Kabuki Theatre

Act One:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, reinforcing an ultimatum over Afghanistan, told U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday that Ottawa would withdraw its military mission next year unless NATO sent in more troops, officials said . . . Harper said on Monday he accepted the recommendations of an independent panel that urged Canada to end the mission unless NATO provided 1,000 extra soldiers and Ottawa obtained helicopters and aerial reconnaissance vehicles.

Act Two:

NATO is urging Canada not to pull its troops out of Afghanistan's dangerous Kandahar province.
Alliance spokesman James Appathurai says the defence organization will find the additional troops for southern Afghanistan that Ottawa is demanding.

Act Three:

Harper told reporters yesterday "the (Manley) panel has made a clear case that there cannot be a definitive timeline placed on when NATO will have finished the job in Afghanistan and when Afghans are able to take responsibility for their own security and we agree. However, Canada's contribution should be reviewed, at minimum, in the context of progress on the benchmarks the panel has advocated, and within two to three years' time."
Harper pledged to lead a diplomatic 'full-court press' with allies to ensure Canadian soldiers get the help that will allow them to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely.

Somehow, the Harper promise that the mission in Afghanistan wouldn't be extended unless Canadians supported it has morphed into the Harper promise to "ensure Canadian soldiers get the help that will allow them to stay ... indefinitely".
How did that happen?

L’État, c’est moi

From Chet via CC: Harper gallery leaves MPs speechless:

"When you walk in the door [of the Government Lobby in the House of Commons], all you see are pictures of Stephen Harper," said Ms. May
"I'd say between every window, in every available space of the wall, at eye level, every available space has a photo of Stephen Harper."
"You've got photos of Stephen Harper, but not of previous prime ministers," she added. "Photos of Stephen Harper in different costumes, in different settings, dressed as a fireman, in Hudson Bay looking for polar bears, meeting the Dalai Lama, even the portrait of the Queen had to have Stephen Harper, but in a candid, behind her."

We should have known when Christmas was all about him. Dr. Dawg writes in a comment at CC's place:

Apparently he has another portrait in a closet somewhere that's getting really ugly.

But seriously, as Dawg says, there's something wrong with a man who is so in love with the look of his own face.

The Rodney Dangerfield President

Juan Cole takes on Bush's speech though he notes that nobody cares what Bush says anymore:

...the man has discredited himself so badly, he can't even get people to so much as yawn at him.

I was blogging so I wasn't really listening to MSNBC's post-speech analysis ast night -- but whenever I did notice it, they weren't talking about the speech at all but instead they were chit-chatting the Kennedy endorsement of Obama.
Instead of calling him Dubya, why not just call him Rodney?

20 years ago today

Thinking about what I would write in commemoration of the day abortion became legal in Canada, I googled "abortion stories", and got 250,000 hits.
That's way too many to write about, and anyway, the abortion stories I care about are the ones involving women I know who have had an abortion.
And here's my first observation. If these women hadn't had the inherent right to make their own choice about abortion, then who else would? Would a judge or a parent or a doctor or a clergyman or a husband or a boyfriend or a politician have made a better choice than the women themselves did? No, of course not -- the choice was theirs.
And here's my second observation. Each of their circumstances was unique, each had her own reasons for choosing abortion instead of continuing the pregnancy, each of their stories was a personal one. So theirs are not "abortion stories" but rather "women's stories". Sometimes women's stories include abortion.

Well, that's progress

I had never thought of this before, but I now realize that the main advantage of fixed election dates and term limits is that we get to say "That's the last time!"
For instance, tonight was the last time we will have to listen to a George Bush State of the Union address!

Hegemony, smegemony

There is a saying which goes something like this: better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Bill Clinton was smart enough to make sure the United States kept its mouth closed [insert snarky joke here and read on] But George Bush and Dick Cheney actually believed all the hoke and hype about how the United States was the world's only superpower and how the leader of the United States was the leader of the world and how the United States could do anything it liked, striding the globe like a colossus.
So they started flapping their gums, so to speak. And now the world is sneering.
Ian Welsh writes:

Walk with me a while and imagine you are mad. Crazy. Insane. It's an interesting sort of insanity where you see the world as something other than it is. You are dead convinced that people are out to get you, but these people have almost no means to harm you and fear your retaliation greatly, because you're a powerful person and they are weak.
You believe that you are hale and hearty, but in fact you're ghastly, obese and ill. You think you're rich, but in fact you're poor . . . Your once lean body, packed with muscles, has been replaced by a flaccid one, paunchy and fat . . . The "you" I'm referring to, as I'm sure many have figured out by now, is the US.

It starting to dawn on them now -- with the largest miliary budgets in history they've spent seven years fighting wars against teenagers; their president visits the Middle East and nobody cares; the housing bubble and the plummeting markets of the last week have demonstrated uncomfortable weakness in the American economy. The New York Times piles on:

. . . Many saw the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as the symbols of a global American imperialism; in fact, they were signs of imperial overstretch. Every expenditure has weakened America’s armed forces, and each assertion of power has awakened resistance in the form of terrorist networks, insurgent groups and “asymmetric” weapons like suicide bombers. America’s unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order . . . now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. . . . The Big Three make the rules — their own rules — without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.

And Atrios concludes:

it's been quite obvious for some time that the neocons who dreamt of American hegemony have basically destroyed it.

On a side note, the NYT also writes:

Condoleezza Rice has said America has no “permanent enemies,” but it has no permanent friends either.

To which I must add, except Canada. Right or wrong, through thick or thin, sink or swim, we're stuck with 'em.

This is really neat!

From Cute Overload! :)

If the link doesn't work, go to Youtube here

Funniest lead ever

Read this lead sentence:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed not to let politics dictate his government's decision on the future of the Afghanistan war on Friday ....

And laugh your ass off.

Smart-ass answers

My husband got these in an email today:

THE 6 BEST SMART ASS ANSWERS OF 2006

It was mealtime during a flight on American Airlines. “Would you like dinner?” the flight attendant asked John, seated in front. “What are my choices?” John asked. “Yes or no,” she replied.

A flight attendant was stationed at the departure gate to check tickets. As a man approached, she extended her hand for the ticket and he opened his trench coat and flashed her. Without missing a beat, she said, “Sir, I need to see your ticket not your stub.”

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store but she couldn’t find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, “Do these turkeys get any bigger?” The stock boy replied, “No ma’am, they’re dead.”

The cop got out of his car and the kid who was stopped for speeding rolled down his window. “I’ve been waiting for you all day,” the cop said. The kid replied, “Yeah, well I got here as fast as I could.” When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket.

A truck driver was driving along on the freeway. A sign comes up that reads, “Low Bridge Ahead.” Before he knows it, the bridge is right ahead of him and he gets stuck under the bridge. Cars are backed up for miles. Finally, a police car comes up. The cop gets out of his car and walks to the truck driver, puts his hands on his hips and says, “Got stuck, huh?” The truck driver says, “No, I was delivering this bridge and ran out of gas.”

A college teacher reminds her class of tomorrow’s final exam. “Now class, I won’t tolerate any excuses for you not being here tomorrow. I might consider a nuclear attack or a serious personal injury, illness, or a death in your immediate family, but that’s it!” A smart-ass guy in the back of the room raised his hand and asked, “What would you say if tomorrow I said I was suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?” The entire class is reduced to laughter and snickering. When silence is restored, the teacher says, “Well, I guess you’d have to write the exam with your other hand.”

Asymmetric warfare

I have a prediction: the next thing we're going to hear from the Harper government is how the suffering by these torture victims, like the suicides in Guantanamo, is actually just another example of asymmetric warfare so that the Taleban can demoralize the Canadian people!
First, the Harper government wanted us to believe these prisoners weren't really being tortured at all. Alisonwrites:

...we'll just pause here for a moment to recall that Harper and Stockwell Day have both stood up in our Parliament and insisted that the reason detainees - hell, let's just call them prisoners from now on, shall we? - claim to be tortured is because the Taleban trains them to do so to trick us.
One guy had no toenails left. That's really quite the trick.
Dion and Layton were slagged as traitors in the HoC for even suggesting that the allegations be looked into.

Now, when the stories of torture have been substantiated, the Harper government is wrapping itself in the flag to avoid answering questions about the prisoners:

...Lawyers for human-rights groups are fighting that argument in one of two court cases against the federal government. One quipped Thursday that the government was conflating national security and national embarrassment.
Graham repeatedly sprang to his feet in objection as human-rights lawyers attempted to ask a military witness – Brig.-Gen. Andre Deschamps – about the detainees.
Some of the questions that remained unanswered Thursday:
– Where are the detainees?
– Who has them?
– How many are there?
– How many are actually enemy combatants and how many are civilians who have helped the Taliban?
– How many have disappeared?

No doubt the government is protecting us by not sharing these unpleasant and uncomfortable details -- if, indeed, they actually know any of these answers. Dave sums up what this whole miserable story shows the Canadian people about our government.:

They are right-wing authoritarians and they would rather chew off their own arms than admit a mistake.
And they expect us to believe them when they tell us how things are going in Afghanistan.

A willing collaboration

Over at Antiwar.com, journalist Jon Elmer gives us a round-up of Canada's involvement in the Iraq War: Canadian General Takes Senior Command Role in Iraq

. . . Brigadier-General Nicolas Matern, a Special Forces officer and former commander of Canada's elite counterterrorism unit, will serve as deputy to Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, incoming commander of the 170,000-strong Multi National Corps-Iraq beginning in mid-February.
Matern is the third Canadian general to serve in the command group of Operation Iraqi Freedom. . .
42 Canadian tanks and armored personnel carriers left Edmonton last week destined for Fort Bliss, Texas to participate in pre-deployment training exercises with the US Army before a summer rotation in Afghanistan. A Department of National Defense press release characterized the training as "massive," with more than 3,000 Canadian soldiers taking part in Exercise Southern Bear.. . .
The April 2007 Iraq Reconstruction Report lists Canada as the fourth largest importer of Iraqi oil. Industry Canada records that total Canadian imports from Iraq have risen from 1.06 billion dollars in 2002 to 1.61 billion dollars in 2006, making Iraq second only to Saudi Arabia as a Middle Eastern source for Canadian imports. . .
In 2003, Canada pledged 300 million dollars in aid and reconstruction in Iraq. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has helped train more than 30,000 Iraqi security forces in neighboring Jordan, and has had top level advisors operating within the Iraqi interior ministry. As well, Canadian frigates continue to operate alongside the US aircraft carriers in the Arabian Gulf that are a primary staging platform for bombing raids in Iraq.

And here's some interesting tidbits about Brigadier General Matern:

Matern's Special Forces background is seen as an asset. "He comes in with a unique set of skills," Col. Bill Buckner of the 18th Airborne told the Ottawa Citizen. "We're the home of the airborne and the special operating forces, so he fits in very nicely to this warrior ethos we have here."
Matern was a commander in the secretive commando unit, Joint Task Force-2, before being promoted to deputy commander of the newly created Canadian Special Operations Forces Command.. . .

Its startling to see how deeply involved we really are with this immoral war.

Why should they have all the fun?

So the Bush administration lied 935 times to justify sending American troops to war in Iraq.
Now I guess it's our turn, as the Harper administration tries to justify keeping Canadian troops at war in Afghanistan.

Laughing her right into the White House

The guy who started this once worked for Richard Nixon.



He thinks it just so witty.
He's going to print this on a bunch of t-shirts and sell them. Ha!
And if enough yahoos are photographed during the Republican convention wearing these t-shirts, then every woman in America will vote for Hillary, and for every other Democrat she can find.

Welcome to Gitmo North

Alison catches us up on the newest cross-border initiative, the "Server in the Sky". Admirably, she refrains from usint the cliched term "Big Brother". But I will not, because that is what it is.
Not to worry, the FBI says the intention of exchanging all sorts of personal data on citizens is "to catch the worst of the worst".
Now, where have I heard that term before?

Great line of the day

Digby refutes the new media meme that Democrats who vote for Hillary must be racists:

It's not all that hard to figure out that older voters would vote for the person who is running on "experience" just as it's not surprising that younger voters would vote for the man who promised "change." . . .
The people who don't like blacks are in the party where there are none.

Emphasis mine.