and less secure – and attacks across the country more frequent – than at any time since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. There was an ‘exceptionally high’ frequency of attacks this spring compared with 2008.

“There was a 108 per cent increase in roadside bombs. Afghans are reporting that they are less satisfied with education and employment levels, primarily because of poor or non-existent security. Canada is now concentrating only on the security of Kandahar city, abandoning any real attempt to control the province.

“Canada’s army will be leaving Afghanistan in 2011, but so far only five of the 50 schools in its school-building project have been completed. Just 28 more are ‘under construction.’ But of Kandahar province’s existing 364 schools, 180 have been forced to close.”

And not, as Ann Jones – author of Kabul in Winter and a teacher in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006 – writes at Tom Dispatch following her return trip this July, to train an Afghan police force and army to take over after we’ve gone either:

“So who are these security forces? They include the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP). International forces and private contractors have been training Afghan recruits for both of them since 2001. In fact, the determination of Western military planners to create a national army and police force has been so great that some seem to have suppressed for years the reports of Canadian soldiers who witnessed members of the Afghan security forces engaging in a fairly common pastime, sodomizing young boys.

“Current training and mentoring is provided by the US, Great Britain, France, Canada, Romania, Poland, Mongolia, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as by the private for-profit contractors MPRI, KBR (formerly a division of Halliburton), Pulau, Paravant, and RONCO.”

Eight years on and $10-billion later just for training the police force, Ann Jones tells us, with a projected goal of 400,000 as the supposed end-strength quota for the combined security forces — an army of 240,000 soldiers and a police force with 160,000 men, where are they?

The Invisible Men:

“What is there to show for all this remarkably expensive training? Although in Washington they may talk about the 90,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army, no one has reported actually seeing such an army anywhere in Afghanistan.

“When 4,000 U.S. Marines were sent into Helmand Province in July to take on the Taliban in what is considered one of its strongholds, accompanying them were only about 600 Afghan security forces, some of whom were police.

“Why, you might ask, didn’t the ANA, 90,000 strong after eight years of training and mentoring, handle Helmand on its own? No explanation has been offered. American and NATO officers often complain that Afghan army units are simply not ready to ‘operate independently,’ but no one ever speaks to the simple question: Where are they?

“My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist. It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of ‘Basic Warrior Training’ 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name.”

And with 40% of country unemployed who can blame them ?

“Think instead about what you might have won — and could still win — had you spent all those military billions on food. Or maybe agriculture. Or health care. Or a civilian job corps. Is it too late for that now?”

Yes, Ann, it is.

John Pilger:

“The Afghan war is a fraud. It began as an American vendetta for domestic consumption in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which not a single Afghan was involved. The Taliban, who are Afghans, had no quarrel with the US and were dealing secretly with the Clinton administration over a strategic pipeline. They offered to apprehend Osama Bin Laden and hand him over to a clerical court but this was rejected.

“The establishment of a permanent US/NATO presence in a resource-rich strategic region is the principal reason for the war. . . . The game is over. Corporatism and a reinvigorated militarism have finally appropriated parliamentary democracy, a historic shift.”

War is a racket. Not “a bit useless” after all.

All links via Rabble.

Monday night update: Ten days ago Senator Colin Kenny compared Canada’s role in Afghanistan to that of the US in Vietnam and used the word “retreat.” Tonight he is calling for a diplomatic solution: “I certainly from Day 1 thought [Defence Minister Peter] MacKay was a nitwit to suggest we should not be talking to the Taliban.”

Senator Kenny! Yo! Why would MacKay want to talk to the Taliban? This is not a war in which two sides are groping towards some solution; it is an occupation. From his point of view, what’s to fix?