CIVITATENSIS

They came, they didn’t see much, but  the voting  public punched them in the nose.  The aggressive Liberal strategy of taking the government down, come what may, didn’t pay and it is slowly morphing into keeping away and trying to say and do nothing –for now.

Mr. Donolo appears to have adopted a strategy of “taking the Liberals out of the news.” Mr. Ignatieff is not as visible as he once was; Liberals - notwithstanding the eruption in the Star earlier this week - are not in the news as much, either.

A good strategy, said Mr. Nanos, as it puts some distance between the autumn and what he expects to see as a recalibration of where the Liberals are at in 2010.

It should work well for them in the quiet days of the Xmas holidays. Quietness, however, will be contingent on whether they go into further disarRae, as the Chretienistas continue to work on pushing Iffy out of Stornoway and advance more people loyal to their own faction.

Martin Cauchon’s return to politics in Quebec broadsided a female Liberal candidate and plucked a few feathers off of Denis Coderre’s political headship for the Quebec Liberal party.

While Ignatieff got caught in the middle of the titanic egos of the two male Quebec politicians who have leadership ambitions, it was Nathalie Prohon that got pushed to the side to the lesser riding of Jeanne-Le-Ber instead of Outremont.  It’s the new expression of Liberal friendliness toward women in politics.

Coderre’s Facebook status yesterday called for sending Cauchon to the riding of Jeanne-Le-Ber and keeping prestigious Outremont for Prohon (”Sur ma recommandation et celle de notre equipe du Quebec. Michael Ignatieff a offert la circonscription de Jeanne-LeBer a Martin Cauchon. A suivre”).

But Denis Coderre lost the battle to sideline his rival. Coderre has not updated his status since yesterday, no doubt still perplex. As Quebec party chieftain, he expected to prevail but Ignatieff decided otherwise.

The contest has only begun: Cauchon 1, Coderre 0.

When Jimmy Carter won the election and became the 39th US president in 1976, he did so on a platform to change the world with a revolution of human rights. He was such a nice man, people voted for him. It did not take long before America’s enemies set out to test his resolve, in Iran, Afghanistan, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

For the last 30 years, five administrations have been dealing with the fall out in those countries. It is still the case today. We know of Afghanistan and Iran because we hear it about them in the news often enough. In Central America the two guerrilla movements who increased their power under the tutelage of Jimmy Carter in those countries at the time, eventually turned to political parties and are both now in power.  It’s been, did I mention, 30 years?

Now, America’s enemies are on the march again, no doubt trying to test the resolve of the man who would be prophet and transform the world with hope. North Korea does not seem to like hope or has decided that Obama does not offer them enough of it. In Iran, things are not so well with nukes either. In the meantime, the new government of El Salvador will probably join ALBA, the so-called Bolivarian movement piloted by Hugo Chavez.

Together with their Russian and Iranian allies, ALBA too will test the resolve of President Hope sometime soon. When a president stands on a campaign record saying that he is more likely to hug the thugs than carpet bomb them, the likelihood is that a few will want to earn a hug or two.

How’s hope working for him in North Korea so far?

Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista president of Nicaragua, elected again in 2006, is the architect of a nefarious constitutional re-arrangement in his country. The legal deal, or “el pacto” as Nicaraguans call it, divides most state powers between two corrupt signing parties, and squeezes out most other small and medium size political entities. It so happens that the delisted parties are the backbone of effective opposition.

The Arnoldo Aleman faction of the Liberals is not much opposition to the ruling Sandinistas at all. They are one of the contracting parties in el pacto, and their leader is a convicted felon, who siphoned millions from the public purse. His partner, Daniel Ortega, accused of raping his daughter for nearly a decade, has not faced justice for the crimes against a child. In short, the criminals are running the little Central American republic, and they have re-arranged the state powers to forestall prosecution against them.
Daniel Ortega and Robert Mugabe were the heroes of the North American and the Europeans Left during the 1980s. But there is a mounting wave of opposition against the rapist president in Nicaragua. Only recently having seen the light, many of his warring comrades and intellectual co-religionists are turning their backs on him in increasing numbers. Nicaragua’s youth have taken an active role. Ortega’s recent political campaign used a musical re-arrangement of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” A group of young Nicaraguans is asking Yoko Ono to demand that Daniel Ortega and his party cease and desist in the use of her husband’s music as an unofficial anthem for the Sandinistas. Here is a link to the video on youtube.

Update: From the above mentioned youth:

The song “Give Peace a Chance” is being used by a corrupt government in Nicargua as the Party’s anthem!!!

We plead all John Lennon fans and anyone else who is in favor of Democracy to please join this group and show your support!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21281645582&ref=mf

The Toronto-area affidavit, written by RCMP Corporal Deanna Hill on April 1, 2008, but unsealed and filed in open court this week, shows why the Mounties believe the World Tamil Movement amounts to a front [for terrorists]. The RCMP say they’ve unearthed evidence indicating the local [Canadian] leaders were straw men and figureheads who got their direction from Sri Lanka.

Much remains to be detailed about Tamil activities in Canada. The same can be said for the close links between Tamils in Toronto and Paul Martin’s Liberal government.

The recent Taliban attack on Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan appears to have been perpetrated as revenge for a Dutch-made film. The film in question is supposedly anti-Islam, but does it really matter whether it is.
Once again, the Jihadis show their bravery, killing some for the alleged crimes of others. Holland, of course, is already acquainted with the Jihadi’s attempts at silencing film-makers after one of them murdered Theo van Gogh in 2004.

Artists and film-makers in Canada need not worry about any of this, of course. Jack Layton will go over and talk to the Taliban on their behalf, if something involving Canadian muses ever happens.

The last time Democrats were in a great hurry to get rid of the man in the White House, they elected Jimmy Carter. Carter has managed to remain the popular incarnation of concern for human rights and representative democracy among the learned classes. A statement made last week in Israel, however, shows that poor Jimmy doesn’t understand tyranny and democracy.

When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.

Democratic representation is a big, fat headache. For the sake of expediency, Jimmy’s preference is tyranny. It makes “diplomacy” so much easier.

On February 10th., at the Montana border, American authorities caught a US Marine deserter hiding out in Alberta.  Leon Soup was trying to cross into the US at the Montana border at the time.  The report says nothing about where or how long Soup had been living in Alberta. No word about which Marine outfit he ran away from either.

I am pleased to see one less draft dodger in Canada.

I heard Denis Coderre on the radio this morning.

Ultimately blaming it on his English skills, he tried and failed to articulate clearly the Liberal position on Canadian troops in Afghanistan. If only English were the issue.

Citoyen Stephane Dion and his party don’t want our troops to have a “combat role.” They want our soldiers to carry humanitarian activities –which by the way they already are doing, and look after security. In their view, those are the options, combat versus security roles. Canadian soldiers should protect people and buildings, roads and schools, but could only attack the Taliban when they are attacked. By security, Liberals mean defensive combat; and by combat they mean offensive combat.

They want to have their cake and eat it. Security in a place like Afghanistan includes combat. They know it. But they are trying to appeal and appease, as usual, the ultra-pacifists in their party, primarily from Quebec.

A purely defensive strategy for our troops in Afghanistan will not increase any one’s security there, and will result in many, many more deaths for our troops. No armed conflict was ever won just waiting for the enemy to attack. The Liberal position would transform our brave soldiers into sitting ducks for Taliban target practice. Whether in English or in French, that’s what the result would be.

Even the Calgary Herald is drawing attention to Louise Arbour’s stupidity.

Once a local oracle and international muse of the Canadian Left, Arbour has recently shown what most of us on this side of reality have known for quite a while: She has no  compass. Once you set out to pursue and uplift all rights equally, traditional and newly created alike, one is bound to find oneself in a mess.

It was equally shameful for Arbour to be seen supporting a document which makes a mockery of Arab women’s rights with its backhanded acknowledgment of “positive discrimination” established for women “by the Islamic sharia (and) other divine laws.” Had Arbour never heard of how women suffer under sharia and other so-called “divine” laws, including everything from not being allowed to drive cars to the fairly common occurrence of honour killings of women by their own brothers and fathers?

Arbour should never have lent any stamp of legitimacy to this profoundly flawed Arab charter. True declarations of human rights advocate peaceful co-existence and equal rights for everyone. Arbour needs to re-read her copy of Animal Farm.

There are lost of things that Arbour should have never done. Rights can bring a temporary degree of order to chaotic situations. But they are not the order of the world. Rights can be a source of conflict and chaos too. When rights conflict –and they often do– one must have access to an external moral measure to sort them out. But like the local and international constituencies that she serves, Arbour’s moral measure always has been paper thin.

Is citoyen Stephane Dion saying that NATO will have to intervene in Pakistan? Is this not also the same fellow who wants our troops to pull out of Afghanistan?

The only way for Dion to make this blunder even greater would be to suggest that Indian troops should enter Pakistan on behalf of NATO.

ST has the scoop here.

The Globe reports that Citoyen Stephane Dion, the Liberal leader, and his current sidekick, Michael Ignatieff, are in Afghanistan. They are there to consider pulling the Canadian presence out of combat roles in the near future and stay exclusively to help with organisation and development projects.

Liberals say that the present mission is unbalanced. If it is, that’s an acknowledgment that they sent Canadian soldiers to a lopsided mission when the were in government and accepted to move our soldiers from Kabul to Kandahar. But no matter, the Liberal change of heart would have Canadians build schools and clinics and then wait for the Taliban to come destroy them, placing more people at risk, including more Canadians. Better to have Canadians killed while they hold no weapons in their hands!

"We must be realistic about our ability to continue such a mission. The [Canadian Forces ] simply cannot continue to engage in an extremely dangerous combat campaign of this scale for an indefinite period of time."

Instead of a counterinsurgency combat role, Liberals suggest Canada could re-focus on development work, diplomatic efforts, building a justice system, and alleviating water shortages in Afghanistan.

By this rationale, we should send social workers and boy scouts instead of soldiers to deal with the suicidal islamists who want to kill  little girls to stop them from being educated.  By the same rationale, we should have never sacrificed our soldiers on the beaches and fields of Europe last century. We should have just sent social workers to deal with the Nazi killing camps.

The Grits are in dire need of picking a leader who can talk to his dog and to his dead mother these days.  In the past, such Grit leaders have had more sense in international affairs than the whole lot of latte-sipping central Canadians they  presented to themselves in the last leadership contest.

He said it was "magical" watching hundreds of people wave Canadian and Quebec flags on every overpass, as the hearses carrying the soldiers’ bodies passed below.

"All the people that were there, all of you that actually came to see them and honour them when they returned, I can just tell you the experience we all had as families, was pride all the way," he said Saturday before his brother’s funeral.

"That was really impressive. It was a big salute to the troops. For every soldier that listened… take this as a source to remember that people do support the troops. It’s important for the troops and the families to feel that support."

The stretch of highway between CFB Trenton and Toronto was renamed the Highway of Heroes to honour Canadian soldiers who have died in Afghanistan. It is the route taken by hearses that transport repatriated bodies to Toronto, where autopsies are performed.

Private funeral services were also held Saturday for Levesque in his Laurentian hometown of Riviere-Rouge, Que., about 200 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

Pte. Levesque had returned to Afghanistan from leave about a week before the bomb blast. He recently had been engaged to his 18-year-old girlfriend, who is pregnant.

Meanwhile, in St-Hyacinthe, Que., about 800 mourners marched with Cpl. Beauchamp’s family behind a military procession, which led them a short distance through town.

Cpl. Beauchamp’s son Alexandre, 7, and daughter Josian, 6, each clutched fluffy, brown teddy bears as they flanked his parents as they approached the doors of the grey-brick church. The children appeared oblivious to the events unfolding around them.

I caught the tail end of an interview with former Supreme Louise Arbour the other day on CBC radio. She was commenting about the (mis)treatment of non combattants. She mentioned that the in the eyes of international law, soldiers and non state agents are to be treated equally. But that in the eyes of public opinion, non state agents deserve more consideration than soldiers.

I have no clue where Arbour gets her supposed facts. The first question that comes to mind is what kind of public opinion Justice Arbour is listening to or reading. Since she speaks of international law, I am going to guess that she means international public opinion. But no matter.

The law and its application, she often maintained,  is not tied to public opinion. Human rights are not tied to public opinion.  Assuming that it is true, and to some extent it is, one has to wonder why the former justice would bother ending her commentary on the supposed opinions of a non-existing public, the world. It is doubly troublesome that this is a former Supreme Court judge speaking such things, of course.

Closing with her opinion on public opinion is a deliberate act. But it’s not a legal act since the former judge is clearly aware that public opinion does not drive the law.  The mention of public opinion is patently a political act on the part of the former  judge. She inserted her opinion in the hope of influencing the opinions of others on the matter of treating non combattants.

Generally speaking, such things are called spinning, ands they have a direct political purpose.  Perhaps next time, CBC might ask Arbour to do a show on the role of former and sitting judges as politicians and spinners.

If the Swedes can give Arafat the Nobel Peace Prize; if they allowed Rigoberta Menchu to keep hers after it was demonstrated beyond doubt that she lied and lied and lied about her life, I cannot be surprised that they have decided to give the same prize to Al Gore.

After opposing the notion that the City place yellow ribbons on its vehicles in support of Canadian troops, the Mayor of Calgary is now in favour of having a Yellow Ribbon Month in support of the forces. His decision also comes on the heels of a Calgary Police campaign to help soldiers and their families. Bronconnier’s latest decision has a strong odour of hypocrisy.

Dave Bronconnier misjudged the public’s support for the troops, even among those who oppose their presence in Afghanistan. So now the mayor is back peddling pretty hard, adopting the very symbol that he had previously rejected. The reversal wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that there is a municipal election coming and that he has read the electoral winds a bit better.

What distils from the reversal is clear. His first political instinct was to oppose the yellow ribbons on City vehicles. Bronconnier is not supporting the troops from principle now but for electoral opportunity. Notwithstanding his motivation, the right thing to do is still the right thing to do.

The Calgary Police Service is proud to announce the “Soldier Care Package” campaign in support of our Canadian Forces serving overseas.

Running from September 1 to September 30 2007 all Calgary Police Service District offices and community stations, the Interpretive Centre and Traffic office will collect care package items from the public and CPS members.

Let’s get on board. You can read more about it here.

He’s Royal, and he’s in Alberta, but it’s not quite a royal visit. Prince Harry arrived last Wednesday and was whisked to CFB Suffield for training with the British forces there.

Welcome young prince, and godspeed in your service.

The Quebec license plates read: Je me souviens, which means I remember. Nations, as Ernest Renan tells us, choose what they wish to commit to memory and what they chose to commit to oblivion.

Part of what Quebeckers remember from their past is the defeat of French forces at British hands at the Plains of Abraham, just outside Quebec City, in 1759. Remembering is fine, but some don’t want to see it re-enacted. Some history is fun to remember, other is not.

Nicole Madore, spokeswoman for the Societe nationale des Quebecois et Quebecoises de la Capitale, says her group won't speak out against the production because it teaches history, but fears the re-enactment may spark divisions in Quebec society.

"We say go ahead, but you'll face the consequences if it ends up dividing people," Madore warned. "Some people will probably be upset. We're not keen on celebrating our defeats."

Ms. Madore is unwilling openly to express her opposition to the re-enactment, so she displaces her attitude to portray it as that of other people in Quebec. But she stumbles and uses “we” in her last sentence, taking ownership of her phobia of specific parts of history.

The battle at the Plains of Abraham was a defeat for France and the New French then became British subjects; there are worse fates than being subjects of the British Crown.  Let’s look around and compare Quebeck today with any off-shore former French colony: Vietnam? Haiti? Senegal? Would Quebeckers rather have lived the history of Haiti, who became independent in 1804, and would they rather live its present? The Quebecois were not defeated in 1759 for there was no such a thing as Quebecois. Most of the New French colonials who stayed in these parts of North America became Quebecois in the 1960s, under the godfatherhood of Britain and later of the Canadian state they willingly joined in 1867.

France does not object to us celebrating their defeat; so many countries do it so often that the French have become used to it. Are there objections from Paris to El Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Mexico and the US? If the Quebecois don’t like to celebrate defeat today, it is precisely because under British rule they did not have to become used to defeat as their continental cousins did. Quebeckers should also remember that.

Madore assumes that Quebeckers today should not be shown anything that might foster disagreement among them. The people are one, she figures, also assuming that Quebeckers are not mature enough to disagree without getting upset. Quebeckers are a people, to be true. They are a confident and culturally robust people who can handle disagreements and the re-enactment of a foreign country’s loss without feeling threatened. The Quebeck separatists should stop projecting their own pathologies on the rest of Quebecois society. Il faut se souvenir, et je me souviens.

Have a look

h/t: TC

Prime Minister Harper had this to say to our troops in Afghanistan:

Each of you stands among the greatest of your generation. You’re Canada’s sons and daughters and your country, as much as this country, owes you a debt of gratitude and its unwavering support.

As Canadians, we have tremendous pride in our great country and its values. But we truly show our belief in our values only when we put them on the line - only when we are prepared to share them with those less fortunate than ourselves.

Every day, you personify these values and virtues here, in Afghanistan. You are the diligent neighbours and the compassionate workers. You are the courageous warriors and the loyal friends. You’re the very best our country has to offer.

I am proud of you. Canadians are proud of you. And I’m here to tell you that we are behind you. Your government will continue steadfastly supporting the men and women of the Canadian Forces as the most professional, disciplined and effective soldiers in the world.

Citoyen Dion, Bob Rae, Jack Layton and the NDP social workers wouldn’t agree, of course, but so what?

External Affairs believes that about 7,000 of the evacuated Lebanese Canadians have since last summer returned to Lebanon.  Given the new wave of troubles in the country, with 12,000 Canadian citizens registered at the Embassy in Beirut, we may be looking at demands for another mass evacuation. If we book those cruise chips pronto, we might get better prices.

Expect CBC again to make a case for state failure in Canada.

A necessary reminder of the conditions that led to the Six-Day War in 1967.

The world will soon be awash with 40th-anniversary retrospectives of the war — and exegeses on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only to return to lines of June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that June 4 and of that unbearable May when, with Israel in possession of no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel’s imminent extinction. And the world did nothing.

The rest of the piece is here.

Canadian peace activists that have rubbed elbows with well-known international terrorists at a “conference” in Egypt expect that their dialogue with the killers will bring the world closer to peace.

Canadian activists were out in force at a recent conference in Cairo that sought to forge closer links between the international antiwar movement and Islamic resistance groups, including several on Canada’s terrorism list.

[...]

The conference attracted representatives of at least four organizations that appear on Canada’s list of terrorist organizations — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Jamaat al-Islamiya, best known for killing 71 tourists in Luxor, Egypt in 1997.

Among the attendees were Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy leader of Hamas, and Ali Fayad, a member of Hezbollah’s politburo.

According to conference literature, the main purpose of the gathering, sponsored by the officially banned Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian opposition parties, was to forge “an international alliance against imperialism and Zionism.”

The so-called anti-war activists would never accept to be in the same room with the president of the United States or the prime minister of Israel. But to sit and chat with cold-blooded and indiscriminate killers, to them, sounds like a good idea. Mostly, what is somewhat amusing is the self-importance of our compatriots.

Canadian peaceniks love to paint themselves as a morally-evolved species who can convert any one with their message of tolerance. How easy would it be for our peace lovers to compromise, for the sake of world peace, say, on the blanket “right” that women possess in Canada to have abortions on demand? Perhaps the jihadists wouldn’t care. Perhaps they would see that as an enjoining interest: killing infidels is the jihadists’ primary business after all.

The peaceniks afford the terrorists a priceless level of legitimacy and respectability, which the terrorists wouldn’t risk eroding. But in their promotion of peace and openness, how many Canadian delegates in Cairo would even have confessed to their jihadist interlocutors being gay, lesbian or bisexual?

At Vimy, the Canadian Corps had captured more ground, more prisoners and more guns than any previous British offensive in two-and-a-half years of war. It was one of the most complete and decisive engagements of the Great War and the greatest Allied victory up to that time. The Canadians had demonstrated they were one of the outstanding formations on the Western Front and masters of offensive warfare.

Though the victory at Vimy came swiftly, it did not come without cost. There were 3,598 dead out of 10,602 Canadian casualties. Battalions in the first waves of the assault suffered grievously. No level of casualties could ever be called acceptable, but those at Vimy were lower than the terrible norm of many major assaults on the Western Front. They were also far lighter than those of any previous offensive at the Ridge. Earlier French, British and German struggles there had cost at least 200,000 casualties. Care in planning by the Corps Commander, Sir Julian Byng, and his right-hand man, Arthur Currie, kept Canadian casualties down.

Vimy stories and coverage at GM and NP. If you are in Calgary visit here. Canada’s War Museum here.

We may not always be able to write French properly, but we helped save their cowardly behinds a couple of times in the last century.

Still, DND should be embarrassed. French is not a foreign language in this country.

Krauthammer reflects on Euro-impotence in light of Iranian piracy.

Where then was the European Union? These 15 hostages, after all, are not just British citizens but, under the laws of Europe, citizens of Europe. Yet the European Union lifted not a finger on their behalf.

Europeans talk all the time about their preference for “soft power” over the brute military force those Neanderthal Americans resort to all the time. What was the soft power available here? Iran’s shaky economy is highly dependent on European credits, trade and technology. Britain asked the European Union to threaten to freeze exports, $18 billion a year of commerce. Iran would have lost its No. 1 trading partner. The European Union refused.

Why was nothing done? The reason is simple. Europe functions quite well as a free-trade zone, but as a political entity it is a farce. It remains a collection of sovereign countries with divergent interests. A freeze of economic relations with Europe would have shaken the Iranian economy to the core. “The Dutch,” reported the Times of London, “said it was important not to risk a breakdown in dialogue.” So much for European solidarity.

 Formalities are still pending but the British Marines held hostage by Iran will be going home.

If only some of the Marines would learn to keep silent.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Islands under the rallying cry “Las Malvinas son argentinas,” the Falklands are Argentinean. Thus began the Falkands War

We all remember how that war ended for the Argentinean military rulers. The anniversary is rather relevant in light of the eleven British hostages held by Iran today.

Would Lady Thatcher have allowed British subjects to be humiliated by little dictators on the other side of the world?

…wear it.

When I was in student government, Kenneth Deer of the Mohawk Warrior Society in Kanawake approached us, after having learned that the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN was coming to Montreal.  Deer wanted to see if we, the students, would arrange for a meeting with the Palestinian visitor.

It’s pretty safe to say that Deer was not just looking for a Palestinian pen pal at the time.

The Palestinian Ambassador gave a public press conference at the university and Deer came by. He did not ask any questions during the meeting, but in a parking lot right in front of the SGW Hall Building (the library was not there yet) Deer approached the diplomat, who became somewhat excited upon being introduced to a member of the Warrior Society.

With an embarrased face and a dismissive tone, the Palestinian official said: “Not here, if you want to talk to me, please come to New York.”

Should the Mohawk Warrior Society be on a government watch list? They already are. Why the scandal about them being mentioned in a manual?

Radical natives are listed in the Canadian army’s counterinsurgency manual as a potential military opponent, lumping aboriginals in with the Tamil Tigers, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad.

[...]

"The rise of radical Native American organizations, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society, can be viewed as insurgencies with specific and limited aims," the manual states. "Although they do not seek complete control of the federal government, they do seek particular political concessions in their relationship with national governments and control (either overt or covert) of political affairs at a local/reserve ("First Nation’) level, through the threat of, or use of, violence," the manual states.

The Mohawk Warrior Society was involved in the 1990 Oka crisis in Quebec, which spawned a 78-day confrontation with police and the military that left a police officer dead. The society normally describes more militant natives from the traditional Mohawk territory, covering parts of Quebec, Ontario, Vermont and New York State.