Smoke And Mirrors

The way the Canadian media is playing up the NATO story one would think that Harper, O'Connor and MacKay had actually gotten some kind of commitment from the organization to help out in Kandahar. The truth is of course they didn't get anything of the kind. As the Financial Times reports;Nato officials said that five to eight of the 50 specific restrictions on national troops had been eliminated, making it easier to move soldiers and equipment across different sectors in Afghanistan.

Five to eight of fifty, that still leaves 45 to 42 conditions that can be applied by NATO members NOT to help out. Not much of a commitment. And just to make that point....José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, and Romano Prodi, his Italian counterpart, insisted that their countries retained the right to decide when troops should be deployed. Mr Prodi said the position of Italy, France, Germany and Spain, none of which station or intend to deploy troops in the turbulent south of Afghanistan, was the same. At a separate press conference, President Jac­ques Chirac said France could consider sending its troops outside Kabul case by case.

And all those extra troops that NATO committed,making Harper happy, well like the Polish troops, its old news, they were already committed to Afghanistan before this meeting.A UK official also emphasised that Bulgaria, Spain and Macedonia were sending reinforcements to the Afgh­an­istan mission. But Nato diplomats acknowledged that the contributions were relatively small and had been decided beforehand.

And don't count on Germany as Der Spiegel reports;

This account of the meeting is surprising, at least at first sight. For weeks, a number of NATO partners -- led by the US, Great Britain, Canada and Denmark -- have conducted a genuine anti-German campaign. Germany has been repeatedly criticized for stationing its troops in the country's north, where they are accused of enjoying a kind of extended vacation, while others are risking their lives in the military skirmishes of the south. But Angela Merkel stood firm in the face of calls for sending German troops to the south. She refered again and again to the good work Germans are doing in the north.

Merkel's position didn't change fundamentally during the NATO summit in Riga. She was the third speaker at the dinner, after British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper. Merkel made it more than clear "that we are well positioned with our mandate and that there is no reason to change that mandate," according to government sources. Merkel had already told NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer that Germany will not send additional troops to Afghanistan.

So Canadian troops are stuck on the frontlines again, taking the most casualities,not because NATO asked them but because Macho Harper and Macho Hillier wanted to play soldier.

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Pakistan Speaks For the Taliban

On Wednesday night, however, a senior Pakistani official insisted that Nato needed to reach an accommodation with the insurgency. “Instead of fighting Taliban militants, foreign troops should reconcile themselves to this reality,” he said. “If the western world makes the mistake of prolonging this war, we would only see a never-ending conflict”. Nato discord mars Afghan headway

Pakistan is once again defending its allies the Taliban. In order to maintain power in oil rich Balochistan (sometimes called Baluchistan) the province which has been fighting for autonomy, the Musharraf regime assassinated the leading spokesman for Baluchistan Autonomy this summer. Along with Pakistani regular army troops occupying the region Pakistan also has used its Secret Service, the notorious pro-Islamist ISI to negotiate a deal with the Taliban in the region to act as shock troops against the Balochistan peoples. It is this province that borders Afghanistan and the Pashtun region of Kandahar.

President Pervez Musharraf and the military are responsible for the worsening of the conflict in Balochistan. Tensions between the government and its Baloch opposition have grown because of Islamabad’s heavy-handed armed response to Baloch militancy and its refusal to negotiate demands for political and economic autonomy. The killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August 2006 sparked riots and will likely lead to more confrontation. The conflict could escalate if the government insists on seeking a military solution to what is a political problem and the international community, especially the U.S., fails to recognise the price that is involved for security in neighbouring Afghanistan.International Crisis Group - Pakistan: the Worsening Conflict in Balochistan

While the Canadian government attempts to negotiate with Pakistan and share joint operations information to protect our troops from Taliban attacks from Pakistan, a better approach would be to support the Balochistan autonomy movement, demanding that the region be recognized for what it is a Nation. After all they did it for Quebec.

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Afghanistan






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Alberta Business Back PC Candidates

Two interesting Edmonton Journal articles on which Alberta companies back PC leadership candidates. Dinning of course has the backing of the majority of big corporations in the province. But Mark Norris, had the backing of his bosses and their corporation, The Edmoton Oilers.

One of the articles is by the Journals Business reporter the other by the Journals Sports reporter. Not the usual political reporting. But then again in Alberta politics is both, big business and a professional sport.

No secret who backs Dinning business

As detailed in a 2005 Journal profile, Dinning's corporate ties are far broader than those of any other candidate.

Besides a lengthy stint as a senior exec at TransAlta, the widely perceived front-runner served on the boards of Shaw Communications, Finning International, Parkland Income Fund and Western Financial, among many others.

What's more, as chairman of the Canadian Clean Power Coalition, Dinning rubbed elbows with the brass at Atco, Epcor, Luscar and TransAlta.

His backers include such powerful execs as Finning CEO Doug Whitehead, Shaw founder J.R. Shaw, TransAlta boss Steve Snyder, PCL boss Ross Grieve, Stantec CEO Tony Franceschini, and Parkland founder Jack Donald.

Not only did The Globe and Mail -- the preferred daily read of the nation's corporate elite -- endorse Dinning in a recent editorial, its Calgary-based business columnist, Deborah Yedlin, also gave the ex-Alberta treasurer two thumbs up.

While Edmonton's Mark Norris, Alberta's former economic development minister, also boasts some key corporate backers -- including Calgary tycoon Murray Edwards -- the buzz on the street indicates that most of the big-money crowd backs Dinning.

In fact, only one company -- Agrium -- offered any specifics, noting that its chairman, longtime Dinning acquaintance Frank Proto, has contributed $250 to the candidate's campaign.

Two firms -- Telus and EnCana -- said they coughed up $5,000 apiece for each of the eight candidates. Meanwhile, 14 other firms, including Imperial Oil, Agrium, Epcor, Syncrude and ATB Financial, said their own in-house policies forbid any financial contributions to individual politicians.

Only three firms -- WestJet, Agrium and PCL -- specifically confirmed who their CEOs are personally supporting (Dinning, in each case). But it's well-known that other senior execs whose firms were polled are also in the Dinning camp.

Mark Norris and the Edmonton Oilers

The chair of the Oilers ownership group, Cal Nichols, was also the driving force behind GLG Consulting Ltd. Formed in Dec., 2004, it was a unique corporate mechanism that essentially morphed into the financial backing and campaign team for Mark Norris, who went down in flames as a first ballot also-ran Saturday. GLG employed Norris, a former MLA who lost his seat in the 2004 election, as its president at $10,000 per month until last May when he resigned. GLG's 130-odd shareholders included Nichols and at least nine other members of the Oilers ownership group, as well as Edmonton Rush lacrosse team owners Craig Anstead and Bruce Urban.

On Saturday, Nichols had a team of about 20 people manning the phones at his west-end Gasland offices, urging people to brave the chill and vote for Norris. But he was a distant sixth, well behind Calgarians Jim Dinning and Ted Morton and Edmonton-area MLA Ed Stelmach, who will duke it out on a second ballot next weekend.

So the line between Norris and Oilers owners like Nichols, Ron Hodgson, Gary Gregg and Ed Bean is indeed a straight one.

And if a sports fan wants to discern the value of friends in high places, he need only ask the Eskimos, who have always enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Conservative party, owing to the fact former premiers Peter Lougheed and Don Getty are Eskimo alumni. So too is current lieutenant-governor Norman Kwong.

Do you think it's a coincidence that Eskimos CEO Rick LeLacheur mused aloud about new seats for Commonwealth Stadium mere weeks before the provincial government announced a commitment of $9.5 million to do the job? Me neither. The Eskimos are connected the way the Oilers can only dream about.

But in their quest to increase Edmonton's political voice in the provincial arena, Nichols and the rest of GLG's shareholders simply backed the wrong horse.

Yep I said that too.

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Conservative Leadership Race

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Ted Morton Calgary Seperatist

Not satisfied with promoting Alberta Seperatism with his Firewall Alberta letter, PC leadership candidate, the Reform Republican, Ted Morton is now embracing the politics of two solitudes. If elected Alberta will have two capitals. One in Calgary and one in Edmonton.

"The future of Alberta in the coming decades is northern Alberta and Edmonton is the capital of northern Alberta,"
Morton told reporters yesterday at his Kingsway Avenue campaign office.

After all as wise Ted knows Redmonton is different from Houston North as night and day. And the logical conclusion of his seperatist politics is not only Firewall Alberta but Firewall Calgary.

Or as cheeky Edmonton Journal city hall columnist Scott McKeen opines;

Edmonton's to-do list, if Ted Morton becomes Alberta's next premier and the rebel south storms the legislature.

- Establish firewall around Edmonton. Like, a real firewall. Circle the barbecues, people.

- Ask Ottawa to declare Edmonton a nation, too

If all else fails: Run for your lives.

Or we could just try to relax. Because no matter what you hear this week, Ted Morton is not the devil. He is not Dick Cheney's evil twin. His election, if it happens, won't signal the coming of the apocalypse.

A Morton victory will, however, be a kind of prophecy realized.

The Klein Tories always had a southern, country bias. Morton's election will only clarify the Tory party's neocon, rural bent.

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Ted Morton

Alberta Seperatism

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NDP Gain On Liberals

In the Quebec byelection. While it was a given the BQ would hold onto the riding, what is interesting is that the Liberals fell behind the NDP in votes.

As James Bow points out;Liberal support dropped from 8.65% to 5.6%, putting them behind the NDP, whose support dropped more marginally from 7.74% to 7%.

The NDP are making gains in Quebec, slow and sure and the motion that passed this week had been reaffirmed at the NDP convention in the fall. So now Quebec has a federalist social democratic option to the BQ.

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Same Sex Marriage and Violence Against Women

December 6 is the day that will live in infamy in Canada the day that Mark Lepine hunted down and killed 14 women engineering students at L'Ecole polytechnique in Montreal.

It is a day that the Harpocrite government should have brought forward their plans to get rid of the gun registry which was created because of this incident. It is a day that men and women across Canada pledge to end violence against women.

So instead of honouring this day, because of course it would embarass them over their plans to neuter the gun registry, they bring forward their controversial motion to end Same Sex Marriage. A cheap attempt to sideline the issue of the day. Double the infamy. We should be outraged, the Tories have NO Shame.

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Still Quiet

Not a peep. Not a word. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

The Blogging Tories still have nothing to say about Conservative Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Michael Chong's resignation over the Quebecois Nation motion.

That's two days in a row. The silence is deafening.

Why so quiet guys. Why no support for Chongs decision to stand up for Canada. What no nasty denunciations of the guy for standing up to Harper. Why no comment on how he was sidelined in this whole debate by the PM?

No comment on how Harper promised free votes on all issues except money bills, and then applied a three line whip on this motion.

No comment period. How unlike you. A wee bit embarassed are we. You should be.

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Timmies Takes Bite Out of Taxpayers

Tim Hortons for troops less pricey than reported Sure it was first reported that you and me, the Canadian taxpayer were in hock to Timmies for a cool $4 million for setting up their franchise in Kandahar for our troops.

Now the good news. We are only paying $1.4 million for this P3.

And while we pay $80,000 a month for the Timmies operation, the gross profit for the Tim Hortons is five-thousand dollars a day.

But they did wave the franchise fee of $450,000. Gosh thats like well one third of what it's costing you an me to set up the franchise. And the fee waiver will probably be a tax write off. Mighty generous of them considering they are pulling in $150,000 a month. Can you say war profiteering.

You don't have to rrrrrroll up the rim to figure out whose the winner here.

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Bolivarian Democracy

Venezuela’s Secret Grassroots Democracy

With all international eyes on the December 3rd Venezuelan presidential elections, a totally new and revolutionary experience of Venezuelan grassroots democracy has completely slipped below international radar.

These new communal councils were being called a new form of grassroots local government, in which the residents of the local community would have the ultimate decision-making power in their neighborhood. It was said that these councils would even receive funds from the government to carry out community and public works projects that previously could only be acquired through a long and protracted struggle with the local mayor’s office.

It is not Hugo Chavez that is impacting Latin America as much as it is the Bolivarian Revolution from below. The development of constiuent assemblies of the people, a form of counter power to the bourgeois state. It is occuring in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and even Mexico. Old style 18th Century parliamentary democracy is being challenged by direct assemblies of the people. It began with the Workers Party in Brazil under Lulu when provinces controled by the WP held mass constiuent assemblies to deal with developing provincial and municipal budgets.

It arose during the Argentinian melt-down, when facing fiscal catastrophe, the people assembled themselves into constiuent assemblies, as well as economic cooperatives to create a counter economy against the declining Argentinian dollar.

Chavez only took the idea and institutionalized it as part of a program for the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. It is now spreading along with election of left wing governments in the region. This is what real democracy looks like. It is what Murray Bookchin called Municipal Libertarianism. Local neighbourhoods create assemblies that run their areas, and set up representative councils or federations made up of the local assemblies. Thus creating a counter or dual power situation against the existing state or government. In Latin America it has been effective in countering the padrone system of local government.

Pity we don't have it in Canada, we are stuck with the old decrepit British Empire model of colonial governance; parliament. And look at what they did this week, recognize Quebec, err, Quebekers, err no make that Pure Laine Quebecois, as a people, err no as a nation, err as a.....???? Without asking the people themselves in Quebec or the ROC what we wanted. Time for a Constiuent Assembly in Canada.

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Left Wing Pragmatism III

Left Wing Pragmatism II

Left Wing Pragmatism

Politics is Pragmatic

Ortega

Oaxaca Mexican Revolution Continues

State Capitalism

Globalization

Latin America

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March Of The Penquins to Extinction

Not so happy news. Half the World's Penguin Species Marching Towards Extinction;'The Planet is in Denial'

"The planet is in denial," said John Collee, co-writer of "Happy Feet," which played to rave reviews as the top movie in the United States over Thanksgiving week. "Coral reefs are in terminal decline. Whales and penguins are literally starving to death as a result of krill depletion. As regards Global warming - the entire West Antarctic ice sheet is balanced on the tips of mountains and fragmenting at the edges. According to experts we have ten years to reverse the current trend before the build-up of greenhouse gases becomes irreversible. Ten Years! Is "Happy Feet" too scary? The horrible reality of our war on the environment is so dark that most people don't want to contemplate it."




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