Friday, November 24, 2006

Barking for War in Canada

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - They came to this country a few years ago, representatives of a foreign philosophy, proponents of race hatred, and ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Their warped religion is not new, it is the surviving spawn of the seed thought destroyed, the kernel believed buried in the ashes of the Third Reich, but its heart is beating still, alive right here in our Canada.

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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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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Gorilla Radio for Monday, November 20, 2006


PEJ News - C. L. Cook - This week on GR, environmental activist, green energy entrepeneur and author, Randyn Seibold and British Columbia's alternative power potential and author, journalist, activist and educator, George Monbiot on ‘Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain.’ And Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with some of the good things to do in and around Victoria in the coming week.



Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org. You can check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com



Gorilla Radio for Monday,
November 20, 2006

C . L. Cook

PEJ News
Novermber 20, 2006

What does the future hold for us?

Despite the climate change deniers currently ruling legislatures and parliaments around this country and the greater world, we as a species are fast approaching an unprecedented energy crisis.

The early warning signs are all around us; resource wars abroad; desperate domestic energy development; and of course, increasingly volatile climate events across the planet serve as bellwethers to our uncertain tomorrow. But, where there is catastrophe opportunity too exists for those prepared to embrace a new paradigm.

Randyn Seibold is a Vancouver Island-based environmentalist and founder of Turbine Marketing, specializing in green energy alternatives. He's also the author of Green Knight, Black Knight, an examination of British Columbia's energy sector. Randyn Seibold in the first half.

And; In the second half, author, journalist, activist, and educator, George Monbiot will be here to discuss his new book, ‘Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain.’

George Monbiot is the recipient of the United Nation Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement, the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize, the Sony Award for radio production, and the OneWorld National Press Award. George Monbiot in the second half on life in a ‘Captive State.’

And, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week.

But first, Randyn Seibold and British Columbia's jousting energy knights.

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, M. Shahid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, Rhoda Berenson, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, William Bowles, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Murray Dobbin, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Connie Fogal, Susan George, Stan Goff, Amy Goodman, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Jason Leopold, Jeff Leys, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, David Orchard, Greg Palast, Mike Palecek, Michael Parenti, Robert Parry, Kevin Pina, William Rivers Pitt, Justin Podur, Jack Random, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.


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Arbour Under Attack Following Israel Condemnation


PEJ News
- C. L. Cook - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, former Canadian Supreme Court Justice, Louise Arbour received a barrage of criticism in Israel a day after her comments regarding Israel's continuing atrocities commited against the civilian population of Palestine.

www.PEJ.org


Arbour Under Attack Following Israel Condemnation

C. L. Cook

PEJ News
November 21, 2006



Yesterday, Louise Arbour toured the battered town of Beit Hanoun. Residents took the U.N. High Commissioner through houses destroyed by Israeli artillary fire; fire that has claimed the lives of at least 19, wounding more than fifty others. It was for Arbour the beginning of a five day visit to the area, planned to culminate in an audience with Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Omert.

After hearing survivor's stories, and walking through the rubble of destroyed houses, Arbour decried the attacks, saying; "The call for protection [of civilians] has to be answered. We cannot to see civilians, who are not the authors of their own misfortune, suffer to the extent of what I see here."

Just what extent of suffering would be acceptable to Arbour is not mentioned, but clearly her mild rebuke of Israel's military solution to the Palestinian problem went too far for some Israeli's in the border town of Sderot, the next stop on her tour, where her car was stoned, and at one point the motorcade mobbed, and Arbour's car rocked.

As if to underscore repeated complaints of Palestinian Kassam rocket attacks agianst border towns like Sderot, a rocket landed within a few hundred metres of Arbour's entourage while she toured a local factory, killing a worker. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claim more than a thousand Kassams have landed in and near Sderot this year, killing at least one previoius to today's fatality, though the IDF numbers are in dispute.

While Arbour toured Sderot, the IDF launched another "incursion" into Gaza at Zeitun and Beit Lahiya. Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency says a column of thirty tanks and armoured cars entered Zeitun, while an unspecified number of soldiers moved into Beit Lahiya on "point liquidation," or assassination missions against those the Israeli military believe are involved in firing rockets into Israeli [sic] territory.

Though Arbour denounced those firing rockets into Israel, the press there has been highly critical of the ommissioner and the United Nations of being biased against Israel. The families of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Palestinians added their objections to Arbour for her refusal to meet with them. The three soldiers were, according to the IDF, the reason for numerous invasion campaigns since launched into Gaza and the occupied territories last Spring, and the Summer's invasion of Lebanon.


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