Every year, around Remembrance Day, I usually write a piece about peace.
When I learnt about Remembrance Day, as a child, there were always two important lessons.
The first is that a lot of people - millions, in fact - had sacrificed their lives or had their lives sacrificed, in the name of protecting the freedoms we have today. We have a duty to remember those people. While there is a debate as to which wars were really fought for noble causes, this does not detract from the sacrifice these people intended to make.
The second lesson always was this: never again. This is a lesson we can learn whatever it is that we believe about the real causes of the World Wars and all the wars since. This is a lesson taught directly from the butchery of all those sacrificed on all of the false altars that lead us to war. Whether that altar is called the "Fatherland" or the "Queen" or "democracy", we are supposed to have learnt by now that any resort to war is a failure on our part. It is failure on the part of us, the human beings living on this planet, to properly honour and remember those who have suffered the horrors of all previous wars.
We've been slaughtering each other for millennia. With the advent of civilization, we were supposed to smarten up and stop this nonsense. Somehow, though, we fail. We let every manner of thing steer us to violence against one other.
Sometimes it's religion. Sometimes it's a crucial resource. Sometimes it's patriotism. It's almost always someone with a lot of power wanting more, whether that person be priest, nationalist or power baron.
We the people, however, have an obligation to see through the lies. The people of Germany had an obligation to realize that Poland wasn't amassing an army to attack them, and certainly an obligation to realize the lie afterwards when it took but three days to conquer that country. The people of Israel and Palestine have an obligation to realize that four thousand year old bloody histories don't entitle them to each other's land. The people of Canada and the United States have an obligation to realize when their patriotism is being manipulated to seize the oil, land and cheap labour of other nations.
That, to me, is the meaning of Remembrance Day: the obligation to remember the horror of war and to see through the lies that caused it in the past so as to prevent them in the future.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
American Election
(from Nov 9, 2006)
On Tuesday, the Americans held an election. Their system of government, mildly more complicated (and considerably more influenced by lobbying cash), held two important levels of election.
The Senate, a law-making body of 100 senators, elected one third of its members. The House of Representatives, with considerably more members, flushed itself clean and elected some 435 members. Both of these levels of government were controlled by the party of George Bush, the party that calls itself Republican. Both of these levels of government are now in the control of the Democrats, the part they call "left wing" in the United States, but would be called "right wing" anywhere else in the world. It only appears "left" relative to what we in Canada would call the "extreme right" of the Republicans.
What does this mean? Technically speaking, it's going to make things harder for Bush. Where before the Republican House and Senate would vote on laws and Bush would sign them, those two bodies will now produce "left-leaning" Democratic legislation, which the President can always veto (requiring a larger majority to override the veto). So we should all dance in the streets, right? No more unilateral invasions of random countries? No more Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan? We'll have less combative policies out of the U.S. regarding North Korea, Iran? We'll have fewer wars over hydrocarbons?
No.
Left and right are all matters of degree. In Canada, we have Conservatives, whom we expect to represent the interests of fairly rich people and corporations. We have Liberals, whom we expect to represent the middle class workers, but who increasingly represent rich people as well. We have the NDP, whom we expect to represent the working class. In the U.S., it's not the same. The Republican party represents the extraordinarily rich, the CEOs - the richest of the rich whom George Bush calls his "base". The Democrats represent, actually, almost the exact same people, all they do get the support of trade unions and other organizations on the basis that they're not quite as bad as the Republicans.
But look at the facts: most Democrats voted for the war in Iraq; no Democrat has come out against it; when Clinton was president, he maintained the debilitating, starving sanctions in Iraq and approved the invasion of Kosovo. If you're expecting massive change, don't look here. Don't expect any attempt to disengage the North American mouth from the Middle Eastern oil teat. Don't expect to see all those permanent bases in Iraq pull up stakes. Oh, there'll be a bone thrown to the poor - an increase in the minimum wage. There'll be some window dressing regarding 9/11. But will the black site prisons in Eastern Europe be shut down? Will the prisoners in Gitmo get their trials? Will the torture stop at Abu Ghraib? Will the "Oil Exploration" welfare be diverted to research in to solar and wind power?
Of course not. The two parties in the United States are owned by, basically, the same groups of people - oil barons and arms manufacturers. The Democrats won't be as bad, but don't expect massive change.
On Tuesday, the Americans held an election. Their system of government, mildly more complicated (and considerably more influenced by lobbying cash), held two important levels of election.
The Senate, a law-making body of 100 senators, elected one third of its members. The House of Representatives, with considerably more members, flushed itself clean and elected some 435 members. Both of these levels of government were controlled by the party of George Bush, the party that calls itself Republican. Both of these levels of government are now in the control of the Democrats, the part they call "left wing" in the United States, but would be called "right wing" anywhere else in the world. It only appears "left" relative to what we in Canada would call the "extreme right" of the Republicans.
What does this mean? Technically speaking, it's going to make things harder for Bush. Where before the Republican House and Senate would vote on laws and Bush would sign them, those two bodies will now produce "left-leaning" Democratic legislation, which the President can always veto (requiring a larger majority to override the veto). So we should all dance in the streets, right? No more unilateral invasions of random countries? No more Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan? We'll have less combative policies out of the U.S. regarding North Korea, Iran? We'll have fewer wars over hydrocarbons?
No.
Left and right are all matters of degree. In Canada, we have Conservatives, whom we expect to represent the interests of fairly rich people and corporations. We have Liberals, whom we expect to represent the middle class workers, but who increasingly represent rich people as well. We have the NDP, whom we expect to represent the working class. In the U.S., it's not the same. The Republican party represents the extraordinarily rich, the CEOs - the richest of the rich whom George Bush calls his "base". The Democrats represent, actually, almost the exact same people, all they do get the support of trade unions and other organizations on the basis that they're not quite as bad as the Republicans.
But look at the facts: most Democrats voted for the war in Iraq; no Democrat has come out against it; when Clinton was president, he maintained the debilitating, starving sanctions in Iraq and approved the invasion of Kosovo. If you're expecting massive change, don't look here. Don't expect any attempt to disengage the North American mouth from the Middle Eastern oil teat. Don't expect to see all those permanent bases in Iraq pull up stakes. Oh, there'll be a bone thrown to the poor - an increase in the minimum wage. There'll be some window dressing regarding 9/11. But will the black site prisons in Eastern Europe be shut down? Will the prisoners in Gitmo get their trials? Will the torture stop at Abu Ghraib? Will the "Oil Exploration" welfare be diverted to research in to solar and wind power?
Of course not. The two parties in the United States are owned by, basically, the same groups of people - oil barons and arms manufacturers. The Democrats won't be as bad, but don't expect massive change.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Beating Our Chests
DTK
The DTK, much like the Canadian military, is stuck on the subject of Afghanistan.
General Fraser on the subject of Afghanistan.
It's hard to find polite words to describe what I think of this particular Canadian General. "On his way out, fortunately" only covers some of my feelings.
He claims that (quoting the article) more Canadian soldiers will be killed but the cost in blood must be paid in Afghanistan unless Canadians want to fight Islamic jihadists at home. "I don't want my sons to be doing what I'm doing here on the shores of Canada", he said. Really? Do you really believe that we'll have Islamic radicals landing en masse in Vancouver if we pull our troops out of Afghanistan? Perhaps he's speaking figuratively.
I can't see any reason for the fanatical members of the religion of Islam to hate Canada or Canadians. Well, wait a minute. I can think of one reason: we keep killing hordes of their civilians in Afghanistan. Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, then, isn't it? What he really means to say, in that case, is, "We'd better *continue* killing their civilians here, or they'll get their act together and come get us." Doesn't have the same fiery rhetorical punch, though, does it?
How about this line: "Canadians should actually do something very un-Canadian-like and pound their chests and be proud and tell everyone, because all the other nations down here are talking about Canada."
Um, yeah. Look, Brigadier-General David Fraser, I don't know what part of Canada you're from, but we really don't do the "our military is awesome" chest beating thing around here. We're proud of a lot of things, nation wide, and our military certainly has a proud history in many theatres of operations. But we aren't the "chest-beating" types. You may be thinking of some other country - perhaps with envy. But even our Americans neighbours had to fire Jay Garner when he made the same "let's beat our chests" comment with respect to killing lots of people in Iraq.
I can only hope that the same fate awaits David Fraser. The last thing we need in the Canadian military are generals making public statements about how proud they are to kill people. Yes, it's your job. Yes, you should be proud of your work. But you also have to acknowledge that killing people is nothing to beat your chest about and really indicates that somewhere, someone has royally screwed up.
The General is also irked that the twenty million that has been spent on reconstruction and development in Afghanistan is being ignored by the media. Well, General, there's a reason for that. It's because the government has stated that the military mission over the next couple of years is going to cost over three *billion* dollars. It's a relative thing. When destruction outspends construction by two orders of magnitude, it tends to take precedence in the news.
Lastly, to rub it all in, we bring in the bit about how we're really "peacekeeping". No, General, we're building an oil pipeline. Your right wing rhetoric notwithstanding.
If you really wanted to keep peace, the first thing to do is stop making war.
Greg.
The DTK, much like the Canadian military, is stuck on the subject of Afghanistan.
General Fraser on the subject of Afghanistan.
It's hard to find polite words to describe what I think of this particular Canadian General. "On his way out, fortunately" only covers some of my feelings.
He claims that (quoting the article) more Canadian soldiers will be killed but the cost in blood must be paid in Afghanistan unless Canadians want to fight Islamic jihadists at home. "I don't want my sons to be doing what I'm doing here on the shores of Canada", he said. Really? Do you really believe that we'll have Islamic radicals landing en masse in Vancouver if we pull our troops out of Afghanistan? Perhaps he's speaking figuratively.
I can't see any reason for the fanatical members of the religion of Islam to hate Canada or Canadians. Well, wait a minute. I can think of one reason: we keep killing hordes of their civilians in Afghanistan. Bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, then, isn't it? What he really means to say, in that case, is, "We'd better *continue* killing their civilians here, or they'll get their act together and come get us." Doesn't have the same fiery rhetorical punch, though, does it?
How about this line: "Canadians should actually do something very un-Canadian-like and pound their chests and be proud and tell everyone, because all the other nations down here are talking about Canada."
Um, yeah. Look, Brigadier-General David Fraser, I don't know what part of Canada you're from, but we really don't do the "our military is awesome" chest beating thing around here. We're proud of a lot of things, nation wide, and our military certainly has a proud history in many theatres of operations. But we aren't the "chest-beating" types. You may be thinking of some other country - perhaps with envy. But even our Americans neighbours had to fire Jay Garner when he made the same "let's beat our chests" comment with respect to killing lots of people in Iraq.
I can only hope that the same fate awaits David Fraser. The last thing we need in the Canadian military are generals making public statements about how proud they are to kill people. Yes, it's your job. Yes, you should be proud of your work. But you also have to acknowledge that killing people is nothing to beat your chest about and really indicates that somewhere, someone has royally screwed up.
The General is also irked that the twenty million that has been spent on reconstruction and development in Afghanistan is being ignored by the media. Well, General, there's a reason for that. It's because the government has stated that the military mission over the next couple of years is going to cost over three *billion* dollars. It's a relative thing. When destruction outspends construction by two orders of magnitude, it tends to take precedence in the news.
Lastly, to rub it all in, we bring in the bit about how we're really "peacekeeping". No, General, we're building an oil pipeline. Your right wing rhetoric notwithstanding.
If you really wanted to keep peace, the first thing to do is stop making war.
Greg.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
The Canadian Dream
Once upon a time, there was a dream called Canada.
In Canada, the children were taught about a thing called the National Identity.
The first chapter of National Identity was always Counterculture, wherein we tell the children that we often define ourselves as simply being "not American". The next chapter is usually named the "Legacy of Peacekeeping" wherein we tell them that our proud military history contains only victories in protecting the weak from the strong and keeping the peace so as to teach enemies to be friends.
They lied to us.
I don't know when the lying started. I'm pretty sure it was sometime before I was born, but it's hard to tell because the media fall in so well with the lies that it's hard to dig them out. I know, with certainty, that the framework for lying was already well in place when NATO, including Canada, began bombing Serbia. They told us that the Serbs were "ethnically cleansing" Kosovo of all non-Serbians. We were told that there were mass graves containing, in total, perhaps 100 000 Kosovars.
Then Canada, as part of the NATO mission against Serbia, committed terrorism. There was no UN approval. There was no Parliamentary vote. There was no declaration of war. Serbia never attacked us in a way that would activate the NATO alliance. Civilians were bombed and killed for the purpose of changing a government we didn't like.
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/shown.htm
The Serbs were not ethnically cleansing Kosovo. The Serbs were not expanding beyond their borders. There was never any proof of this, just allegations to trick us in to supporting the war. All that NATO and human rights investigators could later find were normal graves containing about equal numbers of fighting men from both sides - those having been killed in the battles between foreign funded Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas and the government armed forces. General Lewis MacKenzie was upset, as was Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bisset.
General LEWIS MacKENZIE: "Where have all the bodies gone?"
Ambassador James Bisset: "The NATO bombing: an assault on sovereignty"
A New York Times writer had the clever comment "You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too". He was only reflecting, in that sycophantic mainstream media style, the attitudes of the NATO commanders toward the general Serbian population. Here was NATO, promising to bomb the infrastructure of the country until it changed governments. Radio stations were hit. Hospitals were bombed. Finally, Milosevic surrendered. They sent him to the Hague, where they couldn't a thing to pin on him. Eventually he died of some heart ailment. In a fit of irony, it was the invading NATO commanders that accused him of terrorism and invented the term "ethnic cleansing".
We went along with those lies in Serbia. We went along with the lies in Haiti. We're going along with the lies in Afghanistan. I don't know how many other lies we're permitting.
There was a dream that was called Canada and I never once feared that it could be destroyed.
Once, there was a dream called Canada, and I fear it will fade away from the apathy of its citizens.
Greg.
In Canada, the children were taught about a thing called the National Identity.
The first chapter of National Identity was always Counterculture, wherein we tell the children that we often define ourselves as simply being "not American". The next chapter is usually named the "Legacy of Peacekeeping" wherein we tell them that our proud military history contains only victories in protecting the weak from the strong and keeping the peace so as to teach enemies to be friends.
They lied to us.
I don't know when the lying started. I'm pretty sure it was sometime before I was born, but it's hard to tell because the media fall in so well with the lies that it's hard to dig them out. I know, with certainty, that the framework for lying was already well in place when NATO, including Canada, began bombing Serbia. They told us that the Serbs were "ethnically cleansing" Kosovo of all non-Serbians. We were told that there were mass graves containing, in total, perhaps 100 000 Kosovars.
Then Canada, as part of the NATO mission against Serbia, committed terrorism. There was no UN approval. There was no Parliamentary vote. There was no declaration of war. Serbia never attacked us in a way that would activate the NATO alliance. Civilians were bombed and killed for the purpose of changing a government we didn't like.
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/shown.htm
The Serbs were not ethnically cleansing Kosovo. The Serbs were not expanding beyond their borders. There was never any proof of this, just allegations to trick us in to supporting the war. All that NATO and human rights investigators could later find were normal graves containing about equal numbers of fighting men from both sides - those having been killed in the battles between foreign funded Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas and the government armed forces. General Lewis MacKenzie was upset, as was Canada's former ambassador to Yugoslavia, James Bisset.
General LEWIS MacKENZIE: "Where have all the bodies gone?"
Ambassador James Bisset: "The NATO bombing: an assault on sovereignty"
A New York Times writer had the clever comment "You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too". He was only reflecting, in that sycophantic mainstream media style, the attitudes of the NATO commanders toward the general Serbian population. Here was NATO, promising to bomb the infrastructure of the country until it changed governments. Radio stations were hit. Hospitals were bombed. Finally, Milosevic surrendered. They sent him to the Hague, where they couldn't a thing to pin on him. Eventually he died of some heart ailment. In a fit of irony, it was the invading NATO commanders that accused him of terrorism and invented the term "ethnic cleansing".
We went along with those lies in Serbia. We went along with the lies in Haiti. We're going along with the lies in Afghanistan. I don't know how many other lies we're permitting.
There was a dream that was called Canada and I never once feared that it could be destroyed.
Once, there was a dream called Canada, and I fear it will fade away from the apathy of its citizens.
Greg.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Overtaxation, Blair and Ignatieff
DTK
It's funny how a man's definition of luxury can change over time. At one point, it involved liquor, a tiled dance floor and the phrase "every night is ladies' night". These days, two consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep clocks in at pretty much the peak of my Epicurean fantasies.
Admittedly, I'm having trouble figuring out what to rant about. Our federal finance minister has declared that "Canadians are taxed too much" and plans to cut our taxes. He claims that people stay on welfare because they pay too much taxes if they go back to work. I'd like to see him substantiate that somehow. It seems to me that people who earn small amounts of money pay very little tax at all. Then he switches to talking about how important it is to cut capital gains taxes and corporate taxes.
Why is it that people who work for a living are expected to pay taxes while people who merely live on the interest and investment of massive amounts of inheritance money somehow believe that they shouldn't have to pay taxes? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't we be rewarding work and productivity over investment? But remember, for all the talk of Bob Rae amassing a deficit in Ontario, Bob Rae did it in a recession. It was our present federal finance minister, when his party was running Ontario's finances, that managed to increase that debt while in an economic boom - all while halving corporate taxes and cutting services like education and health care.
I hate to say "I told you so", but I did. Wait for the federal deficit to replace the surplus.
In other news, British PM Tony Blair was in town to tell us how Canada and the U.K. must forge a new partnership/friendship/relationship. This new association will be based on our mutual efforts in the war on terrorism and our mutual association with the United States.
Uh ... yeah. Good luck with that line of reasoning, Tony. People in Canada are beginning to disapprove of the Afghanistan mission. We find the "war on terror" quite dubious. People in your own country gave up on Iraq a long time ago. Too bad none of us are actually living in democracies. Then we might have peace, and wouldn't that be boring.
Should I mention that ridiculous big deal made over the "anti-Israeli" comments made by Liberal leadership hopeful Michael Ignatieff? Apparently he had the nerve to refer to the relentless cluster-bombing of civilian areas of Lebanon as a "war crime". Goodness. How dare he? Israel is an ally of Western powers and has white skinned, European types running its government. Those sorts of people only cause "regrettable civilian collateral damage". War crimes are committed by other people (terrorists, people we don't like, people who don't play ball with Wall Street, brownish people wearing turbans etc.).
The real crapfest is the fact that Ignatieff appears to be saying one thing to a pro-Lebanon francophone crowd in Quebec while saying something else to an anglophone crowd in Toronto. If that's really what's going on, then he deserves all the splatter off the ventilation he's getting, even if it's misdirected.
Enough ranting.
It's funny how a man's definition of luxury can change over time. At one point, it involved liquor, a tiled dance floor and the phrase "every night is ladies' night". These days, two consecutive nights of uninterrupted sleep clocks in at pretty much the peak of my Epicurean fantasies.
Admittedly, I'm having trouble figuring out what to rant about. Our federal finance minister has declared that "Canadians are taxed too much" and plans to cut our taxes. He claims that people stay on welfare because they pay too much taxes if they go back to work. I'd like to see him substantiate that somehow. It seems to me that people who earn small amounts of money pay very little tax at all. Then he switches to talking about how important it is to cut capital gains taxes and corporate taxes.
Why is it that people who work for a living are expected to pay taxes while people who merely live on the interest and investment of massive amounts of inheritance money somehow believe that they shouldn't have to pay taxes? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't we be rewarding work and productivity over investment? But remember, for all the talk of Bob Rae amassing a deficit in Ontario, Bob Rae did it in a recession. It was our present federal finance minister, when his party was running Ontario's finances, that managed to increase that debt while in an economic boom - all while halving corporate taxes and cutting services like education and health care.
I hate to say "I told you so", but I did. Wait for the federal deficit to replace the surplus.
In other news, British PM Tony Blair was in town to tell us how Canada and the U.K. must forge a new partnership/friendship/relationship. This new association will be based on our mutual efforts in the war on terrorism and our mutual association with the United States.
Uh ... yeah. Good luck with that line of reasoning, Tony. People in Canada are beginning to disapprove of the Afghanistan mission. We find the "war on terror" quite dubious. People in your own country gave up on Iraq a long time ago. Too bad none of us are actually living in democracies. Then we might have peace, and wouldn't that be boring.
Should I mention that ridiculous big deal made over the "anti-Israeli" comments made by Liberal leadership hopeful Michael Ignatieff? Apparently he had the nerve to refer to the relentless cluster-bombing of civilian areas of Lebanon as a "war crime". Goodness. How dare he? Israel is an ally of Western powers and has white skinned, European types running its government. Those sorts of people only cause "regrettable civilian collateral damage". War crimes are committed by other people (terrorists, people we don't like, people who don't play ball with Wall Street, brownish people wearing turbans etc.).
The real crapfest is the fact that Ignatieff appears to be saying one thing to a pro-Lebanon francophone crowd in Quebec while saying something else to an anglophone crowd in Toronto. If that's really what's going on, then he deserves all the splatter off the ventilation he's getting, even if it's misdirected.
Enough ranting.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Conservative Distractions
DTK
Distraction is the name of the game. Our troops went in to Haiti, knocked over a government, installed a crazed dictator and destabilized a society to the point where it is estimated that 4000 political murders have taken place and 35000 women and children have been raped in that country. In Afghanistan, the government and the military have admitted that the "reconstruction" aspects of the mission will have to wait until after the "security" situation has stabilized. We're not doing any reconstruction, just killing and getting killed, and even the NDP aren't willing to discuss the elephant in the room - the billions of barrels of oil just sitting there to the north of the country, waiting for a pipeline; waiting for a country "secure" enough to run a pipeline through.
So our government tries to distract us. The Conservatives have decided that they're going to try to pass a "Defence of Religions Act" in order to make sure that the gay marriages can't be thrust upon people who believe that homosexuality is morally wrong. This seems to be reasonable, except that we already have a thing called the Charter of Rights that ensures that no one can force you to be gay.
The purpose of this act, apparently, is to "protect" the free speech of those who criticize homosexuals. Again, this sort of free speech is already protected unless, of course, you're advocating violence against homosexuals, or repeatedly quoting that bit of religious text that says homosexuals should be put to death. Then you're guilty of all sorts of crimes, same as you would be advocating death or violence to any other group. No need for a law here, and we certainly don't want to protect those who commit hate crimes.
The Act is also supposed to protect public servants - not just religious ministers - from having to perform or involve themselves in the technical parts of gay marriages. This would allow, for instance, a Justice of the Peace to refuse to perform the marriage. Maybe, once we actually see the text of the act, it will permit public servants to refuse to process the marriage certificate based on their own religious beliefs. That would be unacceptable. Science teachers have to check their religions at the door. Doctors are expected to handle patients using birth control. Pharmacists are expected to dispense prescription drugs. All of these servants are expected to do their jobs regardless of their religion and civil servants are no different.
But this Act is a distraction, and maybe a bit of pandering to the social Conservative base. It's supposed to distract you from the fact that we are now openly sending our soldiers abroad to prosecute foreign wars, to seize foreign resources and impose our will upon foreign peoples. Every paragraph, every speech, every letter written on the subject of gay marriages is one less moment devoted to noticing the villainy that our government is promoting abroad.
Greg.
Democracy Now on the Lancet Study in Haiti
CIDA in Afghanistan (note the priorities)
Distraction is the name of the game. Our troops went in to Haiti, knocked over a government, installed a crazed dictator and destabilized a society to the point where it is estimated that 4000 political murders have taken place and 35000 women and children have been raped in that country. In Afghanistan, the government and the military have admitted that the "reconstruction" aspects of the mission will have to wait until after the "security" situation has stabilized. We're not doing any reconstruction, just killing and getting killed, and even the NDP aren't willing to discuss the elephant in the room - the billions of barrels of oil just sitting there to the north of the country, waiting for a pipeline; waiting for a country "secure" enough to run a pipeline through.
So our government tries to distract us. The Conservatives have decided that they're going to try to pass a "Defence of Religions Act" in order to make sure that the gay marriages can't be thrust upon people who believe that homosexuality is morally wrong. This seems to be reasonable, except that we already have a thing called the Charter of Rights that ensures that no one can force you to be gay.
The purpose of this act, apparently, is to "protect" the free speech of those who criticize homosexuals. Again, this sort of free speech is already protected unless, of course, you're advocating violence against homosexuals, or repeatedly quoting that bit of religious text that says homosexuals should be put to death. Then you're guilty of all sorts of crimes, same as you would be advocating death or violence to any other group. No need for a law here, and we certainly don't want to protect those who commit hate crimes.
The Act is also supposed to protect public servants - not just religious ministers - from having to perform or involve themselves in the technical parts of gay marriages. This would allow, for instance, a Justice of the Peace to refuse to perform the marriage. Maybe, once we actually see the text of the act, it will permit public servants to refuse to process the marriage certificate based on their own religious beliefs. That would be unacceptable. Science teachers have to check their religions at the door. Doctors are expected to handle patients using birth control. Pharmacists are expected to dispense prescription drugs. All of these servants are expected to do their jobs regardless of their religion and civil servants are no different.
But this Act is a distraction, and maybe a bit of pandering to the social Conservative base. It's supposed to distract you from the fact that we are now openly sending our soldiers abroad to prosecute foreign wars, to seize foreign resources and impose our will upon foreign peoples. Every paragraph, every speech, every letter written on the subject of gay marriages is one less moment devoted to noticing the villainy that our government is promoting abroad.
Greg.
Democracy Now on the Lancet Study in Haiti
CIDA in Afghanistan (note the priorities)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Why not torture?
Maher Arar.
Indeed.
So the whole sordid affair is out where everyone can see it easily. Maher Arar: Canadian citizen; deported to Syria by the United States; tortured in Syria until he confessed to crimes he couldn't actually have committed. If you have any doubt of he details, you can check them pretty much anywhere you like nowadays.
Then there was the inquiry which confirmed that the RCMP and CSIS, our own security organizations, provided the Americans with the information that led them to think Maher Arar was somehow associated with terrorism. The inquiry condemned the actions of those two organizations.
Our media appear to be doing something quite similar - the condemning part, that is - but they're missing the point.
The first thing I see on the news is the bit about the RCMP handing "evidence" over to American officials. The problem, apparently, is that the evidence is circumstantial. The RCMP, you see, had bad info on Arar. The American officials in question took this bad info to heart and sent Arar packing off to Syria. The next information we had was a report to CSIS that Maher Arar had confessed to being a terrorist. CSIS, for some reason that mystified even the inquiry, decided to accept this confession at face value despite Syria's record of human rights abuses and torture.
The crime, as portrayed by the media, was that Arar was tortured because of circumstantial evidence. The crime, as portrayed by the two reports I just saw on television, was that CSIS beleived the report of confession and therefore led the Canadian government to protest less than it should have.
The crime, apparently, was that Maher Arar was the wrong guy to torture.
I would like to submit, for your analysis, the idea that - perhaps - the people who bring us our news have lost their damned minds.
The crime was torture. Whether or not Maher Arar was a criminal; whether or not he attended a camp in Pakistan; whether or not he spoke to Al Qaeda members; whether or not he's even a murderer - none of these things are relevant to the fact that we as a nation acquiesced to his torture.
If you want to be pragmatic about it, you can make a lot of technical points about torture. For one thing, it doesn't work. While torture does illicit confessions from criminals, it elicits confessions from the innocent as well. (Google me this: "witch hunt" "salem".) While torture can get information from terrorists, it also gets completely useless, falsified information from non-terrorists who are just hoping that you'll stop it with the broomstick already if they pretend they know something.
So torture doesn't work? That's the reason we shouldn't do it?
No. The reason we don't torture is because it's a cruel, inhuman thing to do. I'm well aware that we are bound to come across cruel, inhuman people who do horrible things. These people will knock over World Trade Centers, spread depleted uranium all over Iraq, cluster bombs all around southern Lebanon or blow themselves up in a crowded plaza.
The question arises: Do these people deserve to be tortured?
The answer is a very firm "maybe". But it's the wrong question.
The question is: should we torture these people? The emphasis is on the "we". "We" must understand that undertaking to enact cruel punishment on other human beings isn't just bad for them, it's also bad for us. I can't pretend to have any magical power that allows me to decide what other human beings "deserve". Tolkien observed in the Lord of the Rings that "many die who deserve to live while many who live deserve to die". Fair enough, though I have no idea who is really entitled to make such decisions. When "we" decide to torture people, we have surrendered the moral high ground that was supposed to separate "we" from "they".
"We" don't have an infinite fountain of benevolence from which we can draw the right to torture people based on our generally friendly disposition.
Torture is an evil thing to do, even when it's done to an evil person. There is nothing we could gain from torture that could possibly be worth what we lose by doing it ...
... even if it did work.
Greg.
Indeed.
So the whole sordid affair is out where everyone can see it easily. Maher Arar: Canadian citizen; deported to Syria by the United States; tortured in Syria until he confessed to crimes he couldn't actually have committed. If you have any doubt of he details, you can check them pretty much anywhere you like nowadays.
Then there was the inquiry which confirmed that the RCMP and CSIS, our own security organizations, provided the Americans with the information that led them to think Maher Arar was somehow associated with terrorism. The inquiry condemned the actions of those two organizations.
Our media appear to be doing something quite similar - the condemning part, that is - but they're missing the point.
The first thing I see on the news is the bit about the RCMP handing "evidence" over to American officials. The problem, apparently, is that the evidence is circumstantial. The RCMP, you see, had bad info on Arar. The American officials in question took this bad info to heart and sent Arar packing off to Syria. The next information we had was a report to CSIS that Maher Arar had confessed to being a terrorist. CSIS, for some reason that mystified even the inquiry, decided to accept this confession at face value despite Syria's record of human rights abuses and torture.
The crime, as portrayed by the media, was that Arar was tortured because of circumstantial evidence. The crime, as portrayed by the two reports I just saw on television, was that CSIS beleived the report of confession and therefore led the Canadian government to protest less than it should have.
The crime, apparently, was that Maher Arar was the wrong guy to torture.
I would like to submit, for your analysis, the idea that - perhaps - the people who bring us our news have lost their damned minds.
The crime was torture. Whether or not Maher Arar was a criminal; whether or not he attended a camp in Pakistan; whether or not he spoke to Al Qaeda members; whether or not he's even a murderer - none of these things are relevant to the fact that we as a nation acquiesced to his torture.
If you want to be pragmatic about it, you can make a lot of technical points about torture. For one thing, it doesn't work. While torture does illicit confessions from criminals, it elicits confessions from the innocent as well. (Google me this: "witch hunt" "salem".) While torture can get information from terrorists, it also gets completely useless, falsified information from non-terrorists who are just hoping that you'll stop it with the broomstick already if they pretend they know something.
So torture doesn't work? That's the reason we shouldn't do it?
No. The reason we don't torture is because it's a cruel, inhuman thing to do. I'm well aware that we are bound to come across cruel, inhuman people who do horrible things. These people will knock over World Trade Centers, spread depleted uranium all over Iraq, cluster bombs all around southern Lebanon or blow themselves up in a crowded plaza.
The question arises: Do these people deserve to be tortured?
The answer is a very firm "maybe". But it's the wrong question.
The question is: should we torture these people? The emphasis is on the "we". "We" must understand that undertaking to enact cruel punishment on other human beings isn't just bad for them, it's also bad for us. I can't pretend to have any magical power that allows me to decide what other human beings "deserve". Tolkien observed in the Lord of the Rings that "many die who deserve to live while many who live deserve to die". Fair enough, though I have no idea who is really entitled to make such decisions. When "we" decide to torture people, we have surrendered the moral high ground that was supposed to separate "we" from "they".
"We" don't have an infinite fountain of benevolence from which we can draw the right to torture people based on our generally friendly disposition.
Torture is an evil thing to do, even when it's done to an evil person. There is nothing we could gain from torture that could possibly be worth what we lose by doing it ...
... even if it did work.
Greg.
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