John Gibson of FOX Calls Canada Dumb.
Quissling Canadian Ezra Levant Agrees.
Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber Defend the Defenseless
Ezra Levant Watch blog reports:
"Poor Ezra Levant has been driven completely mad by Canada's decision not to sign onto the US missile defense program. Ezra begins robustly and rambunctiously enough; that by not signing up to a missile defense program that doesn't work when Canada has other defense priorities more current than 1964, Canada is reducing its standing in the world, and will end up like once-mighty Belgium. (Belgium again.)"
Oh Ezra you cut me to the quick , nope sorry that was a paper cut.
Our very own right wing quisling Ezra (ranter) Levant is rushing about all verklempt about the failure of Canadians to be, wait, for it, DUMB.
Nope we did not sign on to the Americans Missile Defense system, Star Wars Jr. it’s just another American billion dollar scam to keep the Military Industrial Complex in cash. (1)
Despite unifying the Reform/Alliance Party with the Progressive Conservatives Ezra’s brand of Canadian Republican Lite tossed the baby out with the bath water. The Progressives left a sinking ship and the right got what it wanted, a tired old Tory party no different from your daddy's Tory party. And during the election they looked, well like a bunch of Tories, talk from the right run from the centre.
And the winners in the election were Canadians who got a Minority Government of Liberals who moved left to match the NDP and BQ. Three left parties got the majority of seats in the house. The left opposition in the House of Commons is as strong as Her Majesty's Official Opposition. And so Canadians won.
Stephen Harper and his Tories had to call for tax cuts for ordinary Canadians and not just his corporate pals, call for rollbacks in EI for "workers" as well as employers. Yep he choked on those words but he had to say it, the Left rules.
When faced with an ill timed announcement that we are part of the US missle defense plan the PM finally made a decision, to NOT join Star Wars Jr. No more Mr. Dithers.
And Harper and pals had already flipped flopped on Missile Defense back in September. They dropped missile defense like a hot potato, despite being her majesties loyal opposition, because, wait for it, it didn't seem to work.
Yep two Missile tests, two failures, ah American Technology, no wait they probably outsourced the work, quick alert Lou Dobbs!!!
Only an ideological anachronism like Ezra doesn't get it because the facts don't fit his dogma.
John Gibson at Fox Bashes Canada
When it comes to not supporting Star Wars Jr., he claims we are DUMB. We are dumb to expect the Americans not to be upset because we rejected their offer of a free fully paid for missle defense system whether we wanted it or not. We are dumb for expecting Condeleza Rice to do her job and not be petulant because we don't support Star Wars Jr.
Well those who support Americas FAILED missile defense system are dumber. Dumb American Right Winger, Dumb, Dumb and Dumber, there, I got that off my chest.
John how quickly you forget, that the Axis of Evil you refer to was concocted by CANADIAN David Frum, speech writer for George Jr. Of course you don't forget that fact you just chose to ignore it, like you do with the fact your missle system is a failure. F A I L U R E.
David Frum like Ezra is another Right thinking Canadian and the rest of us are flaming socialists, which is why he ran away from home to be with you.
When it comes to Star Wars Jr., maybe you should have hired Industrial Light and Magic instead of the Pentagon Contractors Association. Hey John can you say DUD. That's what the American Missile Defense system is. Pentagon experts, being boys with toys figure its all about missiles.It was a Republican Presidential Candidate that informed us that America suffered from ED. Now the Pentagon is proving it with its Missile system that is a DUD!
What’cha gonna do John declare a boycott of Canadian Beers, opps sorry we own Coors now. Stop investing in Canadian money markets, nope not at 25 cents on the dollar. The majority of your merchant banks have been sold to Canadian banks. And you already closed the market to our beef, and use illegal taxation on our softwood lumber and steel exports.
Taxation, damn it man, taxation the very cause that created FOX News and the Regan Republicans was tax cuts, damn it man at least be consistent. What hypocrites you talk free trade, talk tax cuts, and what do you do violate the WTO rules every chance you get. You don’t walk that talk.
Taxing softwood lumber is an attack on Canada, tax steel, again illegal, and you attack us, Japan and Europe. Free Trade indeed. And you call us friends and neighbours, sorry neighbors, boy I'd hate to see how you treat your enemies, nope seen that too. Those you don't invade you cuddle. Keep your enemies closer I guess is part of that my enemies enemy foreign policy.
In North America of the three Amigos, Canada is the largest economic engine of trade for US markets. But we are off your radar map. And speaking of radar maps while centralizing all NORAD command under US control, was an arbitrary decision so of course you should pay for it, in more ways than one.
And speaking of NORAD it sort of fell down on the job during 9/11. So NORAD failed, your missile defense system failed, your intelligence agencies failed, twice; before 9/11 and in the build up to the Iraq war. Aren’t you the country with the “Three Strikes” laws?
No John we don’t tremble in fear of North Korea launching missiles at North America, because that’s not what its really about. The reality is that Star Wars Jr. is being set up to defend the US from China. Preparation is being made for when the economic battles and international competition for Imperialist Power end up not as a battle for consumers, but an actual war.
But wait the Republican Right Wing loves China; it’s the new capitalist marketplace. It seems that we all forget that during the Cold War there were 3 super powers. Three, trey, troy, three, and one of them was China. Still is, just quiet about it. She made her peace with Nixon, Nixon of all people. But that put the Republican Right between a rock and a hard place as allies of China against Russia.
The enemy of my enemy, very simple politics you Americans have. I blame it all on football; it’s where Americans get their Leaders and their Military strategy from. Which is why the U.S. supports Pakistan, Russia supported India, and China played them both off, still does, clever. And they still have Tibet. Tibet which was taken over by China the same time as Eastern Europe fell to Stalin. The Chinese play chess, so do the Russians, Americans just point their heads in one direction and charge.
Nope its good old competition in the market place, capitalism is war by other means. This may be a safer conflict for Canadians, then waiting for an American dud missile to drop on us. It’s a calculated risk, but Canadians are known as risk takers, especially if our neighbor is so dumb as to risk all our security with its warmongering and jingoism. Not much we can do about it, just politely smile nod our heads in that knowing way, and move to the other side of the room.
Recently China released an internal Chinese Military Assessment from its Chiefs of Staff written in 1999. The document was ‘leaked’ onto the Internet; nothing gets leaked from China unless the Party wants it leaked, as part of this new shadow war.
It’s about how to destabilize the USA. Not one word about tanks or missiles, it was about using the market to buy up shares, outstanding federal bills of credit, American dollars. Buyout American corporations, get more offshore work, and sell more goods to Wal-Mart. It was a plan to dominate the market. If the 20th Century was Americas, the 21st Century is China's.
China knows that you are a weak Empire, and as she purchases more market share here, it will not be for America's use but for her use. She is creating the Fordist manufacturing culture of prosperity that was once the domain of the USA, Europe, Japan and Korea. What kicked started these post war economies is kick starting China. If China once was a sleeping giant, she has woken up and is on her way to becoming the new capitalist behemoth.
Historically all trade and expansion of the last 500 years was westward, and once you get to the California Coast, it’s off we go westward to China to fulfill Columbus’s dream. So will America’s new cold war be with China? Your fetish for missile defense points in that direction.
Now that’s really DUMB.
Footnotes:
(1) It was a Republican President; Dwight D. Eisenhower who coined the term, Military Industrial Complex, fifty years ago when he warned they were dominating America’s economic, military, judicial and political elites. He was right America has a new ruling class.
5 comments:
Missile Counter-Attack by Lloyd Axworthy
Axworthy fires back at U.S. -- and Canadian -- critics of our BMD decision in An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Dear Condi,
I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbor. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defense system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defense.
Sure, that doesn't match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.
Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government's role should be when there isn't a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.
Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such a missile defense can be made openly.
You might also notice that it's a system in which the governing party's caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.
Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defense in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.
Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.
If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don't embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.
Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the "northern territories," Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn't really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.
Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of 'experts' from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).
I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti-Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.
These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.
To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.
To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.
And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.
On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the 'Responsibility to Protect' while you're in Ottawa. It's a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defense ever will.
This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means.
There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world's largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.
Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree -- and agree to respect each other's views when we disagree.
Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defense decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.
In friendship,
Lloyd Axworthy
Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister.
© 2005 Winnipeg Free Press
Published on Friday, March 4, 2005 by the Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)
On missile defence, Martin was right
Warren Kinsella
National Post
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Incoming! Duck! Forget the Ballistic Missile Defence program: What Canadians need is an Anti-Media Bias Defence program.
Here's what was fired at us in Wednesday's National Post : no less than seven comment pieces attacking Prime Minister Paul Martin for his decision to refuse to participate in the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) program; two torqued front page stories assailing Mr. Martin, plus two more inside the paper needling the Liberal leader; four critical letters to the editor; and -- in case anyone missed the point -- two anti-Martin editorial cartoons. That's a media-style Scud missile attack, folks.
Now, we all know the Post is a conservative newspaper and a big fan of George W. Bush. But, honestly: Would it have been so very difficult to provide readers with the arguments for why Mr. Martin's decision on BMD was correct and principled?
As a Liberal party convention delegate, in no way part of Mr. Martin's circle, I offer five reasons why Paul Martin was correct to say no to the missile shield. Consider it a public service.
- BMD doesn't work. About two weeks ago, yet another test of the BMD system failed when an interceptor rocket failed to launch from its base on Kwajalein Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was the second such recent failure, with a December test also spectacularly flopping. Many experts say BMD will never work, and that other flaws are being covered up.
Why, then, is the Bush administration so eager to see Canada endorse the Edsel of military mega-projects? Why can't the Yanks talk to us about it when, um, they actually get the thing to work?
- BMD pits us against the world. It's fine for George W. Bush to flaunt world opinion -- he's built a flourishing political career doing so. And, besides, Dubya leads a superpower. But a superpower Canada is not -- and our national tradition is charting an independent course, not merely providing a Manifest Destiny echo. A recent poll conducted for The Associated Press found a majority of Europeans -- about four out of five respondents in places like Germany and Britain -- were upset about the Bush Administration's pugilistic foreign policy. Paul Martin is right to pay heed to that.
- BMD is really unpopular in Canada. A poll involving more than 3,000 Canadians late last year, conducted by the Centre for Research and Information on Canada, found a majority of voters opposed BMD. (In Quebec, the number jumped to almost 70%.) It would be politically foolhardy -- and a likely boost to separatism, as well -- for Mr. Martin to dismiss such an overwhelming rejection of BMD in his home province.
- BMD has no champion in Canada -- apart from the National Post, that is. Members of every political party represented in the House of Commons are opposed to, or uncomfortable with, missile defence. Even Conservative leader Stephen Harper -- who some had assumed would reflexively embrace the program -- refused to be cowed by a closed-door lecture from no less than George W. Bush last November. Mr. Harper more recently re-iterated his party's position, which is that the United States must spell out what is expected of us, and that the issue should be debated on the floor of the House of Commons.
- It kick-starts a new arms race. Russia fears BMD. It believes missile defence will dramatically alter the current nuclear balance. That's why Russia (and Canada) wanted the United States to stick with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. BMD forces other nations to build more offensive missiles if they wish to retain a credible nuclear deterrent: a new arms race.
To recap: BMD doesn't work. It would isolate Canada globally. Canadians are against it. World opinion is against it. It would fail if brought to a vote in Parliament. And -- most of all -- BMD makes the world less safe, not more. Prime Minister Martin -- in the hearts and minds of most Canadians, and in the eyes of the world -- made the right decision. And he deserves credit for doing so.
What he, and we loyal Post readers, don't deserve, however, is the journalistic equivalent of an all-out bias barrage from the newspaper's editorial silos.
Warren Kinsella is a former Liberal party advisor.
© National Post 2005
Daily Kos blog says:
Paul Celluci wont shut up about Canada and BMD.Sun Mar 6th, 2005 at 11:44:02 PST
Cellucci accuses Martin of flip-flopping on missile defence
Bush administration said PM backed away from a longstanding commitment
Sunday, March 6, 2005 Updated at 1:32 PM EST
Globe and Mail Update
Ottawa — The Bush administration said Prime Minister Paul Martin backed away from a longstanding commitment to participate in the U.S. missile defence program.
U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci said Mr. Martin had been sending strong signals for some time that Canada would take part in the scheme to protect North America from incoming missiles.
"We were given that impression in a very direct way for a long time," Mr. Cellucci said Sunday on CTV's Question Period.
Mr. Cellucci's comments were aired one day after U.S. President George W. Bush told Mr. Martin in a telephone conversation that any controversy over Canada's decision not to participate in missile defence was behind them.
Mr. Martin responded Sunday by denying that Canada was ever onboard the BMD project.
The Prime Minister announced 10 days ago that Canada was staying out of the project after months of tortured reflection.
He suggested Sunday that Canada didn't join because it never got answers about what its participation would entail over the coming years.
"The missile shield is a project in evolution," Mr. Martin said in French at a news conference wrapping up the Liberal convention.
"It will continue evolving. And we don't know what the demands will be, for a project that is evolving because it will change."
"And we know well that when you participate in something, the demands can come. There's no one who can explain or quantify them today
No' on missile defence temporary, U.S. CEO says
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