Editorials

Determined to short-circuit an investigation into how the government mishandled the treatment of Afghan detainees? Wait until the eve of New Year's Eve – when MPs are in their ridings or down south, readers and viewers are few, and that day's news is dominated by the picks for the men's Olympic hockey team – and suspend Parliament.

A public art installation depicting Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin and a feminized Chairman Mao Zedong in the heart of Richmond's business district has the whole town talking.

“When I went to the gym at 5:30 this morning it’s all people were talking about,” said Richmond city Coun. Derek Dang, who saw the piece for the first time Wednesday. “People just can’t believe it.”

Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

In the wake of the terrorism attempt Friday on a Northwest Airlines flight, federal officials on Saturday imposed new restrictions on travelers that could lengthen lines at airports and limit the ability of international passengers to move about an airplane.

The government was vague about the steps it was taking, saying that it wanted the security experience to be “unpredictable” and that passengers would not find the same measures at every airport — a prospect that may upset airlines and travelers alike.

 We are too easily led into believing that continued war is the only solution to the Afghanistan/Pakistan conflict. As the new decade approaches we might consider waging peace with the same zeal we wage war.  In fact, there are very credible options being proposed and following are just two.

In advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics, critics of the Games have been subjected to surveillance, harassment, along with other intimidation tactics. Voicing opposition to the Olympics appears to be all that is needed for one to be labeled as a security threat. There are concerns over the negative impacts associated with holding the Games, as well as concerted efforts to stifle anti-Olympic expression. As the Coca-Cola/RBC corporate torch relay nears its final destination, the opening ceremonies in Vancouver on February 12, 2010, more protests are expected. The Olympics are providing the perfect cover for many police state measures with ramifications that could leave a lasting legacy.

I voted against CAFTA, never supported NAFTA, and will not support NAFTA-style trade agreements in the future. NAFTA's shortcomings were evident when signed and we must now amend the agreement to fix them. While NAFTA gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection

—Candidate Barack Obama, February 28, 2008

After 15 years there is now widespread agreement that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has fallen short of its stated goals. Rather than triggering a convergence across the three nations, NAFTA has accentuated the economic and regulatory asymmetries that had existed among the three countries. Since 2001, the region has actually seen a decline in levels of integration in key areas such as manufacturing.

Paul Kennedy come as close as he can to suggesting cover-up in the Robert Dziejanski Taser death at Vancouver International Airport.  But cover-up may be common to the RCMP - and others in B.C. - and it may extend up to protection of top political figures in a way that is destroying the rule of law in the province.

Although some may have viewed President Barack Obama’s recent Asian trip as uneventful and perhaps unsuccessful, he appears to have recommitted to the principles of globalization as the answer to the world’s economic woes. Obama declared his intentions for the U.S. to be fully engaged in Asia economically, politically, and in areas of security. He announced that America would join negotiations for a Trans-Pacific deal.

From the mainstream press we read, “As scientists confirm the earth has not warmed at all in the past decade, others wonder how this could be and what it means for Copenhagen. It will be a very cold winter of discontent for the warm-mongers. The climate show-and-tell in Copenhagen next month will be nothing more than a meaningless carbon-emitting jaunt, unable to decide just whom to blame or how to divvy up the profitable spoils of climate change hysteria. ^[1]

Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the leading Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee said, “Until this year, any scientist, reporter or politician who dared raise even the slightest suspicion about the science behind global warming was dismissed and repeatedly mocked. Today I have been vindicated.”

Peter MacKay, a proven inveterate liar with quite a track record, and Minister of Defence in Herr Harper’s government, testified during the war crimes trials that he “knew nothing” about the torture of prisoners who were turned over to the Afghan government by Canadian forces personnel who had captured them. He maintains this lie in spite of documentary evidence to the contrary ... that is being suppressed by Herr Harper under the "Secrecy Act".

The following article at Open Democracy should be of interest to Canadians in view of the current controversy surrounding the use of torture in Afghanistan and the Canadian  government being complicit in it.

Canadian military's role in torture coverup in Afghanistan

 A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured. His and others’ attempts to raise the alarm had been quashed by the ruling Conservative government and he felt a moral obligation to make public what was happening.

Politics sunk into an unprecedented abyss last week in this country when the Prime Minister of Canada approved advertising that accused the official opposition, the Liberal Party of Canada, of being  associated with anti-Semitism.