Points to Ponder

I have to wonder. The Liberal party have brought disrepute upon themselves with the discovery of the Sponsorship Scandal and the revelatons from the Gomery Commission serve to show how business in this country follows the pattern of ENRON. The Liberals have failed the country and may have put us in jeopardy of losing our national reputation as a well run country. In fact, they have failed as a government to adhere to the BNA's pogg clause. ( Peace. order and good government)

The Conservatives, the party for and of big business, has failed us too! Instead of offering us a viable canadian alternative to repalce our government, Stephen Harper and crew would offer us more of the same big business back room deals. Only with the Conservatives, we will lose our country to the extreme right wing of the Republican dominated nation to the south of us!

The NDP have not had power in the Federal parliament and for the most part as an opposition party have come the closest to building a viable alternative to the Liberals. But we know big business, the freinds of the Liberals and the Conservatives would not accept Jack Layton as Prime Minister. This makes the idea of an NDP government extremely attractive to me!

The Bloc will no doubt collect a majority of the seats in Labelle province and bring us to another referendum. Who would you want to negogiate the "sovereignty association," the discredited Liberals or the big business Conservatives?

I suggest the NDP and a third option for a stronger canada, an association with Quebec based on future goals rather than past hurts and perceived bad dealings. Let's talk and create a new federation for all if us and dump the tories and the liberals......

Gordon Campbell's First Lie

Well, it was queer intuition based on a report. Early on in the Liberal term, I had heard the NDP had handed over a surplus in the provincial budget. I felt consternation and bewilderment as Campbell used the disastrous state of the provincial coffers to wage economic violence on those in the province who would not be able to generate a profit. Namely, the big business in the province and in other places wanted to "dispose" of those people deemed most costly to the province's finances! The Liberals looked to the most vulnerable because they did not possess the economic clout to hit back. The elderly and those with disabilities, as well as public service workers all were easy prey. Easier prey because of the great lie. The lie was BC's deficit and the necessity of cuts and the selling off of public utilities.

I will always remember the panic in the older womans voice. She had been walking around St.Paul's hospital during the demonstration. She said she had children at home who relied on her because of their disabilities. She knew she was losing her job because it had been privatised!

Then I remember "the suicides" reported. People on disability who had received the new application form after having been told they were under review! This was all based on the big liberal lie perpetuated by an eager fat head, wanting to be liked by the people who have wealth and standing in the province. He would show them he was one of theirs, the Point Grey man, the Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale socialite. Gordon Campbell the toast of the best part of town.

Now it is out! HE LIED MORE THAN ONCE. I guess all it took was for us to beleive the first one, so he could use fear to make us acquiese and compel others to be compicit in his plan to exploit the province for his politiacal partisan gain.

Here is the truth, follow this link............http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2005/04/20/CampbellMisledPublic/

Be Well...the faerieshaman

Paul Martin's threat to Iran

"....... Yesterday, Prime Minister Paul Martin said the new account means the international community must hold Iran to account for the death, and he suggested new legal avenues might be open on the international stage."

By invoking the non-generative "international community" label is, Mr. Martin really saying the United States? Let's hope it isn't a ploy to get Canada mixed up in the machinations of what has become a self-righteous and heavy handed imperialism of the United States administration.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050401.wxkazem2/BNStory/International/

Joining the U.S an Old Idea Made New Again by Canada's fiscal neo-conservatives.

Gordon Campbell may be acting on behalf of those who signed the petition in the 1860s. Now that BC Ferries is run by an American CEO and BCRail is owned by CNRail, which is owned by an American corporation.....let's pause to wonder.....


http://www.collectionscanada.ca/con...h18-2955-e.html

Annexation Movement in British ColumbiaIn the late 1860s, British Columbia was the focus of a pro-American annexation movement. Its supporters were primarily Americans, and immigrants of non-British ethnicity who lived in the colony but had no special ties to the British Crown.
During this period British Columbia was in the middle of a long recession. The union of the Vancouver Island and British Columbia colonies in 1866 had not eased the situation. There were two obvious alternatives: American annexation or union with Canada.

Just how close British Columbia ever came to annexation is uncertain. Nevertheless, the debate was fuelled by two important events in 1867: Canadian Confederation, which took place on July 1, and the American purchase of Alaska.
Some believed that the Americans would attempt to link their territories along the west coast by claiming British Columbia. There were rumors, apparently false, that negotiations to do so were already underway between the Americans and the British.
Newspapers pointed out that the British could have ceded the colony to the United States as payment for the Alabama claim.In 1867, the first annexation petition was circulated in Victoria.It was addressed to the Queen and asked either that the British government assume the colony's expenses and debts, and establish a steamer link between the colony and Britain, or that the colony be permitted to join the United States. It is unknown how many signatures the petition gathered, or if indeed the Queen ever received it. Nevertheless, it caught the attention of Governor Frederick Seymour and the Colonial Office, which resolved to promote union with Canada more vigorously.

In 1869, with the colony's fate still unresolved, a second petition, this one more strongly worded and addressed to the President of the United States, was circulated in Victoria. It was actually circulated twice, gaining just 43 signatures on the first circulation, and another 61 on the second. It was taken to San Francisco by Vincent Collyer, the special Indian Commissioner for Alaska, and presented to President Ulysses S. Grant on December 29, 1869. Although the signatures represented a small fraction of the 5000 people then living in Victoria, the annexation movement gained attention with the petitions, both in British Columbia and abroad. It undoubtedly increased the resolve of those committed to Confederation.

Who Wants to Go to war with Iran? Canada?

The following article should compel us to re-think deep integration with the United States. I think it should not make us fearful, but surely it should make us ponder stronger economic ties with the U.S. Or do you think the brutal rape and murder of Ms. Kazemi, a naturalized Canadian citizen, warrants our military retaliation, I mean we could support the U.S agenda just to make a point!

Or forbid the thought, why did Ms. Kazemi, who knew the nature of the Iranian regime put herself in harms way?


Published on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 by Al Jazeera
Sleepwalking to Disaster in Iran
by Scott Ritter

Late last year, in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, I was contacted by someone close to the Bush administration about the situation in Iraq. There was a growing concern inside the Bush administration, this source said, about the direction the occupation was going. The Bush administration was keen on achieving some semblance of stability in Iraq before June 2005, I was told.

When I asked why that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran, Iraq's neighbour to the east, in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme.

Why June 2005?, I asked. 'The Israelis are concerned that if the Iranians get their nuclear enrichment programme up and running, then there will be no way to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. June 2005 is seen as the decisive date.'

To be clear, the source did not say that President Bush had approved plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, as has been widely reported. The President had reviewed plans being prepared by the Pentagon to have the military capability in place by June 2005 for such an attack, if the President ordered.

But when Secretary of State Condi Rice told America's European allies in February 2005, in response to press reports about a pending June 2005 American attack against Iran, she said that 'the question [of a military strike] is simply not on the agenda at this point -- we have diplomatic means to do this.'

President Bush himself followed up on Rice's statement by stating that 'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.' He quickly added, 'Having said that, all options are on the table.' In short, both the President and the Secretary of State were being honest, and disingenuous, at the same time.

Truth to be told, there is no American military strike on the agenda; that is, until June 2005.
It was curious that no one in the American media took it upon themselves to confront the President or his Secretary of State about the June 2005 date, or for that matter the October 2004 review by the President of military plans to attack Iran in June 2005.

The American media today is sleepwalking towards an American war with Iran with all of the incompetence and lack of integrity that it displayed during a similar path trodden during the buildup to our current war with Iraq.

On the surface, there is nothing extraordinary about the news that the President of the United States would order the Pentagon to be prepared to launch military strikes on Iran in June 2005 . That Iran has been a target of the Bush administration's ideologues is no secret: the President himself placed Iran in the 'axis of evil' back in 2002, and has said that the world would be a better place with the current Iranian government relegated to the trash bin of history.

The Bush administration has also expressed its concern about Iran's nuclear programmes - concerns shared by Israel and the European Union, although to different degrees.

In September 2004, Iran rejected the International Atomic Energy Agency's call for closing down its nuclear fuel production programme (which many in the United States and Israel believe to be linked to a covert nuclear weapons programme).

Iran then test fired a ballistic missile with sufficient range to hit targets in Israel as well as US military installations in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

The Iranian response triggered a serious re-examination of policy by both Israel and the United States.

The Israeli policy review was driven in part by the Iranian actions, and in part by Israel's own intelligence assessment regarding the Iranian nuclear programme, made in August 2004 .
This assessment held that Iran was 'less than a year' away from completing its uranium enrichment programme. If Iran was allowed to reach this benchmark, the assessment went on to say, then it had reached the 'point of no return' for a nuclear weapons programme. The date set for this 'point of no return' was June 2005.

Israel's Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, declared that 'under no circumstances would Israel be able to tolerate nuclear weapons in Iranian possession'.

Since October 2003 Israel had a plan in place for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's major nuclear facilities, including the nuclear reactor facility in Busher (scheduled to become active in 2005).
These plans were constantly being updated, something that did not escape the attention of the Bush White House.

The Israeli policy toward Iran, when it comes to stopping the Iranian nuclear programme, has always been for the US to lead the way.

'The way to stop Iran', a senior Israeli official has said, 'is by the leadership of the US, supported by European countries and taking this issue to the UN, and using the diplomatic channel with sanctions as a tool and a very deep inspection regime and full transparency.'

It seems that Tel Aviv and Washington, DC aren't too far removed on their Iranian policy objectives, except that there is always the unspoken 'twist': what if the United States does not fully support European diplomatic initiatives, has no interest in letting IAEA inspections work, and envisions UN sanctions as a permanent means of containment until regime change is accomplished in Tehran, as opposed to a tool designed to compel Iran to cooperate on eliminating its nuclear programme?

Because the fact is, despite recent warm remarks by President Bush and Condi Rice, the US does not fully embrace the EU's Iran diplomacy, viewing it as a programme 'doomed to fail'.
The IAEA has come out with an official report, after extensive inspections of declared Iranian nuclear facilities in November 2004, that says there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme; the Bush administration responded by trying to oust the IAEA's lead inspector, Mohammed al-Baradei.

And the Bush administration's push for UN sanctions shows every intention of making such sanctions deep, painful and long-lasting.

Curiously, the date for the Bush administration's move to call for UN sanctions against Iran is June 2005.

According to a US position paper circulated in Vienna at the end of last month, the US will give the EU-Iran discussions until June 2005 to resolve the Iranian standoff.

'Ultimately only the full cessation and dismantling of Iran's fissile material production efforts can give us any confidence that Iran has abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions,' the US draft position paper said.

Iran has called such thinking 'hallucinations' on the part of the Bush administration.

The American media today is sleepwalking towards an American war with Iran Economic sanctions and military attacks are not one and the same. Unless, of course, the architect of America's Iran policy never intends to give sanctions a chance.

Enter John Bolton, who, as the former US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security for the Bush administration, is responsible for drafting the current US policy towards Iran.

In February 2004, Bolton threw down the gauntlet by stating that Iran had a 'secret nuclear weapons programme' that was unknown to the IAEA. 'There is no doubt that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons production programme', Bolton said, without providing any source to back up his assertions.

This is the same John Bolton who had in the past accused Cuba of having an offensive biological weapons programme, a claim even Bush administration hardliners had to distance themselves from. John Bolton is the Bush official who declared the European Union's engagement with Iran 'doomed to fail'. He is the Bush administration official who led the charge to remove Muhammad al-Baradai from the IAEA. And he is the one who, in drafting the US strategy to get the UN Security Council to impose economic sanctions against Iran, asked the Pentagon to be prepared to launch 'robust' military attacks against Iran should the UN fail to agree on sanctions.

Bolton understands better than most the slim chances any US-brokered sanctions regime against Iran has in getting through the Security Council.

The main obstacle is Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council who not only possesses a veto, but also is Iran's main supporter (and supplier) when it comes to its nuclear power programme.

Since October 2003 Israel had a plan in place for a pre-emptive strike against Iran's major nuclear facilities

John Bolton has made a career out of alienating the Russians. Bolton was one of the key figures who helped negotiate a May 2002 arms reduction treaty signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

This treaty was designed to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both America and Russia by two thirds over a 10 year period.

But that treaty - to Russia's immense displeasure - now appears to have been made mute thanks to a Bolton-inspired legal loophole that the Bush administration had built into the treaty language.

John Bolton knows Russia will not go along with UN sanctions against Iran, which makes the military planning being conducted by the Pentagon all the more relevant.

John Bolton's nomination as the next US Ambassador to the United Nations is as curious as it is worrying. This is the man who, before a panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association in 1994, said 'There is no such thing as the United Nations.' For the United States to submit to the will of the Security Council, Bolton wrote in a 1999 Weekly Standard article, would mean that 'its discretion in using force to advance its national interests is likely to be inhibited in the future.'

But John Bolton doesn't let treaty obligations, such as those incurred by the United States when it signed and ratified the UN Charter, get in the way. 'Treaties are law only for US domestic purposes', he wrote in a 17 November 1997 Wall Street Journal Op Ed. 'In their international operation, treaties are simply political obligations.'

John Bolton believes that Iran should be isolated by United Nations sanctions and, if Iran will not back down from its nuclear programme, confronted with the threat of military action.
And as the Bush administration has noted in the past, particularly in the case of Iraq, such threat must be real and meaningful, and backed by the will and determination to use it.
And the Bush administration's push for UN sanctions shows every intention of making such sanctions deep, painful and long-lasting. John Bolton and others in the Bush administration contend that, despite the lack of proof, Iran's nuclear intentions are obvious.

In response, the IAEA's Muhammad al-Baradai has pointed out the lack of a 'smoking gun' which would prove Iran's involvement in a nuclear weapons programme. 'We are not God', he said. 'We cannot read intentions.'

But, based upon history, precedent, and personalities, the intent of the United States regarding Iran is crystal clear: the Bush administration intends to bomb Iran. Whether this attack takes place in June 2005, when the Pentagon has been instructed to be ready, or at a later date, once all other preparations have been made, is really the only question that remains to be answered.
That, and whether the journalists who populate the mainstream American media will continue to sleepwalk on their way to facilitating yet another disaster in the Middle East.

Scott Ritter former UN Chief Weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998 author of 'Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's Intelligence Conspiracy'.