The new al-Qaeda

The "buddy" theory:

TERRORISTS are a bit like you and me, or so Marc Sageman suggests. It might be comforting to think that angry young Islamists are crazed psychopaths or sex-starved adolescents who have been brainwashed in malign madrassas. But Mr Sageman, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute [and an erstwhile Company man - MC], explodes each of these myths, and others besides, in an unsettling account of how al-Qaeda has evolved from the organisation headed by Osama bin Laden into an amorphous movement—a “leaderless jihad”.

Mr Sageman is a leading advocate of what is called the “buddy” theory of terrorism. He has spent much time asking why well-educated young men, from middle-class backgrounds, often with a secular education and wives and children, become suicide bombers. He suggests that radicalisation is a collective rather than an individual process in which friendship and kinship are key components.

The process has four stages. The initial trigger is a sense of moral outrage, usually over some incident of Muslim suffering in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya or elsewhere. This acquires a broader context, becoming part of what Mr Sageman calls a “morality play” in which Islam and the West are seen to be at war. In stage three, the global and the local are fused, as geopolitical grievance resonates with personal experience of discrimination or joblessness. And finally the individual joins a terrorist cell, which becomes a surrogate family, nurturing the jihadist world-view and preparing the initiate for martyrdom. Many Muslims pass through the first three phases; only a few take the final step.

[...]

In his new book Mr Sageman's sample of militants has grown from 172 to 500. He gives more prominence to Europe, where, after the London and Madrid bombings and other thwarted attempts, a new front-line has opened up. He devotes a chapter to the internet. Crucially, he argues that most of today's suicide bombers have little or no link with the original al-Qaeda (dubbed “al-Qaeda central”) but are part of a broader, more amorphous phenomenon which he calls the “al-Qaeda social movement”. Mr Sageman is sceptical of the view, which gathered weight last year, that “al-Qaeda central” is resurgent. Rather, it is the mutual attraction of freelance jihadists, outraged by the Iraq war and increasingly mobilised online, which should worry us most...

Mark C.

Headline of the day

The horror!

All Blue Eyed People Related to Brad Pitt

Mark C.

I have a nightmare...

In the recent provincial election the Ontario electorate rejected "faith-based" schools. But how about Arabocentric ones? After all, Arab Canadians face this unfortunate situation:

...While fleeing conflict and hardship they have had to deal with prevalent negative stereotypes about their culture and/or religion in their adopted country...Today, the greater part of the Arab Canadian community, while economically established, remains on the margins of mainstream Canadian society politically and culturally...

Surely there's case there for their own schools, just as there apparently is for African Canadians. There certainly is a distinctive Arab history and culture to which such schools might pay particular attention in order to encourage their students' self-esteem. Of course such schools could not discriminate by taking persons of Arab origin only. Indeed I imagine many other young people might wish to attend, whatever their ethnicity. Especially those of the Muslim faith.

Chuckercanuck, for his part, raises the inevitable need for an Afrocentric university.

Mark C.

North Korean motorcycle technology

The Pugang is as fast as it looks, I'm sure.

Damian P.

Not nice

This (via Celestial Junk):

Death to Canadian soldiers

Mark C.

Damian adds: the National Post has more details about this case, including the controversy over whether promotion of terrorism should be a criminal offence. It's interesting that this flares up just as the Canadian blogosphere is embroiled in a massive debate about freedom of expression. In another time, this punk might have found himself on trial for sedition.

Should he be prosecuted just for writing this garbage? I have no problem with the police and security agencies keeping an eye on this guy, to find out whether he's plotting to turn his words into actions. (Similarly, I have no problem with Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis being investigated and watched, even though I don't believe their speech should be criminalized.)

In a way, that's why I don't believe this scumbag should be prosecuted for expressing these disgusting views online. If Canadians feel this way, frankly, I'd prefer it if they talk about it in the open, where we can see them. Do you support killing Canadian soldiers and Jews? Come on out and say it.

Needless to say, I'll use my right to free expression to suggest to Mr. Hossain that he get the hell out of my country, pronto.

Like father, like son

Michael Totten explains why Moammar Qaddafi’s son is no "reformer," despite media hype suggesting otherwise.

Totten went to Libya a few years ago, and has some fascinating pictures on his blog. If ol' Moammar's goal was to make Tripoli the ugliest city on earth, well, mission accomplished.

Damian P.

Somewhere, David Leisure is weeping

Isuzu is pulling out of the US market.

They're only selling commcercial vehicles and rebadged Chevy trucks right now, but they once built one of the best-looking cars of the 1980s. What might have been...

Damian P.

In defence of Sean Young

I have to admit, I was tempted to yell "Get on with it!" at my computer screen.

(What was Sean Young doing at this show, anyway? Serving drinks?)

Damian P.

Deux mondes, zwei Weltanschaungen

If the US presidential election ends up being between Barack Obama and John McCain it will be the most amazingly implausible contest one could have imagined. In terms of whom each party will have chosen, and of the unlikelyhood that two such different men should face each other before the people.

Except they are both elected Senators, something impossible in Canada. I cannot see how Mr McCain (my head) might win over Mr Obama (my heart, and I think that speaks both rational and irrational volumes).

What a country--and democracy.

Mark C.

Why post-colonial history is bunk

A book review in the New Yorker:

A Better Place

What if the Muslim armies hadn’t been stopped at the French border?

[...]

Lewis’s book is part of that revision. The Muslims came to Europe, he writes, as “the forward wave of civilization that was, by comparison with that of its enemies, an organic marvel of coordinated kingdoms, cultures, and technologies in service of a politico-cultural agenda incomparably superior” to that of the primitive people they encountered there. They did Europe a favor by invading. This is not a new idea, but Lewis takes it further: he clearly regrets that the Arabs did not go on to conquer the rest of Europe. The halting of their advance was instrumental, he writes, in creating “an economically retarded, balkanized, and fratricidal Europe that . . . made virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, persecutory religious intolerance, cultural particularism, and perpetual war.” It was “one of the most significant losses in world history and certainly the most consequential since the fall of the Roman Empire.” This is a bold hypothesis...

No kidding.

...when he can give the Muslims an edge in these matters he does so. Unlike others, he says, they did not enslave their co-religionists, only infidels. (Why is that better?) As for restrictions on women—an inflamed topic in our time—he acknowledges that the Muslims’ were harsher than the Franks’, but he believes that Muhammad did not intend this severity, and that the Koran is kinder to women than either the Torah or St. Paul. When the Muslims crucify infidels, this is one of the “regrettable aspects of nation-building.” When the Muslim state falls, the jihad on which it was built is not in view—only the Christian jihad...

If, as Edward Said wrote, the old history books were covertly ideological, the current ones tend to be overtly ideological, as each new generation of scholars rides in to rescue supposedly worthy peoples who were wronged by earlier scholarship and, in their time, by axe-wielding conquerors. But all these peoples, or all the ones in Lewis’s book, were conquerors. If the Christians took Spain from the Muslims, the Muslims had taken it from the Visigoths, who had appropriated it from the Romans, who had seized it from the Carthaginians, who had thrown out the Phoenicians. Lewis does not pretend that the Muslims were not conquerors; he simply justifies their conquest on the ground of their belief in convivencia ['the word means “living together,”'] in spite of differences, a pressing matter today. I can foresee a time when another matter important to us, the threat of ecological catastrophe, will prompt a historian to write a book in praise of the early Europeans whom Lewis finds so inferior to the Muslims. The Franks lived in uncleared forests, while the Muslims built fine cities, with palaces and aqueducts? All the better for the earth. The Franks were fond of incest? Endogamy keeps societies small, prevents the growth of rapacious nation-states. The same goes for the Franks’ largely barter economy. Trade such as the Muslims practiced—far-flung and transacted with money—leads to consolidation. That’s how we got global corporations...

Someone please inform Naomi Klein of the true origin of all those logos.

Mark C.

The coveted Hulk Hogan endorsement

Huckabee's got Chuck Norris, McCain has Stallone, but the Hulkster is supporting Obama.

Damian P.

Tesla driven

Video here. I'm skeptical of this car ever seeing regular production - at best, I see a Bricklin/DeLorean scenario, where the car is built and sold for a couple of years before the company goes under - but I really hope it succeeds.

The Tesla's biggest problem? Range:

...Driven sedately, the Tesla Roadster very likely could achieve somewhere around 220 miles or more. Perhaps even as much 250 miles in city driving with lots of regenerative braking. The problem is that this little demon doesn't really want to be driven in that manner. It begs to be flung from curve to curve. It wants to be thrashed. During our drive, we accumulated somewhere between 80 and 90 miles based on plotting the route on Google maps...

Damian P.

Eric Margolis is a really nice guy...

...except for some inconvenient truths. Terry Glavin wields the knife:

Free Speech For The Taliban!

In his recent Toronto Sun column, Eric Margolis, darling of the anti-war set, wonders aloud: "When did we last see a report filed from the side of the Taliban and its growing number of allies?"

Tell you when I last saw a report filed from the Taliban side. It was that same column written by Eric Margolis. It's the same dirty propaganda he's been dishing out for more than a decade, but this time there's a twist. Turns out the Canadian Forces have been turning captives over to communist torture-prisons in Kabul. Who knew?

To Margolis, the Taliban are not "a terrorist group." They're just poor, misguided, backwards hillbillies. They're "no worse than other Afghans." And it's precisely because of this claptrap that he has emerged as one of the most beloved and most-often-cited authorities of Canada's "anti-war" left. Toronto pseudo-left icon James Laxer considers Margolis a "clear-eyed" foreign policy analyst. Elsewhere he turns up as a "Middle East authority."

Which just goes to show, I guess, that if you stumble blindly leftwards far enough you're bound to find yourself slobbering on the slippers of the extreme right, which is the only way to describe Margolis, an arch-conservative American millionaire, the majority owner of Jamieson's Laboratories, and a founding editor of Pat Buchanan's American Conservative magazine.

Why Canada's Sun newspapers persist in providing him a platform for his dirty propaganda is a mystery to me.

But you've got to love Eric the Ineffable's chubby cheeks and glossy hair. Go to Mr Glavin's post for the internal links. And I thought I could be forensic.

Mark C.

Now it's up to the Democrats

I agree with this analysis:

...the bigger challenge for the Party will be how all the conservatives make peace with McCain. If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, they will argue, persuasively, that Romney may have been a better GOP nominee. Against Obama, McCain is the old man versus the young man, the old way versus the new. Romney, at least, can make a much stronger argument against Obama’s soft-headed economics.

But if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, then we really do have one of the great national contests on our hand — and the McCain haters will have no hoice but to get on board.

I like McCain, but even I have to concede that he'll seem pretty old and tired compared to Obama. Conservatives may not vote for the Senator from Illinois, but they probably won't make a special effort to vote against him, either. If it's Hillary, on the other hand, they'll hold their noses and support McCain.

The real question is whether the Democrats will pick the candidate for whom half the country will never, ever vote, over the candidate everyone finds fresh, exciting and conciliatory. Amazingly, it looks like they'll do just that.

Damian P.

Mac is back; Rudy routed

John McCain takes Florida, while Giuliani finishes a distant third:

With a third of Florida's precincts reporting, the former New York Mayor, whom had banked all on victory in Florida, was in a fight for third place with Mike Huckabee. John McCain was on 34 per cent, and Mitt Romney on 32 per cent, in a desperately close battle for victory, with Mr Giuliani on 16 per cent.

Mr Giuliani predicted on Monday that the winner in Florida would go on to secure the Republican nomination and it is almost inconceivable that he will now press on. If he does quit, the big question is whether he will endorse John McCain. [CNN says he's in talks to do so. - DP]

Mr Giuliani decided to cede the early states to his rivals to try an unprecedented gamble to stake all on Florida. It was a strategy that failed spectacularly.

He is expected to bow out of the contest before New York, his home state, votes next week as part of the 22-state "Super Tuesday" contest. He faces the prospect of losing to Mr McCain there, a humiliation that would further damage his standing.

If he does drop out, the main beneficiary will be Mr McCain. Both men enjoy support from independents, moderates and national security hawks and gaining Mr Giuliani's base could significantly boost Mr McCain's chances in New York, California and New Jersey, three of the biggest prizes on Super Tuesday.

Updated results here. A lot of Republicans don't like McCain, though I think they'll come around if the alternative is another Clinton presidency. But he's the only GOP candidate who can pick up some independent support, and therefore the only one with a shot at winning the whole thing.

As for Giuliani, his astonishing collapse will be analyzed and debated in political science classes for years to come. At least he beat Ron Paul this time.

Damian P.

Update: MSNBC says Rudy will endorse McCain tomorrow. (Via Hot Air) It's over, Mitt.

Richard Warman and the pie patrol

Ezra Levant links to some clips from a British documentary about David Icke's visit to Vancouver, and Richard Warman's attempt to have him banned.

Unlike Levant, I didn't find Icke remotely "charming and well-meaning." The guy is a paranoid, hateful nutjob. ("Pro-'surge' group is almost all Jewish," an article on his website tells me.) But Warman and his pathetic band of "progressives," bless 'em, pull off the nearly impossible trick of making Icke momentarily look reasonable. (Watch the first minute of the second clip, and see if you can restrain the urge to put your fist through the screen.)

"The only targets are people who are so pompous and so full of themselves that they desperately need to be taken..." says Warman before he's interrupted in mid-sentence. The complete lack of self-awareness is really something, isn't it?

Damian P.

Enough said

This headline:

Canada would be first nation to abandon Afghanistan

Mark C.

Affirmative action, bilingualism and the civil service

The chances of a unilingual white guy getting a federal public service job in the National Capital Region (NCR, i.e. Ottawa and Gatineau--where about 1/3 of all "core" public servants work) are slim indeed. Randall Denley of the Ottawa Citizen explains:

... The turning point for unilingual Canadians came in 2004, when the federal government determined that its language training program wasn't terribly effective. Rather than let go of the dream of a bilingual workplace, it began to demand that public servants in bilingual-designated areas like the national capital region have a high level of bilingual proficiency just to get hired. Departments still offer some language training, but the days of a unilingual person getting a position and then learning the second language are largely over.

The language equality policy is a conflicting tangle of rules that falls far short of its stated goal. The only employees with a right to work in their own language are those at the lowest level. Once a person reaches even the first level of supervisory responsibility, she must be bilingual so that her employees can work in their language of choice. English-speaking supervisors would have a right to be supervised themselves in their own language, but it's a moot point because they rarely get the jobs.

In effect, this policy means that all but the lowest-level employees in a region like ours must be bilingual. Even those jobs are now hard to get. When a department like Public Works designates entry-level jobs as bilingual imperative, unilingual Canadians can't even get a foot in the door. For example, last year Public Works posted job openings for 39 administrative and business support clerks. Each and every one of these jobs was designated bilingual imperative.

[...]

What once might have been a well-meaning attempt to create a bilingual utopia has degenerated into a nonsensical hiring regime that actually denies federal government employment opportunities to the majority of Canadians. Only 17.7 per cent of Canadians are bilingual and only 8.8 per cent of anglophones can speak both official languages. The situation is nearly as bad for visible minorities, only 11.5 per cent of whom speak both French and English.

Here is the cold reality. In the national capital region, our federal government is only interested in people with a high degree of bilingualism. Other Canadians aren't welcome, and if they do manage to get on the first rung of the employment ladder, they will be stuck there.

That's grossly unfair to the majority of the Canadian population and it greatly narrows the talent pool for the federal government. That makes it bad public policy. It's high time the federal government woke up and did something about it.

As Mr Denley note, visible minorities--the great majority of whom live in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal--don't do well in the bilingualism game (I'm amazed they seem to do better than anglophones). So the government's public service bilingualism policy is effectively in contradiction with its policy encouraging the hiring of visible minorities.

...getting more racial minorities into the public service has been a federal priority since the Liberals approved targets in 2000 recommended by the Embracing Change task force. It called for one in five new hires to be a visible minority by 2003. Similarly, one in five promotions into the executive ranks was to be a visible minority by 2005 [and virtually all executive jobs across the country are bilingual imperative - MC]...

And for the odd job that is not bilingual imperative in the NCR the visible minority will be preferred over the white person.

Here's how visible minorities are defined:

A person in a visible minority group is someone (other than an Aboriginal person as defined above) who is non-white in colour/race, regardless of place of birth and is from one of the following groups: Black, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian-East Indian (including Indian from India; Bangladeshi; Pakistani; East Indian from Guyana, Trinidad, East Africa; etc.), Southeast Asian (including Burmese; Cambodian; Laotian; Thai; Vietnamese; etc.) non-white West Asian, North African or Arab (including Egyptian; Libyan; Lebanese; etc.), non-white Latin American (including indigenous persons from Central and South America, etc.), and persons of mixed origin with one parent in one of the visible minority groups listed above.

I'd like to know what is the standard to determine (and how it is applied) who is "non-white West Asian, North African or Arab" or "non-white Latin American". What's the whiteness meter? Have we consulted people with experience in Apartheid-era South Africa? What a mess of conflicting good intentions producing results that end up favouring in the extreme bilingual, Canadian-born, white francophones.

Will the Conservative government address the inequities of these policies inherited from the Liberals? When cochons fly, my dears. There's votes in them thar belle province:

... So far Quebec gets $660 million, Ontario and Western Canada each $341 million (what an astounding coincidence!!!), and Atlantic Canada $290 million...

Er, nation.

Mark C.

An "anti-German activity"

That was the 1940-41 Blitz, in retrospect:

...henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic activity." Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, unveiled the new brand name in a speech a few days ago. "There is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief," she told her audience. "Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic."

Well, yes, one sort of sees what she means. Killing thousands of people in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be said to be "anti-Islamic" – in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an "anti-German activity."

But I don't recall even Neville Chamberlain explaining, as if to a 5-year-old, that there is nothing German about the wish to terrorize and invade, and that this is entirely at odds with the core German values of sitting around eating huge sausages in beer gardens while wearing lederhosen.

Still, it should add a certain surreal quality to BBC news bulletins: "The prime minister today condemned the latest anti-Islamic activity as he picked through the rubble of Downing Street looking for his 2008 Wahhabi Community Outreach Award. In a related incident, the anti-Islamic activists who blew up Buckingham Palace have unfortunately caused the postponement of the Queen's annual Ramadan banquet."..

Mark C.

A boy named Sue

Actually, there were two newborn boys named Susan in Georgia last year, according to this addictive site. Also seven boys named Jennifer, two boys named Michelle, two girls named Stephen and seven girls named James. (There's a precedent for that last one, sort of.)

Also, nineteen boys named Arsenio. In 2007.

(via Fark.com)

Damian P.

Tim Blair update

"All is going very well," he writes. Excellent news.

Damian P.

Beauty in the USSR

Where were all the beautiful Russian women before 1989, asks Anne Appelbaum:

This is a fairly frivolous question (okay, extremely frivolous), but I am convinced it has an interesting answer. To put it bluntly, in the Soviet Union there was no market for female beauty. No fashion magazines featured beautiful women, since there weren't any fashion magazines. No television series depended on beautiful women for high ratings, since there weren't any ratings. There weren't many men rich enough to seek out beautiful women and marry them, and foreign men couldn't get the right sort of visa. There were a few film stars, of course, but some of the most famous -- I'm thinking of Lyubov Orlova, alleged to be Stalin's favorite actress -- were wholesome and cheerful rather than sultry and stunning. Unusual beauty, like unusual genius, was considered highly suspicious in the Soviet Union and its satellite People's Republics.

This doesn't mean there weren't any beautiful women, of course, just that they didn't have the clothes or cosmetics to enhance their looks, and, far more important, they couldn't use their faces to launch international careers. Instead of gracing London drawing rooms, they stayed in Minsk, Omsk or Alma-Ata. Instead of couture, they wore cheap polyester. They could become assembly-line foremen, Communist Party bosses, even local femmes fatales, but not Vogue cover girls. They didn't even dream of becoming Vogue cover girls, since very few had ever seen an edition of Vogue.

[...]

Ultimately, what goes for the fashion world goes for other spheres of human activity. In the past, if you were born in the East Bloc, you had to play chess or be a champion gymnast to come to international attention -- chess and competitive team sports figuring among the few party-approved export industries. Nowadays, stars in fields previously unsanctioned by the party -- crime novelists, conceptual artists, computer whizzes -- from Russia, Hungary or Uzbekistan have a shot at fame and fortune, too. As for talented entrepreneurs, the sky is the limit.

Beauty is a matter of luck, but the same could be said of many other talents. And what open markets do for beautiful women, they also do for other sorts of genius. So, cheer up the next time you see a Siberian blonde dominating male attention at the far end of the table: The same mechanisms that brought her to your dinner party might one day bring you the Ukrainian doctor who cures your cancer, or the Polish stockbroker who makes your fortune, too.

Actually, they did have cosmetics and fashion in the USSR. Not sure they helped much, though...

Damian P.

Prime Minister Harper misspeaks

I guess he's following the lead of his communications director. The prime minister has given a statement supporting the recommendations of the Manley panel (video here). Then, near the end of answering questions from the media (around 1241 Eastern Time), he either lied or demonstrated he does not know what his government is doing.

Mr Harper was asked about the Manley panel's demand that new medium-lift helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) be acquired by next February to support the Afghan mission. He replied that these are "on order" and mentioned difficulties in securing delivery places on already-committed production lines. But neither the helicopters nor the UAVs are "on order".

The government itself recently officially stated that, while the helicopter procurement process for the helicopters is well underway, the award of an actual contract is only "expected by the end of 2008." (See "3. Medium- to Heavy-Lift Helicopters" at preceding link.) As for UAVs, the air force officer in charge of the project said in October 2007 that "...officials hope to get the first aircraft into Afghanistan "within months" of the contract being signed next year." No contract has yet been signed.

Nothing is "on order". Pitiful.

The prime minister went on to say that the government would look to NATO to provide the required capabilities by February 2009.

Mark C.

Update: From a Globe and Mail story:

The government has already placed its order for helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles and is working with allies to secure them quickly, said Mr. Harper.

Really?

Upperdate: The prime minister's communcations director does not exactly clarify things adequately--see the last paragraph in this excerpt from a Globe and Mail story, Jan. 29:

...government officials later said the Prime Minister jumped the gun and that they are still trying to find the best way to obtain the equipment quickly.

[...]

Mr. Harper said the government has already started to act on those two fronts.

"First of all, let's be clear both in terms of the helicopters requested in the reports as well as the UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. The government has these on order, has had them on order for some time [emphasis added - MC]," Mr. Harper said...

On helicopters, however, all the government has in the works is the aim of signing a contract late this year with Boeing Co...

No drones are on order at this point either. Still, the Department of National Defence is hoping to launch a competition soon to enter into a three-year lease agreement for fully operational UAVs at an approximate cost of $150-million.

[...]

Mr. Harper's spokeswoman, Sandra Buckler, added: "Everyone is aware the procurement process is well under way for Chinooks and UAVs."

That's not the same as "on order for some time". Greg Weston devotes a whole column to the matter in the Ottawa Sun:

PM in spin cycle

Harper needs to come clean on Canada's war effort in Afghanistan

Immigration: What is to be done?

Here's a rather good comment thread on the subject, with contributions from several usual Canadian blogosphere suspects (the post itself is by Dr Dawg).

Mark C.

Vancouver Island is as far from Ottawa as Switzerland

And the climate is nicer than Ottawa's in February. Norman Spector, with some cheek, demands equal video-conferencing treatment from the Commons' ethics committee--Norman in particular knows something about Mr Mulroney's cash dealings whilst prime minister:

Ottawa in February? Non, merci

[...]

During the time I worked for Mr. Mulroney as Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations – a deputy minister position first filled by Gordon Robertson that regrettably no longer exists – I got to know the former prime minister's strengths and weaknesses. And, as you know, I have personal knowledge of the Bear Head project, having been handed the file while I was seconded from the Privy Council Office to serve as Mr. Mulroney's chief of staff. I also believe I can help your committee understand the comportment and motivations of Canada's 18th prime minister by referring to other controversial but largely unreported files with which I'm familiar. Finally, with supporting documents in hand, I'll identify the source of large quantities of cash reported at 24 Sussex – which I understand from news reports is of interest to several MPs...

[...]

Last Friday, I e-mailed...to request that I be given equal treatment to Mr. Pelossi, and was informed that the committee had agreed to a video-conference because he lives in Switzerland. Obviously, many central Canadians do not appreciate the actual time required to travel from Vancouver Island to what we used to call the national capital until MPs passed that too-clever-by-half motion about the Québécois – which is why I, too tall to fit comfortably into those damn Airbus planes, await your committee's agreement to my request.

Mark C.

Update: Stormin' Norman will show up in person:

From: Norman Spector [mailto:nspector3@shaw.ca]

Sent: Tue 29/01/2008 2:03 AM

To: Pereira, Erica

Subject: RE: Videoconference

Ms Pereira

The consensus of my readers in reaction to yesterday’s column is that I should go to Ottawa and tell it like it is.

Accordingly, you can expect me at Committee at the appointed hour on the appointed day, “with bells and whistles.”

Norman Spector

Identity-politics-palooza

If you don't support Hillary Clinton, it's because you hate women.

And if you don't support Obama you're a racist, I presume. No wonder John Edwards never had a chance. (Admittedly, he was also handicapped by the fact that he was John Edwards.)

Damian P.

News on Sunday

What happened when a gang of English socialists, for whom The Guardian is too right-wing, used millions of pounds in pension money to start their own newspaper? Pretty much everything you'd expect. No wonder Thatcher kept beating these idiots.

Damian P.

Quote of the Day

"What benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?"

- professional human-rights complainant Richard Warman in 2000, trying to stop conspiracy lunatic David Icke from giving a speech in Vancouver. That one line says all you need to know about Warman's view of the state.

Damian P.

You can't keep a bad car down

East Germany's greatest technological achievement is coming back to life.

Anyone else remember Car and Driver's hilariously vicious parody of Motor Trend, featuring the Trabant? (Amazingly, it ran about six months before the Berlin Wall came down.)

Damian P.

Afghanistan/Pakistan roundup

News from various fronts:

A CONVERSATION WITH HAMID KARZAI

An Afghan Province Points the Way

Ashdown pulls out of Afghan role

Pakistan Rebuffs Secret U.S. Plea for C.I.A. Buildup

I think the story about the Afghan province (US military in Nangahar) may reflect realities in Defense Secretary Gates' mind when he criticized other NATO countries' counterinsurgency actions. I sure hope an effective new UN Lord High Poobah for Afghanistan can be found. That role is crucial: 1) for making all the various international activities work together; and 2) for giving a recognizable UN face to those activities in order to win the public's support in many Western countries, e.g. Canada.

Something certainly has to be done to improve Pakistan's ability to deal with the Taliban, al Qaeda, and local Islamists:

Ex-Pakistani Official Says Policy on Taliban Is Failing

As for "the way" above, a related Reuters story below (via Celestial Junk); would it not be ironic if in the end the Taliban were effectively marginalized in Afstan, but able practically to dismember Pakistan? Scary.

New U.S. strategy working in east Afghanistan

Mark C.

Update: A thoughtful piece by William Arkin of the Washington Post:

Don't Open a Third Front in Pakistan

Helping train and advise Pakistani forces, plus some covert CIA activity coordinated with the Pakistani government, might just be tolerable in the country. Any attempt to have US units fight themselves would just discredit the government amongst the non-Islamist, large Muslim majority of the population.

When someone says something like this...

...it may be time to start really worrying:

Pakistan says its nuclear weapons are secure

A top official says there is no way a bomb could fall into the hands of extremists.

Mark C.

At least they don't shoot our generals

The pathetic and abysmal handling of the Afghan detainee issue by the government may well offset in public opinion any increased support for our mission resulting from the Manley panel report. And our scandal-obsessed media only make things worse. The Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford (our Annie Oakley of journalism) hits the target as usual:

Oh, please: The Stephen Harper government didn't know that the Canadian military had stopped handing over Afghan detainees last fall, after Canadian monitors found what they called a credible allegation of torture?

This claim, made Thursday night by the Prime Minister's communications director, Sandra Buckler, was being hastily retracted by Ms. Buckler less than 24 hours later.

"I should not have said what I said to you," she told The Globe and Mail's Campbell Clark yesterday. "I misspoke, and I wanted to make sure you were aware of that." Then she refused to say whether she "misspoke" because she said something she shouldn't have or because she said something that was wrong, and declined further comment. And she - madness! -- is the PM's communications director.

Knock me down with a feather: Ms. Buckler misspeaks, slurs the Canadian Forces and gives credence to all those who were already, as Mike Duffy noted Thursday on CTV NewsNet, pointing the finger of blame at Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier and what? She gets to say, albeit in a magnificently unhelpful way, "Oops"?

Off with her head.

[...]

Yet what is far more interesting than the duplicitous double-speak coming from this government is what it reveals both about its control-freak mentality (that if its first instinct is to say nothing, its second is to blame someone outside the circle of wagons, often the military) and the troubling, giddy eagerness with which the claim was sucked into the 24-7 media machine and spun out virtually unaltered for hours at a stretch.

[...]

...with Gen. Hillier in the air Thursday when this story broke - he was en route to resume the rare holiday he had already interrupted to return to Ottawa to discuss the Manley report, apparently with the PM and cabinet - there was in his absence no one willing or able to risk disputing Ms. Buckler's now-discredited allegation that the Canadian Forces had kept the government in the dark.

A second factor, I think, is that every story now, whether it is about Paris Hilton or the mission to Afghanistan, is subjected to the same unquestioning hyperbole. We in the press seem to suffer somewhat from a version of what in badly behaved children is called oppositional defiance disorder; we mistrust our own institutions such that we are fully prepared to accept, at least for story purposes, that the Canadian military would try to keep the government, which soldiers know better than anyone else is properly its master, out of the loop...

Damian Brooks has an excellent post of his own at The Torch on the government's failure to communicate. There's a nice post on the whole "detainee" question at Barrel Strength. I am in complete accord with this comment at Milnet.ca; please read the whole thing:

...I am not blind to the fact that Prime Minister Harper and his close, personal staff are anti-military and, at the very best, weak sisters when it comes to the Afghanistan mission...

A much stronger presentation of thoughts similar to mine here.

Mark C.

It's Ban Ki-moon's war, part 2

A letter of mine in the Globe and Mail (the title is theirs; mine was the one for this post minus "part 2"):

Pay heed to Mr. UN

By MARK COLLINS

Saturday, January 26, 2008 – Page A22

Ottawa -- I find it curious that you chose to publish United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's article Being In Afghanistan Is Dangerous, Not Being In Afghanistan Is More Dangerous (Jan. 24) in the online edition only. Your general readership surely would have been interested in these words of his: "Our collective success depends on the continuing presence of the International Security Assistance Force, commanded by NATO and helping local governments in nearly every province to maintain security and carry out reconstruction projects."

In any event, Canadian politicians such as Jack Layton and Elizabeth May - who advocate having the UN take over the international military presence in Afghanistan - should pay close attention to the words of the UN's own Secretary-General. Though I doubt they will.

It's one of Norman Spector's "Letters of the Day".

I sent this next letter to the National Post, January 24; they've not printed it. Don Martin is a journalist--it's never quite clear whether he's a reporter or a columnist--from Alberta. He likes to play the role of a hard-bitten, cynical, old-school newsman (but with a sharp sense of humour) who just calls them as he sees them and takes no guff from no-one. Unfortunately his vision is rather limited. He's basically all attitude and little cattle, as the letter I think demonstrates:

No wonder Canadians are confused and ill-informed about the situation in Afghanistan. Don Martin, in his column "Canadian troops far from alone" (Jan. 24), purports, among other things, to explain where the troops of various countries participating in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are stationed. Unfortunately he gets quite a few basic facts wrong--all the more remarkable since he was in Afghanistan himself just half a year ago.

Australian troops are not partners with the British in Kandahar province [major goof on my part, Brits of course are in Helmand]; they are partners with the Dutch in Uruzgan. The Dutch themselves have not "locked in their 1,500 soldiers until 2010"; they are reducing their strength to around 1,100. Turkish troops are not in the east with the Americans; they are in Kabul and in addition provide a provincial reconstruction team in Wardak, just to the west of Kabul. The 3,200 Marines being sent to Afghanistan--not 3,500 as Mr Martin writes--are not to be stationed in the east. The 2,200 combat troops will be based in the south (and under the overall command of Canadian Maj.-Gen. J.G.M. Lessard, who becomes head of ISAF Regional Command South in February); the rest of the Marines will mainly train the Afghan National Police, wherever needed. The French are not in the north; they are in Kabul (the French also have six Mirage fighters based at Kandahar). And while there are some Romanians at Kandahar, as Mr Martin notes, the largest Romanian contribution is a battalion fighting with the Americans in the east.

What a lot of misinformation. Dear me.

Mark C.

The anti-McCain forces

The Weekly Standard looks at the hysterical campaign against the front-runner:

"McCain is not only not conservative enough," writes David Limbaugh, Rush's brother, "he has also built a reputation as a maverick by stabbing his party in the back--not in furtherance of conservative principles but by betraying them."

Like so many McCain critics, Limbaugh turned to former Senator Rick Santorum--"whose conservative credentials are beyond question"--as an expert witness. "I don't hardly agree with him on hardly any issues," Santorum said.

Really? Santorum's lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 88. John McCain's is 82.3. One would suppose there might be some overlap. The difference between a real conservative and a phony one apparently lies in those six points.

Although many others have been as critical of McCain, perhaps no one has been as hypocritical. In 2006, when Santorum was running for reelection, he asked McCain to come to Pennsylvania to campaign on his behalf. When McCain obliged, Santorum put the video on his campaign website, listing it first among "key events" of the year. That's gratitude, Santorum-style.

Other conservative politicians--or former politicians--have taken their anti-McCain arguments to absurd lengths. Take Tom DeLay, for instance, whose K Street pandering led to numerous indictments and contributed greatly to the Republican losses in 2006. The former House majority leader said, without a trace of irony in his voice, that John McCain "has done more to hurt the Republican party than any elected official I know of."

It's strange, how so many members of both major parties have worked themselves into a frenzy against their most electable candidates.

Damian P.

Barack's Blowout

Most observers expected Obama to win the South Carolina primary. But 55 to 27? Extraordinary:

Sen. Barack Obama, vying to become the nation's first black president, has won the South Carolina primary today, boosted by a record turnout of African-American voters.

Obama overwhelmingly beat Sen. Hillary Clinton with 55 percent support to her 27 percent, and former Sen. John Edwards, trailing with 18 percent support, with almost all precincts reporting.

Not surprisingly, Obama overwhelmingly won the African-American vote. White voters were more evenly divided, and the Clintons are spinning this as only the Clintons can:

Obama won the support of 78 percent of black voters, compared with 19 percent for Hillary Clinton and just two percent for John Edwards. Whites, meanwhile, divided more closely among the three candidates, though Obama notably failed to attract more than a quarter of their votes, reports Langer. Clinton and Edwards were even among whites, with Clinton winning white women, Edwards, white men.

[...]

"Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88," former President Bill Clinton told reporters outside a polling station in Columbia Saturday. "Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

Zing! Obama is no Jackson, thank God, but Clinton needs him to be one.

Damian P.

"His crime? He spoke the truth."

So says Daily Kos diarist "litho," in a post about the disgraced Arun Gandhi. The entry helpfully cites some of the words that got Gandhi in so much trouble:

We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity. [emphasis added]

Via LGF. Remember a few days ago, when I snarked that some left-wingers will love Hugo Chavez even more if he's targeting the Jews? "Litho" is just the kind of left-winger I had in mind. (Many Kos kommenters, to their credit, have responded very critically.)

Damian P.

"Fascist" --> "Neocon" --> "Freespeecher"

Mike Brock, who's been blogging up a storm about the Ezra Levant controversy, explains how, among certain "progressives," the cocnept of free speech became something to be mocked and vilified.

Dr. Dawg, a friend of this site despite our disagreement on about 80% of all major issues, has some interesting thoughts from a left-wing perspective.

Damian P.

Afghanistan and Canada, reason and passion

If you take the Afghanistan issue seriously, watch the January 25 edition of TVO's "The Agenda". John Manley and Janice Stein (about whom I have not always been complimentary) speak very well about what is involved. The host, Steve Paikin (whom I usually like), tries overmuch to stir things up, with little success. Video is available here, on the right at "Watch Video". Please do.

Slightly less than an hour but well worth the time to consider matters put pretty starkly and, I think, honestly. An informed democracy, and all that...

Mr Manley made this strong observation: Professor Michael Byers "didn't have the courage" to appear before his panel. Quite.

Mark C.

It's Ban Ki-moon's war

A "misjudgment of historic proportions". That is what those who oppose our combat mission in Afghanistan are making, according to this piece by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon--which the Globe and Mail chooses to publish only on the Web. Why not in the print edition? And the minds of those opponents will remain closed to his assessments and arguments despite their professed devotion to the UN (via Bruce Rolston):

Afghanistan is a potent symbol of the costs inherent in abandoning nations to the lawless forces of anarchy. That alone justifies international efforts to help rebuild the country. Lest there be any doubt, remember Sept. 11, 2001, and its worldwide reverberations. We learned then how a country, shorn of its civic institutions, becomes a vacuum to be filled by criminals and opportunists. In its chaos and poverty, Afghanistan became a home base for terrorism.

Must we learn that lesson all over again?..

Yet, this progress is in jeopardy. Once again, the opportunists are on the rise, seeking anew to make Afghanistan a lawless place — a locus of instability, terrorism and drug trafficking. Their means are desperate: suicide bombs, kidnappings, the killing of government officials and hijacking of aid convoys. Almost more dismaying is the response of some outside Afghanistan, who react by calling for a disengagement or the full withdrawal of international forces. This would be a misjudgment of historic proportions, the repetition of a mistake that has already had terrible consequences.

[...]

The United Nations, alongside national and international counterparts, non-governmental organizations and Afghan civil society, will continue to provide the Afghan government whatever assistance it needs to build on these achievements. Our collective success depends on the continuing presence of the International Security Assistance Force [emphasis added], commanded by NATO and helping local governments in nearly every province to maintain security and carry out reconstruction projects.

In December, the Afghan National Army, supported by ISAF forces, reclaimed the town of Musa Qala in the southern province of Helmand, occupied by insurgents since February of 2007, and a major poppy-growing area. Significantly, it was led by the Afghan army and carried out at the request of the local population. At long last, development work can begin anew in Musa Qala.

The Afghan government has far to go before it regains control of its own destiny. But that day will come. It is hard work. There is little glory. It requires sacrifices. And that is why we are there [emphasis added].

Rather better than what Prime Minister Harper has been saying. Meanwhile, lefties are outraged in the comments at the Globe; I mean what good is the UN when it's not anti-American? Are they losing the faith?

Terry Glavin lets loose his own blast:

[...]

It's not the first time the UN Secretary-General has appealed to NATO-ISAF countries to maintain their combat-troop levels in Afghanistan to ensure the country doesn't revert to “a host for terrorist and extremist groups.” But this latest appeal was far more frank, candid, plain-spoken and stern than anything he's said to date, that I'm aware of.

After the Secretary-General's blistering rebuke, is it really possible to continue to take anyone seriously who says things like "It's time to move NATO troops out, and UN peacekeepers in"?

How many more UN resolutions on the subject do we need?..

An earlier guest-post of mine on the "anyone" whom one can't take seriously is here.

John Manley, for his part, put the case for the mission superbly. Here's a good post by Aaron Wherry at his Maclean's blog (also via Bruce Rolston).

And maybe, just maybe, the Liberal leader is starting to see the light:

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion yesterday reiterated his party's position on the Afghan mission -- that Canada's involvement in combat must end in 2009 -- but added his party was "open to debate."

[...]

Members of Mr. Manley's panel have also suggested the government delay any debate in the House of Commons on the Afghan mission until after NATO leaders meet in April.

This is a reasonable recommendation, Mr. Dion said. "There is no rush to vote right away."

Mark C.

The Greening of the Sahara

Why are so many Canadians dead sqeamish about Afghanistan yet apparently willing to taste blood over Darfur? The Green Party leader, Dizzy Lizzy May, says in a press release that...

...“The Manley Report fails to consider that the recommendation of more ISAF forces from a Christian/Crusader heritage will continue to fuel an insurgency that has been framed as a ‘Jihad’..."

What then does she think might face the Canadian troops that the Greens wanted to be ready to invade Muslim Sudan, in order to save Darfur?

...There, Ms. May is not overly concerned about the prospects for jihad. In fact, she actively encourages the Canadian government to lead a "rapid reaction force" of middle powers, deployed to a country bordering Sudan and "ready to intervene, if necessary." Thus, the Greens are against continuing with a UN mission in a country where the foreign forces have been welcomed by the democratically elected government, but are in favour of a full-fledged invasion of Sudan...

Now that policy statement was from September, 2006. I guess Dizzy Lizzy missed Osama bin Laden's threat, several months earlier, of jihad against any Western intervention in Darfur. Ms. May still seems "a few helicopters short of heavy-lift capacity", as John Ivison puts it in his column just quoted. Moreover, where in 2006 did she think the Canadian Forces would find the troops for her imagined "rapid reaction" force?

Mark C.

The Gaza borders

Martin Kramer explains why they'll almost certainly have to be changed.

Damian P.

I, for one, welcome our new Martian Sasquatch overlords

A two-foot tall rock formation? What a convenient explanation.

Damian P.

Can McCain survive this devastating endorsement?

In a general election or a Democratic primary, the approval of the New York Times editorial board might help a little. In a Republican primary? Not so much.

Damian P.

What hope for GM Oshawa?

The new Camaro alone will almost certainly not be enough:

General Motors Corp. has scrapped plans to build some rear-wheel-drive cars at its giant operations in Oshawa, Ont., a move that could threaten the long-term future of the largest vehicle assembly plant in Canada and thousands of jobs.

The auto maker has scuttled the rear-wheel-drive version of the Chevrolet Impala, which was scheduled to represent half the output of a leading-edge flexible assembly plant now under construction in Oshawa, industry sources said.

Production of rear-wheel-drive Cadillac and Buick sedans originally slated for Oshawa will be shifted instead to Lansing, Mich., the sources added.

GM will begin producing the reborn Chevrolet Camaro as a rear-wheel-drive muscle car in Oshawa later this year.

The move comes as GM prepares for crucial contract talks with the Canadian Auto Workers union this summer and seeks government financial help for an investment in St. Catharines, Ont., on top of $435-million Ottawa and Ontario have already agreed to give the company as part of a $2.5-billion plan to upgrade its Canadian operations.

Much of the $2.5-billion will be spent consolidating two Oshawa car plants into one flexible plant that will turn out the Camaro.

The two plants assembled 470,016 cars last year.

[...]

The heavier Impala has been doomed by new U.S. fuel economy rules requiring auto makers to reach an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, industry and union sources said.

A nice impact in Canada for all those demanding action to combat global warming. And the Camaro concept car has not been shown, I have heard at any of this year's auto shows--an ominous sign.

Meanwhile, it's too close to call!

General Motors Corp., a symbol of U.S. industrial might and the world's top seller of motor vehicles since Herbert Hoover was president, has finally been caught by a foreign rival.

GM conceded yesterday that Toyota Motor Corp. pulled even last year, each of them selling about 9.37 million vehicles, in another sign that the balance of corporate power is shifting from West to East.

It's the first time GM has been anything other than the exclusive global sales leader since 1931.

Hope for the General overseas?

Over all, GM's worldwide sales in 2007 were the second best in its 100-year history. It set a sales record in China by selling more than a million vehicles, set a record in Brazil with nearly 500,000 and doubled sales in Russia.

But most of those vehicles are built there.

Mark C.

Giving up Gaza

Israel is trying to make it Egypt's problem:

Israel wants to cut its links with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory's border with Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade, Israel's deputy defence minister said on Thursday.

Israel, which occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, pulled troops and settlers out in 2005 but still controls its northern and eastern borders, airspace and coastal waters, and has imposed a blockade it says is meant to counter militant rocket fire.

Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel wanted to wash its hands of Gaza altogether by handing over the supply of electricity, water and medicine to others. An Israeli security official said Egypt should take over responsibility.

"We need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it. So we want to disconnect from it," Vilnai said.

A spokesman for Hamas, which seized control of Gaza after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June, said Israel was not exempt from responsibility "since the Gaza Strip is still an occupied land".

An aide to Abbas said the Israeli idea could be aimed at permanently severing Gaza from the occupied West Bank, the other territory Palestinians seek for an eventual state.

Handing the West Bank back to Jordan - and letting someone else be the "occupier" - would make a lot of sense as well, though the large number of Israeli settlements in that area makes "disengagement" much less likely. If the Palestinian territories were controlled by other Arab states, would Israel still be so demonized?

Yeah, probably. But at least the practical problem of trying to support and control an overwhelming hostile population wouldn't be theirs anymore.

Damian P.

Someone needs a hug

No prizes for guessing which candidate this talk-radio caller is supporting. (via Hot Air) God bless the obviously amused host for staying so calm, which probably drove the caller even further over the edge.

Damian P.

My head is spinning

Warren the K. has a fine post on the Manley panel report at his National Post blog. [Yes, that's two posts in a single day agreeing with Warren Kinsella. It's in Revelations, people! - DJP]

And Christie Blatchford writes some choice words, some aimed at members of the punditocracy:

Government must now embrace the full, bloody truth of Afghanistan

[...]

It may be naive to expect politicians to find the big nuts that ordinary infantrymen have, but Mr. Manley was a politician, and he seems to have found his.

[...]

The report should be read by anyone who purports to hold an informed view of the mission, particularly those who haven't been to Afghanistan (this includes many of the most regular, not to mention most smarmy, commentators on the subject) and thus haven't been exposed, as the panel members have been, to the visceral punch to the gut packed both by Canadian troops and Afghans themselves.

Our soldiers have it because they are so fiercely committed even as it is they and their families who suffer most grievously. Afghans have it because they are so fierce, so bloody deprived, yet so full of promise and so worth the effort. Together, they knock your socks off, and most people who spend any time in the country end up as converts...

Terry Glavin has some more choice words in this post:

John Manley's Afghanistan Panel Report And The Historic Mission of The Left

There are many other reactions:

Manley report spreads chaos in Punditland

A staider summary of press reaction and other material on Afghanistan, from the Conference of Defence Associations, is here.

Meanwhile, was the fix almost in for finding our "partner" at Kandahar?

Finally, Bruce Rolston at Flit, in a very good politico-military analysis, comes up with a solution to our Afghan problem that might be saleable by the government: keep most of our troops at Kandahar, with the Marines taking on the infantry combat role, coupled with a Canadian withdrawal that...

...would be effectively limited in the immediate term to as little as the two companies of Canadian infantry, plus some of their logistical tail, and the battlegroup headquarters...

Mr Rolston also notes the average age of Canadian fatalities in Afghanistan is twenty-nine. Hardly the "kids" many would have you believe.

Mark C.

Update: The world needs more Canada?

[...]

The European media responded to the report with a yawn. At a downtown Paris newsstand, only the London-based Financial Times mentioned the report...

The Post, Newsweek, and the Jews: Ledeen

Pajamas Media contributor Michael Ledeen has posted an article critical of WaPo and Newsweek over their mishandling of patently bigoted statements made by Arun Gandhi.

To WaPo's credit, they did what the New York Times is notorious for avoiding: honestly admit an editorial misstep. Heh - I steer my kids to WaPo for research now and then, but never to the NYT.

Joseph Hayyim

The GOP and Global Warming

Jim Geraghty says "climate change denial" is a political loser:

I don't buy into the global warming hype. But that doesn't mean I want Republican candidates fighting an uphill battle, trying to convince the public that it's all a hoax. I like a lot of what Jim Manzi says - get past the argument of whether it's happening, and get into the debate over what to do with it, and put GOP support for innovation up against Democratic carbon taxes. (And throw in some mockery of prominent Democrats' blatant hypocrisy on the issue.)

[...]

In an era where Wal-Mart puts enormous efforts into making the case that it is green, that British Petroleum runs ads about how they're developing alternative fuels, General Electric touts its eco-magination... All of these companies know where public opinion is, and where its customers are. They're all moving as fast as they can, and applying tremendous resources to prove, "we're not part of the problem, we're part of the solution."

Of course there's a thuggishness to the other side of this debate - as usual, really - but when Ellen Goodman compares global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers, is anyone really moved by her? Isn't this just another case of a lefty declaring those who disagree with her Nazis?

Why are Republicans taking a more skeptical line on global warming than corporate America? And even if we don't like McCain's stands, can a straight up "it's not happening" stand be viable in the general election?

Follow-up post here.

Damian P.

Canada boycotting Durban II

Warren Kinsella and I have our differences, to put it mildly, but I join him in applauding this:

The government is announcing today that Canada has abandoned a UN anti-racism conference slated to take place in South Africa next year.

A government official has told The Canadian Press the so-called Durban II conference has turned into a `gong show' with Libya elected to chair the gathering, Cuba appointed vice-chair and rapporteur, and anti-Israel rhetoric building.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban was a fiasco as Arab and Muslim countries ganged up in their criticisms of Israel.

Israel and the United States walked out of that conference in protest; Canada remained in an effort to decry the attacks.

The official says things are not getting any better. For one thing, important prepatory meetings have been called on Jewish high holidays, preventing Israeli officials from participating.

The official said: `All the warning signs were there that Durban 2009 was going to be the same gong show as Durban 2001.' [emphasis added]

Damian P.

Schwarzkopf endorses McCain

Another boost for the Senator from Arizona.

It's not over yet, but I think McCain is going to be the nominee, for two important reasons: his positions on national security and the War on Terror more than make up for his "un-Republican" stands on immigration and campaign-finance reform; and, more importantly, because he can win.

Conservatives will grumble, but if the alternative is a Democrat in the White House - especially Hillary - they'll hold their noses and support McCain. (I've heard Hugh Hewitt say he'll do this, and I think even Rush will follow suit.) If the Democrats nominate Clinton, by contrast, I suspect many left-wingers will stay home. McCain versus Obama? Now, that would be a horse race.

Damian P.

The guts of the Manley panel report

Beyond what's in my earlier post, below are some excerpts that strike me as fundamental to the panel's message (the substantive part of the report is just thirty-two pages). The best possible result, for the internal politics of both Canada and NATO, would be if France provided the 1,000 strong battle group to partner with us at Kandahar. With M. Sarkozy as Président de la République...

...But despite the violence and destruction of conflict, Afghans are achieving substantial development progress. The Afghan economy has been growing by about 10 per cent annually for the past five years, and per-capita incomes have doubled. More than five million refugees have returned to Afghanistan since 2002, a telling indicator of new hope for the future. Some six million children are in school, a third of them girls; school enrolment has tripled in six years. Child mortality rates are improving. Roads are being built, and power lines restored. In short, the evidence of real development is there to see.

[...]

...events in Afghanistan, and Canada’s participation in the outcomes, will directly affect Canada’s security, our reputation in the world, and our future ability to engage the international community in achieving objectives of peace, security and shared prosperity. Informed and fair-minded Canadians can differ on the policy choices before us. None need doubt that the future of Afghanistan matters to Canada.

[...]

...the international military and development presence in Afghanistan has been explicitly and repeatedly authorized by the UN Security Council—most recently in a Security Council resolution in September 2007; it has also been approved collectively by the 26 member countries of NATO. ISAF, which includes 13 countries along with all NATO members, is thereby defending and enforcing international law [emphasis added]. In this defining way, and in others, the international presence in Afghanistan differs from the later invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States and its coalition partners in that war...

More after the jump.

Mark C.

In the face of a serious and potentially strengthening Taliban insurgency, the Panel observed harmful shortcomings in the NATO/ISAF counterinsurgency campaign. The most damaging shortfalls include an insufficiency of forces in the field, especially in high-risk zones in the South; a top-heavy command structure at ISAF headquarters in Kabul; an absence of a comprehensive strategy directing all ISAF forces in collaboration with the Afghan government; limitations placed by some NATO governments on the operations of their units, which effectively keep those forces out of the conflict; and inadequate coordination between military and civilian programs for security, stabilization, reconstruction and development. One source of ISAF inefficiencies, cited by senior NATO officers, is the too frequent rotation of ISAF commanders at its Kabul headquarters and in the regional commands...

...To put things bluntly, Governments from the start of Canada’s Afghan involvement have failed to communicate with Canadians with balance and candour about the reasons for Canadian involvement, or about the risks, difficulties and expected results of that involvement. Almost the only Government accounts that Canadians have received have come from the Department of National Defence. Important issues of Canadian diplomacy and aid in Afghanistan have scarcely been acknowledged and seldom asserted in public by ministers or officials responsible. Canada’s ambassadors in Kabul, NATO and other capitals have had limited authority to explain Canadian policy. The Panel believes that this information deficit needs to be redressed immediately in a comprehensive and more balanced communication
strategy of open and continuous engagement with Canadians.

[...]

...A primary Canadian objective, while helping Afghans, has been to help ensure that Afghanistan itself does not again revert to the status of sanctuary and head office for global terrorism. Countries as fortunately endowed as Canada—and as interdependent with the rest of the world—owe obligations to the international community. Participating in the international intervention in Afghanistan, at the request of the Afghan government, has been one of those obligations. The consequences of international failure in Afghanistan—for Afghans and for the world—would be disastrous [emphasis added].

[...]

...the Canadian aid program in Afghanistan has been impeded not only by the dangerous security environment in Kandahar but by CIDA’s own administrative constraints. More than half of CIDA funding in Afghanistan flows through multilateral agencies, and another 35 per cent is chanelled through national programs administered by the central government in Kabul. This leaves little for locally managed quick-action projects that bring immediate improvements to everyday life for Afghans, or for “signature” projects readily identifiable as supported by Canada. Funding allocations aside, CIDA staffers in Kandahar do not often venture beyond their base, in part, we were told, because of restrictive security regulations maintained by CIDA’s headquarters in Canada. While it is undeniably difficult to place civilians in a conflict zone, CIDA should delegate decisions about security of movement to civilian and military officials on the ground who are best placed to make such assessments. It makes little sense to post brave and talented professional staff to Kandahar only to restrict them from making regular contact with the people they are expected to help.

[...]

...The intensity of insurgency in the South, and the relatively large number of Canadian soldiers active there, together help to explain why Canadians have suffered high casualty rates (the highest in ISAF as a proportion of troops deployed). But the Panel could elicit no conclusive explanation for the disproportionately high casualty rates suffered by Canadians in Afghanistan. This issue warrants closer scrutiny by the Government.

[...]

The Panel has also heard that the safety and effectiveness of Canadian Forces in Kandahar would be markedly increased by the acquisition and deployment of new equipment. In particular, added helicopter airlift capacity and advanced unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles are needed now. No equipment can perfectly protect Canadian soldiers against improvised explosive devices. But helicopters can save lives by reducing reliance on transporting troops by road, and aerial surveillance can more effectively track insurgent movements. [comment: I see no way the Canadian Forces can themselves acquire, train on, and deploy these equipments (i.e. CH-47 Chinooks and Predator UAVs) in one year - MC]

[...]

In any event, the Panel could find no operational logic for choosing February 2009 as the end date for Canada’s military mission in Kandahar—and nothing to establish February 2009 as the date by which the mission would be completed. At its core, the aim of Canadian policy is to leave Afghanistan to Afghans, in a country better governed, more peaceful and more secure. How can Canada, with others, best contribute to accomplishing that result within the limits of Canadian capacity and influence?

[...]

The Canadian combat mission should conclude when the Afghan National Army is ready to provide security in Kandahar province. Progress to that end will accelerate as training of the ANA intensifies; and without doubt, more military resources from other ISAF countries must be forthcoming. Ending Canada’s military contribution in Kandahar is therefore not a matter of setting artificial deadlines in time. It is a matter of making real progress in the context of events on the ground.

[...]

...to improve the safety and operational effectiveness of the Canadian Forces in Kandahar, the Government should secure for them, no later than February 2009, new medium-lift helicopters and high-performance unmanned aerial vehicles. Canadian soldiers currently must rely too much on allied forces for both of these
necessary assets. If no undertakings on the battle group are received from ISAF partner countries by February 2009, or if the necessary equipment is not procured, the Government should give appropriate notice to the Afghan and allied governments of its intention to transfer responsibility for security in Kandahar.

[...]

...the Afghan security forces should be able to assume the lead responsibility for some security operations in Kandahar well before 2011. The commitment of an additional battle group would certainly promote the speedy progress of the transition. And it is the success of the transition that will allow for a rapid reduction of Canada’s military contribution. The quicker the transition occurs, the faster the Canadian Forces can reduce their combat activity in Kandahar...

The Afghan mission is a noble one

Here's my selection of major points made (by John Manley unless otherwise noted), with a bit of comment, at the press conference on the Afghanistan panel's report. Mr Manley and the whole panel were clearly passionate about the importance of our mission; they gave a very convincing presentation of their case. What a pity that Mr Manley is not the Liberal leader. The title of this post is my summary of the panel's message.

*NATO must provide a 1,000-strong battle group to help us at Kandahar (comment: our actual combat forces there are about that number). We need a fighting partner, like the Danes with the Brits and the Aussies with the Dutch. If NATO does not come through by February 2009 the some 2,000 Canadian troops in Afghanistan should be withdrawn. If we withdraw, and NATO does not replace us, the whole international Afghan mission faces failure.

Comment: A strong piece of diplomatic blackmail. Not exactly honourable to my mind, given the stress on the importance of our mission--but perhaps effective negotiating hardball.

*The new US troop commitment, if not temporary as now, could satisfy our requirement

*Prime Minister Harper must take charge of the issue domestically, and take a forceful personal lead with the allies; no Parliamentary vote on the future of the mission should be held until after NATO's early April summit meeting in Bucharest.

*The government must do a much better and franker job of explaining the mission and the situation in Afghanistan to the public.

*The security situation in the south is not improving; the government needs to admit this.

*The training of the Afghan National Army is a "great success". The exit strategy is gradually to shift the combat load to them with our troops as backup. But that backup role still involves some combat. So does training since trainers need to go into the field with their ANA units and fight alongside them.

*Derek Burney: It's not only NATO that needs to get its act together but also those doing civilian work. A powerful UN coordinator is required for international aid, reconstruction, governance etc. efforts.

*When Mr Manley became foreign minister "Not a lot of people listened when Canada talked." Now, because of what we have done, they listen to us about Afghanistan.

*Canada can't just retreat from international engagement to North America, under the umbrella of US protection.

*The mission is authorized by the UN and firmly in the tradition of Lester Pearson. It would be nice to have a peacekeeping mission at Kandahar--but "there is no peace to keep."

*As for Darfur: the Sudanese government doesn't want us and such a mission would be a combat one anyway.

Comment: I think you've read that at this blog.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion anwered a few press questions, by chance right after the Manley press conference. He said he wouldn't comment on the report until after he'd read it--and then seemed to say the Liberal position on ending our combat role in 2009 was firm. So why bother reading the report? I'm going to read the whole darned 94-page thing. More on "Rambo Dion".

Here's the CTV story, with video of the press conference.

After the jump: reaction by the Conference of Defence Associations (from an e-mail), plus a nice post by Bruce Rolston.

Mark C.

The Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) welcomes this very important document. After reviewing the report, the CDA has concluded that it is a sober and even-handed assessment of Canada's role thus far in the Afghan mission, and provides a compelling vision for the future. It presents a set of important recommendations, many in line with the CDA's own proposals made in the past and in its own submission to the panel, that build upon the goodwork already accomplished in Afghanistan...

The report both praises and is critical of several components of Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Its recommendations that Canada continue its good work are also accompanied by specific suggestions for improving Canada's and the international community's efforts in that country. Most notable are:

- Canada should "continue with its responsibility for security in Kandahar beyond February 2009 . . . including its combat role, but with increasing emphasis on training the Afghan National Security Forces expeditiously to take lead responsibility for security in Kandahar and Afghanistan as a whole" (p. 37). However, the report notes that it is impossible to separate "training" and "combat" roles: ". . . in reality, training and mentoring Afghan forces means sometimes conducting combat operations with them" (p. 30).

- That Canada's role in Afghanistan should give greater emphasis to diplomacy,
reconstruction and governance;

- A greater and more comprehensive political-military strategy and commitment from NATO;

- Avoiding the use of artificial deadlines: "Ending Canada's military contribution in Kandahar is therefore not a matter of setting artificial deadlines in time. It is a matter of making real progress in the context of events on the ground" (p. 32);

- A call for the Prime Minister to take personal charge of the Afghan file, supported by a cabinet-level committee and a single task force directing and coordinating the activities of all departments involved (p. 37), injecting greater political and bureaucratic commitment into the file.

We hope that the Government and its departments will take this report as constructive criticism. We also hope that political leaders, civil society and Canadians in general use the report to inform themselves of the complexity of the mission. Notably, the report views Afghanistan as a test of Canada's commitment to the international community:

"For the first time in many years, we have brought a level of commitment to an international problem that gives us real weight and credibility . . . We like to talk about Canada's role in the world. Well, we have a meaningful one in Afghanistan."
p. 5)

Bruce Rolston:

This is an excellent document. Everyone who cares about the Canadian Afghan mission should read it front to back. Wouldn't quibble with a word, really. It will be hard for Ottawa to swallow, though. Manley didn't even try and triangulate between the Government (stay) and Opposition (get out) positions on Afghanistan... he went way the OTHER SIDE of the Government, and implicitly criticizes them throughout for not yet doing enough for Afghans.

Most interesting quotes:

The take that, Robert Gates, moment: "Neither do we accept any parallel between the Afghanistan mission and the U.S.-led war in Iraq. To confuse the two is to overlook the authority of the UN, the collective decisions of NATO and the legitimacy of the Afghan government that has sought Canada’s engagement."

The we don't know what the hell Paul Martin was thinking, either, moment: "In 2005 Canada chose, for whatever reason, to assume leadership of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kandahar City and the security obligations that went with it."

Heath Ledger, R.I.P.

His body - reportedly "surrounded by pills" - was found in his New York apartment this afternoon.

Ledger surprised everyone with his performance in Brokeback Mountain, and he played The Joker in this summer's new Batman film. I hadn't heard any Britney/Winehouse-type stories about him lately, so this is truly shocking news. I presume he'd completed work on The Dark Knight, but who knows what else he might have done?

Damian P.

Farewell, Fred

He wasn't my first choice among the GOP hopefuls (I think McCain, warts and all, is The Guy) but I'm still disappointed by this:

Former Tennessee senator Fred Dalton Thompson, whose candidacy fizzled after a summer of expectations, pulled out of the Republican presidential race today after disappointing finishes in all of the primary contests.

In a terse, three-sentence statement, the former actor and senator abandoned a candidacy that once seemed like it had everything a Republican could want: solid conservative credentials, Washington experience, Hollywood panache, southern charm and a commanding personality.

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States," he said. "I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

The statement was a diminutive end to a campaign that was born of hype. It was the image of Thompson as commander in chief -- a part he played in a movie once -- that seemed to hold such promise when the real-life former senator contemplated running for the White House last spring and summer.

Instead, the campaign became roiled in staff disputes that centered on his wife, Jeri, and was dogged by allegations that Thompson did not have the desire or energy to mount an aggressive presidential campaign.

Jim Geraghty says he's not interested in the VP slot, either. Too bad: I think a McCain-Thompson ticket would be a hit.

Damian P.

24 '94

How far we've come...

Damian P.

Change? What change?

The ironic conclusion of a nice piece of analysis by George Will:

...At the moment, however, it remains possible, perhaps even probable, that each party will offer its oldest and most familiar candidate, Clinton and McCain, to a nation clamoring for a rupture with the recent past.

Mark C.

Next thing you know, they'll be able to leave the country by themselves

A mere 100 years after the Model T Ford went into production, Saudi women may soon be allowed to drive.

Damian P.

Putting the "socialism" back in National Socialism

Remember David Lindorff, the charming fellow who predicted/hoped that global warming would cause a massive flood that would wipe out the red states? Turns out he gets his material from some...interesting sources.

Some of Turner's greatest hits can be viewed here. Whether Lindorff was too dense to notice this stuff, or saw it and didn't care, remains a mystery.

As if the Crazy Hal saga wasn't already weird enough, the ADL also has a piece about recent revelations that he may have been an FBI informant.

Damian P.

Chavez and the Jews

They got along pretty well when The Mouth first took office, but Venezuelan Jews are getting fed up:

When two dozen heavily armed policemen came to search the Hebraica community center in the Venezuelan capital one night last month, the Jewish community here finally snapped.

The government officers who entered the sprawling, country club-like complex were ostensibly looking for a stash of weapons and for evidence of “subversive activity.” They found neither. In the subsequent days, the Venezuelan Jewish community’s umbrella organization, the Confederation of Israelite Associations of Venezuela, fired off a statement denouncing the raid as an “unjustifiable act” aimed at creating tensions between the community and the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez.

This would not be remarkable in the United States, where Jewish groups routinely state their views with little trepidation. But their counterparts abroad have tended to be less confrontational, especially in countries with small communities and a volatile political environment. In Venezuela this has been the case until recently, despite a long series of problems that includes an earlier raid on the Hebraica center, antisemitism on state-controlled media and anti-Israel pronouncements by Chavez. The calculated quiet ended with last year’s December 1 raid.

“We’re facing the first anti-Jewish government in our history,” Simon Sultan, president of Hebraica, told the Forward in an interview in his office, located in a tony Caracas neighborhood.

[...]

One of the first points of tension was the April 2002 coup attempt against Chavez. Michael Penfold-Becerra, a political scientist at Caracas’s institute of superior administrative studies, said that among some government officials, suspicions against Jews were fueled by the alleged support of prominent rabbi Pinchas Brenner for the authors of the short-lived coup, as well as by the perception that Israelis and Jews were active in the arms business.

The first raid, in 2004, heightened the tensions, especially since it took place early in the day when hundreds of children were on their way to school.

The tensions escalated again during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, when Chavez accused Israelis of behaving like Nazis. He recalled the charge d’affaires of the Venezuelan Embassy in Tel Aviv, and Israel, in turn, called back its ambassador. Although the Israeli diplomat returned to Caracas a month later, and Venezuela sent a low-level envoy to Tel Aviv, the relationship remains fraught.

The Jewish community turned to Argentina’s government to intercede with Chavez, and last January the self-described “Bolivarian” leader agreed to meet with CAIV following a request by Nestor Kirchner, then president of Argentina.

Through it all, Benshimol and others have stressed that there has been no instance of physical violence against Jews in the country. And they have, on occasion, defended Chavez against accusations of antisemitism aired by such American Jewish groups as the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

But the atmosphere has worsened lately, first and foremost because of Chavez’s increasingly inflammatory talk about Israel and its supporters. A television program called “The Razor,” broadcast on a state-owned channel, has featured lengthy rants about the presence of Mossad agents allegedly in the country working to unseat the Chavez regime with the support of the United States and opposition forces in Venezuela. The host of the show has also questioned the loyalty of leading Jewish figures to their home country. Despite repeated complaints by CAIV, the authorities have taken no action.

The Jews are voting with their feet:

Venezuela’s Jewish community numbered about 16,000 until Chavez was elected in 1998, and has since declined to around 12,000. The community comprises émigrés who began arriving in the mid-19th century from both North Africa and Eastern Europe, with the majority arriving during and after World War II. Evenly made up of Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews, the communi