The Harper Government and Charles McVety are Devoted to Military Ignorance

In 2005, U.S. General Thomas Metz, who was the commander of Fort Hood when Rick Hillier took his training there; spoke to an audience of senior Canadian military officers, soldiers, defence analysts and lobbyists in Toronto.

"He [Metz] shows a chart depicting the military challenges America faces, measured in terms of level of danger and level of likelihood. At the very apex—the most dangerous and the most likely—sits just one: radical Islamic terrorism. "Radical Islam wants to reestablish the Caliphate*," says Metz. "Just as Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, you can read what they want to do." (1)

The general then said:

"The Islamic faith is not evil but it's been hijacked by thugs ... there are almost a billion people in the Islamic world, and that if only one per cent of them are radical, that's ten million radicals." (1)

He fails to mention that are between two and three billion Christians in the world, so if only 1% are extremists, that's twenty to thirty million Christian extremists. And of those twenty to thirty million Christian extremists, several are in our government, like Jason Kenney and Stockwell Day, while many more act as advisers.

And the most extreme among the latter group is Charles McVety, the man who invited Karl Rove to speak during the G-20 and marched in favour of a preemptive attack on Iran. And McVety's partner in a dangerous group of extremists, called 'Christians United For Israel' is John Hagee.

Hagee has gone so far as to say that Hitler was doing God's work and has made no apologies for his promotion of a nuclear attack in the Middle East.

And these are the men that Stephen Harper works for:

During this summer’s Middle East war, Harper reversed decades of Canadian foreign policy with his adamant support for Israel, even after its jets smashed a clearly marked United Nations observation post, killing a veteran Canadian Peacekeeper. His admirers argue that steadfastness could turn the burgeoning bond between evangelical Christians and Jews into a powerful and unprecedented alliance that could leave him unbeatable at the ballot box.

But a growing chorus of critics warns that Harper has already paid a high price for that strategic calculation, irrevocably alienating Canada’s mushrooming Islamic population and leaving in shreds the country’s reputation as an even-handed peace broker. (2)

So if these dangerous extremists are playing such a large role in this country's foreign policy, why is a non-radical Islamic Imam forbidden from speaking to our military? And all because Charles McVety suggested that he represented a security risk to National Defence.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has cancelled a planned speech by the head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, which was due to take place Monday at National Defence headquarters. The Defence Department had invited Imam Zijad Delic, the executive director of the congress, to speak at a commemoration for Islamic Heritage Month. The Conservative government has in the past labelled the organization as extremist over its views on Israel.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney publicly condemned the Islamic congress in a speech about anti-Semitism in Britain during the winter of 2009 ... The decision has the potential to put a further chill in relations between the Harper government and the country’s Islamic community, which has complained in the past that Ottawa has taken a more pro-Israel stand in foreign relations. (3)

But Zijad Delic is no radical, unless you consider a call for peace and gender equality radical, although to the Harperites I suppose they are.

Peter MacKay, Minister of Defence, has shut down a scheduled speech by Imam Zijad Delic, a Muslim originally from Bosnia, because someone else from somewhere else made some unacceptable remarks on a little-known television program six years ago. Delic, currently the Executive Director of the Canadian Islamic Congress, was in the news not long ago for signing a fatwa opposing violence and in favour of gender equality. That's nothing new for him: as early as 2003 he denounced inflammatory comments by Ottawa Imam Gamal Solaiman, and in 2005 he forthrightly condemned anti-Semitic remarks by the incendiary Sheik Younus Kathrada of BC. (4)

This is unacceptable. Delic could provide incite, and help this country build bridges. We need to ignore any kind of religious fanaticism, not embrace it, and certainly not allow it to dictate who we should hate, who we should kill, or who we should listen to.

Footnotes:

*a Caliphate simply put, is a union of the Muslim world. It was the first political philosophy that adopted the notion of using their natural resources to look after their people. It wasn't communism, or socialism, it was just a belief in something bigger than they were. God or Allah, and they believed that this is what he wanted them to do. But the Americans will never allow middle eastern countries to control their own natural resources.

Sources:

1. Holding the Bully's Coat, Canada and the U.S. Empire, By Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, 2007, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 67-68

2. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, by Marci McDonald, Walrus Magazine, October 2006

3. MacKay cancels imam’s speech Head of Islamic council was to speak to Defence staff, By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press, October 2, 2010

4. In which Islamophobia becomes official government policy, Dawg's Blawg, October 2, 2010

A Little Less Anger and a Lot More Journalism From Sun Media? Can't Be Done

I can't help but notice that Sun Media has begun to test the waters. How mush racism will we endure? How many attacks on women, minorities and non-neoconservative politicians will infest the newspapers and eventually the airwaves, before we just shut it off?

What passes for journalism with Sun these days is barely more intelligent than a schoolyard spitting contest.

Journalists are supposed to chronicle history, not fabricate it. But if this is the chronicling of our history, what will future generations of Canadians think of us? I shudder to think.

David McGuinty responded to a scathing attack on Michael Ignatieff, but I could have told him not to bother. As my mother used to say: "save your breath to cool your soup."

They are not media now, they are entertainment of the worst kind.

The best progressives can do is ignore them. As David says:

Where the Conservatives want to build more prisons, Liberals want to help more kids go to college.

Where the current government wants to add another $6 billion in corporate tax cuts to their record $54-billion deficit, a future Liberal government wants to reduce the deficit and help caregivers care for loved ones at home.

Where Stephen Harper’s foreign policy amounts to a billion-dollar G20 photo-op, Ignatieff is building relationships with new markets so we can sell Canadian goods and ideas to the world.

Harper has done everything in his power to bring politics to its lowest common denominator. Canadians don’t like his style of government, with its manipulation, secrecy and disrespect for Parliament. Compared to them, Ignatieff is presenting a progressive, compassionate and responsible alternative.

But Sun media doesn't have to endorse the bus tour. In fact, I'd be worried if they did. Their job is just to remind Canadians where Stephen Harper comes from and so far they are doing that in spades.

For me ... I've got a bus to catch. Lunch with Michael Ignatieff tomorrow.

And to Sun Media. This is what real journalism is: