Is Harper Planning to Wage War on Russia?

Ater invading Poland .... Oops! Wrong dicatator.

After putting our soldiers in the most dangerous places in Afghanistan (A Soldier First, Rick Hillier) and blasting Libya back to the stone age, the Harperites are ready to flex their muscles with Russia.

As Canada's combat role in Afghanistan comes to an end -- as is being ably reported by Sun Media's Thane Burnett -- Canada's Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced our quid-pro-quo to the Russian invasion of the Arctic will be an enhanced one-month-long Canadian military exercise involving 1,000 of our soldiers.

This is a must-do.

Five against one may seem unfair but we see the other way around, particularly since our Far North sovereignty exercise has been an annual event since Prime Minister Stephen Harper mandated a strong Canadian footprint along our most inhospitable coastline. In other words, what's ours is ours, and the message is clear.

We won't back down

This idiot won't be happy until he gets us all killed.

Harper's Assault on Libya NOT Sanctioned by UN

I wondered why Harper took the extension of the so-called "mission" in Libya to Parliament. He didn't have to. As prime minister he alone can decide whether or not to go to war.

One of the arguments was that it was sanctioned by the UN. However, what got passed in Parliament was a motion to ignore the UN mandate and go right for a Bush style "regime change".

A continuation of the Bush Doctrine, now dubbed the Harper Doctrine.

These are the actions that the UN Security Council prescribed for the international community in terms of dealing with the man who wanted oil companies to pay more.

1.imposing a no-fly zone over Libya;
2.imposing an arms embargo;
3.prevention of the provision of armed mercenary personnel and
4.the freezing of financial assets, both state owned and private, held outside Libya.

And those measures came with the following specific demands:

“the immediate establishment of a cease-fire and a complete end to violence and all attacks against, and abuses of, civilians;” and “ the need to intensify efforts to find a solution to the crisis which responds to the legitimate demands of the Libyan people…with the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution.”

But John Baird and Peter Mackay claimed that the Libyan "mission" cannot be achieved until the regime of Moammar Gadhafi is overthrown. I've heard similar lines before but always from American neocons.

Gadhafi should only be overthrown if that's what the majority of Libyans want, but we don't know, or obviously even care, what the majority of Libyans want. And they can't tell us because they are too busy dodging the damn bombs we're dropping on them.

The NDP used to be the party that peace activists flocked to, but every single one of them approved of this. They try to take the high road by suggesting that we can only completely destroy this country if we increase humanitarian aid.

The war profiteers were high fiving in the background because they are all too often the recipients of "humanitarian aid". The most humanitarian thing to do would be to stop dropping bombs.

The rebel forces have been unable to capitalize because there are not enough of them to move in. A ragtag group of Islamic fundamentalists, some according to West Point with ties to Al-Qaeda , and former Gadhafi forces who may or may not remain loyal to the cause.



Only Elizabeth May can claim any moral authority here. I am so proud of her.

I keep thinking of the young NDPer with the T-shirt 'I still hate George Bush'. I think she needs to put it away now.

Roland Paris, director of the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa, believes that we are creating another quagmire.

After stumbling into an Afghan mission based on mistaken assumptions, surely we have an obligation to scrutinize the details of any plans for international participation in Libya’s reconstruction…

For starters, is there a plan to deploy ground forces in Libya? If so, under what circumstances? Who would provide troops? How quickly could they be deployed, where would they go, what would they do?

Another priority may be restoring basic services to the population, including food, medical supplies, health care, electricity, fuel, policing and justice. How can international actors help to provide these services without engendering problems of dependency, economic distortion and local resentment that are sometimes the unintended effects of massive aid interventions?

What about the work of rebuilding Libya? The rebel council’s democratic principles offer a foundation, but a thin one. What role will the UN and other outsiders play? The notion that Libyans should “own” their political transition makes sense, but what does this mean in practice? What if Libya can’t support Western-style democracy? In the wide spectrum between Col. Gadhafi and Thomas Jefferson, what outcomes would be acceptable, and to whom?

All important questions, but ones that we may have the answers to. The rebel forces already have a bank and a national oil company, courtesy of Canada and the USA.

And they have also hired the most expensive lobbying firm on the planet. Who is paying them I wonder?

I see another decade of war. Harper already bored with Afghanistan, leaving a stronger Taliban and an insanely corrupt government behind, will probably move our troops to Libya.

Lawrence Martin told us in his book Harperland, that our current warring prime minister, does not seek peace in the world, but follows the neocon doctrine of a 'Clash of Civilizations'.

Jack Layton had better start paying attention. His job is to oppose this government, not hold their hand while they are out buying bombs.

He suggested as much to the Liberals when they were the official opposition. Now he needs to put his money where his mouth is.

The "Clash of Civilizations" or the "Smash of Civilizations"? The True Nature of This War

On January 24, 2003, a group of New York-based collectors and dealers; members of an organization called the American Council for Cultural Policy, met with the Bush administration and Pentagon officials.

The purpose of the meeting was to encourage Bush to ignore international laws, by allowing the treasures of ancient Mesopotamia (now Iraq), to fall into the hands of private collectors.

This group of wealthy Americans, had been coveting these prized objects for some time, giving them a commercial value, rather than the historical and religious value bestowed upon them not only by the people of Iraq but indeed anyone seeking to preserve our ancient cultural heritage.

So while George Bush was promising scholars and historians that he would do his utmost to protect the ancient holdings, in the land referred to in archaeological circles as "the cradle of civilization", he had already made a commitment to the American Council for Cultural Policy, that he would make sure they got what they craved.

I mean what good was all that wealth, when they couldn't obtain the unobtainable?

And Bush didn't disappoint. According to Chalmers Johnson (d. 2010):

On April 11, 12, 13, and 14, 2003, the United States Army and United States Marine Corps disgraced themselves and the country they represent in Baghdad, Iraq's capital city. Having invaded Iraq and accepted the status of a military occupying power, they sat in their tanks and Humvees, watching as unarmed civilians looted the Iraqi National Museum and burned down the Iraqi National Library and Archives as well as the Library of Korans of the Ministry of Religious Endowments.

Their behavior was in violation of their orders, international law, and the civilized values of the United States. Far from apologizing for these atrocities or attempting to make amends, the U.S. government has in the past five years added insult to injury. Donald Rumsfeld, then secretary of defense and the official responsible for the actions of the troops, repeatedly attempted to trivialize what had occurred with inane public statements such as "Democracy is messy" and "Stuff happens." (1)

During those five years, thieves had stolen at least 32,000 items from some 12,000 archaeological sites across Iraq with no interference from the occupying power.

In 2006, the World Monuments Fund took the unprecedented step of putting the entire country of Iraq on its list of the most endangered sites. The torching of books and manuscripts in the Library of Korans and the National Library was in itself a historical disaster of the first order. Most of the Ottoman imperial documents and the old royal archives concerning the creation of Iraq were reduced to ashes.

... about a million books and ten million documents were destroyed by the fires of April 14, 2003. Robert Fisk, the veteran Middle East correspondent of the Independent of London, was in Baghdad the day of the fires. He rushed to the offices of the U.S. Marines' Civil Affairs Bureau and gave the officer on duty precise map locations for the two archives and their names in Arabic and English, and pointed out that the smoke could be seen from three miles away. The officer shouted to a colleague, "This guy says some biblical library is on fire," but the Americans did nothing to try to put out the flames.

At a conference on art crimes held in London a year after the disaster, the British Museum's John Curtis reported that at least half of the forty most important stolen objects had not been retrieved and that of some 15,000 items looted from the museum's showcases and storerooms about 8,000 had yet to be traced. Its entire collection of 5,800 cylinder seals and clay tablets, many containing cuneiform writing and other inscriptions some of which go back to the earliest discoveries of writing itself, was stolen. (1)

Notwithstanding the murder of a million people, the destruction and theft of Iraq's archaeological treasures, represents one of the most horrific acts in world history.

The Smash of Civilizations

In Lawrence Martin's book, Harperland, he reveals that when it comes to foreign policy, our current PM does not see the world as a global community, but as a "clash of civilizations". (2)

Those three words are no lightweights. What they represent is the Neoconservative total war strategy.

However, Chalmers Johnson instead refers to this disgraceful display as a "smash of civilizations", and I think that's a better term. Because "clash" suggests the equality of enemies. And since we are fighting those with fewer and less sophisticated weaponry, it is hardly a fair fight.

And "smash" is a better term to describe the attempted annihilation of not only a religion, but a culture.

Johnson likens the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to the "total destruction" of ancient Baghdad by the Mongols in AD 1258, under the leadership of Genghis Khan's grandson, Hulagu Khan.

According to historian Steven Dutch:

Iraq in 1258 was very different from present day Iraq. Its agriculture was supported by canal networks thousands of years old. Baghdad was one of the most brilliant intellectual centers in the world. The Mongol destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. Already Islam was turning inward, becoming more suspicious of conflicts between faith and reason and more conservative. With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out. Imagining the Athens of Pericles and Aristotle obliterated by a nuclear weapon begins to suggest the enormity of the blow. The Mongols filled in the irrigation canals and left Iraq too depopulated to restore them." (3)

And it's not too difficult to compare the actions of the allied forces In Iraq to those of the Mongols eight centuries ago.

The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river. Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed with abandon .... Ian Frazier of The New Yorker says estimates of the death toll have ranged from 200,000 to a million. The Mongols looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground. (3)

The Neoconservatives seek to accomplish the same "psychological blow" from which Islam may never recover. This is not simply about oil, but "total destruction", with oil being a benefit, meaning that the West will never be again challenged for the crude in the Middle East.

Iraq, before the Americans put Saddam Hussein in power, was also a thriving country, and Baghdad, one of the most modern cities in the world. But what is it now?

And the "smash' was about more than just the theft and destruction of artifacts. It was something much bigger.

At the six-thousand-year-old Sumerian city of Ur with its massive ziggurat, or stepped temple-tower (built in the period 2112-2095 BC and restored by Nebuchadnezzar 11 in the sixth century BC), the Marines spray-painted their motto, "Semper Fi" (semper fidelis, always faithful) onto its walls. The military then made the monument "off limits" to everyone in order to disguise the desecration that had occurred there, including the looting by U.S. soldiers of clay bricks used in the construction of the ancient buildings.

Until April 2003, the area around Ur, in the environs of Nasiriyah, was remote and sacrosanct. However, the U.S. military chose the land immediately adjacent to the ziggurat to build its huge Tallil Air Base with two runways measuring 12,000 and 9,700 feet and four satellite camps. In the process, military engineers moved more than 9,500 truckloads of dirt in order to build 350,000 square feet of hangars and other facilities for aircraft and Predator unmanned drones.

They completely ruined the area.

On October 24, 2003, the Army and Air Force Exchange Service built its own modern ziggurat. It "opened its second Burger King at Tallil. The new facility, colocated with [a] Pizza Hut, provided another Burger King restaurant so that more servicemen and women serving in Iraq could .. get a whiff of that familiar scent that takes them back home."

... At Babylon, American and Polish forces built a military depot, despite objections from archaeologists. John Curtis, the British Museum's authority on Iraq's many archaeological sites, reported on a visit in December 2004 that he saw "cracks and gaps where somebody had tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the Ishtar Gate" and a "2,600-year-old brick pavement crushed by military vehicles." Other observers say that the dust stirred up by U.S. helicopters has sandblasted the fragile brick facade of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon from 605 to 562 BC.

... "Between May and August 2004, the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both of the sixth century BC, collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters. Nearby, heavy machines and vehicles stand parked on the remains of a Greek theater from the era of Alexander of Macedon [Alexander the Great]." (1)

They've ruined the area for future archaeological excavations.

This is not a "clash", but a "smash". A heart wrenching, inhumane attempt to completely destroy an adversary.

I had been going to blog on this after Christmas, thinking that perhaps it wasn't appropriate during this time, but then I realized that there couldn't be a better time. As we share a message of "Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men", we might be reminded for a moment of what those words are supposed to mean.

And this isn't it.

Sources:

1. Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope, By Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-9303-2, Pg. 40-51

2. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 79

3. Battle of Baghdad (1258), Multilingual Archive, Powered by WorldLingo

One-Eyed Shieks and Holy Wars. How we Got it so Wrong

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

U.S. President Obama has come out this week suggesting that gains are being made in Afghanistan, though the progress is fragile.

In other words, they have no idea what they're doing.

U.S. intelligence supports my assessment.

The Americans drew the Soviet Union into invading the country in 1979, giving them their Vietnam, and are now caught in an unwinnable war that has gone on longer than the Soviet occupation, and threatens to continue for several more years.

15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed against about 1,000,000 Afghans, between 1979 and 1988.

And when you look at the rate of casualties in the American led invasion of Afghanistan, as represented by the chart below, we sure aren't fairing much better. And these are just the coalition forces. Thousands more civilians have fallen.


If the Americans wanted to give the Soviets their Vietnam, to weaken their military build up, they are getting it back. And while Stephen Harper has Canada trapped in the Afghan underworld, his answer is that he will now be directing the war himself, from the safety of his office. Rick Hillier calls it "crap!" I agree.

So How Did we Get it so Wrong?

The end of the Second World War brought on the Cold War, and the world's super powers spent enormous amounts of money building up an arsenal of advanced weaponry, in what Hannah Arendt described as an "apocalyptic chess game".

The technical development of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict. Hence, warfare—from time immemorial the final merciless arbiter in international disputes—has lost much of its effectiveness and nearly all its glamour. (1)

It was a spy war as they all kept a close watch on each other, no one really wanting to use their weapons in what would have been a "universal suicide".

But this created another problem, because as the super powers became both omnipotent and impotent, smaller nations were left virtually unrestricted in the game of one-upmanship.

... in conventional warfare the poor countries are much less vulnerable than the great powers precisely because they are "underdeveloped," and because technical superiority can "be much more of a liability than an asset" in guerrilla wars. What all these uncomfortable novelties add up to is a complete reversal in the relationship between power and violence, foreshadowing another reversal in the future relationship between small and great powers. (1)

So the threats did not necessarily come from countries with nuclear capabilities, but from small groups "able to upset the strategic balance", by launching attacks that cost them very little.

And this bears an ominous similarity to one of political science's oldest insights, namely that power cannot be measured in terms of wealth, that an abundance of wealth may erode power, that riches are particularly dangerous to the power and well-being of republics. (1)

And since many of these new "armies" were stateless, who could the super powers wage war against? The CIA kept track of known terrorist cells, and did their best to keep them contained, but it was still presenting a huge problem for the military-industrial complex.

They had enormous weaponry but few targets, that allowed their use on any large scale.

Enter the Neoconservatives and Their "War on Terror"

In his 'Battlefields of the 1980s', General Andre Beaufre points out, that only "in those parts of the world not covered by nuclear deterrence" is war still possible, so the challenge for the Neoconservatives was to wage war in areas unrestrained by "nuclear deterrence".

But how to get Americans on board. They had already interfered in the affairs of the oil rich Middle East, but needed something bigger.

An enemy. A face. And fear.

Then 9/11 provided the perfect trifecta, though it was only the catalyst. The planning for this had been taking place for several years beforehand, when Bernard Lewis adapted Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, into a blueprint for war.

And through clever messaging, the American Neocons were able to sell the notion of an enormous Jihad. One launched by "savages" who had to be destroyed or their entire country would be demolished.

They "didn't start it", but they were sure going to finish it. Eyes lit up, keyboards clicked away and the landscape was awash in yellow ribbons. Meanwhile, the Bush administration used homey rhetoric to reach the masses, knowing that few intellects would find their theory of a massive Jihad against America logical.

Not that terrorism isn't real, but there are other ways of keeping it contained, without the senseless slaughter of so many.

The Blind Leading the Blind

Though Osama Bin Ladin went to his grave in 2001, denying any involvement in 9/11, he became the face of the war. Every now and then an actor would come out and make another tape, to keep fear at just the right level. It didn't make Bin Laden any less dead, but who was going to question?

However, even before Bin Laden became a household name, the Jihad against America had a leader. Omar Abdel Rahman, also called the "One-Eyed Sheik". He was apparently behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre, which at the time, was not considered the work of a mastermind.

However, it did prove to be an embarrassment for the CIA and others, especially when the person who allegedly planted the bomb, returned to the rental agency requesting a refund because the van he rented blew up. (2) I know there's a lot more to that story, but suffice it to say they were not that organized.

But that didn't stop the Bush Administration from linking this incident to their notion of a massive Jihad.

In neoconservative Andrew C. McCarthy's book, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, we see just how they created a powerful enemy from several smaller "underdeveloped" ones, by using myths and creative language. And yes I do on occasion read books by neocons. It's the only way I can get inside Stephen Harper's head. (have you seen the movie Jacob's Ladder? It kinda' looks like that in there. I scream a lot)

He starts out complaining that the government's main focus after the 1993 incident, was handling the fall out. Aghast, he questions why, after "the most brazen attack against the American homeland since Pearl Harbour had taken place". (3) Really? Pearl Harbour?

He then fancifies Rahman, who was indeed a horrible man, and currently in prison with no chance of ever being released. But to equate him those who planned the attack on Pearl Harbour, is a bit of a stretch.

But then McCarthy reminds his readers of the seriousness of the situation. Intelligence and containment wasn't enough. This was "war".

In terms of actual national commitment, such wars translate into a somewhat higher priority than the dogged pursuit of tax cheats and corporate fraudsters. To be sure, jihad differs from Wars on Drugs, Poverty, Disease. Incivility, Intolerance, Greenhouse Gases, or whatever the next Flavor of the Month may be. Jihad, after all, actually does involve warfare: real bombs, real victims, and real death. But the distinction is lost when the side that declares only rhetorical war is exclusively on the receiving end of the blows ... (3)

America was the "victim". They had been taking all the blows, and never fought back. So forget all the other nonsense. Pardon the corporate fraudsters (as George Bush did). Forget about poverty, disease and Global Warming (as George Bush did). Heck you could even forget being civil to each other.

Every waking moment and every red cent had to be put into fighting this Jihad. (as George Bush did)

And where did it get them? Iraq is in a mess and Afghanistan has been taken over by the criminal element. They are still chasing ghosts, while all but ignoring domestic problems, that are spiralling out of control.

And to top it off, the Jihadists are more powerful than ever, because the invasion has only increased the recruitment.

Again, Neoconservatism is the god that failed and we need to rethink this war.

Sources:

1. On Violence, by Hannah Arendt, Harvest Books, 1970, ISBN: 978-0-15-669500-8, Pg. 3

2. He wanted his money back: Insistence on a Refund for a Van Led to the Arrest of Blast Suspect, by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, March 5, 1993.

3. Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, By Andrew C. McCarthy, Encounter Books, 2008, ISBN: 13-978-1-59403-213-4, Pg. 5

Harper's Clash of Civilizations Exposed: And He's Not a Straussian?

In Lawrence Martin's new book, Harperland, he states that Stephen Harper sees the world not as a global family but as a "clash of civilizations".

Did Martin come to that conclusion after speaking with Harper's friend John Weissenberg, because of an overall plan laid bare, or was it a hunch? (1)

Either way it is an accurate assessment of Harper's foreign policy.

The term "Clash of Civilizations" was first used by a Harvard political scientist named Samuel P. Huntington, who thought that people's cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

But it took an American neoconservative, Bernard Lewis (shown above), to adapt Huntington's theories as an excuse for war in the Middle East.

He first used the term in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly in a piece called "The Roots of Muslim Rage" and formulated it as a theory in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. This would then be developed into a Foreign Affairs article: "The Clash of Civilizations", and it became the blueprint for the Bush Administration's foreign policy.

The American Enterprise Institute, dubbed the Cheney-family think tank, were responsible for overseeing the strategy, and in fact Harper insider David Frum, who was a speech writer for Bush, was the one who coined the term 'Axis of Evil'.

In March of 2007, Lewis won the Irving Kristol Award for his influence behind the invasion of Iraq, and he like most of the other key players has drifted into oblivion, hoping history will be kind.

Journalist Jacob Weisberg attended the event and wrote:

It had not been a good week, year, or second term for any of these people, and I thought a few cocktails might provoke them to consider their predicament. This was fantasy on my part. Richard Perle and John Bolton might have looked slightly more saturnine than usual, but the overall mood of self-celebration was unabated. From the stage, one caught no hint that matters were not working out as anticipated. All rose to salute the arrival of Dick and Lynne Cheney, herself a longtime fellow at the institute. The vice president looked on from the head table as his friend Bernard Lewis, perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq, came up to accept the Irving Kristol Award.

In his address, the 90-year-old Lewis did not revisit his argument that regime change in Iraq would provide the jolt needed to modernize the Middle East. Instead, he spoke at length about the millennial struggle between Christianity and Islam. Lewis argues that Muslims have adopted migration, along with terror, as the latest strategy in their "cosmic struggle for world domination." This is a familiar framework from the original author of the phrase "the clash of civilizations"— (2)

But while these old neocons may have ridden off into the sunset, Stephen Harper is just getting started. His unilateral approach to Israel and rejection of Canada's Muslim population are part of his agenda.

The "Ottawa Protocol" could forbid Canadians from criticizing Israeli foreign policy, or risk being charged with a hate crime. The hostile takeover of Rights and Democracy because they were being too influenced by the notions of humanitarianism, will further support the initiative.

An aggressive stance toward Russia who he is afraid could thwart his plans, and the shift of military maneuvers to the PMO from trained military personnel.


The Bush Administration did not go away. They are now camped on Parliament Hill and our media had better start paying attention. These are not random things. Stephen Harper is motivated by ideology. A "Clash of Civilizations". A Holy War.

Our prime minister has exerted total control over every aspect of government and government communication. I have to read American and foreign newspapers to determine what is happening in my own country.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

Think. Think. Think.

Maybe it's time to boycott papers who refuse to investigate these important issues. Corruption is one thing, and there's certainly enough of it in Harper's party, but this is aggression unheard of in Canada.

Moral in our military is already low. How can we ask them to do this? Could this be why the Conservatives are recruiting on porn sights with phrases like "Nasty Panty Flash" and "Christian Values". War porn, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Is this really your Canada? It's definitely not mine.

Sources:

1. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 79

2. Party of Defeat: AEI's weird celebration, By Jacob Weisberg, March 14, 2007

The Haiti Crisis Revisited: It Was All a "Commie" Plot

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

By now many, if not most, Canadians believe that Stephen Harper's quick response to the Haiti crisis was to change the channel, after taking a beating in the polls over his second self-serving prorogation.

And by now many, if not most, Canadians believe that Stephen Harper's visit to Haiti was for photo-ops.

If you had just one word to describe our prime minister, it would not be humanitarian, so the above assumptions are certainly justified.

However, there was something else going on here that seems to have been missed by Canada's mainstream media, even as several are revisiting our so-called aid, which appears to have been almost non-existent* (only 1.5% came from us)

This was a military operation. The ships Harper bragged about arrived empty and the military personnel, were there primarily to secure the airports and clear the way for the arrival of military jets. And they turned away Doctors Without Borders and planes loaded with medical supplies, so they could instead land troops**.

There were military trucks everywhere, with troops carrying machine guns... Stopping at the US Embassy we spoke with the marines... One said "...I thought I would be helping people but all I am doing is standing around in the heat with a gun...." And that's what they were doing. Everywhere. In trucks, hummers, on the streets, standing around in flak jackets with guns. Or sitting in the trucks with guns. While...Haitians were digging themselves out.... Everywhere we drove we saw Italian, French, Canadian, and US military...holding up the traffic, causing more congestion than was necessary, and not completely participating in relief efforts. ..." (1)

So why the need for so many troops? In part: Cuba.

The "Commie" Plot

Stephen Harper was the first world leader to visit Haiti after the earthquake. There was some belief that he rushed his travel plans, wanting to get ahead of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrived days later.

But Harper's presence there, standing in front of our military hardware and with our troops, was to deliver a different message. He was on top of it.

Because before the Canadian or U.S. governments could respond, the Cubans were already taking charge.

... for the first 72 hours following the earthquake, Cuban doctors were in fact the main medical support for the country. Within the first 24 hours, they had completed 1,000 emergency surgeries, turned their living quarters into clinics, and were running the only medical centers in the country, including 5 comprehensive diagnostic centers (small hospitals) which they had previously built. In addition another 5 in various stages of construction were also used, and they turned their ophthalmology center into a field hospital-which treated 605 patients within the first 12 hours following the earthquake. (2)

The Cubans had actually been there since 1998, after Hurricane Georges ravished the island:

Cuba adopted a two-pronged public health approach to help Haiti. First, it agreed to maintain hundreds of doctors in the country for as long as necessary, working wherever they were posted by the Haitian government. This was particularly significant as Haiti's health care system was easily the worst in the Americas, with life expectancy of only 54 years in 1990 and one out of every 5 adult deaths due to AIDS, while 12.1% of children died from preventable intestinal infectious diseases.

In addition Cuba agreed to train Haitian doctors in Cuba, providing that they would later return and take the places of the Cuban doctors (a process of "brain gain" rather than "brain drain"). Significantly, the students were selected from non-traditional backgrounds, and were mainly poor. It was thought that, because of their socio-economic background, they fully understood their country's need for medical personnel, and would return to work where they were needed. The first cohort of students began studying in May, 1999 at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). (2)

No one was overly concerned. But now amidst the worst natural disaster in modern history, exacerbated by extreme poverty, the West may have been a little worried about Cuban [communist] influence.

While North American media might have ignored Cuba's role, Haiti has not. A pointed remark was made by Haitian President Mr. René Préval, who noted, "you did not wait for an earthquake to help us". Similarly, Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive has also repeatedly noted that the first three countries to help were Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. (2)

This story on it's own would not be newsworthy, except as a human interest story. But there are several other factors that make me question Stephen Harper's motives.

First comes from the Democracy Digest in December of 2009, revealing that Canada was going into the "democracy" business: The D-word out of favor? Don’t tell the Canadians. Seems that American warmongers are finding the coup business not as profitable as it once was, so the Harper government has expropriated 70 million dollars to take it over.

The second comes from Lawrence Martin's new book, Harperland. Martin reveals that Stephen Harper is not a fan of Peacekeeping, believing that Canada should become a "hard power". He also states that our prime minister sees the world not as a global community but as a "clash of civilizations". Something he's never shared with Canadians.

The third is Harper's anti-communist grounding, part of that "clash of civilizations". The Religious Right believe that the Antichrist will only appear after the world has ridden itself of communists. And his corporate base of course sees the profit in supplying military hardware, and also fear that communism will put an end to their greed.

But the most compelling reason, I believe, for the enormous military operation, was to protect something they would find more valuable than religion or war profiteering.

OIL!

The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies including the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said yesterday in a telephone interview. (3)

He speculated that these enormous oil reserves could help Haiti get out of poverty. But will they be used for that?

According to Marguerite Laurent:

I wrote Part 1 of Oil in Haiti as the economic reasons for the US/UN occupation back in October, 2009. After the earthquake, I questioned whether oil drilling could have triggered the earthquake: Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake? ... After being called crazy and un-American for writing that the 2010 earthquake gives the US the perfect disaster-capitalism opportunity to come out from behind the UN and openly occupy Haiti to secure Haiti's oil ... , strategic location and other riches for the corporatocracy... a veteran oil company man comes forward in Business Week to say, and one wonders how he can so authoritatively speculate about the area of the faultline without intimate knowledge of the drillings, explorations .. Haiti lies in an area that has undiscovered amounts of oil, it must have oil and the earthquake "may have left clues" to petroleum reservoirs! Oil that, uhmmm, "could aid economic recovery in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. (4)

Of course the veteran oil company man was Stephen Pierce and as Laurent reminds us, what he really meant to say was "that could aid Haiti's US-occupied economy recover its strategic oil reserves" for the global elite.

So while Haiti looked like just another photo-op for the big guy, it was more than that. He had planted the flag of Exxon, conquering the region for the global elite and kicking a little "commie" butt for the morally self-righteous.

And what will this mean for the people of Haiti who are still living in tents under horrendous conditions, ten months after the expenditure of millions of dollars, while sitting on all that oil?

I expect they will be colonized and subjugated, and if the Haitian government doesn't see it our way .. can you say "coup"? They'll just have to claim that Cuba was planning an invasion and we needed to protect them.

Then we'll slap on our yellow ribbons, the media will applaud and the corporate elite will smile.

Just another day in Paradise.

Footnotes:

*By this I mean only government aid. Canadians were more than generous in their contributions to relief organizations.

**During our stay of only seven weeks, our medical team did amazing work and the United States provided a much needed hospital ship.

Sources:

1. "Our Hands and Help For Haiti", By Elaine Brower, Op Ed News, February 24, 2010

2. One of the World's Best Kept Secrets: Cuban Medical Aid to Haiti, by Emily J. Kirk and John M. Kirk, Global Research, October 29, 2010

3. Haiti Earthquake May Have Exposed Gas, Aiding Economy, By Jim Polson, Bloomberg, January 26, 2010

4. Oil in Haiti: Reasons for the US Occupation Part II, by Marguerite Laurent, Global Research