Gulf War III. It's All About The Oil...Still!

Burning oil wells in Kuwait. Circa 1990

Well Citizen Stephen has got us involved in yet another war. Canada has been at war now for almost all of Mr. "H"s entire tenure. He came to office waving the bloody flag of nationalism and it appears he intends to go out in very much the same manner. 

Granted, His Harperness didn't get us into Afghanistan. That was Jean Chretien's doing. That was the so-called "righteous" war, the response to the 9-11 attack. But Stephen kept our Men and Women in uniform in Afghanistan long past their best-before date. Our involvement there just ended a mere six months ago. 

Of course, before that, there was Libya and prior to that, Gulf War II. If Herr Harper had been in power then, we would most certainly have been involved in that  disastrous debacle that commenced in 2003 and only just wrapped up (at least from the U.S. standpoint) in 2011.  

And long before that, there was George Bush Senior's Gulf War I which of course, Canada did participate in. Brian Mulroney was responsible for our presence there. 

While the Western coalition involved in the first Iraqi conflict used that country's invasion of Kuwait as an excuse for military action, we all know that war was about the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. It is telling that as his forces withdrew under fire, Saddam Hussein's army chose to torch oil wells, not town's, villages or other strategic locations that might have been of service to his enemy. He wanted to deprive the West of its life's blood. 

It was only once Saddam had been effectively neutered as a threat to the West's supply of oil that the Americans backed off and sent in their "wildcatters" to douse the burning wells. Big Oil's interests in that area were safe for the time being. 

Sometime after that, huge deposits of oil were discovered in the Caspian Sea/Turkmenistan area. This was a huge deposit. An estimated 60 billion barrels of crude. It was SO huge that the two planned pipelines to the west via the Black Sea were not deemed to be sufficient to move all that much needed oil to Western markets. Also, the belligerent nature of bordering Iran at the time made the continuous flow uncertain via those two lines.

So in response to this dilemma, the U.S. attempted to negotiate with the Taliban Government in Afghanistan for a third pipeline that would run north to south through that country, through Pakistan and finally ending at the Indian Ocean. 

Negotiations between the Taliban and an international consortium led by Unocal of California were going swimmingly until the bombing of two American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, allegedly by Osama Bin Laden who claimed to have had the blessing of the Taliban regime. Negotiations ended at that point.

Three years later came the 9-11 attack in New York, also allegedly perpetrated by Osama and his Al Quaida network who happened to be based in Afghanistan. 

America and the Western world as a whole were terror struck. They

Map of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline.
To be completed in 2017. 

now had the moral excuse to go into Afghanistan in force to hunt for the terrorist general... and to make sure that pipeline got built. Of course, Canada was also there to help fight the good fight against evil and tyranny... and to protect that pipeline. 

It is interesting to note that the puppet president that the U.S. installed to lead the new Afghan government was Hamid Karzai, a former Unocal employee. And as Uri Averny of the Daily Ma'Ariv in Israel pointed out, it was quite telling that the majority of American operational bases in Afghanistan were located along the same route as the proposed Tran-Afghanistan pipeline. 

So while Canada was helping to fight the war on terror by putting "boots on the ground" in Afghanistan, it is coincidental that we were also helping the best interests of Big Oil and the West's insatiable thirst for petroleum. 

Then came Gulf War II. Riding on the coattails of the "Righteous War" farther to the east, George Bush Junior invaded Iraq, supposedly to finish off his father's work. 

He used the pretext that Saddam Hussein was supporting the terrorists and was producing weapons of mass destruction. Of course, Saddam had no tolerance whatsoever for the terrorists and wouldn't let them operate in his country. And as we now know, there WERE no weapons of mass destruction. It was all a flimsy excuse for going back into the region. 

Whether it was because the Americans felt that Saddam was growing too unreliable once again or because it feared neighbouring Iran's belligerence, or both, they needed to ensure the  continued flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. And they had their excuse. Thus began an ugly eight year war to protect the flow of crude to the West.

Mercifully, Canada took a pass on that whole affair. Chretien and subsequently, Harper, were content to stick with the "Holy" pipeline war in Afghanistan.

But then came yet another despotic ruler to self righteously topple. Muammar Gaddafi, ruler of Libya which is home to the fifth largest oil reserves in the world. Gaddafi had been a thorn in the West's side for decades and It was rumored that the U.S. had plans to take him out shortly after 9-11. 

But after 9-11, Gaddafi made efforts to mend fences with the West and actually denounced the New York attack. There was then, no mask of righteous indignation for the Americans and its allies to hide behind until the Arab Spring came along  in 2011.  The West finally had an excuse to send in their bombers. 

And Canada was there to help keep the oil spigots open. 

Now we have Gulf War III. ISIS, an Islamic army that was born and funded covertly by the Americans in order to topple the regime in Syria have marched into Northern Iraq and are threatening the oil fields there. 

Map of Exxon holdings in Northern Iraq.

ISIS operations in Iraq are concentrated in the Northern area known as "Kurdistan". Oil reserves there are so large that if that region were ever to declare it's independence, it would be home to the ninth largest reserves in the world. America's first bombing missions in this new war against "terror" where to defend the city of Erbil which is considered to be the nerve centre of the Kurdish oil fields and home to Exxon, Chevron and Mobil's local operations. 

So while the fight against terror is once again the impetus for war - ISIS having circulated videos of various Westerners being beheaded by an operative who curiously, has an English accent - one has to look no further than the interests of Big oil and the West's continued need for vast amounts of petroleum in order to keep their societies running. 

And Canada is there once again, helping to save the day from "Islamic Radicals", much like the Government of Harper is keeping close tabs on "Environmental Radicals" here at home. It's all about serving the best interests of Big Oil and fueling our ongoing lust for crude. 

So don't for a minute buy the nationalistic clap trap and fear mongering that Citizen Stephen and leaders like him are foisting upon us in order to justify our colonial misadventures. The wars of the 21st century are- always have been - and until the world breaks it's addiction to petroleum - always will be, about oil. 

Without The Media, Harper Would Have No Message

At the gathering of the Conservative clan in Calgary in 2013, several of the good folks of the mainstream media bemoaned their treatment at the hands of the Harper faithful. 

They were penned into a corner with no water to drink (at first) and no wi-fi access. But even though these professional journalists were rudely shoved to the side and belled like cats with inordinately LARGE press credentials hanging from their necks so as to warn the clan's delegates who NOT to talk to, they were still in plain enough sight for the Cons to laugh and point their bony fingers at as though the press were thieves pilloried in the stocks. 

You see, the Conservatives in general and Stephen in particular don't think very highly of the mainstream media. They consider them to be the enemy in much the same way that His Harperness has declared the Courts to be the enemy of Senate reform. You see, every populist kind of guy needs an enemy that justifies his crusade. Even if that enemy happens to be nothing more than a road-side windmill. 

But the Conservatives disdain for the media was best expressed by

Harper "Lickspittle" Marjory LeBreton.
Better wipe your chin there Margy.

former Tory Leader in the Senate, Marjory LeBreton  when she denounced the Ottawa Press Corps as being nothing more than a bunch of Liberal "lickspittles". Though it was plain to see that the discoloured drool that dripped from Marge's wrinkly chin plainly belonged to Stephen himself. But the Cons have never let a little thing like hypocrisy get in the way of their rhetoric. 

Stephen you see, really hates to be held to account. He and the clan's spin doctors have gone to great lengths to portray Harper as a really smart guy so being stymied by really tough questions - well - makes him look just plain stupid. Hence the incessant spin and regurgitation of vapid talking points from Steve and his bobble heads, most of whom he has little or no faith in to not shoot themselves in the foot. Or worse, accidentally wing Stephen with a misplaced, unscripted comment. 

He gives Parliament the same treatment, not that he cares a whit about Parliament. It is merely window dressing behind which he maintains his autocratic rule. But there are actual CAMERAS and real live reporters in the press gallery. And the fear of looking foolish or being caught with his pants down in front of the media simply terrifies Citizen Steve. 

"Get thee back most foul and odious
seekers of truth"!

So Harper, as he does with all his detractors, bashes the media and attempts to discredit them as being "Liberal Elites", the enemies of the common man. But the fact is, when reporters such as Terry Milewski press Stephen for answers to tough question, he is simply doing his job. He has done nothing less with any previous Prime Minister. And sometimes, he made them look foolish too. 

But credibility has always been a concern for Harper ever since the days 

The Gospel according to
Fred Flintstone. 

of the Reform Party when members routinely made themselves look ridiculous in front of the national media ("man walked with dinosaurs" comes to mind). No credibility translates into no votes and Harper has gone to great lengths to paint what currently passes for a Conservative party as credible. At least enough to con as many as 38% of voters.  And many of those 38% voted for Steve himself because of the "smart-guy" persona that he has portrayed. 

So there are no more Prime Ministerial press-scrums for fear the Liberal intelligentsia posing as reporter's might cause Stephen to look foolish or worse - Negligent or dare I say, crooked. 

As long as the media keeps giving face-
time to the Harpernaughts, Canadians
will be giving face-time to their palms. 

But it is a sick and twisted relationship Citizen Stephen has with the press. You see, as much as he claims to loathe the media in general (with the possible exception of his incestuous relationship with Sun News), he needs them. Without the boys and girls in the Press Corps, The P.M. and his underlings would have no vehicle with which to convey their tightly controlled, highly scripted and mind boggelingly banal messages. Yet he abuses them at every opportunity. And like a beaten dog, the whipped media follows Herr Harper around looking for fallen crumbs and the remote possibility of a pat on the head.

I've asked media types why they continue to allow Stephen and the Harper Youth to abuse and humiliate them the way they do. But I'm conscious of the fact that I'm questioning people who are stuck in a cycle of abuse and I need to be careful not to blame the victims here. 

I've pointed out to them that if they just stay away, stop covering Harper's Follies, the shabby treatment would stop. The only people covering the Gestapo in the PMO would be Ezra Levant and his crew and nobody watches them anyway. 

But The Boys and Girls of the Press Corp - to a man and woman - have babbled about their professional duty and that they've taken oaths and all that. So they wear their "whipping boy" persona's like badges of honour and continue to allow Harper to use them like he would a cheap whore. 

But there was one day in 2013 when the Cons were holding a caucus meeting, Stephen would only allow cameras and TV into the soiree on the condition that no questions would be asked. In essence, this was to be nothing but a photo-op. From out of nowhere, the Press Corps, seeming to have had enough of being kicked around, decided to boycott the event. The only coverage was from - you guessed it - Sun News. 

Of course, Harpers Spinners turned the brave stand by the media types into a fundraising opportunity. It may or may not have been a successful cash grab. But that's neither here nor there. The important things is that the MSM stood up for themselves that day and said in unison and in a loud and clear voice: "ENOUGH". And for an excruciating moment in time, Harper's world shook uncontrollably.    

We've since gone back to the old relationship in which the press are throttled into being Harper's reluctant messengers. But with the next federal election just around the corner, lets hope the Media remember the day they stood up to the Emperor and embrace the notion that without them, Harper is nothing more than a sparrow-fart in a wind storm. No one will hear him. 

If Harper gave a press conference and nobody 
bothered to cover it, will he still have made 
a noise?

In 2015, Who Will Be the Voice of Hope For Working Class Canadians

It's as plain as the smarmy grin
on Harper's face that the CPC
are the champions of the 1%

Well we are now past the half-way point in Stephen Harper's dark and sinister majority mandate. So you can expect little in the way of actual governance between now and the next election.

Not that there was much in the way of any real management of the country since May of 2011. There HAS been a whole hell of a lot of politicking however from the party that currently claims to be the Canadian Government. 

The Government of Harper has created solutions (and bad ones at that) to problems that don't exist. A tough on crime agenda for example, at a time when Canada's crime rate is at its lowest level in over 40 years. But hey, his base LOVES the idea. 

He used the 2008 economic crisis to unnecessarily spend us into the largest deficit in our history. Previous Governments had insured that our banks were adequately insulated against the kind of madness that occurred in the States. But the financial crash was a wonderful excuse for Mr. H to throw cash around (mostly in Conservative ridings) like a drunken sailor in a brothel, all in an effort to win over future votes. 

With Stephen, it's always been about the next election. Damage control, political spin, attack ads and scoring points with his ideological base has replaced day to day management of the country. In essence, we have no real Government. We have a self-serving political party that has been given the keys to the family car and has been on a reckless road trip for the past seven years while you and I pay for the gas. 

But now that Stephen has reached a critical juncture in his mandate (complete with a brand new directionless throne speech), expect the madness to escalate to dizzying heights. He will be going overboard in his efforts. Not to manage the country responsibly, but to score political points. Everything- EVERYTHING he does from here on in will be about 2015. It's all about the party. It's all about HIM. It has nothing whatsoever to do with you or I. He could "care less".  

So in his effort to stake out his "turf" in the war to come, his

Harperness is attempting to return to his populist roots. He is trying to paint himself as the outsider, the "everyman", a Timmies double-double kind of guy who is taking on the down-town elites. 

And Citizen Stephen might well win a vote or two with this "little guy" shtick of his. But it doesn't take much of an effort to see through the charade. In fact, it's probably the ONLY thing about his current reign that is in any way transparent. 

We know the Emperor is wearing no clothes. It's as plain as the

Stephen is Bullish on the One Percent

smarmy grin on his face that he is the envoy of the 1%. The oil patch lovin, Bay Street humping corporate Elites. Yes, "Elites", which makes Harper's down-home, humble pie routine all the more pathetically transparent. 

You see, the "Elites" Mr. Harper is at war with are the educated class. The doctors, the professors, teachers, the artsy-fartsy set, and most especially, the media. Not to mention scientists or anyone who gives a flying fig about the environment. You know, the ones who could potentially throw a monkey wrench into his  corporate agenda. 

So despite his circus-like antics, it's pretty plain to see who Harper speaks for in this Canada of ours and it's pretty safe to say they rarely visit the local Tim Horton's drive through. 

But what about the "other" guys? For whom in this country do Mr Trudeau and Mr. Mulcair speak?

Prince Justin: Charming, Likable, In
every way, the Anti-Harper. But does
he represent ALL Canadians?

Well it's pretty clear that Prince Justin has staked out the traditional Liberal territory in the middle of the pack. Canada has, by and large, been a pretty middle of the road kind of country historically, never straying either too far to the left or too far to the right. And the driving force behind this has been a healthy middle class. Progressive, but not too progressive. Pragmatic, but not too pragmatic. This is why the Liberals have been dubbed Canada's "natural ruling party". 

So Trudeau has quite emphatically shouted to the folks residing in the Centre of Canada's economic and political spectrum: "Hey you! You in the middle class! Yous is my peeps". If he can keep from shooting himself in the foot on a regular basis, this is territory he might well conquer between now and 2015. 

But the middle of the road is a place that ALL  the parties want a piece 

Tom Mulcair channels the late Jack Layton

of which is why Stephen pretends to be your next door neighbor and Thomas Mulcair has taken to calling himself plain old "Tom" and has made sure HIS party has dropped any and all references to "Social" Democracy in its Mission and Vision statements. Those middle of the road folks don't cotton to none of that "Bolshevik" nonsense. 

So JT will have his hands full trying to win battle-ground suburbia. It seems that EVERYONE is simply tripping over themselves to look after those folks in the middle class. Which is terribly nice for the folks in the middle class. They are Canadian citizens and deserve to be looked after.  And Stephen already has a lock on the 1%, which is real nice for them as well. 

Just because an unemployed single mom doesn't
donate to a political party, is she less deserving of
our politician's support?

But I have to wonder who speaks for the REAL "Everyman", the one who is now less and less likely to be a middle classer. He's the guy just a few notches below that hallowed ground. He's the guy who's carrying more debt than income. The guy with two jobs. The guy who can't afford to put his kids through college. And as often as not, that guy is a girl. And equally likely, a single mother to boot. 

And who is staking claim to the unemployed as well as the working poor, the homeless, the mental health patients, the drug addicts, the elderly and all those folks that we here in Hamilton would refer to as "North Enders". 

Well Tom's party USED to be the ones who claimed to represent the lower class. And they represented the working class as well, the REAL Timmies folks. But lets face it, the poor rarely vote. I mean, how the hell do you enumerate homeless people and drug addicts? And the poor NEVER donate to political parties. And thanks to Stephen The Terrible who has eliminated subsidies for political parties, donations are the ONLY way parties can survive now. Which of course means the lower class don't matter a rat's ass in the big game of politics. 

So with Stephen being the hand puppet of the 1% who NEEDS a sizable chunk of the middle class to win. And with Justin having pitched HIS tent squarely in the middle of the road. And Tom eyeing that same territory, just who the heck DOES speak for the lower class anymore. Who really gives a damn about a truly "just" society or about unprecedented income inequality? Who cares about that Everyman who is forced to pay a visit to Money Mart more often than he cares to admit because he  owes his left testicle to the bank? Who really gives a shit about the welfare recipient who has to make that monthly decision between paying the rent or feeding her children? What about those 800,000 Canadians who still rely on food banks? Are they any less important  because they can't contribute to the coffers of our political parties?

Yes, I've heard some lovely lip-service coming from the three amigos with regard to poor and working class Canadians. But lets face it folks, in reality, Stephen is positively revolted by the peasantry while Justin is pretty much playing it safe and Tom, well dear old Tom wants to be PM so he'll play the political game to the hilt. I'm just not seeing anyone who is claiming to be the right and true advocate of the poor/working poor, the ones with no light at the end of the tunnel, just more darkness. Until we see some real commitment there, someone who can lay claim to be the voice of ALL Canadians, I'm not sure any of the three above mentioned gentlemen are deserving of my vote or yours.  

And who will be the champion of the unemployed?

Senate Reform: Thinking Outside the Box

"Duffy-Gate". A useful crisis

Well, Stephen Harper has his "useful crisis" in his alleged ongoing quest for Senate reform. Ironically, it comes as a result of misdeeds perpetrated by his own appointees. Kind of makes you wonder at the "coincidence" of the whole affair. 

So now his Harperness, buoyed by this crisis and aided by his Strausiann lick-spittle, Pierre (Skippy) Poilievre, is hell-bent on unilaterally imposing change on the Upper House. 

Of course, Harper wants to do things unilaterally because he lacks the ability to negotiate as illustrated by all those "successful" free trade deals and pipe lines he's negotiated. Changing the Senate in any way, shape or form is supposed to be a constitutional affair requiring participation of the provinces. But of course, Stephen has never once sat down at a table with all the Premiers. 

Harper is not a consensus builder. He seems to lack that ability. Unless the deck is heavily stacked in his favour and his opponents are sufficiently restricted in their ability to challenge his will, he doesn't enter into the game. Hence his desire to change the Red Chamber his way. 

Of course, the PM doesn't want the Senate abolished out right as the

NDP advocate. Once he sufficiently had it stacked in his favour during his minority governments, it was extremely useful to him as illustrated by the Upper House outright killing an NDP environment bill. So even if he didn't have a majority in the House of Commons, he could still control the game by keeping the Red Chamber under his thumb.

But is Stephen really pushing for any kind of real substantive change? He wants fixed terms and elected Senators. All fixed terms does is make it easier for successive governments to change the balance of power in the Senate. On the surface of it, this may sound like a good thing. But if Steve didn't think it would in some way benefit him, he wouldn't be going there. 

And elected Senators. While this too may sound like a noble idea, it has the potential to produce legislative gridlock as one elected body vies with another for supremacy and for the bragging rights as to who is the true "voice" of the people. For more thoughts on the notion of an elected Senate, click here. 

Unlike the NDP, I am all for retaining the Senate and reforming it. You see, I believe that a right and true house of "sober second thought" is a good thing - a body that could put the brakes on when Parliament becomes nothing more than a rampant house of partisan ideology, devoid of any real political debate and rational decision making - much as it is now. This was no where better demonstrated then the recent decision by the Senate to kick Harper's Union Transparency bill (and make no mistake about it. It might have been presented as a private member's bill, but this was Harper's baby) back to the House of Commons. You see, it's the Senate's job, when they get ill conceived legislation such as the Union bill, to either send it on to committee for further study and/or to kick it back to Parliament to rethink. It's a matter of providing checks and balances which is not such a bad thing when we have such a closed minded, power-tripping majority Government as we have today. 

But do fixed terms and elections go far enough to change the real problem with the Senate? Not by half. Like most of Harper's so-called democratic reforms, these are nothing more than cosmetic changes -  window dressing that might look good and give him something to hang his hat on - a quasi-legacy that his current seven year tenure is completely devoid of. But these reforms do nothing to change the functionality of the Red Chamber. It doesn't change how they operate. And if future senators are elected Stephen's reforms do nothing but provide the promise that the he will honour the elected Senatorial Candidates in each region. There is nothing to hold him to that promise and we all know how credible Steve's word is. 

A Pack of Partisan Monkeys

But regardless of how these Senator's are chosen, if they perform no better than a pack of partisan monkeys when they get there, taking their cues from and owing allegiance to their respective political party's, then nothing is going to change. The Senate will remain a useless appendage. 

So this is where the whole "thinking outside the box" thing comes in. If we're going to talk real Senate reform and we want to talk about it being a true House of "Sober Second Thought", then lets think big. Lets change the paradigm. 

First of all, let's talk about Senators being members of the same political parties that infest the lower house (more on my opinion of political parties here). If we expect our Senators to be completely free of the political rhetoric of the Lower House, then they need to be free of those parties. So in my opinion, Senators, regardless of their previous incarnations, should be made to relinquish any and all party affiliations when being sworn in. They should be first and foremost, servants of the citizens of Canada, not extensions of the House of Commons, party ideology or the PMO. 

So then like the Auditor General is and the PBO should be the Red Chamber should be a completely arm's length non-partisan legislative body that is 100% independent of the Lower House. It should be, as it was with the recent Union bill, the sober body that looks at legislation and either recommends changes, passes it back to the House of Commons or rubber stamps the bill. Therefore the Prime Minister should have nothing whatsoever to do with the appointment of the Senator's, elected or otherwise. 

I would incidentally, completely remove the power of veto from the Senate unless a proposed piece of legislation is found to be unconstitutional. Even then, I would recommend that rather than being able to veto said bill, the Senate would be compelled to return it to the Lower House for more thorough scrutiny. But with the Senate being an independent "thoughtful" body, legislation from the Lower House would do well to be more thoughtful as well - legislation they submit should be better discussed and debated rather than having "closure" imposed on it thus ensuring half-assed bills aren't kicked upstairs and that gargantuan omnibus legislation isn't crammed into law without proper scrutiny. 

So then lets look at where Senators would in fact come from if not from the Prime Minister himself. Why not from the Governor General? Our Head of State, who would have the power to enable an independent selections committee who would in turn make recommendations back to the GG rather than to the PM.  In this way, appointees to the Upper House would have absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Minister nor Parliament and aren't faced with the prospect of owing the government of the day for their position. 

Senator "Mom". Hey! Why Not?

And just who would these future Senator's be? Well I would recommend Canadians from all walks of life. Professor's, political scientists, Doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers, mothers, former aboriginal leaders, volunteers: all people who have performed service to their communities, their Provinces and to the country itself. Almost anyone but former politicians. 

I'm sure there are plenty of arguments for and against my ideas for Senate reform as I've presented them. But they are not intended to be the last word on reforming the Upper House. But what I hope my ideas will do is to stimulate thought and to provoke discussion. To get Canadians thinking about what the real problems are with the Senate and why they exist. My solutions may not be the best ones, but by stepping outside the box in search of remedies, by shifting the paradigm, we can maybe start thinking about and imagining what our democracy can be. Maybe we can start a revolution of electoral and democratic reform that will ensure that we will never again be plagued with destructive autocratic governance and that together, we can eventually make Canada's democracy the envy of the world. Is that too much to hope for?

Doesn't Canada Deserve Better than This?