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thankyougrandma
Posts: 1,182
It's a shame that Canada have now step down from it's "mediator" role and peace keepers role by defending one side without any reserve and condemning the other without any reserve when it's clearly not that black and white of a situation, even after the brutal killing of Canadians citizens. It's a shame.
This year mark the 40th anniversary of the Suez Canal peaceful resolution, thanks to Lester B. Pearson, at this time he was a simple Canadian Minister.
This year mark the 40th anniversary of the Suez Canal peaceful resolution, thanks to Lester B. Pearson, at this time he was a simple Canadian Minister.
"L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers"
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Harper and his goons are the Canadian equivelent of Bush and his goons.
I think he just listens to Bush and then paraphrases.
Actually, that reminds me, here is a perfect example
http://www.cbc.ca/22minutes/videos/archive/2006/march_17/heardthisbefore.wvx
"It has left a bad taste in everybody's mouth," says Hani Faris, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia who grew up in Lebanon.
"There is basically no concern for the sentiments or the feelings of the hundreds of thousands of Arab-Canadians or those who sympathize with (them)."
Israel supporters counter that Harper has taken a laudable stance on a growing Middle East crisis and maintain his actions were shaped far more by principle than politics.
Israel's military response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers - initially described by Harper as "measured" - has since escalated as Canadians mourn the loss of at least eight fellow citizens killed in the bombardment of Lebanese targets.
Harper has said the onus is on militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to stop long-running attacks against Israel and return the kidnapped soldiers.
"I think we have to hold ultimately responsible for the violence people who advocate it as a solution and act upon those desires," Harper said Tuesday in Paris.
Several Canadian Arab groups have accused Harper of abandoning a traditional federal position that recognized Israel's right to exist while showing balanced concern for affected Arab communities.
Faris traces that subtle but vital shift to the former Liberal regime. It was under Paul Martin's leadership that Canada began abstaining from or opposing United Nations resolutions rapping Israeli conduct in the region.
Harper has deliberately sharpened that pro-Israel tone, Faris said in an interview Tuesday.
"These are his own ideological leanings, his alliances.
"Canada is unfortunately forsaking its humanitarian position . . . . It is losing its even-handedness and balance on Middle Eastern issues."
Faris recalled a meeting he had last year with former Liberal foreign affairs minister Pierre Pettigrew on similar concerns.
"I told him: 'Don't take Arab-Canadians for granted. There are hundreds of thousands of them.' "
To put it in crass political terms, at least one Conservative estimate says there are about 800,000 Arab-Canadian votes versus around 300,000 Jewish votes.
Norman Spector, once ambassador to Israel and an aide to former prime minister Brian Mulroney, believes Harper's position on a lightning-rod issue is dictated by conviction, not political expediency.
"I don't think he did it from the point of view of electoral politics. This is an issue he's thought about and it's what he believes."
Harper's stand will play well with his core constituency of small-c conservatives, Albertans and evangelicals, Spector said.
"The 35 per cent of the vote that he has now will think what he's done is great."
But it will likely hurt Tory efforts to make inroads in urban ethnic areas - especially in Montreal with its huge Lebanese community, he added.
Interim Liberal Leader Bill Graham said Tuesday that Harper's position threatens Canada's credibility as an arbitrator in world crises.
The former foreign affairs minister said for Ottawa to take a position in one crisis that could detract from its traditional role as an intermediary is a "great error.
"Mr. Harper is proud of the fact he wasn't nuanced about this," Graham said. "Nuance has kept us in a position where we could help. Lose the nuance and you lose your capacity to act and help others . . . .we lose our position to work with moderates."
NDP Leader Jack Layton urged Harper to call for an immediate ceasefire by all sides, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and an end to related attacks. He also said Canada should join a peacekeeping force as called for by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
I tend to agree with this article...still do not get why Albertans would be happy over this though....makes no bloody sense....Albertans voted Conservatives because they want a fiscally conservative country above all else...at least that is what I thought....
I don't understand Albertans at all. I lived next door in B.C. and spent a lot of time in Alberta, as some of my relatives are Albertans.
I never voted for the party, the sooner we get over this conservative blemish, the better. I'm an Albertan but I'm a Liberal thick and through.
>
...a lover and a fighter.
"I'm at least half a bum" Rocky Balboa
http://www.videosift.com/video/Obamas-Message-To-American-Indians
Edmonton, AB. September 5th, 2005
Vancouver, BC. April 3rd, 2008
Calgary,AB. August 8th, 2009
Where are Harper's fans?
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
What do you think of this PR work by Harper.....
PARIS (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to Cyprus where he intends to take up to 120 evacuees from Lebanon home to Canada on his Canadian Forces plane.
Harper announced the surprise side trip on his week-long European diplomatic tour after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac at the Elysee Palace on Wednesday afternoon.
"Because of the seriousness of the situation and our relative proximity to Cyprus, we have decided to take the Canadian Forces aircraft we have been travelling on to help airlift evacuees back home," Harper said in a statement. "The aircraft will be stripped down to a skeleton staff."
Media travelling with the prime minister have been bumped to commercial flights for their return home to Canada.
Only Harper's wife, Laureen, a couple of his communications staff and his official photographer, will join him on the 3 1/2-hour flight to Cyprus where the first boatload of Canadian evacuees from Beirut was expected to arrive in the port of Larnaca sometime on Wednesday.
The surprise change in itinerary came as the Harper government was under intense criticism for perceptions that Canada has been slow to ensure the safety of its estimated 50,000 citizens in Lebanon.
Despite having one of the largest groups of nationals in Lebanon of any country in the world, Canada was only getting its first group of evacuees out of the war-torn country on Wednesday.
Several other countries began evacuating their nationals as early as Sunday - albeit in only small numbers. Canada has already lost eight citizens to an Israeli air strike.
A Harper spokeswoman says Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Harper in Paris on Wednesday expressing his "sincere condolences" for the deaths.
In response to questions, Harper denied the trip was a photo opportunity.
"It's more than a symbolic trip," he said. "There's a need for air support in Cyprus. Freeing up seats, we will have a significant number of seats to help the situation.
"I think criticism in this type of situation, given all the complexities, is inevitable one way or another," Harper added. "We believe there is a real need here. . . . We believe it's the right thing to do."
It wasn't known when the plane would be returning to Canada or its exact destination.
"Our goal is to return as soon as possible," said Sandra Buckler, Harper's communications director.
She did not give details on how they would determine which evacuees would get a ride back to Canada on Harper's plane.
Neither did she confirm reports that some of the Canadian-chartered ships would go from Lebanon to a port in southern Turkey.
I just hope he'll get the words from them, and wont hide himself in the pilot cab, it's definitly only PR and as i said i don't care, EVERY country have difficulty right now, it's just the biggest fucking evacuation of all time for Canada and the biggest since WW2 as a whole, but it's all justified, measured, legal, all right, ok, go on, continue, whatever. I don't have the words to express my anger since this conflict start, no in fact since the Montreal kids died, i'm really pissed off, sad, and the thought of this war is following me everywhere, my boss wife is Lebanese, her two kids (17 and 19) were studying in Beirut, now they left for the north in some family they have there (suppose to be safe), even the christian side of Beirut is not safe anymore (they're christian) and she's at the office almost all day to watch the internet, just in case she'd receive some news, although they were said to be heading to Tripoli, where a ship is waiting, anyway it's all so confusing...
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
What seems to be the popular opinion back in Quebec...as of right now I would predict it be very anti-Harper right now...but I may be wrong....and if so will this be enough to hinder the Conservative march back into Quebec...or once again deal them to oblivion....
Nobody else than the Jewish Quebec Congress support Harper in the current crisis, other than that, i've heard nobody and no group defending Israel and Harper's position, quite the opposite, he's getting blast around in the medias and in the street, but i'm kind of biased so... protest are happening each day, and might grow when the evacuated come back home...
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jul. 20, 2006. 01:00 AM
HAROON SIDDIQUI
Stephen Harper reminds me of the late King Fahd, of the American puppet state of Saudi Arabia, who was said to be more American than the American president.
By falling in lockstep with George W. Bush, the Prime Minister is either displaying his ideological commitment to the president or trying to please him, at any cost — from Afghanistan to Israel. Either way, he is compromising Canadian sovereignty and our reputation for even-handedness, as well as exposing our soldiers to grave risk in the questionable Afghan mission.
To be fair, Ottawa's pro-American tilt began under Paul Martin. But Harper is "out-bushing Bush," as Opposition Leader Bill Graham says.
Whereas several G8 leaders thought of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon as outrageously disproportionate, Harper found it "measured."
A Canadian prime minister thus did not utter a word of protest against the killing of eight Canadians, let alone of nearly 300 other people and the displacement of about 500,000 civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.
It's a line of thinking in which the only lives that matter, and the only territories worthy of immunity from violence, are American and Israeli.
This is the immoral calculus that's at the heart of so much havoc in the world today. And it is this that Harper has committed Canada to, with little or no debate in Parliament or anywhere else.
Harper also parrots the line that the crisis emanates solely from "the actions of Hamas and the actions of Hezbollah." It does, but not completely.
The crisis in the Gaza Strip has been in the making for a year. Israel evacuated the territory, only to keep a stranglehold by controlling the movement of people and goods. This helped Hamas win the parliamentary elections, which triggered even more collective punishments.
Harper led Bush in initiating Western revenge on the Palestinians for electing the wrong people. Canada helped foment a humanitarian crisis, with mass starvation and the near-breakdown of the social order.
An agreement by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with Hamas to nudge it toward recognizing Israel got lost in the Hamas shelling of Israel and its June 25 abduction of one Israeli soldier in the hope of freeing some of the 1,500 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Israel retaliated with bombs, sonic booms, the arrest of cabinet ministers and MPs, and the killing of about 100 Palestinians.
Gideon Levy, columnist for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, wrote:
"It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament. A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization."
It was into this mess that the terrorist Hezbollah moved, landing missiles on Israeli civilians and killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two. The Israeli offensive on Lebanon followed.
United Nations human rights chief, Canadian Louise Arbour, said yesterday the scale of killing in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories could involve war crimes.
Israel has an inalienable right to defend itself against terror, with proportionate force and an obligation to protect civilians during hostilities. It has a right to exist, indeed thrive. So do the Palestinians. One is not possible without the other.
Despite all the militant Arab bluster of driving Israel into the sea, nobody can. Yet, for all its power, Israel won't have peace unless the Palestinians have it as well.
Harper is either ignorant of this reality or chooses to ignore it. Now that he has made his choice, Canadian voters will, too, in due time.
If the Tories fail to procure a majority in the next election, their failure to crack through urban Canada and Quebec may be attributable to this moment when their leader's Stockwell Day-like zealotry got exposed.
Harper's mistake is of far greater magnitude, both internationally and domestically, than that of Joe Clark in 1979 when he pledged to move the Canadian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Harper may also be too ideological or too stubborn, or both, to recover, as Clark did by dispatching Robert Stanfield on a mission to the Middle East.
Quebecers tend to be more pro-Palestinian than English Canadians. That the Canadian family killed in Lebanon was from Montreal, and that most of the stranded Canadians there are from Quebec, can only add to that sentiment.
It is a mistake to see Harper's stance only through the window of our domestic ethnic politics, between the 350,000 Jewish Canadians and the 650,000 Muslim Canadians.
Half the Canadian Arabs are Christian, and not all Jewish Canadians agree with a military solution.
The issue also has wider resonance, as seen in the boycott call against Israel by CUPE Ontario and the Toronto branch of the United Church.
Finally, the struggle to keep Canada's voice distinct and separate from that of the United States is bred in our bones.
It is more urgent, not less, under a president whose deeply flawed vision has left even a majority of Americans distraught over what he has wrought, both at home and abroad.
Haroon Siddiqui, the Star's editorial page editor emeritus, appears Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca.
Additional articles by Haroon Siddiqui
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
i need to redo my math, 50th anniversary, 1956 to 2006 = 50 years, sorry about that error...
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau