Sunday, February 18, 2007

Heil Hillier, Maintiens le droit


Military chief called period of Liberal governments a 'decade of darkness'; Liberal says Gen. Rick Hillier a `prop' for Tories

Gee I said that: Joined At The Hip

The first two people Harper met with after the election were RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli and General Hillier.

Scary that.

Consider the political role the RCMP had in the defeat of the Liberals. Releasing a press release during the campaign that said they were investigating the Liberals over alleged Income Trust leaks. Which was revealed this week, over a year later, with a inconsequential bust of a bureaucrat who profited from the Income Trust announcement but not a leak or any evidence of any kind of leak.RCMP income trust probe goes bust

Pure politics by
Zaccardelli, which won him government support during the Arar affair, until he shot himself in the foot which he had already placed in his mouth.

Of course the RCMP has always been political.

They are Paramilitary Force created by the State to defend the State. That they would support a self declared Law and Order government is the essence of their slogan;
Maintiens le droit.

Which my history Prof Jim Penton reminded his class meant Maintain the Right. As in the Kings Right, droit, or law, which the RCMP themselves translate as the harmless; Defending the Law. But as our Governor General Michelle Jean translated more accurately, and in the context of the Harpocrites a starkly insidious; “Upholding the Right,”

Another voice of men with guns and right wing political views was former General Lewis Mackenzie who is now an outspoken Conservative. But at least he waited till he retired to declare his allegiances to the right. Until Prime Minister Harper’s election and the brave new direction he set for Canada’s foreign and military policies, Gen. MacKenzie’s was almost a voice in the wilderness in this land.

General Hillier on the other hand is an outspoken supporter of War and of the Harper Government, because they do his bidding. Going to war in the South of Afghanistan was the first act of the New Harper Government, prior to that we had been doing peacekeeping in Kabul.

Hillier's Pro War ideology and Harpers correspond in wanting to recreate Canada's Armed Forces. By transforming them from their traditional Liberal role as Peace Keepers back into a traditional conservative Fighting Force. He began the change under the Liberals who appointed him but has mobilized his mouth in favour of Harper and War at any cost. Harpers War was originally posed to Canadians as an extension of Liberals Peace Keeping operations in Kabul. But all that changed when we joined the Americans in Kandahar.

Now we have a new Fighting Armed Forces. Complete with new recruitment ads. Gone was the tradesman/woman of the No Life Like It era, appealing to the Maritimers, the vast majority of our nations Armed Forces. Now it is a stark black and white world in the ads that show the viewer that we are fighting back.

Not only has Hillier been outspoken in public about the need to make war;
the blunt-speaking Gen. Hillier has denigrated those fighting against Canadian troops in Afghanistan as "detestable murderers and scumbags." An over the top appeal to conservative law and order types. But our Armed Forces now find themselves in a situation where they face charges of attacking innocent villagers and abusing prisoners.

And Hillier has mobilized his troops to take to Canada's streets to support the war in Afghanistan.

The Red Friday Rallies began in Ottawa with Harper addressing the partisan crowd of spouses of our soldiers, Hillier was there, and the Conservatives allowed public servants time off to join the noon hour rally.

Since then Red Fridays across Canada have been small affairs notably made up of the RCMP and the Army and its conservative supporters. While ostensibly billed as supporting our troops it really is a rally to support Hillier and Harpers War.


And we remember the last time we had mass rallies of armed forces.

Men with guns being political. Scary.


SEE

Hillier

Afghanistan

RCMP

Autocrat



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2 comments:

  1. The first two people Harper met with after the election were RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli and General Hillier.

    I know you would have preferred that PM Harper first would have had lengthy conferences with Sharon Baxter and Steven Vikash Chand, but I guess he decided that possibly meeting with the men in charge of two of the federal government's most powerful organizations would take slight precident.

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  2. Ah Eugene,

    One thing I always enjoy about yr rants is your creative use of illustration. The picture of "the last time we saw mass rallies of armed forces" is--of course--not an armed force at all.

    It is a picture (autographed no less!) of of Oswald Mosley, a man after your own heart. Mosley--as I'm sure you know--was a former Labour MP in Britain (roughly equivalent to your beloved NDP). He quit because he felt the party wasn't radical enough, and formed his New Party, which of course became the Fascist "Black Shirts".

    I'm not half so worried about a bunch of CF members and their families showing support for Canadian soldiers as I am about a bunch of thuggish radical socialists parading through the street with black shirts.

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