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George Bush and Bill Clinton Do Toronto
Just as fresh revelations keep oozing out about the broad extent of the international criminality perpetrated by the regime of the former US president, Canada is becoming the main site of a corporate-driven effort to re-brand George W. Bush as a legitimate political pundit. On May 29 Mr. Bush joins Bill Clinton on the stage of the Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre in an event hosted by the TD Financial Group and several other sponsors. The hosts include the Calgary-based Bennett Jones law firm, the global accounting giant Ernst and Young, the Toronto Board of Trade as well as the Toronto-based Globe and Mail newspaper.
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Dancing the Afghan Jig
Does President Obama think about what victory means in Afghanistan? Converting Afghanistan to the U.S. order? Or, stopping terrorist attacks against the United States? Either way the military — with its long no-win record — seems unlikely to accomplish the job.
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Obama’s Foreign Policy Failures
President Obama’s greatest foreign policy successes are found in the reports of the mass media. His greatest failures go unreported, but are of great consequence. A survey of the major foreign policy priorities of the White House reveals a continuous series of major setbacks, which call into question the principal objectives and methods pursued by the Obama regime.
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Exposing Canada’s Afghanistan “Mission”
October 7 will grimly mark the eighth anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. As the death toll mounts daily, reaching unprecedented levels this year, a sober assessment of Canada’s mission of folly is required. Exposing the crisis and corruption in Afghanistan and Canada, intellectuals James Laxer and John W. Warnock offer two scathing critiques of the war and the successive Canadian governments that poured oil on the fire. The Canadian anti-war movement is muted at best, so Laxer’s and Warnock’s latest publications must be read as a means of exposing the deadly and disgraceful policy of the Canadian government. A strengthened approach is required to end this war.
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The Long March of the Canadian Peace Movement
The Canadian peace movement has just held a series of marches to mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq and to call on the Canadian government to end our military involvement in Afghanistan. A majority of Canadians want the troops home, and over sixty per cent oppose extending the mission past 2009. Yet, almost every Liberal MP lined up with the Conservatives on March 13 to support Stephen Harper’s plan to extend Canada’s mission in Afghanistan to 2011.
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Imperial Agenda
Back in January, when the Harper Tories eked out their election squeaker, Canadian foreign policy wasn’t even on the radar screen, despite valiant efforts by the anti-war movement to challenge Canada’s role in the occupations of Haiti and Afghanistan. Things will be different next time. As Canadian troops die in sizeable numbers for the first time since the Korean War, foreign policy could become a key factor in blocking a Harper majority.
It’s true that the military brass, key business organizations like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the political right are pulling out all the stops, and this may have some impact. The “red rallies” to “support our troops” are a well-orchestrated campaign to whip up patriotic fervour, and every time a bomb kills civilians in Kabul, the corporate media sings the “save the Afghan civilians” tune.
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Labour Stands Up Against War
The Canadian Labour Congress’s statement on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is clear and unequivocal; it calls for the troops to be brought home now. The statement marks a significant step forward for the labour movement concerning the development of policy with respect to the use the Canadian military.
Not only does the CLC demand the “safe and immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan,” it also challenges many of the arguments used by those who would have our troops die and kill to support the American war in the Middle East.
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Latino Mercenaries for Bush
n the faculty dining room at the California State University where I teach, a Mexican-American woman places the thin slice of turkey on the bread to make my sandwich. The stress lines that radiate down from her high cheekbones twitch as she tells me politely that she’s fine. One of her sons is in Afghanistan, she reports. The other will leave tomorrow for Iraq. “I pray every day,” she says, smearing the mayonnaise on the other slice of bread.
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War on Shareholders
The Right do it right. It is time for the Left to get it right.
When George W. Bush set the scene for his obscene adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, he identified particular wrongdoers. The countries were harbourers of known killers or run by vicious individuals. He demonized them. He named names. Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden had infected a whole country with his venom and Afghanistan needed to be cleansed to get rid of Osama, the despicable, and to eradicate his legacy. And, when talking about the invisible weapons of mass destruction, Bush and his minions would invariably invoke Saddam’s hands-on evil-doing: “He has them. He is not co-operating. He is lying. He gassed his own people.” The media, cartoonists and stand-up comedians obediently fell into line. It had become unanimous: Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were the toxic agents that had produced festering sores. They had to be removed to lance the poisoned hosts, whatever the cost might be to anyone, including the hapless hosts.
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