Random News & Views Roundup

- The US house of representatives has been busy passing resolutions about other countries' behaviour this week. On Tuesday, it approved a resolution calling for Japan to apologize for its use of female sex slaves during WW2. And on Monday, it unanimously passed another resolution demanding that Canada end the seal hunt. Apparently this hectic agenda - wagging their collective fingers at other countries - is the reason Pelosi has determined that the Democrats are just too darn busy to take care of urgent American business like impeaching Gonzales, Cheney and Bush and ending the Iraq war.

- The UN security council has decided to send 26,000 African peacekeeping troops to Darfur.

The Bush administration welcomed the council's decision to adopt the resolution, but it declined to co-sponsor the resolution on the grounds that it was not tough enough, a U.S. official said. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called for an expedited transition from the African Union to the United Nations.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Ban in recent days to press him to take over the mission by October [instead of December]. Ban refused on the grounds that his military planners would not be ready.

And we all know what a fine military planner Condi is. If Bush wanted "tough", he could have addressed the crisis in Darfur years ago. All hat, no cowboy - as usual.

- Uri Avnery: A Warning to Tony Blair

As an expert on the global economy, with a worldwide perspective, Wolfensohn could also point out that the importance of the U.S. in the world economy is gradually declining, with new giants like China and India rising.

We, the Israelis, like to think that we are the center of the world. Wolfensohn, a person with a worldwide outreach, sticks a pin into this egocentric balloon. Already now, he says, only the West considers the Israeli-Palestinian issue so important. Most of the world is indifferent. "I have visited more than 140 countries: you are not such a big deal there."

Even this limited interest will also evaporate. Wolfensohn rubs salt into the wound: "A moment will come when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be compelled to understand that they are a secondary performance. … The Israelis and the Palestinians must get rid of the idea that they are a Broadway performance. They are only a play in the Village. Off-off-off-off-off Broadway." Knowing that this is the worst one can tell an Israeli, he adds: "I hope that I am not getting into trouble by saying this, but, what the hell, that's what I believe, and I am already 73 years old."

I do believe him – and I, what the hell, am already 83.

- Chris Floyd: Why the Bush Administration Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations; Good News is No News.

Last week, the Guardian's Ian Black reported on "a remarkable recantation" by one of the founding figures of the modern jihadist movement, Sayid Imam al-Sharif. A former comrade-in-arms of Ayman al-Zawahiri -- al Qaeda's own Dick Cheney, the "deputy" who actually runs the gang -- Sharif was the mastermind behind the Islamists' first great "spectacular": the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Now Sharif, imprisoned in Egypt, is finishing a new book "that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad" and is already creating fissures throughout the Islamist movement, the Guardian reports.
[...]
The fact that some major figures in one of these factions are now renouncing the use of "killing operations" to advance their odious ideas is surely a welcome development. If it saves only one innocent life from destruction, that is cause enough for rejoicing.

Yet this process -- which began in some quarters years before 9/11, and now involves hundreds of jihadist leaders and activists -- is being ignored by the very people who, ostensibly, have the greatest reason to trumpet it. But of course, such a development is actually bad news for the fanatical militarists of the Bushist faction. They ignore, reject or twist anything that undercuts their cartoonish myth of a vast, monolithic "Islamofascism" bent on world conquest at any cost -- and capable of carrying it out, unless stopped by multitrillion-dollar American war machine ranging over every continent.

- Via Dahr Jamail's Dispatches: Ali al-Fadhily's A Little Easier to Occupy from the Air

BAGHDAD, Jul 31 (IPS) - Many Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground.

U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of this year as over the first half of 2006, according to official information.

They dropped 437 bombs and missiles in Iraq in the first half of 2007, compared to 86 in the first half of 2006. This is also three times more than in the second half of 2006, according to Air Force data.

The Air Force has also been expanding its air bases in Iraq and adding entire squadrons. It is now preparing to use a new robotic fighter known as the Reaper. The Reaper is a hunter-killer drone that can be operated by remote control from thousands of miles away.

"We find it strange that the big strategists of the U.S. military have actually failed in finding solutions on the ground and are now back to air raids that kill more civilians than militants," former Iraqi army brigadier-general Ahmed Issa told IPS.

That's the same strategy they're using in Afghanistan and look how well that's turned out.
 

Tories Behaving Badly - Again

- Will the real Rahim Jaffer please stand up? - redux:

Ottawa — A red-faced Tory MP is apologizing after his assistant impersonated him — and provided false information — in an e-mail exchange with a constituent over the hot-button issue of Afghan detainees.

An e-mail from Gord Brown's parliamentary office, dated May 2, claimed that every alleged case of abuse involving Afghan detainees had been investigated and proven to be unfounded. That despite the fact the Afghan government has yet to finish an investigation into the torture claims.

The e-mail to Randi Davidson, obtained by The Canadian Press, was signed by Mr. Brown, the member for Leeds-Grenville. But Mr. Brown says the note was written by his assistant, Mark King, without his knowledge.

“Those are not my views. They don't reflect my view. That staff member has been reprimanded for sending that out,” Brown said in an interview.

“He shouldn't have sent it out to begin with and he shouldn't have sent it out with my name it on. I'm not very happy about it.”

- Oh, they pretend to be "tightening the screws" on political loans but:

The bill seems equally aimed at embarrassing the Liberals, with Mr. Van Loan and Ottawa Tory MP Pierre Poilievre repeatedly taking shots at last year's Grit leadership race in which contestants relied heavily on loans to pay for their campaigns.

Mr. Poilievre noted that the winner, Stéphane Dion, received loans from wealthy supporters amounting to almost $500,000, as did runner-up Michael Ignatieff.

“Who owns the Liberal party?” he asked.

But the Tories were not inclined to discuss who “owns” Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has never fully disclosed the donors to his 2002 campaign for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance, predecessor to the Conservative party.

Mr. Harper disclosed only 54 donors who'd contributed more than $1,075 each to his campaign. He never revealed the names of 10 large donors who wanted to remain anonymous or the more than 9,000 donors who gave less than $1,000.
[...]
The law did not require full disclosure in 2002. Mr. Van Loan dismissed suggestions that Mr. Harper, in keeping with the new spirit of transparency and openness, should belatedly open his campaign books.

- I wonder how many of those anonymous donors were active in Alberta's oil sands sector, which has just been exempted from the Tories' so-called "clean air" plan. Meanwhile, Alberta conservatives are pushing for a $6.2 billion nuclear reactor for the province.

However, the Alberta Liberals said they're skeptical about nuclear power in Alberta, while environmental groups are fiercely opposed to it, suggesting it's downright radioactive.

"It looks more and more like the Tory government has let the nuclear genie out of the bottle without ever consulting with Albertans," said Liberal Leader Kevin Taft.

Officials with the Pembina Institute, an environmental think-tank, argue concerns about how to dispose of nuclear waste outweigh the potential benefits of a reactor, such as an increased electricity supply and a reduction in greenhouse gases emitted, compared to coal-fired plants.

- Pollution, nuclear waste, why not add increased levels of pesticide to our food too?

Better break out the veggie-scrubbers: Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables for hundreds of products.

The move is part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.

"Harmonize", my ass. It's called "pandering".

- James Travers has some advice for the "new" government: It is not in our interest to allow the military to become synonymous with Canada. The problem with that is the fact that conservatives actually measure Canada's standing in the world by its military involvement and the praise received from other conservative governments and right-wing organizations according to our participation in military pursuits. Good advice Travers, but don't expect Steve et al to listen.

- Tories cut peacekeeping centre funding:

OTTAWA — The Tory government will no longer pay for soldiers from around the world to train in peacekeeping at the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in the Annapolis Valley.

Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor’s office did not return calls Monday afternoon to explain why it is cutting the program.

For the past two years, the Defence Department has paid for groups of 30 soldiers to train in peacekeeping in the United Nations Integrated Missions Staff Officers Course at the Cornwallis centre.

Dirty pool?

Defence’s decision comes five months after what appeared to have been a series of department leaks to the Ottawa Citizen trying to discredit the Cornwallis centre. At the time, West Nova Liberal MP Robert Thibault predicted trouble.

"I’m fearful that there might be some ploy within the Department of Defence to leak stuff like that and then to refuse their funding," he said. "The reports I get when I talk to people around Ottawa is that the other departments are ready to fund it . . . but that (Defence) has been balking."

- Conrad Black behaving badly. Ongoing.