Ever the uncritical and obsequious friend of Israel and wooer of domestic Jewish votes, the Harper regime has once again shamed and blackened Canada's international reputation:
Israel has expressed its gratitude to Canada for helping to block a major international plan towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons.In language that makes no attempt to conceal Harper's contempt for people's intelligence worldwide, his government stoutly maintained how important an issue disarmament is:
Elsewhere, however, there was widespread international disappointment that Canada and Britain supported the United States in opposing the document at the United Nations review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The document called on the UN to hold a disarmament conference on the Middle East by 2016. Such a conference could have forced Israel to publicly acknowledge that it is a nuclear power, something the Jewish state has never done.
"Prime Minister Harper reaffirmed Canada's commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation, including within the framework of the NPT," the statement said.Huh?
"He also stressed Canada's belief that a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone can only be truly effective if all countries in the Middle East participate freely and constructively in its establishment."
Not everyone was imbibing the government-issued Kool-Aid.
It's disappointing that Canada helped scuttle the four weeks of negotiations that led up to Friday's result, said Beatrice Fihn, spokeswoman for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a coalition of 400 non-governmental organizations in 95 countries.The Toronto area is a crucial battleground in the upcoming election, with some ridings having a strong Jewish presence. Expect new polling from the PMO to assess the efficacy of this latest denigration of Canada's reputation.
"Three countries take their cue from a non-state party -- Israel isn't even part of the treaty -- and thereby have this final say," Fihn said.
I just finished reading "The Edge" by British military correspondent, Mark Urban. He very convincingly makes the case that Western military supremacy is no more, creating an extra layer of highly dangerous instability into a world in transition from unipolar to, if we're lucky, a bipolar world and, more likely, a poly-polar world.
ReplyDeleteHe chronicles how Western nations, in the pursuit of austerity, have allowed their military to fall into neglect. Some nations may have 100-front line fighters on the books yet are only able to field a couple of dozen of them on any given day. A third or more may have been designated "Hangar Queens" - airframes cannibalized to provide spares for other jets. A third or more may be awaiting major maintenance. Similarly, many Western nations are maintaining skeleton stocks of weapons so, in a mission like the air war on ISIS, they quickly run out.
Moscow knows this. Beijing knows this. So too do our allies in Asia and the Middle East. Our adversaries know when we're bluffing and our traditional allies realize it could be perilous to rely on our protection.
Urban quotes one senior general as lamenting that much of Europe has already disarmed itself. These are usually the same recent NATO members who expect to be able to call us to their defence under Article 5 of the NATO charter.
We're actually contributing to conditions that encourage nuclear proliferation and,in that, Harper is front and centre hectoring other nations through his megaphone.
Another trend Urban points out is how many nations (ours included) can no longer defend themselves and now must rely on US or NATO coalitions. That link I sent you dealing with the Arctic nations putting on an air exercise without Canadian participation seems to bear this out. Deploying six fighters here and another half dozen there is pretty much the limit of our capability these days. We can carve holes in the sky above Latvia or drop a couple of bombs on Syria but the homeland remains undefended even as Putin continues to militarize the Arctic.
Thanks for your always welcome insights, Mound. I must admit that I know little about the military world, and your wide-reading on the topic is much appreciated.
DeleteCanada's military paucity, it would seem, demonstrates that while Harper can talk a good bellicose game, as with so much else in his regime, the cupboard is pretty bare.