Harper's Reign Of Terror: Star Readers Respond

Stephen Harper's attack on those charities that refuse to hew to the regime's dogma and ideology is becoming increasingly recognized for what it is: the wanton, immoral, unethical and likely illegal actions of a martinet who will brook no opposing views. Lacking even a modicum of subtlety, his purpose is to send an unequivocal message to induce a pervasive chill in nonprofits.

Yesterday, I took special delight in reading a series of letters from Toronto Star readers who are almost uniform in their condemnation of this unfit subversive who is undermining the democratic traditions of our country and the Canada Revenue Agency that is allowing this perversion to occur. I hope you will visit the Star site to read all of the letters and consider sending the link to anyone you think might benefit from the insights offered therein.

Here is but a small sampling of those letters:

There can be little doubt that the “Harper government” is indeed attempting to silence charities that have criticized its policies. This is, after all, the same government that has a long and distinguished history of viciously attacking any and all individuals or organizations that have dared to question or criticize its policies or its vision for Canada.

From Richard Colvin and our scientists to environmental charities and now PEN Canada, any and all forms of criticism of the “Harper government” have been met with a very belligerent response from the federal Conservatives.

The rights and freedoms that all Canadians enjoy were hard won some 70 years ago. It is distressing to witness our right to free speech and open discussion of government policies being systematically eroded.

What is even more distressing is the apparent willingness of so many Canadians to permit this to happen. As the lyric to Joni Mitchell’s song Big Yellow Taxi warns, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

Lyle Goodin, Bowmanville

First, it seems that only those charities that disagree with the policies of the Harper regime are the targets of these audits. I also note that the Harper government would like to force charities to reveal who there donors are, no doubt to cause them to have second thoughts about donating to certain charities.

Just last week I received a request from the CRA to submit all the charitable receipts that I claimed on my taxes. They claim that the request was made so that they could gauge their self-assessment tax system. I don’t believe them. It’s just another example of the Harper government lashing out at all those who don’t agree with the direction he is taking the country.

If my grandparents were still alive, I’m sure they would be dismayed to see that the country they came to from Eastern Europe morphing into a pale imitation of the Putin government under Stephen Harper. The only difference is that Harper hasn’t resorted to having his detractors beaten or killed. Otherwise, there is not much difference between the two.

Chester Gregorasz, Cambridge

I am not a writer — oh I do write to the Star and sometimes they honour me by publishing my thoughts on the Harper government — but I have lived in countries where this simple act that we take for granted could land a person in jail our worse.

In Canada we are not there yet but I think the motivation for censorship is the same as in these non-democratic countries where they did not have the will of the people and they knew that to stay in power it was necessary to have the silence of the people.

The Harper government does not have the will of the people therefore it follows that every dissenting voice, MPs, scientist, researchers, charities, and so on must be silenced.

So, Canadians, let’s not be silent. As for me I going to keep writing to the Star, if they will have me, because nothing says democracy louder than the printed word in a newspaper. (emphasis added)

Keith Parkinson, Cambridge

Mr. Harper is relentless at silencing any voice contrary to his “vision for Canada” (God help us). Statistics Canada, followed by such others as Environment Canada, government scientists and the CBC, over whom he can exercise budgetary and ministerial censorship were first. Now the voices of countless charities (and their numerous donors) with concerns and views about poverty, justice, censorship, the environment and the like are being extorted by tax audits by the Charities Directorate.

Might I suggest that people contact Revenue Canada, Charities Directorate, Compliance Division and complain about the highly partisan “charitable” activities of the Fraser Institute. Let’s see if they are measured by the same standards. I filed my complaint yesterday. (emphasis added)

Robert Thorpe, Toronto

Wouldn't Smothering Have Been More Humane?

America loves her capital punishment, she's just not very good at it. In fact, the process of state sanctioned murder has a richly deserved reputation for being barbaric and routinely botched.

As Joe Wood writhed on the executioner's gurney, Arizona prison officials realized their lethal cocktail wasn't performing as expected. The experimental combination of midazolam and hydromorphone was a failure and so, over the course of nearly two hours, executioners administered the "lethal" dose something like 15-times.

The director of Arizona's prisons department denies the execution was botched.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

The Truth No Amount of Propaganda Can Hide

The following pictures of the devastation in Gaza wrought by the Israeli onslaught are all from Al Jazeera:

Is the Washington Post Even Trying Anymore?

My brother sent me a link to a photo-essay in The Washington Post said to depict an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

It's a nice story as these things go. The homeowner receives a friendly call from Israelis telling him to get out of the building immediately as it's about to be attacked. The fellow gets all his family and relatives out to safety. No one killed, no one injured, building destroyed. No harm, no foul - sort of.


Except, if you look carefully at the photos, something isn't right. This looks doctored, staged. Photo 1, shown here, is said to show a bomb just before it hits a house in Gaza City.



Photo 2 is captioned, "Residents of central Gaza watch as an Israeli bomb drops on a house."



Photo 3 is said to show a strike by a missile fired by an Israeli F-16.



Photo 4 is said to show smoke rising from the demolished building.




What do you see in those pictures? Photo 1 shows what appears to be a laser-guided bomb, a 500-pounder, just a second before impact. Look at the street scene. Find the lightpost on the left side with a tire on it and use that for your frame of reference. Notice the off-white van and the yellow car in the street.


Photo 2, the van and car have disappeared. In their place are two rows of tires apparently blocking the street. There appears to be a crew on the sidewalk to the right with another tire, apparently unconcerned.



Photo 3, a wider street scene shot from a safer distance showing the fireball of the missile. Again the tires are in place.



Photo 4, the tires are gone but that van and yellow car are back.



How did the tire crew know that this particular house was going to be targeted? The owner said he had a matter of minutes from the warning call until the arrival of the first bomb. How do you get the tire crew and the tires deployed on site with no advance warning?



Why did they have to use the same prop van and prop yellow car, posed side by side, in the before and after photos? That just beggars belief. I think what we're seeing here is second-rate propaganda intended to further the narrative that Israel isn't targeting Palestinian civilians. Close, but no cigar.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Urban Camouflage for Canada's Soldiers?

The past dozen or so years have left most of us familiar with the pixelated camouflage pattern, pioneered in Canada, and worn by many nations’ soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Americans are now going back to a more traditional camouflage for their combat uniforms. Canada, however, is not. We already have three variants of the pixelated pattern – a rich green pattern for temperate forests, the desert tan we see so often and a white/grey winter-Arctic camo.

It turns out there’s a fourth pixelated pattern under development, an urban camouflage that our warriors can use presumably in our cities. The pattern is supposed to emulate conditions in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

It’s called CUEPAT, Canadian Urban Environment Pattern, and it’s designed so that your little warfighter can be concealed in our cities.

The requirement is to have an urban pattern which works in the unique requirements of Canada’s three major metropolitan areas, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The current CBR (Chemical Biological, Radioactive) individual protective equipment (IPE) used by the Canadian military is provided in a woodland or desert camouflage. A camouflage suited to the Canadian urban environment is required when the military operates in urban terrain.

The military issued this specification: “Determine design parameters for an advanced Canadian urban environment camouflage patter (focus on Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal urban settings). Consider ...unique colour blends that would improve the users concealment in a range of urban environments.”

Do we really want our own military to be focusing on concealing our soldiers in our cities? To what end, exactly? What’s the threat that they perceive warrants an urban camouflage capability? Northern Gateway, perhaps? Like the American military, do they foresee mass uprisings and civil disobedience that will have to be countered with military intervention? I don’t think I’m okay with this, are you?

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

U.S. Military Takes Steps to Ensure There'll Never Be Another Disaster Like the F-35

As far as the US military is concerned, the F-35 has broken the bank. With the American people on the hook for what is estimated to be up to 1.5-trillion greenbacks for a warplane, a gimmicky bomb truck, that keeps failing to live up to expectations, the military is determined to see that something like the F-35 fiasco never happens again.

A new US Air Force report, "...paints a future of the Air Force that resembles an innovative 21st Century company as opposed to a traditional fighting force. The document says that it's now impossible for the United States to build a strategy advantage with large, expensive programs that take years — in the case of the F-35, 14 years and counting to complete.

'"We believe rapid change is the new norm and has serious implications for the Air Force," the document states.' The pace at which disruptive technologies may appear and proliferate will result in operational advantages that are increasingly short-lived. Dynamic and increasingly frequent shifts in the geopolitical power balance will have significant implications for basing, posture, and partner capabilities that may favor flexibility over footprint.'"

The F-35 isn't mentioned by name in the forecast, but the program's greasy fingerprints are all over it. The Air Force is apparently concerned that it is pricing itself out of the weapons market because it is spending so much time and money on large programs.

"Large, complex programs with industrial-era development cycles measured in decades may become obsolete before they reach full-rate production," the authors added.

"Operational advantages that are increasingly short-lived." That's Air Force code for the F-35's supposed stealth invincibility. The very adversaries for which the F-35 is said to be needed have already knocked the snot out of the stealth threat. They know its weaknesses and they've developed sensors, weapons and tactics to defeat it. What's more, they're already fielding their own stealth fighters, warplanes the F-35 was never designed to combat. Even Israeli defence planners gave America's stealth advantage a mere 5-year shelf life.

Return of the Dogfighter

The July 7 edition of Aviation Week focuses on a new emphasis on air-to-air combat capability instead of the air-to-ground focus that western nations have had for the last couple of decades. The shift is the result of Russia's intervention in Ukraine and its overall superiority in air combat capability.

Bomb trucks, like the glorified F-35, are great when you're taking out ground targets or blowing up wedding parties disguised as insurgents but they're seriously compromised against a state of the art fighter.

The F-35 is even more compromised because, unlike leading multi-role fighter-bombers on the market, it lacks super cruise. That means it can only go fast in fuel-guzzling afterburner. This is a huge disadvantage when you're trying to intercept a distant target and an even huger disadvantage when you're trying to evade pursuers. This is what caused the RAND Corporation to conclude that the F-35 won't out turn, out climb or out run its potential adversaries.

But the F-35 has stealth cloaking, right? Sort of but it's only frontal aspect stealth. Enemies approaching from the front will have a harder time finding you. That does not apply, however, to fighters scanning you from the sides, above or below, or from behind. They can see you just fine. So, in the turning, climbing, diving world of air-to-air combat, the F-35's strength is gone and its weaknesses shine through.

Will the CF-35, as the USAF warns, be obsolete before it ever appears in a Canadian hangar? Yes, quite possibly. Will it remain a mediocre warplane with degraded performance? Likely. Will that be enough to make Harper steer clear of it and find something more suitable to Canada's actual needs? Hell no. Buying the F-35 is a political decision. It's American politics that has kept it on life support for so long. Canada's military wants a nice pat on the head from their American big brothers and that means flying American hardware. That means the F-35. Harper too wants to remain a member in good standing of America's aerial foreign legion. The Brits are in. Australia's in. America's in (over its head). We're in. It's what we do.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

Harper's Policy On Gaza: The Canadian Toll

While the cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza is almost incalculable in turns of human suffering and loss of life, there is another casualty in all of this, one that is far less obvious and, in the eternal scheme of things, I suppose, of lesser consequence: Canada's psyche and reputation, both of which have been perhaps irremediably scarred.

The Mound of Sound has written a great deal lately on the ongoing carnage, and he has been hard-hitting in his condemnation of the leaders of all three major Canadian federal parties. All have either overtly or implicitly consented to the slaughter of the innocents, and for the worst of all possible reasons: political expediency.

And by that complicity, they have compromised all Canadians as they invite us to share their warped perspective that Israel is committed to peace, and that the casualties in Gaza are solely the fault of Hamas's rocket fire. Of Israel's grossly disproportionate response to those rockets, nothing is said. "Harden your hearts" seems to be the message, one that will be received with gratitude by some and confusion by others.

As well, of course, our long-reputed neutrality and honest-broker reputation is in tatters internationally.

Earlier this week The Star's Thomas Walkom offered this evaluation of the Harper regime's position on the bloody conflict:

Canada’s bully-boy approach to Gaza may be politically expedient for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But in terms of bringing peace to the Middle East it is not helpful. If anything, it makes matters worse.

To this Canadian government, events in the Palestinian territory are black and white. On one side are those that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird calls Hamas “terrorists.” They are uniformly bad.

On the other is the state of Israel trying to protect its civilians from Hamas rocket attacks. It is uniformly good.

There is no room for nuance and little for history. The Canadian government approach does not take into account the bitter war that led so many Palestinians to flee the newly created state of Israel in 1948.

Nor does it contemplate Israel’s equally bitter occupation of the West Bank since 1967, an occupation carried out in defiance of the United Nations Security Council.

Walkom, I believe, accurately and concisely gets to the heart of Harper's motivation:

This prime minister has two types of foreign policy. Both are short-term. Both focus on immediate, domestic political goals.

His first approach is to favour countries useful to Canadian resource companies. Resources explain Harper’s otherwise inexplicable free-trade deal with Colombia, a country of little importance to Canada except for the fact that Canadian mining companies operate there.

Not to mention, of course, Columbia's abysmal human-rights record, a pesky detail of no apparent consequence when it comes to Harper's promotion of mining interests.

It also explains Ottawa’s decision to focus foreign aid on Mongolia. Vancouver-based Turquoise Hill Resources (formerly Ivanhoe Mines) is majority owner of a gigantic copper and gold mine in that Central Asian nation.

Harper’s second foreign affairs strategy is to take hardline positions that will win favour with specific voting blocs in Canada. This explains his vigorous support of Israel. It also explains his equally vigorous opposition to Iran.

And so the Canadian people have become pawns and victims in Harper's unholy quest to bolster his sagging popularity and movtivate his base to turn out at the next election.

Domestically, you will be hard pressed to find another such transparent example of true evil than that.