I’m not much of a fan of the National Post as I find many of its writers a lot more right leaning (I’m trying to be kind) than I have tolerance for. However, as intolerant as I am of these writers, I do occasionally  read their drivel if for nothing else to make sure I really am still intolerant of them.

So, rather than subject myself to actually reading the National Post, I follow them on Twitter and scan the headlines they tweet for items of interest. One caught my attention today “Louise Arbour speaks out on the world’s worst country — Canada“, a piece written by Kelly McParland.

I have a lot of respect for Mme Arbour having read about her actions in Bosnia and the Hague. I admired her gutsy stands, especially in bringing the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic in the face of some of the NATO countries demonstrating their lack of will in bringing him to justice. I admired that she is not only a gutsy woman in an often man’s world but a gutsy Canadian woman.

McParland on the other hand, appears to be very good at the type of armchair journalism which can be pretty safe to engage in. You know, the kind of writing that bloggers, like me, do from the comfort of our homes. Except he gets paid and should be writing to a higher standard.

What McParland was slamming Arbour over was her candid remarks made to Olivia Ward in her piece today in the Toronto Star; “Louise Arbour can finally talk about world’s worst regimes“. During the interview Arbour shared that she can now speak her mind in her current position as President and CEO of the International Crisis Group.

What set McParland off is this:

“Is Canada punching below its weight?” she says. “Is it punching at all?”

Ottawa, Arbour argues, is “largely absent on the international scene. It’s very difficult to capture any kind of message, position or form of engagement these days.”

And she adds, “when I was prosecutor in 1996, it mattered what Canada thought. On issues of justice and ethics, it mattered what the Canadian position was. There was a sense that you would get an honest, well-thought-out approach. Not just a raw pursuit of ideological or national interest.”

I went over and read the piece myself. It didn’t take me a degree in journalism to take a reasonable guess that Olivia Ward was engaged in an interview with Louise Arbour and since she had limited space for her piece, she focused on Arbour’s remarks that were relevant to Canadians. It is after all, a Canadian newspaper and Canadian audience. You can pick up pretty easily that there were other countries discussed.

Just to make sure my impressions weren’t just assumptions on my part I shot an email off to Ward. Apparently McParland didn’t think about that simple little stop, but then it would have robbed him of his rant material. She responded in short order and yes, my assumptions were correct.

Arbour is correct in her comments. It is very difficult to know where Canada stands on much of anything and when you do figure out a stand it drips with partisan ideology. Canada at one time had a nuanced approach to the conflicts in the Middle East.

We didn’t trumpet Israel as taking a “measured response” when they bombed the Gaza. We wouldn’t have stayed silent over their use of phosphorus weapons on a civilian population, like we have recently. We wouldn’t have cut off funding to an aid group like KAIROS for having the temerity to criticise the actions of Israel.

When Canada took a stand, it meant something more than pandering to the right wing Christian Evangelical interests in the political party of government.

These days, Harper is quick to strut on the world stage and claim Canada is no longer a ‘soft power’, but with our military refitting and boots on the ground in places like Afghanistan and Haiti that we can prove ourselves as ‘hard power’ through our capabilities.

One of his most recent chest thumpings took place in Haiti in February. I’ll give him his due, Canada reacted swiftly to the devastating earthquake there on February 12th. Putting 2000 Canadian troops on the ground is swift order should have made most Canadians puff a bit with pride. Course, less noticed was that within a couple of months, those troops were just as quickly pulled out.

Having never heard of ICG organization, I looked it up and spent some time exploring their site. Too bad McParland didn’t take some time to do the same. It places Arbour’s comments in even more perspective. She isn’t speaking just from past experiences, she’s speaking from today’s experiences.

This 15 year old non-profit group is independent and non-governmental. They focus on trying to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts like Afghanistan amongst about 60 hot spots in the world. A scan down the list of their board members shows an international cast of all stars who have had up close experience in hot spots. They are not armchair quarterbacks.

The reports they have prepared and delivered on their research in these areas are available for reading on the website. I took a read down through their most recent report on Afghanistan and from their linked to another paper and was scanning down through that when I came across this:

Kabul recently surreptitiously resurrected an amnesty law that grants immunity to the warlords who currently rule the country and to the brutal extremists who seek to supplant them. The law may well apply to Baradar if he agreed to join the reconciliation process. This controversial “National Reconciliation, General Amnesty and National Stability Law” had languished in legal limbo since first appearing three years ago, until it was put on the books late last year in an apparent election-related deal with several of Karzai’s key supporters. The law grants blanket amnesty to the perpetrators of some of the worst atrocities, forcing victims to negotiate their claims through the virtually defunct Afghan justice system.

Canada, the US and other allies appear to have placed a cone of silence over this action. Thankfully the International Criminal Court, to which Afghanistan signed on to in 2005 and is thus subject to, is considering launching a formal investigation into war crimes there in the last seven years. With some of the Taliban leadership in custody in Pakistan, the ICC appears to be the mostly likely place to bring them to justice.

So, why exactly is ‘hard power’ Harper not standing up and breaking the silence on the Karzai government’s corruption and subterfuge? Why is he not pressing the other allies to step up and demand better when our country’s blood and treasure has gone into trying to bring stability to this country?

If McParland wants to have a good rant, he might want to look where Arbour is coming from and what is backing her up. He’d have enough material to keep his pay cheque coming for several months.

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Back on February 28th, the day Canada’s mens team won hockey gold, a couple of Canadians down in La Quinta, California decided it would be fun to celebrate the Canadian win by hiking up a steep mountain, taking down an American flag and replacing it with a Canadian flag.

Local police have tracked down the two suspects and have asked their local district attorney to lay misdemeanour vandalism and flag desecration charges against them. When the owner of the flag’s son when up in early March to swap the two flags, he discovered the American flag had been torn apart and buried under some rocks.

Adding insult to injury, the flag has been flying at this location in honour of those killed in 9/11 which also includes 24 Canadians. The local Walmart donates a new flag every six months to keep the flag in good shape.

Personally, I think those two should be charged. I think it is great the Americans have a charge specifically for desecrating flags, Canada would be wise to adopt one. Should fit right in with Harper’s ‘tough on crime’ campaign. But I digress.

Well Canadians have been more willing to wave the flag in the last several years, we often do so without a lot of thought to what that flag represents. It is not just our country but all those who have gone before it to uphold and preserve our freedoms. The Americans understand that fact and take it very seriously.

Those two guys could have found a lot of other ways to show their pride in their Olympic hockey team than than rubbing salt in a very raw wound. They seem to have forgotten, Canadian soldiers are fighting and dying today in Afghanistan as the result of 9/11.

Seems they need a serious lesson in respect.

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As the volcano in Iceland continues to spew forth ash and the cloud continues to spread itself across Europe and now apparently to the eastern shores of North America I’ve wondered how long the airlines would be tolerant of the prudence being shown by the air traffic controllers.

I’m going to say at the outset, I have never flown on an aircraft and at this point in my life have never had a need to. I have on occasion turned my vehicle into a flying vehicle due to lead footitis but I’ve never left the ground.

I’m sure millions of travellers stuck in countries they are trying to leave would certainly like to see planes flying to get them home. Over the weekend some European airlines sent up test flights through the volcanic ash cloud. At this point, they seem to be claiming their planes returned without any problems or damage.

Affected airlines are losing millions of dollars a day as this situation continues to drag on. Weather forecasters are now saying this will likely continue for days at a minimum and possible weeks depending on how long it takes this volcano to settle down. Meanwhile a NATO F-16 who flew through the cloud area reportedly has sustained damage to its engines.

From the material I’ve read, most volcanoes initial eruption sends ash cloud into the air and then it settles as the volcano sends out molten lava. The Iceland volcano is erupting within a ice-field which means that the lava is being cooled by the ice which it hasn’t been able to instantly melt, this sends more and more ash cloud into the sky.

Weather patterns, not just winds, move the cloud around. Right now a high pressure system extending from Newfoundland to Iceland is pulling cloud from Iceland towards Canadian shores as it turns in a clockwise pattern. Two low pressure systems are sitting just below that high pressure and are moving counterclockwise. At least one of those lows will pull some of the cloud out of the high and down the eastern US seaboard.

And we thought there was chaos happening in Europe.

It appears that winds and weather patterns are capable of moving this grit filled cloud farther and faster than expected just as airlines are getting really anxious about the millions they are losing.

Were their test flights successful or are they wilfully overlooking effects which could potentially have devastating effects on planes making their way through the skies? Will world governments give into pressure from airlines and stranded passengers to get them to their destinations?

Even more frightening will be the prospect of planes full of hundreds of passengers at a time playing Russian roulette in the name of world commerce. Mother nature has a devastating way of showing us just who is in control doesn’t she?

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Fox News network is reportedly one of the highest rated in the USA. I’ve never been a particular fan of it, I’ve generally found a lot of their reporting more along the lines of a national gossip show, sort of like the broadcast version of the National Enquirer. I’m a Canadian, so for the most part, what passes as news south of the border isn’t really my business.

I’ve grown up with an awareness that a lot of Americans have very little awareness of their neighbour to the north. I can remember as a kid encountering other children in Algonquin Provincial Park, (that’s in Ontario) and them asking me what ‘state’ I came from. When I told them I lived in the Province of Ontario, the usual response was “what state is that in”?

I well remember how strange I thought those kids to be that they couldn’t fathom that they were standing in the province I came from. It was later I learned that ignorance came from a lack of information about this country and even less interest in knowing.

Back to Fox News. One of their so called news shows is called “Red Eye” hosted by Greg Gutfeld. For the most part Gutfeld and the cronies who participate on the show with him think they are rather funny in their perspective. Sort of Fox’s answer to the Leno or Letterman.

Recently Gutfeld decided to pillory the Canadian military after Lieutenant-General Leslie noted that our military will need an operational pause after our mission in Afghanistan is complete. The clip has been posted to YouTube here.

While the panel mocked Canada for relying on the US for our security, Ian Welsh made an interesting point on Huffington Post that we don’t actually need the US to protect us. He also provided some interesting stats about Canada’s involvement in military operations over the years.

The most obvious is that when it came to the two world wars, Canada was in pulling its weight and above its weight long before the Americans arrived:

In WWII Canada had 1.1 million men serving and lost 45,364. The total population of the country in 1945 was 12,072,000. Canada thus had a per capita loss rate of .376%. America’s death rate in WWII was .21%.

In WWI Canada had 64,944 military casualties in a total population of 7.2 million. The per capita death rate was thus a wopping 0.9%. The US lost 53,402, in absolute numbers less, and the casualty rate was .054%.

Using the link Ian provided, during the Korean War the US had a casualty rate of .005% while Canada’s was .02%. While our smaller population makes our absolute numbers of Canadians involved in the wars smaller, our rates of sacrifice of our young to the world’s battles are consistently higher.

Makes me grateful Canada is pretty picky about what battles we send our troops into.

Ellen over at News Hounds expressed her outrage over their mocking of our forces.  She also provided an email link along with a suggestion that her readers should email Fox to express their outrage at Gutfeld’s outrageous behaviour.

In addition to this blog post, I have done exactly that. My email reads:

Dear Sir:

I can appreciate humour as much as the next person. I can even appreciate humour made at the expense of Canadians (which I am). The genius of humour is timing which apparently Greg Gutfeld and the buffoons appearing with him fail to understand. Either that or they are woefully ignorant of their subjects.

Their recently aired segment titled “Taking A Break” pillorying our military for stating they will need an operational pause after our troops depart Afghanistan was beyond the pale.

Canada has had troops in Afghanistan since 2002. They were sent there to support our ally and neighbour to the south after the attacks of 9/11. In 2006 our troops moved into Kandahar province replacing American troops being pulled out to fight your war in Iraq. There is currently 2,800 Canadians serving in Kandahar.

Since 2002 a total of 116 Canadians have died in the Afghanistan war, 5 of that number died at the hands of our American allies, 112 of those deaths has been since 2006. As has so often happened in Canadian history, our troops have been punching above their weight in Kandahar and sustaining casualties at 2.6-4 times those sustained by the US and British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At 2pm today, a plane carrying the bodies of four Canadians killed in Afghanistan on Friday, while taking part in a joint mission with US and Afghan troops, will land in Trenton, Ontario. They will be met by grieving family members, fellow military, our Governor-General (military commander-in-chief) and the Minister of Defense.

About 90 minutes later a motorcade of four hearses, grieving families, military escorts and police will start out along Canada’s busiest highway carrying those bodies to Toronto. There are 50 bridges between Trenton and Toronto, on all of them will be Canadians totalling in the thousands who are there to honour those fallen Canadians and show support to their families. I will be one of them.

Every one of our fallen Canadians have been met this way. Those four brings the total to eight Canadians who have died in the last few weeks in a war that Canadians entered to support their American neighbours. As painful as it is to stand on the bridge and watch those hearses pass by, I have and do support the troops and their mission in Afghanistan.

Do you have any question why Gutfeld and his buffoons have chose the wrong time to target Canadian troops? Fox News claims to be fair and balanced. Seems that Gutfeld needs to do some apologising for his tasteless behaviour to balance this out.

Patti May
Colborne, ON
www.outoftheshadows.ca

Add your voice, send an email to redeye@foxnews.com

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I’ve been watching the furor which has erupted over the payment of bonuses to employees at AIG in the US.  Edward Liddy, the man appointed by the government to oversee AIG, claims the bonuses need to be paid out as they are a debt owed by the company. Liddy is not one of those receiving funds, he receives $1 annually, so this is not about his pocketbook.

From what I have read, the agreement to pay these bonuses was made early in 2008 which preceeded the stock market meltdown. I rather doubt the agreement preceeded any awareness at all on  AIGs part that the company was in financial trouble. Seems to me some pretty hard questions need to be asked about just who had the authority to agree to allow such a huge amount of money to be paid out.

Logic says that is should have been someone pretty high up in the company and should have been aware of the financial situation. The reality is, the current financial crisis wasn’t totally a shot from the blue. The depth and seriousness of it has been a bit of a shock but the fact that something was pending is not. I’ve been seeing signs of what was coming for the last 2-3 years and I’m not involved in a high finance industry.

Someone, or several knew the reaction these bonuses were going to get or the government would have known about the pending payment weeks ago, not just a week or so ago. Who knew and why were they not required to fully inform the government who is pretty much a majority stock holder with their huge bailout packout?

Then the questions go to those receiving the funds. Just because the company is making the funds available doesn’t mean that the recipient doesn’t have a moral obligation to decline receipt of the bonus. Something that slipped by most people’s radar here in Canada is that the heads of our major banks all declined to accept their bonuses this year.

Canadian banks have not received a government bailout and unlike most other systems around the world, they remain profitable. They would have had justification in taking their bonuses but had the good sense to decline to do so.

AIG employees, on the other hand, have taken part in the decline of their company to the point that the government had to step in or watch a large part of the financial system unravel. They shouldn’t need to have the bonuses taken away, they shouldn’t be taking them in the first place.

Bonuses were always supposed to be for being part of generating good returns. When did they become reward for bad returns?

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The government of Argentina has given Bishop Richard Williamson ten days to leave the country or face expulsion. Williamson has been at the centre of an international furor over his denial of the holocaust during WW2. Now he’s not alone in such denials but what has brought his particular hate message to world notice is that he is one of four bishops Pope Benedict has chosen to lift excommunication on.

Barracks in Auschwitz

Argentina accuses Williamson of having lied about his activities, specifically his employment while in the country. They have not shied away from also stating that Williamson’s views have influenced their decision to terminate his welcome in the country. With about 200,000 Jews living in Argentina, the largest Jewish population in Latin America, it is pretty understandable why he would be very unwelcome.

I don’t pretend to understand Roman Catholic politics, I have enough trying to understand Anglican Communion politics (which I don’t). I do however get it that there would be an outcry over this particular person. The Pope claimed that he was unaware of Williamson’s history when the decision was made to include him in the group of priests.

He has since ordered Williamson to unequivocally renounce his views before his rehabilitation as a Roman Catholic Bishop can take place. Something that Williamson has shown no particular interest in doing so. Rather than directly refuse he’s dancing around the issue by claiming that he needs to review the available evidence and if his beliefs are wrong he will say so.

He claims to have based his assertions on reports he read 20 years ago. He has declined a suggestion to actually travel to Auschwitz. That could have something to do with the German’s considering laying hate charges against him. Under current laws, should they lay international charges against him, Britain (his birthplace) would have little choice but to turn him over should that request be made.

I find it hard to believe that he’s been able to hold these beliefs this long and has never been challenged to surrender them. He has had plenty of time to learn differently in his lifetime, he just doesn’t want to. In my little part of the world, had I ever possessed disbelief in the truth of the holocaust that was forever put to bed years ago.

During a discussion at a meeting I was chairing one rather cocky member of the group tried to argue against the holocaust or that the Jews had been exterminated in large numbers. While I sat astounded at the profound ignorance and arrogance of this person I caught sight of another member of the group agitated almost to the point of tears.

This man was not someone easily moved to tears or agitation. He was however a Canadian veteran who had been taken into the camps just after the defeat of Germany. I gave him a moment to compose himself and then asked him to tell us what he was able to. He continued to fight back tears as he described what he had seen. He didn’t witness the gas being turned on, but he had no doubt as to what had been going on there.

I don’t either. Do you?

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It’s hard to believe the utter devastation that bush fires in the state of Victoria in Australia has wrought. Almost 800 homes have been destroyed, countless vehicles and other structures, animals and upwards of 160 people and rising have lost their lives. Another 80 are in hospital. Almost 1300 square miles destroyed by raging fires that some describe as sounding like 5 or 6 airliners landing at once.

What is even more mind boggling is that it is believed that some of the estimated 400 fires were deliberately set. According to one report I found, at least two suspects are in custody. Between the drought that Australia has suffered with for months and record hot temperatures, it would take someone with a serious lack of gray matter between the ears to even thinking of striking a flame.

Australian Prime Minister Rudd has said that those found to have started the fires will be charged with murder. I certainly hope so.

I can’t even begin to imagine what it is like to not only lose your home but everything around you that you knew to be familiar. In some cases whole communities have been wiped from the earth, much like an atomic bomb exploding. Australia has experienced fast moving bush fires before but apparently nothing like these and never before with a death toll as high as this and will likely continue to rise as burnt out homes and vehicles are inspected.

I found this gallery of pictures from the fire zone online. Unbelievable.

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You know, I’ve watched this situation in the Gaza strip going on. I can be some what detached from it all as I don’t have any direct connection to either side of the conflict other than it being in the area of the Holy Land which is where the roots of my own faith are.

I don’t even begin to understand all that goes on there other than the emnity and hatred on both sides runs deep. I expect that just as there are those on both sides of the divide who believe the other side is absolutely the agressors there are those of goodwill who mere want to live their lives in peace.

The Palistinean group Hamas remains committed to the annihilation of Israel and ultimately the Jewish people. In many countries in the world, certainly in the west, Hamas is considered to be not a government but a terrorist group. For years they have used the Gaza strip to fire missles into Israel. They have also used Lebanon to do the same.

Eventually Israel responds by bombing and invading in an effort to shut down the supply of missles and dismantle Hamas. When they do it, the world erupts in furor at the heavy handedness and appeals to Israel the halt the ensuing deaths of civilians and the loss of their homes, businesses and infrastructure.

I tend to wince at the civilian deaths and remind myself that Israel has a right to self-defense. If nothing else halts the missles except brute force then brute force it must be. Since it is becoming abundently clear that Israel deployed the use of phosphorous weapons in this campaign that there needs to be clear and unequivacol condemnation of the use of those weapons.

Having a right to self defense doesn’t give anyone the right to use such horrific weapons. In many ways the use of phosphorus is not a very far leap from the use of nuclear weapons. Is the world going to wait until the ante gets upped and it’s too late?

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