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In the recent past the Harper government of Canada has insisted that there is no place in their conservative (aka progressive conservative, aka alliance, aka reform) vision of Canada for it to ask or petition any democratic country about citizens who have had the death penalty imposed on them. Now, just to be clear, the Harper government was talking about Canadian citizens that some other country had decided to kill.
The fearless and famous crime fighter, and otherwise minister of lots of really big important stuff, Stockwell, "I believe man lived with the dinosaurs", Day said in relation to a particular Canadian citizen convicted of murder, in that crumbling bastion of democracy, to the South of here :
"We will not actively pursue bringing back to Canada murderers who have been tried in a democratic country that supports the rule of law....It would send a wrong message. We want to preserve public safety here in Canada".
But I'm wondering if the harperites will raise any concerns with executions of individuals, albeit not Canadians, in places with democratically elected governments but in which we have troops supposedly providing security to the said government.
Harper, should we have troops defending a democratic elected government that executes its citizens for what Canadians and Canadian justice would consider a peccadillo?
Harper, can you draw a clear distinction between the Karzai government of Afghanistan and the Taliban government of Afghanistan in relation to the administration of law & order and justice?
I'm waiting for any harperite to respond with my fingers crossed.
Via CTVglobemedia
The AP
January 30, 2008
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, Causes worth dying for, eh?, Democracy, ha, ha, ha, Harper government, Spin
Who's that in the front row smiling away like a goof? Whose on his right craning away? Whose on his left, sans silly hat for once, looking bored?
About 1 minute 53 seconds into Bill Moyers's introductory remarks, at the beginning of his Friday night show on PBS, there is a shot in the video clip, over which he is speaking, of the crowd in the front row at Davos who are listening to Condi Rice bullshitting speaking yet again about how strong and vigorous the US is right now.
The front row includes a curious crowd of swells, both known and unknown.
There's a puppet who likes silly hats and looks allot like Ming the Merciless.
Next a poodle masquerading as an employee of J P Morgan.
And, finally, a well known new-ager usually only seen on Mexican beaches covered in rotting fruit and on old age rock star's yachts, hanging out the wash.
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Blair, Crazy partners, Politicians, Poodle, yo boy, Shmucks, Spin, War criminals
Hmm. I wonder in deciding if anyone maybe getting a little disenchanted with some choices in the jackass party?
Hmm, indeedy, eh.
I guessed it might be Mr. Fish.
Technorati Tags: Harper's, Jackasses, Politicians, Mr Fisk, USA, Utopia
I wrote a note last night for my blog titled "Canada and Israel new best buddies?". It had two purposes. One to highlight that even though there is a real financial crisis occurring in world financial markets, driven by concern that there actually is a problem in markets for goods and services in the US, Canada's minister of finance is tooling around in the middle East. He is there ostensibly to have talks with Jordan and Israel about improving trade and investment ties between us and them.
There is not much wrong with trying to improve trade. But I more than wonder at why now is the time to be flitting around Israel and/or Jordan. These two countries are actually insignificant to us in terms of Canada's overall balance of trade. Funnily enough, we actually are a positive for Israel relative to their exports and imports of our stuff but, in fact, very very small compared to Canada's trade picture as a whole. In other words, we import more from Israel than we export to them.
Just for interest sake, I checked Iran's trade situation with us and, low and behold, it is almost as important to Canada's exporters as Israel is and Iran actually is a positive addition to Canada's overall net trade balance. In other words, to use that phrase again, dealing with Iran is better for us in terms of trade than dealing with Israel.
In the very limited interview I watched yesterday with the finance minister on CBC no mention was made of this nor was a question even asked. Maybe the satellite linkup was too expansive for the CBC to really question the minister for any length of time.
The second point of my note was to raise the question of the devastation the "right-wing" Israelis are imposing on the men, women and children in the Gaza strip. Again, in the interview of the minister on the CBC, no mention was made of whether or not the minister was questioning his Israeli counterparts, or any Israeli for that matter, on the inhuman treatment being inflected on ordinary Palestinians during the minister's little junket.
Why would Flaherty raise the question of human rights? I don't know, maybe because every time Harper comes anywhere choose to a Chinese senior political government official he makes a big fuss about that country's human rights record and China is actually very, very, very important to Canada in terms of our net trade balance. So, dumb fool I am, I'd have thought that Flaherty might have raised the question of Israel's behaviour in regard to human rights also. And, if he did raise it, to make sure we, the Canadian public, knew he'd broached the subject.
Just for quick reference the tables below show the 5 year completed record of Canada's trading position with both Israel and Iran.
Oh I also noticed that Flaherty got his picture taken at the Holocaust Museum and posted, of all places, on the official federal finance website, nice touch.
I can't figure out, for the life of me, why I'm so cynical about the Harper crew and for that matter Israel. I wonder if it might have something to do with the nasty pettiness of the former and the hypocrisy of both
Technorati Tags: Canada, CBC, Economics, Harper government, Iran, Israel, Shmucks, Two faced
I'd wondered where the mysterious little Harper minister of finance might have been hiding during the market roller-coaster extravaganza that's been been going on since last Friday.
Seems he's out discussing trade and investment with Israel. Neat, eh.
Lucky for him not to be in his own country when there is just an itty-bitty sense of uncertainty about the country's short term economic situation. From what I can gather, most finance ministers or treasury secretaries around the world, in countries feeling just a little shaky about the coming year's economic situation, are at home in their capital pretending, if nothing else, that they are concerned. But not Harpers boy-o. No he's over with his new best buddy Eliyahu Yishai. It must be because Israel is such a potentially tremendously important market for Canada. I'm not going to laugh.
I guess we now know one reason why Bernier did his magnificent flip-flop on the External Affairs training manuel which used Israel and the US as examples of countries that would maybe torture a Canadian. Also, I wonder whether Flaherty looking for significantly important potential trade ties with Israel (ha, ha, ha) had something to do with the Harper government posturing on the UN anti-racism conference in Durban.
Just a couple of questions I hope Harper's minister Flaherty asked anyone in Israel:
Why is Israel starving the men, women and children in Gaza? Is it because they are not Israelis? Could this be viewed as part of an Israeli "circus of intolerance" to paraphrase a colleague of Flaherty's, Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity?
Why did Israel kill Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener while he was on assignment to the UN from the PPCLI during your 2006 war on Lebanon? [This question is likely unfair as Canada's prime minister Harper said is was O.K. that Israel killed the Major].
Technorati Tags: Canada, Economics, Foreign? Affairs, Harper government, Israel, Leadership?, Middle East, Politicians, Shmucks
