LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Pleasures of The Harbour

I was listening to Phil Ochs album Pleasures of The Harbour when I read this...

'We cannot retreat, we cannot come back.

Boats are safe in the harbour, but that's not what they're made for.'

-Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay

Somehow its poignancy counteracted the stupidity of this bit of homespun Atlantic wisdom. Obviously said by someone who is not a fisherman or a fisherman's wife. Only to be matched by this one; there are no safe ports in a storm.

And I thought of Phil and his lifelong struggles against War, Imperialism, Injustice and played the album again.

Seeking solace in the fact that we can come back, it is only a matter of time as the Americans found out in Vietnam.

And the ship sets the sail
They've lived the tale
To carry to the shore
Straining at the oars
Or staring from the rail
And the sea bids farewell
She waves in swells
And sends them on their way
Time has been her pay
And time will have to tell
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the har - bor

And the anchor hits the sand
The hungry hands
Have tied them to the port
The hour will be short
For leisure on the land
And the girls scent the air
They seem so fair
With paint on their face
Soft is their embrace
To lead them up the stairs
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor

In the room dark and dim
Touch of skin
He asks her of her name
She answers with no shame
And not a sense of sin
Until the fingers draw the blinds
Sip of wine
The cigarette of doubt
The candle is blown out
The darkness is so kind
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor

And the shadows frame the light
Same old sight
Thrill has blown away
Now all alone they lay
Two strangers in the night

Till his heart skips a beat
He's on his feet
To shipmates he must join
She's counting up the coins
He's swallowed by the street
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor

In the bar hangs a cloud
The whiskey's loud
There's laughter in their eyes
The lonely in disguse
Are clinging to the crowd
And the bottle fills the glass
The haze is fast
He's trembling for the taste
Of passion gone to waste
In memories of the past
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor

In the alley, red with rain
Cry of pain
For love was but a smile
Teasing all the while
Now dancing down the drain
'till the boys reach the dock
They gently mock
Lift him on their backs
Lay him on his rack
And leave beneath the light
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor

And the ship sets the sail
They've lived the tale
To carry from the shore
Straining at the oars
Or staring from the rail
And the sea bids farewell
She waves in swells
And sends them on their way
Time has been her pay
And time will have to tell
Soon your sailing will be over
Come and take the pleasures of the harbor

Also See:

Afghanistan

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Should Liberal Leader Be Bilingual

A lot of flack over the Sunday Liberal Leadership debate in French. Even before the debate Liberalbloggers were asking; How important is bilingualism in a Prime Minister

In her column on the Liberal debate Chantal Hébert says; "But that also means that they are more than ever on the lookout for a leader who would hit the ground running and hold his own in French and in Quebec against Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton and Stephen Harper in a matter of months, not years.In a party that had a paucity of qualified bilingual candidates, Gerard Kennedy or Scott Brison's French might pass although Ken Dryden's would not, even in those reduced circumstances. But in a party that offers a perfectly fluent trio of top-tier candidates, aspirants whose second language turns to gibberish under pressure simply don't make the grade."

While the whole question of biligualism has been focused on the candidates ability to speak French, it should also behoove the Liberals to make sure all the candidates can speak Canada's other offical language.

If they did this guy would be disqualified.

Also See

Liberal Leadership Race

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Off To Global War We Go

The Blogging Tories and other commentators on the right claim that Harper is not a George Bush finger puppet, that Ottawa is not the White House North. Someone should tell Condi Rice that. The Harper military foreign policy has been made in the White House.

Rice said the freedom that Canadians and Americans enjoy increasingly depends on "freedom in other lands." She said the U.S. is now engage in a "great global struggle to determine what ideas will organize the 21st century." As a result, Canada's alliance with the United States must become global in scope, she said. "We are employing our alliance to serve great purposes," she said, citing the work of Canadian and American troops and officials in Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Where is our super secret Joint Task Force 2 ? Why they are still in Iraq of course.
And you didn't think Canada had troops in Iraq.

Iraq 2003-Present
It was widely speculated that JTF2 was in Iraq, working closely with fellow Special Operations Forces units the SAS and Delta Force. These speculations were confirmed Thursday March 23, 2006 by The Pentagon and the British Foreign Office when they both commented on the instrumental role JTF2 played in rescuing the British and Canadian Christian Peace Activists that were being held hostage in Iraq.

And their motto seems to fit Harpers new macho military stance....The Joint Task Force 2's motto is Facta non verba, Latin for "Deeds, not words."

CANADIAN SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES: A BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE
The security environment within which Canada must exist for the foreseeable future is characterized by global dominance exercised by the United States of America. This dominance is, however, likely to be challenged periodically by trans-national groups and non-state actors who will employ asymmetric tactics and strategies to achieve their goals and objectives – groups that will not necessarily be constrained by funding or technology, or western morals and ethical standards.

Joint Task Force (JTF) 2, a Tier 1-capable unit, acknowledged by the Chief of the Defence Staff as a counter-terrorism and special operations unit capable of deploying abroad for the conduct of special operations

Trained at the notorious School of the Americas special forces centre in the U.S.

Canadian, U.S. Soldiers commemorate Special Forces operations

Available for secret covert operations elsewhere that the Americans want us to go.

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Schools In Afghanistan

Those who support the current war in Afghanistan like to talk about reconstruction of schools and point to all the kids going to school in Afghanistan.
Along with reference to how many girls are now in school when they were not allowed to go to school under the Taliban.

'Women are treated so bad . . . I had to do something'

Moini's next project, which she'll tackle during an October trip, is addressing the shortage of female teachers in Afghanistan. At the school she established, all the girls drop out by seventh grade because most parents don't allow men to teach girls past sixth grade.

Moini discovered that one reason women don't become teachers is that there isn't enough housing for them at universities that offer teaching degrees. So now, with the help of Rotarian Stephen Brown of La Jolla, she's trying to raise $150,000 to build a women's dormitory at Nangarhar University.

They fail of course to talk about the schools that get attacked and burnt out in the North of the country, not Taliban country but Northern Alliance and Warlord controled provinces. The guys that are in the Karzai government as MP's and his Cabinet.

Human Rights Watch recorded at least 204 reported physical attacks or attempted attacks (such as bombs planted but found before they exploded) on school buildings from 1 January 2005 to 21 June 2006. That's a lot of scared children. Many are now too terrified to go to other schools. Dr Najia Hashimzada works in Balkh, in the north, where three female aid workers were killed recently and five schools have been set alight this year. She travels in unmarked cars, wearing a head-to-toe burqa while visiting the villages where she works. "Some schools have been closed and some have moved into people's homes," she says. Many children are not turning up because they may be attacked on the way.

Now we learn this;

Save the Children: 43 million kids in war zones have no access to education Afghanistan, most qualified teachers fled the conflict. Now fewer than 15% of teachers hold professional qualifications.
Save the Children has identified a ‘blind-spot’ among international donors who are reluctant to commit funds for education in conflict-affected countries. The report finds that children living in these countries receive the least amount of aid for education because donors find it too difficult to deliver aid to them.
International donors see conflict-affected countries, where education is vital in breaking the lethal cycle of poverty, destruction and conflict, as not having adequate systems in place to ensure aid reaches the children who need it. Little has been done to rectify the situation. Instead donors have chosen to ignore the problem, leaving millions of children without an education for years.

Furthermore the much vaunted Reconstruction effort that this war was and is supposed to be about turns out to be another myth.

The View From Kabul

To win the war against terrorism, U.S. forces need to provide security to the Afghans and to aid agencies to rebuild the country. Instead, the U.S. military presence has been too small and too fixated on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. For the first three years after the 2001 war, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, never much interested in Afghanistan, didn't allow European peacekeeping troops to spread out to other cities.
Western forces under NATO command are only now - five years too late - being deployed to the Taliban heartland in the south. Since their defeat in 2001 the Taliban have been free to reorganize, fill the political and military vacuum and slowly work on people's frustration with the lack of reconstruction.
The international community's most critical mistake has been the failure to rebuild the country's destroyed infrastructure fast enough. Roads, power, housing and water were the essentials. Instead, five years on, only one section of the all-important ring road around the country has been rebuilt.
According to the U.N. Development Program, only 23 percent of Afghans have access to clean drinking water. Major canal systems and dams built in the 1960s for irrigation still await repair. The shortage of water systems and the total absence of investment in agriculture has led to an explosion of poppy production - which requires little water. Afghanistan is the world's largest supplier of heroin, a derivative from the poppy seed.
Only 10 percent of Afghans receive regular electricity. One-third of Kabul's 3 million residents receive power - and only for a few hours, every third night.
The shortage is getting worse. The government bought huge diesel generators to fill the power gap in Kabul and received a $70 million subsidy from the U.S. Agency for International Development to buy fuel. Without explanation, USAID has cut that subsidy to $20 million. The result is that this winter will be even harder without heat or light. And reconstruction without electricity is impossible.
Karzai and his cabinet of ministers have provided minimal leadership and vision. Many of them have been caught in a web of infighting, corruption and drug trafficking. A frustrated Karzai has reverted to traditional Afghan methods of governance, bringing back the warlords and their militias and revoking the modernization agenda set out after 2001.

Also See:

Afghanistan

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You're Kidding Right?

James Bowie master of the ironic must be kidding, right? Check out what he says about this video...

This is the highest quality multimedia stuff we've seen from any candidate in the race so far. Vince's campaign has been a leader in innovation and in use of the Internet. The other candidates are struggling to keep up with the Internet Generation. This just goes to show that Vince is the guy to lead Thunder Bay in the 21'st century. It's about progress.I was honoured to attend Vince's campaign launch last night. I'll let the video speak for itself about this fantastic event. No nee to take my word for it. Anyone who didn't take Vince seriously before now should

The video is a bomb. The opening is a miscellanous crowd scene like a badly done amatuer YouTube wedding. And then there is a still photo of the candidate, more bad wedding crowd scene, image messaging....but there is NO VOICE OVER....opps. "Highest quality multimedia stuff" ironic right.

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Peter and Condi Date

Isn't that sweet Peter took his girl to Timmies.

In Photos: Condi's Canadian adventure

This is Condoleezza Rice's second day in the Maritimes. That means it's time for Peter MacKay to introduce her to the most Canadian of rites - getting a morning coffee at Tim's. Without benefit of a tape recording, we can only imagine what was said:

"Timbits? That's sort of hard to explain. Just stick with the coffee."

ANDREW VAUGHAN/CP

Also See

Peter McKay

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Was It Kinsella Or Cherniak

It seems that the slimy blog slanders of Jason Cherniak and other desperate Liberalbloggers against Parkdale-High Park NDP Candidate Cheri DiNovo have made it into official Liberal Party of Ontario press releases.

Coincide? I think not.

Mud flies in west-end by-election

Sylvia Watson, the Toronto city councillor running for the Liberals, issued a news release questioning the values of Ms. DiNovo, a minister and community activist. The release, under the headline "NDP by-election candidate compares the media's treatment of Karla Homolka to the persecution of Jesus Christ," quoted portions of one of Ms. DiNovo's sermons out of context and described the remarks as "previously hidden." During a campaign stop in the riding yesterday, Premier Dalton McGuinty refused to answer questions from reporters about what critics were quick to describe as a smear campaign. The release had been handed out to the news media by a member of his staff earlier in the day.

Liberal ministers called in to battle High Park minister

Amid NDP and Progressive Conservative charges of mud-slinging, McGuinty defended the tactics."Look, it's a tough by-election for us," the premier told reporters at an event held at the High Park home of prominent Liberal strategist Peter Donolo. "We're going to fight as hard as we can."

Warren Kinsella who also spread these slanders on his blog, is an advisor to McGuinty.

Peter Donolo is a staff member of the polling company Strategic Council, who is used by Liberal dominated Globe and Mail/CTV/Bell media.

So who was the staffer that wrote press release made up of quotes from Cherniaks blog? Was it Cherniak himself? Perhaps wordsmith Kinsella?

And is this the reason the Liberals are so desperate?

Inquiring minds want to know.

A tip o' the blog to The Progressive Right for this.

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NDP Convention Report

Fellow Redmontonian Ideal Pragmatist has a long, though not longwinded, and detailed report on this weekends NDP convention , complete with great photos. Congrats to her on a job well done.

Too bad this kind of reporting had not gone on during the convention.
Ah well next time.

Also See:

NDP

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Headline Boo Boo

War is on till terror exists: Bush

I think they meant to spell Exits. Though then the question is exits to where. And people complain about my spelling, sheesh. This is from CNN/IBN. Though you know I almost believed it, cause it is something Bush might say. Like he said nu-clear.

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Afghanistan How Our Mission Changed

Those who say our current military mission in Afghanistan is the same 'old misson' prior to December 2005 are guilty of using misdirection to put it politely. Otherwise given their deliberate obfustication of the issue we can consider them liars.

NATO made request for Afghanistan reserve force 18 months ago, general says
According to Richards, NATO staff asked for a reserve force of 1,000 soldiers more than a year ago. "That reserve ... is nothing more than nations knew was the military advice that was required for 18 months now, endorsed by the NATO chain of command," Richards told the newspaper" That requirement has never been met by nations. The bit it lacked was a hard-hitting reserve of about 1,000 people that I can use wherever I need to use it throughout Afghanistan, although obviously its focus would be the south."

As I wrote here the NATO reinforcement needs were known to the Canadian government prior to and after last years election. The fact is that in February under the Harper government our mission changed from security operations in Kabul to war making in the Pashtun dominated south.

PRTs are not peacekeeping missions: they exist to extend central government influence throughout a nearly post - apocalyptic feudal land. The goal is to combat insurgency using a variety of lethal and non-lethal tools.

Our mission in Afghanistan had "Officially" ended in December of 2005. In February using parliamentary perogative, the Harper government committed our armed forces to a NEW mission. A NEW mission folks. Not a mere continuation of our previous mission.

Operation Athena

In August 2003, Operation Athena began in Kabul as part of ISAF, with a 1,900-strong Canadian task force providing assistance to civilian infrastructure such as well-digging and repair of local buildings.

In March 2004, Canada committed $250 million in aid to Afghanistan, and $5 million to support the 2004 Afghan election.^[2]

On February 13, 2005 Defence Minister Bill Graham announced Canada was doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan by the coming summer, from 600 troops in Kabul to 1200.^[3]

Operation Athena ended following the national elections in December 2005 and the fulfilment of the stated aim of "rebuilding the democratic process" in Afghanistan.

Renewed Commitments - Operation Archer

Operation Archer followed Athena beginning in February 2006. By the spring of 2006, Canada had a major role in southern Afghanistan, with Task Force Afghanistan being a Battle Group of 2,300 soldiers based at Kandahar. Canada also commanded the Multi National Brigade for Command South, a main military force in the region. In May 2006, the Canadian government extended Canadian military commitments to Afghanistan by two years, replacing earlier plans to withdraw soldiers in 2006.

We were considered part of the Americans Operation Enduring Freedom in transition to NATO's take over. When NATO took over OEF in August our troops were part of the ISAF.

But since no other NATO nation is committing troops, our open ended commitment to provide military support till 2009, made by the Harper government, means we will take up the slack. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

NATO countries offer just 20 reinforcements Afghanistan: report

Citing unnamed sources within NATO and in Kabul, the The Times reported that so far only the tiny Baltic state of Latvia has committed 20 more troops.

Major NATO members Turkey, Germany, Spain and Italy have all basically ruled out volunteering troops and France is unlikely to make any contributions, especially given its large role in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

"No one has come forward" with contributions for the NATO force, which took over from the US-led coalition in southern Afghanistan on July 31, the newspaper quoted a NATO source as saying.

Also See:

Afghanistan

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