The Cycle of Spin to Finance and Sell War

In her book Holding the Bully's Coat, Linda McQuaig discusses the cycle of military contracts, lobby groups, think tanks, etc; that go into selling war.

And let's have no delusions here. War is a business and a big business indeed, and like any business depends on good PR and marketing.

Increasingly, a Canadian defence lobby began to emerge as a potent force in Canadian politics. ... The most important of these is the Conference on Defence Associations (CDA), an umbrella group representing military and retired military personnel as well as business, academic and professional types with military interests. The CDA enjoys access at the highest levels, including direct access to the prime minister. While ostensibly an outside, non-governmental group, the CDA receives funding and organizational support from the Department of National Defence. In effect, then, the Defence Department is subsidizing a group to lobby the government to maintain the Defence Department's budget." (McQuaig, Doubleday, 2007)

So not only does the taxpayer foot the bill for defense spending, but we also pay for the lobbying. Quite a gig.

John Geddes at Macleans.ca; reveals that CDA gets $100,000 a year from the Department of Defence, November 15, 2007:

A newspaper reader turns to the op-ed page and finds a commentary supporting the mission in Afghanistan written by a retired general or colonel writing for the Conference of Defence Associations. Or the reader scans a story on the purchase of military hardware in which Paul Manson, the former chief of defence staff, or another distinguished retired officer affiliated with the CDA, is quoted supporting the move. The comments dovetail with Conservative policy, but are presented as the views of an expert, independent group.

Just how independent, though, is open to debate. The CDA gets $100,000 a year from the Department of National Defence expressly for advocating on military matters. The department refused to release its funding agreement with the CDA to Maclean’s, saying it went to cabinet and is therefore secret. But Alain Pellerin, retired colonel and CDA executive director, outlined some details. The CDA must produce a quarterly magazine, for instance, and conduct symposiums for students. “We also have to write,” Pellerin said, “a number of op-eds to the press.”

Requiring a taxpayer-subsidized advocacy group to make its case through the media to qualify for annual renewal of its funding is not standard policy. In fact, the Conservatives often frown upon paying for advocacy work at all. To cite a contentious area, the 2007-08 federal guidelines for women’s groups make domestic advocacy and lobbying ineligible for any funding support.

Pellerin said the CDA remains independent, but he conceded, “It’s walking a fine line at times.” Asked if there is any aspect of Tory defence policy the CDA opposes, he couldn’t think of one. Back when the Liberals were in power, things were different. Pellerin said the CDA briefly lost its federal support, which goes back to 1932, because then-defence minister John McCallum was “annoyed” over its persistent calls for more defence spending.

Ironically this group also receives additional benefits as a charitable organization, meaning they can fund raise tax-free; though their charitable status is being challenged. As Dr. Joan Russow explains:

On May 14, 2008 a complaint to Revenue Canada was made to challenge the Canadian Defence Association Institute's (CDAI) charitable status. (Russow) On May 16, 2008, it was revealed that the Conference of Defence Assocation (CDA) and its charitable front group the Conference of Defence Association Institute had received 500,000 from the “new” Conservative government to legitimize the Federal Governments annual Defence spending, and the government’s recently announced Canada First 30 billion anticipated future budget along with the 45 billion retrofit budget.

For years the "charitable" Conference of Defence Association has been granted Charitable Status, and has lobbied continuously for an increase in the military budget.

Military Spending and Other Costs Associated With the Invasion

In Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, about America's lack of public health care, he interviewed politicians from countries that had good health care programs in place, and I remember a comment that we should pay heed to.

It was in Britain, and I don't recall the gentleman's name, but when Moore asked him about the costs associated with the program, the man stated that a country can always find money to go to war, so they should be able to find the money to keep their own citizens healthy.

We don't talk about health care much in Canada now, though anyone who's followed Stephen Harper's career for more than a week and a half, know that his ultimate goal is to scrap our public system. In fact his National Citizens Coalition was established to fight against what they called 'socialized medicine'.

But we also rarely talk about the cost of this 'mission'. The last time the Parliamentary budget officer gave us a figure it was about 20 billion dollars, but apparently things like maintenance of equipment, death benefits, disability pensions, etc. were not factored in. I read an account the other day that suggested it could be as high as 100 billion dollars. A staggering sum.

In the final short video series of Linda McQuaig's Exposing Canada's Role in Afghanistan, based in part on her book Holding the Bully's Coat, she discusses the misconception Canadians have that we are not spending enough on our military.

Early in his tenure, Stephen Harper had a private meeting with George Bush, where he committed our soldiers and resources to the U.S. cause. Paul Martin had already changed the direction of the mission under the leadership of Rick Hillier, but we would now be playing a much more intense role in the fighting. Any notion of peacekeeping was thrown away, while our prime minister asked his idol if he could hold his coat.

But then it would be the Canadian taxpayers and the Canadian soldiers who would be doing the heavy lifting, not our little Steve.

Of course, the Canadian military would be getting a lot of new money, but it would be spent on things that please, rather than irritate, the Bush administration: aircraft and helicopters that would allow Canada to contribute more effectively to the U.S. "war on terror." Particularly pleasing to the Bush administration was a $3.4-billion contract for heavy-lift cargo planes, awarded—without competition—to U.S. aerospace giant (and major Republican contributor) Boeing. It's all part of Harper's plan to massively increase Canada's military spending, well beyond the substantial increases made by Paul Martin's government. By 2010, Harper's plan will raise our military spending to $21.5 billion a year from $13 billion in 2005.

This means significant additional taxpayer dollars will go to the military rather than to other Canadian priorities. Perhaps this sounds like a good idea. After all, we've heard a relentless chorus from commentators, academics and retired generals about our woefully underfunded military. But is this really the case?

Before the dramatic increases announced by Harper, Canada was already the seventh biggest military spender among the twenty-six nations of NATO, putting us clearly in the top one third of the organization, which is the world's strongest military alliance. NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer noted on a visit to Ottawa in June 2006 that Canada was increasing its military spending even as most other NATO members were actually decreasing theirs.

The notion of Canada as a significant military spender may sound bizarre; it certainly doesn't fit with the popular perception. That's because the Harper government and a host of pro-military commentators have dominated the public debate with their portrayal of Canada as a laggard whose military spending ranks only above little Luxembourg among NATO nations.

This characterization is extremely misleading. As Steven Staples, a defence analyst with the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute has noted, the pro-military set has managed to make Canada's military spending look shrivelled by using an inappropriate method of measurement—measuring military spending as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), rather than measuring it in actual dollars. That may sound reasonable, but here's the first clue that it isn't. As we all know, the biggest military spender in the world is the United States, which currently spends some $450 billion a year on its military—more than almost all the other nations in the world combined. But, using the measuring stick favoured by Canada's pro-military commentators (percentage of GDP), the biggest military spender in NATO isn't the United States. It's Turkey! And next biggest is another military powerhouse—Greece! (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire , Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 27-28)

So as our government tries to find ways to reduce spending , which will no doubt include major cuts to social spending, we have to tell them that they need to reduce the funding of this damn war. They made one announcement that they would be chopping the budget of the military, but only at home. That is not good enough.

We should not look at reducing necessary military spending, but significantly reduce the money we are pouring down the drain in Afghanistan, simply to impress the United States. We never hear the words 'victory' or 'peace', because they are unattainable. So we now need to demand the word 'ENOUGH!' We made a mess over there, so clean it up. It's the least we can do.

Then get out.

The Shah of Iran and the Birth of Terrorists

In part two of Linda McQuaig's Youtube series Exposing Canada's Role in Afghanistan, based in part on her book Holding the Bully's Coat (ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9), she touches on a subject that is very important. Religious extremism and the birth of terrorism

However, we have to remember that not all terrorists are Muslims, and in fact I would argue that they are probably in the minority. Some of the most horrendous assaults on humanity have taken place in the name of Christianity and other faiths, but that's a topic for another time.

McQuaig instead takes us back to the creation of the Islamic world's distrust and dislike of the West, in particular the United States; beginning with their involvement in the overthrow of the democratically elected Mohammed Massadegh, and in the planting of the unpopular Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, simply referred to usually as the Shah of Iran.

In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright stated:

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."

This story was of personal interest to me because one of my British uncles worked for the Shah. I remember bragging about this when I was growing up, and in some convoluted way felt connected to the Iranian royal family. Unfortunately my own family was as poor as church mice, and the holes in my shoes did not exactly suggest any royal lineage.

But what's interesting about McQuaig's assertion, is that because of the Shah's crack down on public dissent, the only place where those opposed to his tyrannical regime could meet, was in the mosques. This meant that any protest movements were directed by religion, making it easier for fundamentalists to hijack the movement and give it a holy purpose.

I wanted to mention something else here though and correct a misconception of the author's. Several times in her book she refers to Michael Ignatieff as a neoconservative. Nothing could be further from the truth.

At it's core, neoconservatism is based on three principles: deception, religious fervour and perpetual war. But those are not the goals, only the path to achieving the goals. A neo-cons real aim is to dismantle a country's social safety net, eliminate government controls and pave the way for an unfettered free market system. Their message is don't blink.

Mr. Ignatieff's goals are the exact opposite.

I believe that Linda McQuaig may be an NDP supporter, if she supports any political party at all, and that's great. If we really want to bring this country forward, we need all progressive thinkers, and she is definitely that.

And yes, Ignatieff supported the war in Iraq, but for very different reasons. While Stephen Harper simply stated that he didn't know much about it but just that we should be where the Americans are; Ignatieff spent time in Kurdistan after the genocide and knew first hand the evils of Saddam Hussein. But again, that will be covered in a separate post.

Part two of this series once again questions the legality of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and our role in it. And it also sets the stage for the emergence of terrorism as we now identify it.

Near the end she brings up Lt.-Gen. Thomas Metz, but I'm doing a separate post on that since he is directly involved with Rick Hillier and our change in direction for the war.

The Manley Report Gave New Direction But Failed to Answer the Question: Why Are We There?

When Rick Hillier started parading around the country, selling Canadians on the War in Afghanistan, it was hard not to climb on board. All the right words were used - 'freedom', 'democracy', 'women's rights', 'schools', etc.

So I set aside my skepticism and mourned the loss of our soldiers, and believed that they died for a noble cause.

And then the detainee issue hit ... again.

Though it wasn't just the issue of torture, but the way that our government and Hillier himself, responded to the allegations. We heard "scumbags", "Taliban dupes" , "Canadians don't care about Afghans torturing Afghans" ... Who are these Canadians, because everyone I know very much cares. In fact, our own soldiers cared enough to take one detainee back and then start photographing future prisoners before releasing them to their jailers.

Because they know about things like the Geneva Convention and human dignity. They have lived with these people and know that they are not all "Taliban", "terrorists" or "scumbags". They have a job to do and are doing it as well as can be expected.

The above video is the first in a series by author, journalist and activist; Linda McQuaig, entitled Exposing Canada's Role in Afghanistan, based in part on her book: Holding the Bully's Coat. I'm currently reading it, and sharing a bit along the way, but it's well worth picking up.

She has a great writing style and a profound knowledge of the subject.

In the video, she is discussing the Manley Report, that was written to make the war palatable to Canadians and state the case for our continued participation.

The media sure pounced on it, like it was The Bible III: Beyond the New Testament. But despite giving a new direction, and the illusion of being non-partisan, it still did nothing to answer the question: Why are we there? Do we have the moral or legal authority to be there?

And yet, without answering those questions it became the basis for an extension of the war, meaning billions more dollars and countless more lives.

But rejection of this almost ecclesiastical report, was not allowed. Terry Glavin wrote in the Tyee, which is usually one of the moderate publications, under the heading; Fresh Start on Afghanistan Debate:

It just might be that yesterday's report from John Manley's independent panel on Canada's role in Afghanistan will turn out to be the very thing this country needed: a kind of blueprint to build a sensible, non-partisan national consensus about how Canada should conduct itself in that poor, blighted country. There's still hope.

But for it to happen, Canadians, and especially Canada's political leaders, will have to squarely face the hard, horrible and inconvenient truths that Manley and his panelists so thoroughly canvassed.

And he continues:

It means New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton will have to stop the hippie-speak about "George Bush's war" and start brushing up on some basic facts. Reacting to the panel's report Tuesday, Layton's first words, in an official statement, were: "For six years, the Liberals and Conservatives have had Canada involved in a counter-insurgency combat mission in southern Afghanistan." Actually, it was only a little more than two years ago that Canadian soldiers finally moved out of Kabul to take over in Kandahar.

It means Liberal leader Stephane Dion will have to abandon his sophomoric and illogical fixation with a 2009 departure date -- or any fixed departure date -- for Canadian soldiers in Kandahar...

It means the next time Green Party leader Elizabeth May feels the urge to blame "ISAF forces from a Christian/crusader heritage" for the depredations of violent jihadists in Afghanistan, she might first recall that there are hundreds of brave Muslim soldiers from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan, from such countries as Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Canada's own 'with them or against them' mentality was validated, and most of the mainstream media jumped on the band wagon.

But he does criticize Harper: The weird muzzling of Canadian aid officials and diplomats. Ottawa's bizarre inability to engage in anything resembling a straightforward accounting of the mission's risks. Its absurd hobbling of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Afghanistan. The cabinet's irresponsible inattention to the equipment and transportation requirements of Canadian soldiers on Kandahar's front lines.

Now I know the report also came along with new aid organizations like Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee; which is a good thing, but again, I ask; why are we there?

*****************************************************

How Did we Get Here From There? The Afghanistan Call to Arms

Why We Need to Get Our Soldiers Out of Afghanistan Now

*****************************************************

Paul Martin, Rick Hillier and a New Direction For Afghanistan

I don't as a rule read Jonathan Kay's column (or for that matter, the National Post). He's far too right-wing, and when I say right-wing, I mean that he would probably be more at home inking copy for Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

But it was Christmas Eve, and I suppose Mr. Kay was feeling a little festive, so in a gesture of peace and goodwill, he launched a full frontal attack on an op-ed piece written by former NDP campaign director Gerald Caplan, that had appeared in the Globe several weeks before.

Why did he wait until Christmas eve? Who knows?

Coal in his stocking? A bit too much eggnog? Waiting for Jacob Marley? It's any one's guess.

But our Jonathan was quite upset that Mr. Caplan was lamenting "My country seems to be slipping away in front of my very eyes..." I can relate, as can a great many Canadians. We have definitely taken a sharp right turn.

Now the National Post column was pretty much the same old, same old: Stephen Harper good, Jason Kenney new Messiah, where's my gun? ... ugh!

But then it took a kind of strange twist as Kay started toasting former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. (Did I mention it was Christmas Eve and there may have been eggnog involved?)

Paul Martin will forever be known primarily as the guy who fumbled Jean Chrétien's dynasty away to Stephen Harper. But if there were more justice in the world — or at least among pundits — he would get his due for making the single most momentous prime ministerial decision of the decade: sending a Canadian combat mission to Kandahar in 2005.

At the time, it hardly seemed epic: Most Canadians didn't know Kandahar from Kunduz. But the military wonks immediately could tell this was a game-changer. Putting our troops in Kandahar, at the ideological and political center of Taliban territory, meant the Liberals were shedding decades of peacekeeper posturing, and were putting the country on a very real war footing.

"We're not the public service of Canada ... Our job is to be able to kill people," said Rick Hillier, another man who deserves credit for changing this country. The then-Chief of the Defence Staff described the Taliban as "detestable murderers and scumbags" — words that made men like Caplan whimper and run around in little circles. In the old Canada, one didn't say such things. To speak plainly about evil wasn't — what was Caplan's word? — sufficiently "restrained."


I remember feeling a similar alarm when I heard Hillier's words and especially his tone, but he seemed like a decent guy; so I just put it down to some kind of bravado. And besides, when Jack Layton called his remarks "disconcerting", he was accused of trying to "bestow the most ennobled status on the Taliban---that of victim", which of course is sheer nonsense.

But back to Paul Martin.

Now I never voted for the man. I didn't care for his campaign strategy, and as prime minister, he was too indecisive. I thought he was a great finance minister though and is making an excellent statesman.

In Jean Chretien's new book, he is suggesting that it was just that kind of indecisiveness that first put our soldiers at greater risk. After writing of his decision to keep us out of Iraq, and only agreeing to go to Afghanistan, so long as they were in a safer region, he continues: "Later, unfortunately, when my successor took too long to make up his mind about whether Canada should extend our term with the ISAF, our soldiers were moved out of Kabul and sent south to battle the Taliban in the killing fields around Kandahar."

In Paul Martin's book, however, he states that he was considering a change in our role, and did not just drop the ball. He still wanted a Peacekeeping force, but thought that Canada should be better trained and better equipped for combat, so he put money into the military and on the advice of his defense minister, Bill Graham; in February of 2005, appointed General Rick Hillier as chief of the defense staff.

As journalist and author Linda McQuaig puts in:

It was the Martin government that appointed Hillier chief of defence staff and began pumping large amounts of new money into military spending. Soon after his appointment, Hillier began pressuring Martin to agree to U.S. requests to increase and intensify Canadian involvement in the Afghan war. Martin was initially hesitant, but agreed to the deeper commitment in Afghanistan, only after extracting from Hillier a promise that the Canadian military would also have sufficient troops available to participate in vital UN peacekeeping missions.

At a meeting with Hillier and the defence and foreign affairs ministers on March 21, 2005, Martin stressed the importance of the Canadian Forces being prepared to help the UN intervene, particularly in the brutal fighting in Darfur, where hundreds of thousands of people had been killed. Despite Hillier's assurances that troops would be available for peacekeeping, the general argued the following spring—with the support of the newly elected Harper government—that the military was so overworked by the Afghan deployment that it lacked the soldiers to contribute to a UN mission to Darfur.'

Under Harper, the military's desire to transform itself into an adjunct of the U.S. "war on terror" was now perfectly in sync ... (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 73-74)

We were Peacekeepers no more.

Canada's Environmental Policies and Saving the Planet

Exxon, the world's richest and mightiest corporation, was the leading force behind a massive ten-year campaign to block the Kyoto accord and ensure the world remained hooked on the product that Exxon has made its fortune selling. This was no easy battle, even for Exxon.

Lined up against it was virtually the entire scientific world—and, for that matter, most of the world community. In the end, not even Exxon was able to block the signing of the historic Kyoto Protocol, as the world came together in 1997 in a far-reaching bid to shake our planet-endangering oil addiction.

But Exxon did score one huge victory in March 2001, when the newly elected administration of George W Bush and Dick Cheney, close Exxon allies, withdrew U.S. support for Kyoto. The withdrawal of the United States, which emits roughly one quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, was a devastating blow. Still, the world community has pressed on with Kyoto.

Into this titanic, ongoing struggle between the world community and the Bush-Cheney-Exxon axis of oil, Canada has now definitively entered—on the side of the oil interests.

With the release of the Harper government's so-called Clean Air Act in October 2006, Ottawa signalled its abandonment of Kyoto. This amounted to a repudiation of the only serious effort under way to tackle global warming. (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, Pg. 22)

So there you have it. The world will never reach an agreement on global warming, when the oil companies hold all the power and the purse strings.

It's no secret that Stephen Harper's float to power was down a stream of crude, or that he has significant links to Exxon himself. His father was an executive at Imperial Oil, a subsidiary of Exxon; and it was at his father's company that Harper held his only real job, before entering the political arena. (the National Citizens Coalition is a right-wing political lobby group, so that's not a real job either)

It's also no secret that our current dictator does not believe in the science of global warming, calling it a theory; and in fact has referred to the Kyoto Accord as a 'socialist plot'.

Now don't get me wrong. The Liberals before him, though helping to create the Kyoto Protocol, allowed greenhouse gases to rise under their watch. But as former environment minister Stephane Dion told the San Francisco Chronicle in May 2005, "There is no minister of the environment on earth who can stop this [oil sands development] from going forward because there is too much money in it."

It presents a problem for Canada, but should not sway our opinion of the tar sands. Unless we can legitimately clean them up, and and I don't see how we can, we have to start moving toward a green economy, and losing our dependency on oil. It's that simple.

In an attempt to organize my archived and future posts, I'm using this page to link to environmental stories, by categories. Further links will be available as you navigate the pages. Just be patient ... I'm working as quickly as I can.

Climate Change

Climate Change Denial

Copenhagen

Reformers Environmental Disaster