Canada: Selling Its Soul to America
By Stephen Lendman, Contributor
theintelhub.com
September 10, 2012
Canada is more colony than sovereign state. Canadians perhaps wonder when it’ll grow up, act like an adult, and regain its rightful independence.
They’re also worried about a country junior partnering with imperial America, Israel, and other rogue NATO allies.
A previous article said the following:
On September 7, Foreign Minister John Baird said Canada closed its Tehran embassy. It expelled Iranian diplomats in Ottawa. They have five days to leave. He claimed a nonexistent Iranian threat. He took a page from AIPAC’s playbook. He bogusly called Tehran the gravest threat to global security.
He accused Iran of “providing increasing military assistance to the Assad regime.” He ignored Washington’s war Syria. He said nothing about Canada’s role.
He didn’t explain how America, rogue NATO partners, and regional allies recruit, arm, fund, train, and direct ravaging death squads. He was silent on what matters most.
He recited a litany of lies about Iran. He unconscionably pointed fingers the wrong way. Canada is a committed imperial partner. It’s one of 28 NATO countries. It supports the worst of Israel’s crimes.
It’s on the same slippery slope as America. It’s fast-tracking toward fascism. Sleeping with the devil rubs off.
Unless stopped, it’s just a matter of time before Canada crosses a rubicon of no return. It’s perilously close to full-blown imperial/ neoliberal/police state dark age harshness.
In her book “Holding the Bully’s Coat: Canada and the US Empire,” Linda McQuaig discussed Canada’s sacrificial subservience. It abandoned its traditions. It sold its soul to Washington. It became submissive junior partner.
Conservative and Liberal parties allied with America’s “war on terrorism.” They stopped short of participating in its Iraq “coalition of the willing.” They willingly marched in lockstep with its illegal Afghan war of aggression and occupation.
In February 2004, they partnered with America and France against Haiti’s Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They ousted a democratically elected leader. They crushed his popular movement. They ended his progressive reforms. They installed fascist harshness. They had unchallenged pillaging in mind.
Canada today operates as an appendage of imperial America. It abandoned its traditional commitment to equality, inclusiveness, and rule of law inviolability.
It’s plagued by a militaristic/imperial/neoliberal culture. It’s no longer a fair arbiter and promoter of just causes. The conservative Harper government is fast-tracking toward fascism.
In the 1980s, Canada’s downward trajectory began in earnest. Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney bonded with Ronald Reagan.
Corporate America remembers his December 1984 address. He appeared at the New York Economic Club. Business heavyweights packed the house to hear him. He didn’t disappoint.
He said “Canada (was) open for business.” His meaning was unambiguous. US corporations were welcome. Economic integration would proceed. America’s sovereignty henceforth took precedence over Canada’s. It’s been downhill ever since.
Before Stephen Harper became prime minister in February 2006, Liberal leader Paul Martin tilted hard right. In 2003, he succeeded Jean Chretien.
His 2005 defense policy review stressed integrating Canada’s military with America’s. He approved redeploying Canadian Afghan peacekeepers as combatants. Harper maintains the same policy. Canadians have no say.
He governs in lockstep with Washington. He abandoned Canada’s traditional even-handed Israel/Palestine agenda. In 2006, he threw its democratically elected Hamas government under the bus. Doing so showed contempt for Palestinian rights.
He showed no concern for 50,000 Canadians in harm’s way during Israel’s war of aggression on Lebanon. He called its death and destruction campaign “measured.”
Post-WW II, things were different. Canada’s internationalism evolved. It supported rule of law principles, endorsed peacekeeping, spurned militarism and imperialism, and worked cooperatively with other nations. No longer.
Harper’s government, Canadian elites, its business community and military support imperial/neoliberal/anti-populist policies. Ottawa replicates Washington. Essential social programs are eroding. Egalitarianism is disappearing.
What corporate Canada wants, it gets. Militarism grows stronger. So does police state harshness. Pandering to Washington is policy. Tortured logic follows the same destructive path.
McQuaig calls Harper America’s “unctuous little sidekick.” She compared Canada’s government, corporate, and military officials to 19th century compradors.
Modern-day ones are subservient US junior partners. Canada’s soul went on the auction block for sale. Like Americans, Canadians are force-fed the worst of all possible worlds.
Ottawa allied with Washington’s war on Libya. It’s partnered against Syria and Iran. It shamelessly supports what it should renounce.
Doing so makes it complicit in the supreme crime against peace. It’s guilty of crimes of war, against humanity and genocide. It’s leaders are war criminals.
Iran responded to Canada suspending diplomatic ties. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said:
“The decision by Canada showed that this country has sacrificed the interests of its nation for the sake of the Zionists by following their policies against Iran.”
He called Harper’s government “racist” and “hostile.” He added:
“The closure of the visa section of the Canadian Embassy in Tehran, freezing the bank accounts of Iranian nationals living in Canada, and prohibiting money transfers to Iranian students studying in that country are among the Canadian government’s numerous hostile measures against the Iranian nation and the Iranian community in Canada.”
Senior Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi accused Harper of “blindly” following Britain, saying:
“The British government certainly seeks to lead its friends to the same path that it had taken. Therefore, this decision was in fact blind acquiescence by the Canadian government.”
He added that Canada allied with Washington and Israel’s attempt to undermine a historic NAM summit in Tehran. It perhaps reacted to its success. He also called on Iran’s Foreign Ministry to respond in kind.
Mehmanparast said expect it to be swift.
Britain is part of a US/UK/Israeli troika. It’s an axis of evil. Canada supports it. It threatens humanity. It’s involved in North African/Middle East/Central Asian imperial wars. It plans more. Independent nonbelligerent countries are targeted. Syrian and Iranian sovereignty are threatened.
Almost half a million Iranians live in Canada. Many reside in Toronto. Tehran planned a consulate to serve them. They’ll have no representation now.
On Friday, Netanyahu congratulated Harper. He called his move “a bold decision, (a) “moral step,” (a) “clear message to Iran and to the entire world.”
Tehran’s successful NAM summit endorsed peace, mutual cooperation, Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, and national sovereignty.
Netanyahu called it “a show of anti-Semitism and hate in Tehran.”
Every time he opens his mouth, he puts his foot in it. He displays racist scorn for Muslims, imperial brazenness, contempt for anyone not Jewish, and hostile rage.
Ottawa has had poor relations with Iran since the 1979 revolution. They became strained after former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor helped rescue six Americans during the 1980 Tehran hostage crisis.
In 2003, they were further damaged after dual Canadian/Iranian citizen/freelance photographer Zahra Kazemi died in custody. He was arrested while taking photographs outside a Tehran prison.
Canada responded. It recalled its ambassador. Iran ordered him out after unsuccessfully trying to resolve the issue and agree on exchanging ambassadors.
Washington severed diplomatic relations in 1980. In November 2011, Britain recalled its entire diplomatic staff. It followed two days of protests.
Hundreds of Iranian students staged it outside London’s Tehran embassy. They pulled down Britain’s flag and demanded its envoy’s ouster.
Without justification, the Cameron government claimed Iranian leaders ordered it. It also expelled its diplomats from London.
Days earlier, Tehran downgraded ties to Britain. It was over London’s decision to impose sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and false allegations about its nuclear program.
Washington, Britain and Israel target Iran for regime change. Top priority ahead is war. Not now, according to Time magazine.
On September 5, it headlined, “Worried About Israel Bombing Iran Before November? You Can Relax,” saying:
According to some Israeli analysts, Israel’s “war of choice” isn’t cancelled. It’s delayed. Internal opposition and public opinion are against it. Even Defense Minister Ehud Barak now wavers. He’s not called “Mr. Zigzag” for nothing.
Netanyahu wants Washington’s full commitment. In late September, he’ll meet Obama in New York. They’ll both address the UN General Assembly. Expect neither to sound benign.
Netanyahu’s saber-rattling bluster long ago wore thin, but not his hostile intent. He and Obama remain on the same page. Differences are mostly over timing and perhaps strategy.
“For now, the US looks likely to persuade Israel to sit on its hands.” Nonetheless, “it’s probably a safe bet that war talk will be revved up again come spring” or perhaps earlier post-election.
Canadian Foreign Minister Baird didn’t explain why he cut diplomatic ties now, not earlier. He denied perhaps knowing that war is more imminent than Time imagines.
“Unequivocally, we have no information about a military strike on Iran,” he said. In the fullness of time, we’ll know.
A Final Comment
In 1953, Chicago Tribune owner Colonel Robert McCormick called Canadian statesman/diplomat/later prime minister (1963-68)/Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1957) Lester Pearson “the most dangerous man in the English-speaking world.”
It was over Pearson’s refusal to cooperate with Senator Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunt communist hearings. They destroyed lives, ruined careers, accomplished nothing, and led to McCarthy’s own demise.
Pearson’s ideas were mirror opposite Harper’s and other imperial aggressors. He wanted NATO involved with economic and social issues as well as defense. He supported an alliance for Western free market alternatives to communism.
He opposed nuclear weapons. He challenged Washington on policies he believed dangerous, provocative and destructive. In 1955, as Secretary of State for External Affairs, he was the first Western official to visit Moscow.
He spoke forcefully against colonial domination. He endorsed sovereign rights for all nations. He supported internationalism, conciliation, and peace. He was a worthy Nobel laureate.
His lecture stressed hard facts. Countries have a choice. “Peace or extinction” is in their hands. He added that nations cannot “be conditioned by the force and will of a unit, however powerful, but by the consensus of a group, which must one day include all states.”
Predatory nations can’t be tolerated, he believed. At the same time, he opposed communism and backed efforts to contain it. He erred supporting Washington’s Vietnam War. A later Temple University address challenged America’s Southeast Asian role.
Overall, he supported peace and peacekeeping. His Nobel lecture named “four faces of peace: prosperity, power, diplomacy and people.”
As prime minister, peacekeeping was prioritized. Canada has none like him today. Neither do other Western countries. War, not peace, matters most. So does imperial dominance.
Ottawa’s on board with Washington. Its traditions long ago eroded and died. Some wonder what defines it as a nation. Riding shotgun for America and supporting the worst of Israeli lawlessness give them reason for pause.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/
Questlove of The Roots Confronted on Supporting Obama [video]
We Are Change
September 5, 2012
Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange confronts Questlove of The Roots about his support of Barack Obama.
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Major teacher strike in Chicago: Thousands to hit streets
End the Lie – Independent News
September 10, 2012
Twenty-nine thousand teachers and staff in Chicago will strike for the first time in 25 years on Monday. As some 350,000 students are left behind, parents worry over their children’s safety without proper supervision in potentially dangerous areas.
After more than 100 meetings and over 400 hours in negotiations, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) declared they would strike after 11th-hour talks failed late Sunday night. Although both sides claimed to have made strides towards reaching an agreement, CTU President Karen Lewis said there were still issues upon which the two sides could not reach a consensus.
“We have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike,” she said Sunday night at a press conference. “In the morning, no CTU members will be inside our schools.”
“This is a difficult decision and one we hoped we could have avoided,” she said. “We must do things differently in this city if we are to provide our students with the education they so rightfully deserve.”
The sticking points in negotiations were a new method of teacher evaluation based on student performance which they feared would lead to layoffs, and rising costs of pensions already promised to retired teachers. Also at stake was a rezoning of school districts that teachers felt would damage the system, and an extension of the Chicago school day, reportedly one of the shortest in the nation.
The Chicago School Board and Mayor Rahm Emanuel had already agreed to a 16 per cent wage increase over four years, countering the CTU’s original demand of 30 per cent. The School Board also offered multiple benefit proposals and a rehiring system for teachers from schools that might be closed due to rezoning.
Chicago School Board President David Vitale said the city had made its “best offer” to the Union.
“This is about as much as we can do,” Vitale said. “There is only so much money in the system.”
“This is not a small commitment we’re handing out at a time when our fiscal situation is really challenged,” he added.
The Chicago Public School system is facing a projected budget deficit of $3 billion over the next three years, a number complicated even further by teacher retirement pensions.
Mayor Emmanuel called the strike an unnecessary and painful move, especially since the two sides had come close to an agreement.
“This is totally unnecessary, it is avoidable and our kids do not deserve this,” Emmanuel said at a press conference Sunday night.
The city’s contingency plans include $25 million of funding for 144 out of 675 schools to open for a half day of supervision, including breakfast and lunch. The schools are not allowed to hold classes without certified teachers under state law. The plan also asks for community centers and churches to aid in sheltering children.
Union officials are concerned over the plan, calling it a “train-wreck”, according to a Reuters report, worried that many of the people supervising children are without proper training, CTU said. Parents are also uneasy about putting students from different schools together in neighborhoods which have suffered from gang-related shootings this summer.
“This is not a strike I wanted,” Emanuel said. “It was a strike of choice … it’s unnecessary, it’s avoidable and it’s wrong.”
The Chicago debate echoes national education concerns as public school systems in many states are introducing new teacher evaluation models that include using student test scores to determine performance in 2012. The list includes Arizona, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Florida. Teachers unions have traditionally been opposed to such measures.
Source: http://rt.com/usa/news/teacher-strike-chicago-school-766/
Pakistan: Center of the Grand Chessboard [documentary video]
We Are Change
September 7, 2012
WeAreChange presents a film by Saad Ali. Read the article that accompanies this short film at our website: http://wearechange.org/pakistan-center-of-the-grand-chessboard/
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Wesley Clark Confronted on 9/11 [video]
We Are Change
September 10, 2012
Retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark gets confronted by WeAreChange about the attacks of September 11th, 2001.
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FBI and DHS Preparing False Flag Attack Claim Domestic Terrorists Building IEDs
By Susanne Posel
theintelhub.com
September 7, 2012
On September 27th, in Springfield, Illinois, the Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will conduct a presentation on improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
This demonstration is an extension of the FBI’s National Improvised Explosive Familiarization (NIEF) initiative “designed to raise awareness of the use of common chemicals to produce IEDs.”
The Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association (IFCA) are an organization that assists and represents “the crop production supply and service industry while promoting the sound stewardship and utilization of agricultural inputs.”
The NIEF was created in 2007. They are “an intelligence-driven and a threat-focused national security and law enforcement organization” that becomes involved with local and state law enforcement with regard to terrorist and intelligence threats.
Just last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested 700 pounds of high density ammonium nitrate and 700 pounds of A-5 Flake RDX explosives.
These ingredients are known to be very high powered explosives.
The DHS was given oversight of the procurement of ammonium nitrate after Congress requested they “regulate the sale and transfer of ammonium nitrate by an ammonium nitrate facility…to prevent the misappropriation or use of ammonium nitrate in an act of terrorism.”
The Ammonium Nitrate Security Program focuses on preventing a terrorist attack by use of ammonium nitrate in a home-made bomb by requiring that its sale and those that purchase it be registered with the DHS. Purchasers are screened against the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB).
Meanwhile, the DHS and FBI are warning about a possible false flag attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and “anarchists”.
Mainstream medi hasa reported that the “FBI and DHS assess with high confidence anarchist extremists will target… infrastructure in Tampa and Charlotte, with potentially significant impacts on public safety and transportation.”
Domestic terrorists, according to the DHS, are more of a threat to American safety than foreign terrorist organizations.
This harkens to the 2009 report DHS published for the Obama administration entitled Rightwing Extremism which stated that domestic extremists, particularly white supremacists, were set to be the newest and most dangerous threat to the US since al-Qaeda.
While admitting that the agency had no definitive proof that “domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, they claimed [however] that rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.
The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.”
The FBI warned that anarchists would throw eggs and Molotov cocktails at the RNC convention and are still declaring that extremists will attack the DNC in order to disrupt the proceedings.
The FBI has also claimed that “given the historical precedence and recent arrests, we assess anarchist extremists will likely continue to exploit lawful protests to facilitate violent criminal activity at events like the upcoming political conventions.”
The DHS are also educating police departments nationwide on terrorist IED threats with the assistance of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCC). The DHS claims that international bombings could be carried out on US soil and that the agency must develop partnerships with local and state law enforcement to prevent this from happening.
Funded by the DHS, Jimmie Carol Oxley , a chemist and professor at the University of Rhode Island, works with homeland security on projects with her students to analyze IEDs from manufacturing to various “terrorist scenarios” that these diverse explosives could be used for.
Oxley has worked with many governmental agencies, such as the FBI, NSF, and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) National Research Council (NRC); as well as written over 80 papers on “energetic materials (explosives, propellants, pyrotechnics).
She has worked on law enforcement issues [with the FBI simulating the World Trade Center bombing (1993), with FEL examining large fertilizer bombs, and with ATF studying the behavior of pipe bombs]; however, her main research interest is hazard analysis of energetic materials.”
On a 2,200 acre site, Oxley and her students take IEDs constructed in the lab and detonate them to “see what happens.” They use chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide to study how chemical additives can reduce or exacerbate the effects of a home-made bomb.
Most of Oxley’s students go on to work for the DHS specializing in criminal and terrorist investigations.
In May of 2012, the Global Campaign Against Improvised Explosive Devices (GCAIED) wrote a letter to Obama with the signatures of 23 members of Capitol Hill to bring “consensus” against the threat of IEDs.
With intelligence gathered by the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incident Tracking System, there is a doubling of IEDs being manufactured annually by civilians. The GCAIED claims that IEDs will be used to attack civilian populations with the intention to disrupt daily routines, healthcare and the November elections.
The connection to IEDs then turns toward the US veterans who some claim may become violent and dangerous because of prolonged exposure to battlefield conditions combined with being diagnosed with traumatic brain injury. (TBI).
Recently, Obama signed an executive order (EO) entitled, “Improving Access to Mental Health Services for Veterans, Service Members, and Military Families” wherein the Department of Defense is given control over the evaluation of the mental health of our returning service men and women by providing US government controlled “effective mental health services for veterans, service members, and their families.”
Obama has demanded that the VA and the DoD collaborate to provide proactive measures and a psychiatric pre-screen of returning service men and women to prevent erratic behavior.
The DoD will “review all existing mental health and substance abuse prevention, education and outreach programs” within the military services and access their effectiveness.
In the Obama administration report “Strengthening Our Military Families” written in 2011, the direction of the document points to identifying all veteran’s potential to become mentally incapacitated due to some psychiatric disorder which would cause them to become violent, depressed, aggressive and inevitably dangerous to society.
While the DHS and FBI are preparing to enact a false flag attack here in the US, the Obama administration is setting up the means to have every US veteran committed to a government-controlled mental hospital as a form of indefinite detention.
Once deemed insane, these men and women will not only have their arms taken, but there freedom restricted.
This tactic was enacted by other historical dictators from Mao in China to Hitler in Nazi-controlled Germany. We are witnessing the Fascist takeover of our nation through the actions of the current puppet Barack Obama. They are preparing for martial law and the complete lockdown of our country.
This is first of many steps toward our decent into Totalitarianism that is being played out in the demonization of our US veterans; while simultaneously witnessing the DHS and FBI using propaganda concerning IEDs when it is the US government that is amassing 1400 pounds worth of ingredients to manufacture a fertilizer bomb.
Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporate-funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.
Minor Editing by Alex Thomas
Bob Saget on 9/11 Truth [video]
We Are Change
September 6, 2012
Bob Saget gets asked by WeAreChange if he supports a new 9/11 investigation.
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