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Barking for War in Canada
C . L. Cook
PEJ News
November 24, 2006
Though true, what we've witnessed these last years, these decades of pain and horror since the fall of the Reich, with as many and more being killed by Hitler's successors in the jungles of Vietnam, and the killing fields of Cambodia, Indonesia, South America, the Middle-East, and Africa as ever were by the Nazis, was no recess from the project, the recent ascendance of the neo-cons, the new tellers of the old lie, is different; different because we have changed.
Hiding behind the suffering, the monumental and hideous destruction of European Jewry in the "Good War," today's sophists of the holocaust, buoyed by the same monied interests that lit the fire beneath that awful conflagration, have rallied to accelerate the task of mega-murder. They are organized, respectable, and their message, as odious and terrible as it is, has so far failed to illicit revulsion from the general public.
This past Spring, while Israel, its [sic] citizens safely removed from their outposts in Gaza, began a massive blitzkrieg against Palestinian civilians, barely a mutter of protest was heard in either the halls of power in Ottawa, au contrare, or over the public airwaves. Not surprising perhaps, considering the concentrated nature of Canadian media and constricted nature of Stephen Harper's ruling party, but what is shocking is the mum reaction Israel's ongoing atrocity in Palestine has evoked from the Canadian public.
Similarly, there is no great expession of public outrage here at the governing Conservatives' support of sanctions against the victims of Israel's massive military aggression, a largely defenseless people, committing the country to starving the survivors of food, and medicines, and aid monies. Nothing much either when, over the Summer, this same Israel destroyed Lebanon, killing at least a thousand people, Canadian citizens among them.
As though a great numbing of consciousness has afflicted the nation, Canada today seems unable to formulate an ethical baseline. As our neighbours normalize wars of aggression, and codify torture, we wave off our [sic] troops with red and white flags to enjoin the fray "over there," that we may not have to face the Taliban in Gander, or Victoria, or Moose Jaw.
Lost at sea...
Into that moral morass slithered a snake. With practiced speech, this nether child whispers words we wish to hear: The serpent reminds of a greatness never ours, but to be reclaimed, if only we follow a few necessary deviations of conscience.
This week past saw another death in a far-away place, another calculated destruction of life for political purposes. As his fellow countryman was more than a year ago, Lebanese politician Pierre Gemayel was murdered in his car as he drove through the streets he knew well.
As with his assassinated compatriot, Rafik Hariri, Gemayel was attempting to rebuild Lebanon following its destruction at the hands of the Israelis. As with Rafik, Pierre's murder would be hijacked for political purposes by all sides. And likewise, the culprits in both men's deaths will never be proven to the satisfaction of both sides.
It is a volatile moment in a country pushed near the brink of revisiting a civil war that reduced Lebanon, and its shining capital Beirut, the "Paris of the Middle East" to rubble barely a generation ago. While all responsible parties are calling for calm, there are those outside Lebanon doing the opposite.
In the guise of championing democracy, good governance, and the furtherance of peace and a better life for all the peoples of the world, the so-called Canadian Coalition for Democracies demands the Canadian government leap into the breach, as Mr. Harper did in the aftermath of the Hamas elections, and attack not the perpetrators of so much vile and despicable violence in Lebanon and Palestine this year past, but instead again assail the victim. Before any evidence as to the identity, or motives of Gemayel's assassins has come to light, the CCD, those that profess; "If we want peace, we must support beleaguered allies who share our Canadian values." would pour gasoline on Lebanon's embers, commanding;
"Today, we are calling on the Prime Minister to take strong action against Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists within Lebanon as well as their sponsors in Syria and Iran. We must defeat those who use violence and murder, especially against the Christian minority, with the goal of making Lebanon yet another stage for global Islamist terror that threatens all nations including Canada."
Speaking for Canada, Foreign minister, Peter MacKay didn't go so far as naming names, but matched the CCD's hysteria, saying;
"The perpetrators of this cowardly act must be brought to justice;" adding "Canada condemns in the strongest terms this attack on Lebanon’s independence, stability and democracy. I urge the people of Lebanon to stand united against those who seek to destabilize their country."
These last years have witnessed the "reflowering" of unabashed fascism in Italy, Britain, America, Australia, and now Canada. This has largely come about due to the pernicious influence of "think tanks" , democracy pimps like the National Endowment for Democracy in the U.S., and their complicit friends in the corporate media. Now, thanks to propagandists like the self-anointed Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and their fellow-travellers in Canada, Canadians too are being made ready, as were their southern cousins before them, to accept the foreign influenza and "support our troops," even as they defy the nation's traditions, and soil the flag.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and the Atlantic Free Press. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Further resources on the murder of Pierre Gemayel
Syria Is A Convenient Fallguy For Gemayel's Death
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth, 24 Nov. 2006
http://www.countercurrents.org/leb-cook241106.htm
Gemayel's Mourners Know That In Lebanon Nothing Is What It Seems
By Robert Fisk, 23 Nov.2006,The Independent
http://www.countercurrents.org/leb-fisk231106.htm
US Could Bomb Iran Nuclear Sites in 2007: Analysts
by the Agence France Presse, Wed., Nov.22, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?
file=/headlines06/1122-07.htm
U.S. Retreat from Iraq? The Secret Story
Published on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006 by the Huffington Post
by Tom Hayden
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?
file=/views06/1122-20.htm
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