Support for Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is evaporating with stunning speed. Few want to be associated with a man who has publicly and brazenly lied about past behaviour, engaged in open and obnoxious physical bullying, and now on public television used misogynist and degrading language. His mayoralty is disintegrating in a cloud of scandal and shame. We need to be clear, however, that Rob Ford is more than just one, dysfunctional, white former football coach from Etobicoke. He came to this dance party with many partners. Think back to the 2010 municipal elections, and remember the luminaries and institutions that counselled us to take a chance with Mr. Ford. A partial list would include …
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Friday, 15 November 2013
Monday, 30 April 2012
Alberta election – Party of Big Oil Defeats Party of Big Oil
APRIL 30, 2012 – There was something absolutely wonderful about the failure of Wildrose to win the recent election in Alberta. The party is made up of a gaggle of mostly former conservatives – so extreme in their views that their party earned the nickname “Tea Party North”, and was touted by almost every polling agency to be headed for a convincing majority in the April 23 provincial election. But in the end, the pollsters were completely wrong, Wildrose winning only 17 seats and 34% of the vote (CBC News 2012a).
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Canada’s Liberals train Britain’s Tories – Look out for ‘days of action’
This was drafted in August, 2009, before the 2010 defeat of Britain’s Labour government and the election of the “ConDems.” Given events since, it has some facts that are still relevant in 2011. (Part of a series of articles, “Reflections on 2010”)” • Two former leading Liberal government figures from Canada – former top bureaucrat Jocelyne Bourgon and former cabinet minister Marcel Massé – earlier this summer met with leading British Tories including Philip Hammond, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.[1] If Britain’s Tories intend to follow in the footsteps of Canada’s Liberals, then there is trouble ahead for workers and the poor in Britain.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Coalition gives Harper new life
We now know that there was nothing spontaneous about the coalition gambit initiated by Jack Layton and the NDP in the dying weeks of 2008. Far from the “grass-roots” affair as it was painted by the NDP press room, the coalition idea was nurtured “on secret NDP ‘scenario committees’ during the past three federal campaigns.”[1] The fact that it was a backroom deal has now exploded in Layton’s face.
Had it been driven from the grass-roots, the NDP would have been looking down, responding to its base. But the NDP was doing the opposite. Layton was looking up, to a deal with the Liberals – indistinguishable from the Tories as a corporate-backed party. Part of the deal he had to strike was to put on the shelf both the war on Afghanistan and increasing corporate taxes. This made it impossible for the NDP to appeal to its base – because the base of the party is anti-war and anti-corporate.
But while Layton was looking up and disorganizing his base, Harper was doing the opposite. He knows his base precisely, and in unleashing a vicious Quebec-bashing campaign, he suddenly had an army of reactionaries ready to do battle.
And then Harper found out he didn’t need these bigots. A much bigger wave was coming his way, a wave of revulsion. Ordinary people instinctively dislike secretive backroom deals. The smell of opportunism was all over the coalition, and suddenly, this translated into an evaporation of support for the NDP and the Liberals in English Canada, and a sudden surge in support for the Tories.
Three polls done in the immediate aftermath of the coalition announcement had Harper sitting in majority territory. The Strategic Counsel had the Tories at 45 percent nationally, Ipsos Reid had them at 46 percent, and an Ekos poll gave the Tories a crushing 20 point lead over the Liberals. Just weeks before the Tories had managed to win only 37.6 percent of the vote.[2]
The scary thing is – this surge in the polls was in spite of a collapse for Tory support in Quebec. The Quebec bashing in the first Tory counter-attack had the effect of destroying the Quebec base Harper had been trying to build. According to the Strategic Counsel, while Tory support was down to 18 percent in Quebec, it had soared to 53 percent in the rest of Canada, including 61 percent support in the West, and 50 percent support in the previously Liberal stronghold of Ontario.[3]
These numbers won’t last. Stephen Harper is unlikely to stay at these levels of support for very long. But what this Tory surge exposes very clearly is the folly of the Coalition strategy. A backroom deal with one of Canada’s corporate parties did not build the NDP – it built support for Harper and his Tories.
© 2009 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] “Inside a crisis that shook the nation,” Macleans.ca, December 12, 2008
[2] “Canada’s Harper has crushing poll lead on crisis,” December 5, 2008
[3] Strategic Counsel, “Harper’s Conservatives versus Liberal-NDP Coalition: What is the State of Canadian Public Opinion?”, December 4, 2008
Had it been driven from the grass-roots, the NDP would have been looking down, responding to its base. But the NDP was doing the opposite. Layton was looking up, to a deal with the Liberals – indistinguishable from the Tories as a corporate-backed party. Part of the deal he had to strike was to put on the shelf both the war on Afghanistan and increasing corporate taxes. This made it impossible for the NDP to appeal to its base – because the base of the party is anti-war and anti-corporate.
But while Layton was looking up and disorganizing his base, Harper was doing the opposite. He knows his base precisely, and in unleashing a vicious Quebec-bashing campaign, he suddenly had an army of reactionaries ready to do battle.
And then Harper found out he didn’t need these bigots. A much bigger wave was coming his way, a wave of revulsion. Ordinary people instinctively dislike secretive backroom deals. The smell of opportunism was all over the coalition, and suddenly, this translated into an evaporation of support for the NDP and the Liberals in English Canada, and a sudden surge in support for the Tories.
Three polls done in the immediate aftermath of the coalition announcement had Harper sitting in majority territory. The Strategic Counsel had the Tories at 45 percent nationally, Ipsos Reid had them at 46 percent, and an Ekos poll gave the Tories a crushing 20 point lead over the Liberals. Just weeks before the Tories had managed to win only 37.6 percent of the vote.[2]
The scary thing is – this surge in the polls was in spite of a collapse for Tory support in Quebec. The Quebec bashing in the first Tory counter-attack had the effect of destroying the Quebec base Harper had been trying to build. According to the Strategic Counsel, while Tory support was down to 18 percent in Quebec, it had soared to 53 percent in the rest of Canada, including 61 percent support in the West, and 50 percent support in the previously Liberal stronghold of Ontario.[3]
These numbers won’t last. Stephen Harper is unlikely to stay at these levels of support for very long. But what this Tory surge exposes very clearly is the folly of the Coalition strategy. A backroom deal with one of Canada’s corporate parties did not build the NDP – it built support for Harper and his Tories.
© 2009 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] “Inside a crisis that shook the nation,” Macleans.ca, December 12, 2008
[2] “Canada’s Harper has crushing poll lead on crisis,” December 5, 2008
[3] Strategic Counsel, “Harper’s Conservatives versus Liberal-NDP Coalition: What is the State of Canadian Public Opinion?”, December 4, 2008
Friday, 5 December 2008
Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan
DECEMBER 5, 2008 – (Article 4 of 4) Of all the compromises that might happen to keep a coalition alive, by far the most troubling is the one that is brewing on the war in Afghanistan. As news of the coalition began to surface in the last week of November, The Globe and Mail reported that “a senior NDP official said that no policy issues are considered deal breakers” including that of the war in Afghanistan.[1]
This above all else has to be a “deal breaker.” The NDP has been the one major party that has been committed to ending the war in Afghanistan. As this is being written, news came across the wires that three Canadian soldiers have been killed, taking the military death toll past 100.[2] We don’t know how many Afghanis have been killed in the war – there is no official attempt to keep track.
No compromise is possible on war. You are either for it or against it. The Liberals began this war. The Liberals voted to extend it to 2011. We all know that it is an unwinnable war, fought for corporate profits and geopolitical power, not for democracy and human rights. An anti-war party cannot stay anti-war and enter a cabinet with a pro-war party. Layton and the NDP leadership have to face up to the fact, that were the coalition to take office, the war in Afghanistan would become their war, and the deaths and injuries suffered in that conflict would be their responsibility.
Some will say that were the NDP to insist on this point, then the coalition would not be possible. That is probably true. But a coalition that includes “compromise” on Canada’s military adventure in Afghanistan is not a coalition worth having. Canada is engaged in an imperialist adventure in Central Asia – part of the long slow re-militarization of Canada begun by the Liberals and continuing under the Tories. Opposition to this war is a matter of principle, not one of political expediency. Were Layton and the NDP leadership to compromise on this issue, it would do immeasurable damage to the anti-war movement in Canada – and ultimately to the NDP itself.
There is fear among millions in the face of an unfolding economic crisis. There is anger at the arrogance of a Tory minority that is pushing full steam ahead with neoliberalism at home and militarism abroad.
But it is no solution to replace Harper with a coalition government led by the other party of corporate power and of militarism – the Liberal Party of Canada. All that would be accomplished would be the burying of the independent voice of Canadian labour – the voice of the NDP – behind the pro-corporate voices of Michael Ignatieff and his colleagues.
If the coalition does not take office, we know the way forward. We need to build social movements against war in Afghanistan, against the militarization of Canadian society, against sending off working class men and women to die for corporate profits. We need to build inside the workers’ movements, unions with the muscle to challenge the agenda of the corporations. Don’t bail out the auto companies – nationalize them and convert the jobs to green jobs, building public transit, building the infrastructure of a sustainable green economy. If the coalition does take office – the way forward is exactly the same.
We will be told that raising Afghanistan is divisive. So be it. We will demand that the coalition withdraw the troops immediately, even if that means the Liberals abandoning the coalition and the government falling. The only lasting basis for gains for working people and the poor is in building social movements that do not rely on manoeuvres at the top of the system. The Liberals will say “but we are a party of peace, we didn’t go to war in Iraq.” We will remind them that they were going full speed ahead to war in Iraq in 2003, until 400,000 people took to the streets – including two massive, beautiful demonstrations in Montreal – demanding that Canada stay out of that conflict. The Liberals reluctantly stayed out of the Iraq war because it would have been political suicide for them to join the Coalition of the Killing.
That is the way we will win progress whether it be a Harper government, or a Liberal/NDP government – by mobilizing on the streets and in the workplaces, whether the Prime Minister is Stephen Harper, or Stéphane Dion, or Bob Rae, or Michael Ignatieff.
Previous articles: Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neoliberalism
Are the Liberals an Alternative?
Liberals and Tories – parties of corporate power
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
Publishing History
This article was published as “Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan,” rabble.ca, 6 December.
References
[1] Brian Laghi, Steven Chase and Gloria Galloway and Daniel Lebanc, “Harper buys time, coalition firms up,” The Globe and Mail, November 29, 2008
[2] Graeme Smith, “Canada suffers 100th military casualty of Afghan mission,” The Globe and Mail online, December 5, 2008
This above all else has to be a “deal breaker.” The NDP has been the one major party that has been committed to ending the war in Afghanistan. As this is being written, news came across the wires that three Canadian soldiers have been killed, taking the military death toll past 100.[2] We don’t know how many Afghanis have been killed in the war – there is no official attempt to keep track.
No compromise is possible on war. You are either for it or against it. The Liberals began this war. The Liberals voted to extend it to 2011. We all know that it is an unwinnable war, fought for corporate profits and geopolitical power, not for democracy and human rights. An anti-war party cannot stay anti-war and enter a cabinet with a pro-war party. Layton and the NDP leadership have to face up to the fact, that were the coalition to take office, the war in Afghanistan would become their war, and the deaths and injuries suffered in that conflict would be their responsibility.
Some will say that were the NDP to insist on this point, then the coalition would not be possible. That is probably true. But a coalition that includes “compromise” on Canada’s military adventure in Afghanistan is not a coalition worth having. Canada is engaged in an imperialist adventure in Central Asia – part of the long slow re-militarization of Canada begun by the Liberals and continuing under the Tories. Opposition to this war is a matter of principle, not one of political expediency. Were Layton and the NDP leadership to compromise on this issue, it would do immeasurable damage to the anti-war movement in Canada – and ultimately to the NDP itself.
There is fear among millions in the face of an unfolding economic crisis. There is anger at the arrogance of a Tory minority that is pushing full steam ahead with neoliberalism at home and militarism abroad.
But it is no solution to replace Harper with a coalition government led by the other party of corporate power and of militarism – the Liberal Party of Canada. All that would be accomplished would be the burying of the independent voice of Canadian labour – the voice of the NDP – behind the pro-corporate voices of Michael Ignatieff and his colleagues.
If the coalition does not take office, we know the way forward. We need to build social movements against war in Afghanistan, against the militarization of Canadian society, against sending off working class men and women to die for corporate profits. We need to build inside the workers’ movements, unions with the muscle to challenge the agenda of the corporations. Don’t bail out the auto companies – nationalize them and convert the jobs to green jobs, building public transit, building the infrastructure of a sustainable green economy. If the coalition does take office – the way forward is exactly the same.
We will be told that raising Afghanistan is divisive. So be it. We will demand that the coalition withdraw the troops immediately, even if that means the Liberals abandoning the coalition and the government falling. The only lasting basis for gains for working people and the poor is in building social movements that do not rely on manoeuvres at the top of the system. The Liberals will say “but we are a party of peace, we didn’t go to war in Iraq.” We will remind them that they were going full speed ahead to war in Iraq in 2003, until 400,000 people took to the streets – including two massive, beautiful demonstrations in Montreal – demanding that Canada stay out of that conflict. The Liberals reluctantly stayed out of the Iraq war because it would have been political suicide for them to join the Coalition of the Killing.
That is the way we will win progress whether it be a Harper government, or a Liberal/NDP government – by mobilizing on the streets and in the workplaces, whether the Prime Minister is Stephen Harper, or Stéphane Dion, or Bob Rae, or Michael Ignatieff.
Previous articles: Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neoliberalism
Are the Liberals an Alternative?
Liberals and Tories – parties of corporate power
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
Publishing History
This article was published as “Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan,” rabble.ca, 6 December.
References
[1] Brian Laghi, Steven Chase and Gloria Galloway and Daniel Lebanc, “Harper buys time, coalition firms up,” The Globe and Mail, November 29, 2008
[2] Graeme Smith, “Canada suffers 100th military casualty of Afghan mission,” The Globe and Mail online, December 5, 2008
Liberals and Tories – parties of corporate power
(Article 3 of 4) It is not news to many in the social movements that we have had trouble with both the Tories and the Liberals while in office. Nonetheless, there is considerable enthusiasm for an NDP-Liberal coalition being able to offer real change – change that could not happen under the Harper Tories. But we have to be very sober about what is possible. We cannot judge political parties by their momentary positions, by their style, by their individual leaders. Parties are reflections of class power in a class-divided society – and in Canada, there is no question that the Liberals, like the Tories, are a party of the corporations, a party of the capitalist class.
This used to be quite easy to demonstrate. Until December 31, 2006, political parties could receive open contributions from corporations and unions. This changed with the passing of the “Federal Accountability Act” in 2006, which restricted donations to “citizens and permanent residents of Canada” and expressly forbade “corporations, trade unions and unincorporated associations” from making these donations.[1] This does not mean that corporations and unions do not have parties of their choice – it just makes the links between parties and classes in society more obscure.
But the readily available information we have before the passing of this act makes one thing very clear – there is little difference between the Liberals and the Tories from the standpoint of the boardrooms of Canada’s major corporations. In fact, through much of the last generation, their preferred party has been the Liberals, not the Tory/Reform project of Stephen Harper. The chart here documents this clearly.[2]
While the Tories were in office under Mulroney, they were lavished with funds from Canada’s corporations. But once the Liberals replaced them, corporate funding for the Tories collapsed, and the corporations increased their donations to the Liberals, year after year preferring them to either the Tories or the Reform/Alliance, in some years sending many millions more into the Liberal coffers than into those of Tory/Reform.
We know that the economic crisis is seen differently from Bay Street than from Main Street. We know that the corporations will seek to solve the problems of the economy on the backs of working people. We know that attacks on wages, attacks on union rights, attacks on social services – we know that all of these are being prepared in the corridors of corporate power, their usual arsenal when faced with a crisis of their system.
And we know from the data on this page, and from years of bitter experience, that the Liberal Party of Canada is at its core, a party of these corporations – a party which will bend its effort to rule in the interests of these corporations.
Jack Layton is hoping that the NDP will be able to set the terms of the coalition. There is no chance of this happening. The NDP was committed to funding social programs by rescinding the corporate tax cuts made under Harper’s watch. During the election campaign, this was one of the strongest part of the party’s platform. It wasn’t only Harper who opposed it. Stéphane Dion called it a “job killer.”[3] One of the first casualties of the coalition was this NDP campaign promise. Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said that “corporate tax cuts set to kick in next year would remain in effect as part of a Liberal-NDP coalition government.”[4]
What will it mean for working people of Canada if, in order to get into office, policy after policy from the NDP campaign book has to be sacrificed in order to try and align themselves with Canada’s party of Bay Street?
Previous articles:
Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neo-Liberalism
Are the Liberals an Alternative?
Read next:
Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] Elections Canada, “Backgrounders: New Rules for Federal Political Donations”
[2] Compiled from Elections Canada, “Financial Reports: Registered Party Financial Transactions Returns,” various years
[3] Mike Blanchfield and Juliet O’Neill, “NDP to tax corporations to aid families,” Edmonton Journal, September 29, 2008
[4] David Akin and Paul Vieira, “No rollback on corporate taxes: Liberal’s Brison,” The Financial Post, December 1, 2008
This used to be quite easy to demonstrate. Until December 31, 2006, political parties could receive open contributions from corporations and unions. This changed with the passing of the “Federal Accountability Act” in 2006, which restricted donations to “citizens and permanent residents of Canada” and expressly forbade “corporations, trade unions and unincorporated associations” from making these donations.[1] This does not mean that corporations and unions do not have parties of their choice – it just makes the links between parties and classes in society more obscure.
But the readily available information we have before the passing of this act makes one thing very clear – there is little difference between the Liberals and the Tories from the standpoint of the boardrooms of Canada’s major corporations. In fact, through much of the last generation, their preferred party has been the Liberals, not the Tory/Reform project of Stephen Harper. The chart here documents this clearly.[2]While the Tories were in office under Mulroney, they were lavished with funds from Canada’s corporations. But once the Liberals replaced them, corporate funding for the Tories collapsed, and the corporations increased their donations to the Liberals, year after year preferring them to either the Tories or the Reform/Alliance, in some years sending many millions more into the Liberal coffers than into those of Tory/Reform.
We know that the economic crisis is seen differently from Bay Street than from Main Street. We know that the corporations will seek to solve the problems of the economy on the backs of working people. We know that attacks on wages, attacks on union rights, attacks on social services – we know that all of these are being prepared in the corridors of corporate power, their usual arsenal when faced with a crisis of their system.
And we know from the data on this page, and from years of bitter experience, that the Liberal Party of Canada is at its core, a party of these corporations – a party which will bend its effort to rule in the interests of these corporations.
Jack Layton is hoping that the NDP will be able to set the terms of the coalition. There is no chance of this happening. The NDP was committed to funding social programs by rescinding the corporate tax cuts made under Harper’s watch. During the election campaign, this was one of the strongest part of the party’s platform. It wasn’t only Harper who opposed it. Stéphane Dion called it a “job killer.”[3] One of the first casualties of the coalition was this NDP campaign promise. Liberal finance critic Scott Brison said that “corporate tax cuts set to kick in next year would remain in effect as part of a Liberal-NDP coalition government.”[4]
What will it mean for working people of Canada if, in order to get into office, policy after policy from the NDP campaign book has to be sacrificed in order to try and align themselves with Canada’s party of Bay Street?
Previous articles:
Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neo-Liberalism
Are the Liberals an Alternative?
Read next:
Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] Elections Canada, “Backgrounders: New Rules for Federal Political Donations”
[2] Compiled from Elections Canada, “Financial Reports: Registered Party Financial Transactions Returns,” various years
[3] Mike Blanchfield and Juliet O’Neill, “NDP to tax corporations to aid families,” Edmonton Journal, September 29, 2008
[4] David Akin and Paul Vieira, “No rollback on corporate taxes: Liberal’s Brison,” The Financial Post, December 1, 2008
Are the Liberals an Alternative?
(Article 2 of 4) Harper and the Tories are unfit to govern, and should be shown the door. Unfortunately, the alternative we were offered December 3, after Harper’s broadcast to the nation, was not very promising. The Liberal-NDP coalition would be headed by outgoing Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. Along with Harper, Dion was offered ten minutes of air time on national television to present his position. In a strange piece of melodrama, Dion’s tape was delivered late – so late, that it only appeared on CBC, and was not aired by CTV.
For those who saw the video, the effect was depressing. The message Dion put forward was confusing and hesitant (as well as looking as if it had been produced by a webcam). Many who watched it and had supported the Liberal-NDP coalition, had second thoughts after seeing his performance.
Dion is a lame-duck leader of a Liberal Party that was deeply wounded in the last election. The Liberals received their lowest percentage vote ever, getting the backing of just 26% of the electorate.[1] It is only because they are so weakened that they have been forced to turn to the BQ and the NDP for support.
The role of the NDP and the recently ex-NDP is in fact extremely important in this drama. The origins of the coalition idea seems to have come from current NDP leader Jack Layton in consultation with former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Layton – far more popular with the electorate than Dion – is centrally important in giving the coalition credibility. And in the dramatic radio coverage of the decision to prorogue Parliament, the CBC had Ed Broadbent on the phone for the NDP, and for the Liberals – former NDP premier of Ontario Bob Rae, and former NDP premier of B.C. Ujjal Dosanjh, both of whom are now senior members of the Liberal Party of Canada, one of whom (Rae) is a leading candidate to replace Dion.
But make no mistake – if the NDP is central to the formation of the coalition, this will be a Liberal government. The prime minister will be Liberal. The finance minister will be Liberal. Most of the cabinet seats will be Liberal. And these Liberals are a known quantity, a party little different from the Tories in both their fiscal and foreign policies.
Harper is hated because of his neoliberal policies. But the bitter truth is, there is nothing to choose between the Liberals and the Tories in terms of neoliberalism. One way of measuring this is in the support given by the federal government to the provinces. In the Canadian system, it is the provinces that deliver the bulk of Health, Education and Welfare. But given the much greater taxation powers of the central state, they are very dependent on transfer payments from the central state to finance these “social wage” activities. One of the key aspects of neoliberalism is launching an assault on this social wage. The chart on this page shows the record here for both the Liberals and the Tories.[2]
The neoliberal era in Canada is usually seen as beginning with the Mulroney Tories in the 1980s. The chart shows that social wage transfers did stagnate through much of the 1980s under Mulroney’s watch. But the years of devastating cuts were 1995 to 1998, years of a Liberal government. The critical moment was the 1996 budget authored by then finance minister Paul Martin, working with then prime minister Jean Chrétien. That is the budget which collapsed long-standing programs for delivering money to the provinces (Established Program Financing and Canada Assistance Plan) into the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Disguised in this bureaucratic shuffle were cuts in billions to the transfers necessary to sustain the social wage – more than $1 billion in the first year, more than $2 billion in the second and almost $3 billion in the third. In Ontario in those years, we could see the open neoliberals – Mike Harris, Jim Flaherty and Tony Clement – launching horrible attacks on hospital and public school funding. But their open neoliberal attacks were made possible by the “silent” neoliberalism of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien. The fact that those transfer payments go up in the last years of the Liberal tenure should give none of us comfort. The first years of the 21st century saw an unprecedented world-wide economic expansion, which filled the federal coffers with billions of tax dollar windfalls. So transfer payments increase in the last years of Chrétien and Martin – but they have also increased in the last two years of the Harper Tories. This is not because either became wedded to protecting Canadian workers – it is because of the economic boom, a boom which has now come shuddering to a halt.
This division of labour between the Tories and the Liberals has long defined Canadian politics. Their policies are virtually indistinguishable – Liberals playing the soft cop as a counterpoint to the Tories’ hard cop. Social policy is not the only place where this is visible. In foreign policy, the Liberals love to portray themselves as the party of Lester Pearson, the party of peacekeeping – contrasting themselves to the hawkish Tories. And in fact, Harper’s Tories have openly relished increasing the militarization of the Canadian state. This year, Harper has boasted about his plans on these lines. In May, the National Post gave a “sneak preview” of the plans.
Over the next 20 years, the Tories want to commit Ottawa to spending $30-billion more on the military. Mr. Harper foresees an expansion of our Forces to 100,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen. Troop strength will include 70,000 regular forces, up from 65,000 today, while the reserves will expand from 24,000 to 30,000. Ageing warships will be replaced, and new transport aircraft and armoured vehicles wibe purchased. New medium-lift helicopters will be bought immediately to ferry our troops over and around roadside bombs and snipers in Afghanistan.[3]
This was confirmed on the evening of Thursday June 19, 2008 – “the night before Parliament adjourns for the summer”[4] – a major document appeared on the National Defence web site, announcing a 20 year, $490-billion “Canada First” Defence Strategy to steadily upgrade Canada’s military capacity over a generation.[5] But the chart here documents that this increase in spending on war did not begin with the Tories – it began with the Liberals.[6] Under Liberal Paul Martin’s watch between 2003 and 2006, military spending increased more than $1 billion, in real terms, every year. Under Harper, those increases actually slowed for two years, before returning to Martin era levels in 2007-08. There is nothing to choose between the Tories and the Liberals in terms of Canadian militarism.
The “Canada First” increase in Canada’s militarism, builds upon a generation of moves by both Tories and Liberals to move away from the peacekeeping moment. In 1991 under the Tories, Canada was a full participant in the first Gulf War. Canada’s 1993 intervention in Somalia looked to the Somalis more like occupation than peacekeeping.[7] In 1999, under the Liberals, Canada was one of the principal contributors to NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. And from 2001 to the present, it has been a central component of the war in Afghanistan. It was not the Tories who sent Canada into this overseas adventure – it was Jean Chrétien, and John Manley, and Paul Martin, and John McCallum, and Stéphane Dion – the very Liberals we are now told are an alternative to the Tories.
The Harper Tories are a threat to peace, a threat to social programs, a threat to the interests of working people in Canada. But the record of the Liberal Party over a generation should make us soberly assess the chances of a coalition – a coalition they dominate – being any better.
Previous article:
Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neoliberalism
Read next:
Liberals and Tories – parties of corporate power
Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] According to Nodice, www.nodice.ca
[2] Department of Finance, Canada, “Fiscal Reference Tables, September 2008: Table 11 – Major transfers to other levels of government,” adjusted into 2008 dollars based on Statistics Canada, Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System (CANSIM) “Table 3260020 – Consumer Price Index, 2005 basket, monthly” accessed December 5, 2008.
[3] “Bolstering our Forces,” National Post, May 14, 2008
[4] David Pugliese, “Parliament in the dark on major weapons purchase,” Canwest News Services, June 19, 2008, accessed June 20, 2008
[5] “Canada First Defence Strategy,” National Defense, Canada, June 18, 2008, accessed June 20, 2008.
[6] Department of Finance, Canada, “Fiscal Reference Tables, September 2008: Table 7 – Budgetary expenses (millions of dollars),” adjusted into 2008 dollars based on Statistics Canada, Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System (CANSIM) “Table 3260020 – Consumer Price Index, 2005 basket, monthly” accessed December 5, 2008
[7] Sherene H. Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004)
For those who saw the video, the effect was depressing. The message Dion put forward was confusing and hesitant (as well as looking as if it had been produced by a webcam). Many who watched it and had supported the Liberal-NDP coalition, had second thoughts after seeing his performance.
Dion is a lame-duck leader of a Liberal Party that was deeply wounded in the last election. The Liberals received their lowest percentage vote ever, getting the backing of just 26% of the electorate.[1] It is only because they are so weakened that they have been forced to turn to the BQ and the NDP for support.
The role of the NDP and the recently ex-NDP is in fact extremely important in this drama. The origins of the coalition idea seems to have come from current NDP leader Jack Layton in consultation with former NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Layton – far more popular with the electorate than Dion – is centrally important in giving the coalition credibility. And in the dramatic radio coverage of the decision to prorogue Parliament, the CBC had Ed Broadbent on the phone for the NDP, and for the Liberals – former NDP premier of Ontario Bob Rae, and former NDP premier of B.C. Ujjal Dosanjh, both of whom are now senior members of the Liberal Party of Canada, one of whom (Rae) is a leading candidate to replace Dion.
But make no mistake – if the NDP is central to the formation of the coalition, this will be a Liberal government. The prime minister will be Liberal. The finance minister will be Liberal. Most of the cabinet seats will be Liberal. And these Liberals are a known quantity, a party little different from the Tories in both their fiscal and foreign policies.
Harper is hated because of his neoliberal policies. But the bitter truth is, there is nothing to choose between the Liberals and the Tories in terms of neoliberalism. One way of measuring this is in the support given by the federal government to the provinces. In the Canadian system, it is the provinces that deliver the bulk of Health, Education and Welfare. But given the much greater taxation powers of the central state, they are very dependent on transfer payments from the central state to finance these “social wage” activities. One of the key aspects of neoliberalism is launching an assault on this social wage. The chart on this page shows the record here for both the Liberals and the Tories.[2]
The neoliberal era in Canada is usually seen as beginning with the Mulroney Tories in the 1980s. The chart shows that social wage transfers did stagnate through much of the 1980s under Mulroney’s watch. But the years of devastating cuts were 1995 to 1998, years of a Liberal government. The critical moment was the 1996 budget authored by then finance minister Paul Martin, working with then prime minister Jean Chrétien. That is the budget which collapsed long-standing programs for delivering money to the provinces (Established Program Financing and Canada Assistance Plan) into the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Disguised in this bureaucratic shuffle were cuts in billions to the transfers necessary to sustain the social wage – more than $1 billion in the first year, more than $2 billion in the second and almost $3 billion in the third. In Ontario in those years, we could see the open neoliberals – Mike Harris, Jim Flaherty and Tony Clement – launching horrible attacks on hospital and public school funding. But their open neoliberal attacks were made possible by the “silent” neoliberalism of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien. The fact that those transfer payments go up in the last years of the Liberal tenure should give none of us comfort. The first years of the 21st century saw an unprecedented world-wide economic expansion, which filled the federal coffers with billions of tax dollar windfalls. So transfer payments increase in the last years of Chrétien and Martin – but they have also increased in the last two years of the Harper Tories. This is not because either became wedded to protecting Canadian workers – it is because of the economic boom, a boom which has now come shuddering to a halt.This division of labour between the Tories and the Liberals has long defined Canadian politics. Their policies are virtually indistinguishable – Liberals playing the soft cop as a counterpoint to the Tories’ hard cop. Social policy is not the only place where this is visible. In foreign policy, the Liberals love to portray themselves as the party of Lester Pearson, the party of peacekeeping – contrasting themselves to the hawkish Tories. And in fact, Harper’s Tories have openly relished increasing the militarization of the Canadian state. This year, Harper has boasted about his plans on these lines. In May, the National Post gave a “sneak preview” of the plans.
Over the next 20 years, the Tories want to commit Ottawa to spending $30-billion more on the military. Mr. Harper foresees an expansion of our Forces to 100,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen. Troop strength will include 70,000 regular forces, up from 65,000 today, while the reserves will expand from 24,000 to 30,000. Ageing warships will be replaced, and new transport aircraft and armoured vehicles wibe purchased. New medium-lift helicopters will be bought immediately to ferry our troops over and around roadside bombs and snipers in Afghanistan.[3]
This was confirmed on the evening of Thursday June 19, 2008 – “the night before Parliament adjourns for the summer”[4] – a major document appeared on the National Defence web site, announcing a 20 year, $490-billion “Canada First” Defence Strategy to steadily upgrade Canada’s military capacity over a generation.[5] But the chart here documents that this increase in spending on war did not begin with the Tories – it began with the Liberals.[6] Under Liberal Paul Martin’s watch between 2003 and 2006, military spending increased more than $1 billion, in real terms, every year. Under Harper, those increases actually slowed for two years, before returning to Martin era levels in 2007-08. There is nothing to choose between the Tories and the Liberals in terms of Canadian militarism.The “Canada First” increase in Canada’s militarism, builds upon a generation of moves by both Tories and Liberals to move away from the peacekeeping moment. In 1991 under the Tories, Canada was a full participant in the first Gulf War. Canada’s 1993 intervention in Somalia looked to the Somalis more like occupation than peacekeeping.[7] In 1999, under the Liberals, Canada was one of the principal contributors to NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. And from 2001 to the present, it has been a central component of the war in Afghanistan. It was not the Tories who sent Canada into this overseas adventure – it was Jean Chrétien, and John Manley, and Paul Martin, and John McCallum, and Stéphane Dion – the very Liberals we are now told are an alternative to the Tories.
The Harper Tories are a threat to peace, a threat to social programs, a threat to the interests of working people in Canada. But the record of the Liberal Party over a generation should make us soberly assess the chances of a coalition – a coalition they dominate – being any better.
Previous article:
Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neoliberalism
Read next:
Liberals and Tories – parties of corporate power
Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] According to Nodice, www.nodice.ca
[2] Department of Finance, Canada, “Fiscal Reference Tables, September 2008: Table 11 – Major transfers to other levels of government,” adjusted into 2008 dollars based on Statistics Canada, Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System (CANSIM) “Table 3260020 – Consumer Price Index, 2005 basket, monthly” accessed December 5, 2008.
[3] “Bolstering our Forces,” National Post, May 14, 2008
[4] David Pugliese, “Parliament in the dark on major weapons purchase,” Canwest News Services, June 19, 2008, accessed June 20, 2008
[5] “Canada First Defence Strategy,” National Defense, Canada, June 18, 2008, accessed June 20, 2008.
[6] Department of Finance, Canada, “Fiscal Reference Tables, September 2008: Table 7 – Budgetary expenses (millions of dollars),” adjusted into 2008 dollars based on Statistics Canada, Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System (CANSIM) “Table 3260020 – Consumer Price Index, 2005 basket, monthly” accessed December 5, 2008
[7] Sherene H. Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004)
Harper’s Tories: Attacking Quebec to Save Neoliberalism
(Article 1 of 4) Stephen Harper won a seven week reprieve December 4, the Governor-General granting his request to prorogue Parliament until January 26. But the events of the past week have pushed him into a corner and he is fighting for his political life. The fight has revealed something many people already knew. Behind the fuzzy sweater donned during the last election, behind the “fireside chat” chumminess that he was trying to cultivate, behind this façade of polite civilized behaviour, there resides the same man who was cadre for the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance. That political formation built itself on a combination of polarizing attacks on Quebec and neoliberal dogmatism. Harper in a corner, with his fangs bared, has showed himself not to have changed one iota.
The anti-Quebec politics he has unleashed are appalling. In Question Period December 3, Tory member after Tory member repeated the same two words over and over again – “separatist coalition” – 36 times to be exact, if the official record is to be believed.[1] Harper used the same language in his address to the nation December 3, saying that a time of crisis is “no time for backroom deals with the separatists.”[2] At various times, Tories were using the words “treason,” ” and “deal with the devil” as they carried their polemic against the proposed coalition.[3] This was clearly a planned, coordinated strategy, the most blatantly open anti-Quebec politics to come from the federal stage in years.
Just a few months ago, Harper was trying to woo the voters of Quebec, hoping to re-create the Brian Mulroney coalition of the 1980s. He had surprisingly supported the idea of calling Quebec a nation – something that angered many of his old Reform Party comrades. But pushed into a corner, he needs to rally his base – and nothing energizes the old Reform Party more than attacks on Quebec.
“In the space of just a few days” said one commentator, “the phobia of ‘separatists’ has reappeared in Ottawa and in English Canada, with a force we haven’t seen in years, since the referendum in 1995, since the Meech Lake controversy.”[4] It has become legitimate again to speak about Quebec with outright hostility and bigotry, made legitimate by the irresponsible rants of Harper and the Tory caucus.
Harper is aware just how inflammatory is his language. In the French version of his address to the nation, he translated the loaded word “separatist” into the much less value-laden “souverainiste”.[5] But this transparent ruse is unlikely to fool the people of Quebec, who are rightly recoiling in shock at the display of venom coming from Harper and his followers. As one radio commentator put it, the price for Harper rallying the troops to his anti-Quebec flag, was to put “scorched earth” between the Tories and what had been their developing base in Quebec.
Harper’s target is the Bloc Québécois (BQ), which has indicated it would support the proposed coalition between the Liberals and the NDP. Harper’s attack is ridiculous. First, the BQ is not part of the coalition – it has only indicated that it will give the coalition 18 months to govern. Second, this is not unusual. The BQ was, after all, central to keeping Stephen Harper’s last minority government alive in its early months. And these parliamentary details are beside the point. The Tories are focussing on the fact that the BQ supports sovereignty. That is their right. They are also the party supported by 1.3 million Quebeckers in the last election. The BQ is a legitimate part of the political spectrum in Canada. It has a long record of operating in the House of Commons – including being the official opposition in 1993, a party which has “contributed to debates outside matters of Quebec’s status and powers, on everything from climate change and Afghanistan to efforts to repatriate Omar Khadr” as even the editorial writers for The Globe and Mail have to admit.[6]
But Harper is teetering on the edge of losing his office, and will use every weapon at his disposal to say in office – even if that means fanning the flames of anti-Quebec bigotry. What brought Harper to this impasse was his stubborn commitment to neo-liberal orthodoxy, even in the face of the economic storm sweeping the world economy. In country after country, governments have turned their back on the neoliberal allergy to the state – and begun the process of rediscovering Keynesianism and state intervention – indispensable in the face of the horrors of the unfettered free market. But Harper and his finance minister Jim Flaherty – the latter trained in the neo-liberal era of Ontario’s Mike Harris – had delivered an economic update that instead of stimulating the economy, would have further depressed it. They are dogmatic neoliberal ideologues, very reluctant to abandon the old, failed orthodoxy.
Flaherty has been trying to argue that he has already stimulated the economy through previously announced tax cuts. The Department of Finance depends on four firms to help with the preparation of budget documents. One of these is the Centre for Spatial Economics. Flaherty’s view “is a fantasy” according to the Centre’s Robert Fairholm, quoted in The Globe and Mail. “Most of the short-term stimulus from these measures have already boosted economic activity, and so will not continue to provide [a] short-term jolt to growth.” The tax cuts coming January, 2009 put $2.5 billion into the economy. But the update was going to cut $4.3 billion, “so the net effect is contractive, Mr. Fairholm explained.” In fact, instead of stimulating the economy, Fairholm estimates that the impact of Flaherty’s “update” would be to turn a 0.3 per cent annual growth rate to a decline of 0.1 per cent.[7]
Harper has revealed his colours – first as a neo-liberal dinosaur who has no understanding of how to respond to the economic crisis, second as a politician willing to go to any lengths – including irresponsibly provoking an anti-Quebec backlash in English Canada – to consolidate his base and keep his job. No wonder that his actions have disgusted thousands, and that the three other parties in the House of Commons are trying to push him out.
The anti-Quebec politics he has unleashed are appalling. In Question Period December 3, Tory member after Tory member repeated the same two words over and over again – “separatist coalition” – 36 times to be exact, if the official record is to be believed.[1] Harper used the same language in his address to the nation December 3, saying that a time of crisis is “no time for backroom deals with the separatists.”[2] At various times, Tories were using the words “treason,” ” and “deal with the devil” as they carried their polemic against the proposed coalition.[3] This was clearly a planned, coordinated strategy, the most blatantly open anti-Quebec politics to come from the federal stage in years.
Just a few months ago, Harper was trying to woo the voters of Quebec, hoping to re-create the Brian Mulroney coalition of the 1980s. He had surprisingly supported the idea of calling Quebec a nation – something that angered many of his old Reform Party comrades. But pushed into a corner, he needs to rally his base – and nothing energizes the old Reform Party more than attacks on Quebec.
“In the space of just a few days” said one commentator, “the phobia of ‘separatists’ has reappeared in Ottawa and in English Canada, with a force we haven’t seen in years, since the referendum in 1995, since the Meech Lake controversy.”[4] It has become legitimate again to speak about Quebec with outright hostility and bigotry, made legitimate by the irresponsible rants of Harper and the Tory caucus.
Harper is aware just how inflammatory is his language. In the French version of his address to the nation, he translated the loaded word “separatist” into the much less value-laden “souverainiste”.[5] But this transparent ruse is unlikely to fool the people of Quebec, who are rightly recoiling in shock at the display of venom coming from Harper and his followers. As one radio commentator put it, the price for Harper rallying the troops to his anti-Quebec flag, was to put “scorched earth” between the Tories and what had been their developing base in Quebec.
Harper’s target is the Bloc Québécois (BQ), which has indicated it would support the proposed coalition between the Liberals and the NDP. Harper’s attack is ridiculous. First, the BQ is not part of the coalition – it has only indicated that it will give the coalition 18 months to govern. Second, this is not unusual. The BQ was, after all, central to keeping Stephen Harper’s last minority government alive in its early months. And these parliamentary details are beside the point. The Tories are focussing on the fact that the BQ supports sovereignty. That is their right. They are also the party supported by 1.3 million Quebeckers in the last election. The BQ is a legitimate part of the political spectrum in Canada. It has a long record of operating in the House of Commons – including being the official opposition in 1993, a party which has “contributed to debates outside matters of Quebec’s status and powers, on everything from climate change and Afghanistan to efforts to repatriate Omar Khadr” as even the editorial writers for The Globe and Mail have to admit.[6]
But Harper is teetering on the edge of losing his office, and will use every weapon at his disposal to say in office – even if that means fanning the flames of anti-Quebec bigotry. What brought Harper to this impasse was his stubborn commitment to neo-liberal orthodoxy, even in the face of the economic storm sweeping the world economy. In country after country, governments have turned their back on the neoliberal allergy to the state – and begun the process of rediscovering Keynesianism and state intervention – indispensable in the face of the horrors of the unfettered free market. But Harper and his finance minister Jim Flaherty – the latter trained in the neo-liberal era of Ontario’s Mike Harris – had delivered an economic update that instead of stimulating the economy, would have further depressed it. They are dogmatic neoliberal ideologues, very reluctant to abandon the old, failed orthodoxy.
Flaherty has been trying to argue that he has already stimulated the economy through previously announced tax cuts. The Department of Finance depends on four firms to help with the preparation of budget documents. One of these is the Centre for Spatial Economics. Flaherty’s view “is a fantasy” according to the Centre’s Robert Fairholm, quoted in The Globe and Mail. “Most of the short-term stimulus from these measures have already boosted economic activity, and so will not continue to provide [a] short-term jolt to growth.” The tax cuts coming January, 2009 put $2.5 billion into the economy. But the update was going to cut $4.3 billion, “so the net effect is contractive, Mr. Fairholm explained.” In fact, instead of stimulating the economy, Fairholm estimates that the impact of Flaherty’s “update” would be to turn a 0.3 per cent annual growth rate to a decline of 0.1 per cent.[7]
Harper has revealed his colours – first as a neo-liberal dinosaur who has no understanding of how to respond to the economic crisis, second as a politician willing to go to any lengths – including irresponsibly provoking an anti-Quebec backlash in English Canada – to consolidate his base and keep his job. No wonder that his actions have disgusted thousands, and that the three other parties in the House of Commons are trying to push him out.
Read next:
Harper out of Ottawa, Canada out of Afghanistan
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] “40th Parliament, 1st Session: Edited Hansard: Number 012,” Wednesday, December 3, 2008, www.parl.gc.ca
[2] “Full text of Harper’s televised address,” www.thestar.com, December 3, 2008
[3] “Fanning anger toward Quebec,” The Globe and Mail, December 4, 2008, www.theglobeandmail.com
[4] Translated from Vincent Marissal, “Situation désespérée, stratégie du désespoir,” La Presse, 04 décembre, 2008, www.cyberpresse.ca
[5] Graeme Hamilton, “Old bogeyman usurps real crisis,” National Post, December 4, 2008, www.nationalpost.com
[6] “Fanning anger toward Quebec,” The Globe and Mail, December 4, 2008, p. A22.
[7] Cited in Heather Scofield, “Flaherty’s plan prolongs the pain, forecaster says,” The Globe and Mail, December 4, 2008, p. A4.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] “40th Parliament, 1st Session: Edited Hansard: Number 012,” Wednesday, December 3, 2008, www.parl.gc.ca
[2] “Full text of Harper’s televised address,” www.thestar.com, December 3, 2008
[3] “Fanning anger toward Quebec,” The Globe and Mail, December 4, 2008, www.theglobeandmail.com
[4] Translated from Vincent Marissal, “Situation désespérée, stratégie du désespoir,” La Presse, 04 décembre, 2008, www.cyberpresse.ca
[5] Graeme Hamilton, “Old bogeyman usurps real crisis,” National Post, December 4, 2008, www.nationalpost.com
[6] “Fanning anger toward Quebec,” The Globe and Mail, December 4, 2008, p. A22.
[7] Cited in Heather Scofield, “Flaherty’s plan prolongs the pain, forecaster says,” The Globe and Mail, December 4, 2008, p. A4.
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
War Free Schools
Here’s a nice thought for public education – let’s put automatic weapons into children’s hands, and let’s show them how to use them. Even better – let’s pay them $600 a week for the training. Sounds a bit wrong? Well, since 2006 it’s been the policy of the Toronto District Public School Board.[1] One other point – the students actually get credit for this, their placement with the military being done through the Army Reserve Cooperative Education Program.
A similar program existed in the 1990s, but was terminated in 2002. In this earlier program, when placed with the military as part of their “experiential” learning, students were not paid, as is the case with every other placement. In 2002, the Canadian Armed Forces terminated the program “since the army reserve in June 2002 determined that first they must pay students and second that they could not afford to pay.”[2]
But in 2005, talks opened up between the School Board and the Army Reserve leading to a revival of the program – this time with the students – who “actually become members of the Canadian Forces Primary Reserve” – being paid a salary equivalent to about $600 per week. In 2005-2006 there were 14 Toronto school children taking part in this program – one just 16 years old, three others just 17 – along with 104 others from “boards such as York Region, Peel, and Toronto Catholic School Boards.”[3]
This is being sold as a way of building character. “The military is great for time-management skills” said Martin Boreczek a corporal in the Reserve now attending York University. “A lot of things need to get done on time, which is something procrastinating university students could learn and apply.” But the real reason has more to do with war than study skills. Boreczek, for instance, was a soldier in Afghanistan from 2004-2005.[4] It is the needs of the war machine – now committed to fighting in that country until 2011 – which is behind the intrusion of war-making into the school system.
In response, Educators for Peace and Justice (EPJ) have launched a “War Free Schools” campaign. A fund-raiser to launch the campaign was held June 19 in the East End of Toronto. Teachers and students from high schools and universities listened to a presentation from Dylan Penner of Operation Objection, who made the case for getting the military out of our classrooms. Playing in the background were images from the War Free Schools Organizing Kit – a Backgrounder and a Handbook available from their web site, www.operationobjection.org.
Canada has a reputation as being a peacekeeper, but it is clear that this peacekeeping moment is now over. In 1991, Canada was a full participant in the first Gulf War. Its 1993 intervention in Somalia looked to the Somalis more like occupation than peacekeeping.[5] In 1999 it was one of the principal contributors to NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. And from 2001 to the present, it has been a central component of the war in Afghanistan. This has been accompanied by initiatives from both Liberal and Conservative governments to increase spending on the military. Most recently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government announced a plan for a significant expansion of Canada’s military. In May, the National Post gave a “sneak preview” of the plans.
Over the next 20 years, the Tories want to commit Ottawa to spending $30-billion more on the military. Mr. Harper foresees an expansion of our Forces to 100,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen. Troop strength will include 70,000 regular forces, up from 65,000 today, while the reserves will expand from 24,000 to 30,000. Ageing warships will be replaced, and new transport aircraft and armoured vehicles will be purchased. New medium-lift helicopters will be bought immediately to ferry our troops over and around roadside bombs and snipers in Afghanistan.[6]
This was confirmed while the fund-raiser was in progress. On the evening of Thursday June 19, 2008 – “the night before Parliament adjourns for the summer”[7] – a major document appeared on the National Defence web site, announcing a 20 year, $490-billion “Canada First” Defence Strategy to steadily upgrade Canada’s military capacity over a generation.[8]
This is being accompanied by a serious intensification to recruit young people into the Canadian military. In February 2006, then Chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hiller, launched “Operation Connection” whose goal was to enlist all the uniformed personnel of the Canadian Armed Forces into the recruitment effort, saying: “I expect every sailor, soldier, airman and airwoman to recognize their role as a potential CF recruiter, effectively spreading the load from the shoulders of recruiting centre personnel to the shoulders of all Regular and Reserve personnel.” The effect would be to enlist 85,000 uniformed personnel as active recruiters to the armed forces.[9]
This pressure to pull young people into the service of Canada’s wars abroad is not going to end anytime soon. Building a movement to get the troops out of Afghanistan, is going to require building a movement to get the military out of our schools. No blood for oil, no youth for the killing fields.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] “Briefing Note: Cooperative Education and the Canadian Armed Forces,” Toronto District School Board, June 5, 2006
[2] “Briefing Note”
[3] “Briefing Note”
[4] “Military co-op opens door to a career,” ylife: York’s Weekly Newsletter for Students, October 2, 2006
[5] Sherene H. Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004)
[6] “Bolstering our Forces,” National Post, May 14, 2008
[7] David Pugliese, “Parliament in the dark on major weapons purchase,” Canwest News Services, June 19, 2008
[8] “Canada First Defence Strategy,” National Defense, Canada, June 18, 2008
[9] “Op CONNECTION: Reaching out and touching Canadians,” National Defense, Canada March 9, 2006. For the response of the anti-war movement, see Dylan Penner, ed., War Free Schools: The Rise of the Counter-Recruitment Movement (Toronto: Act for the Earth, 2006)
A similar program existed in the 1990s, but was terminated in 2002. In this earlier program, when placed with the military as part of their “experiential” learning, students were not paid, as is the case with every other placement. In 2002, the Canadian Armed Forces terminated the program “since the army reserve in June 2002 determined that first they must pay students and second that they could not afford to pay.”[2]
But in 2005, talks opened up between the School Board and the Army Reserve leading to a revival of the program – this time with the students – who “actually become members of the Canadian Forces Primary Reserve” – being paid a salary equivalent to about $600 per week. In 2005-2006 there were 14 Toronto school children taking part in this program – one just 16 years old, three others just 17 – along with 104 others from “boards such as York Region, Peel, and Toronto Catholic School Boards.”[3]
This is being sold as a way of building character. “The military is great for time-management skills” said Martin Boreczek a corporal in the Reserve now attending York University. “A lot of things need to get done on time, which is something procrastinating university students could learn and apply.” But the real reason has more to do with war than study skills. Boreczek, for instance, was a soldier in Afghanistan from 2004-2005.[4] It is the needs of the war machine – now committed to fighting in that country until 2011 – which is behind the intrusion of war-making into the school system.
In response, Educators for Peace and Justice (EPJ) have launched a “War Free Schools” campaign. A fund-raiser to launch the campaign was held June 19 in the East End of Toronto. Teachers and students from high schools and universities listened to a presentation from Dylan Penner of Operation Objection, who made the case for getting the military out of our classrooms. Playing in the background were images from the War Free Schools Organizing Kit – a Backgrounder and a Handbook available from their web site, www.operationobjection.org.
Canada has a reputation as being a peacekeeper, but it is clear that this peacekeeping moment is now over. In 1991, Canada was a full participant in the first Gulf War. Its 1993 intervention in Somalia looked to the Somalis more like occupation than peacekeeping.[5] In 1999 it was one of the principal contributors to NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. And from 2001 to the present, it has been a central component of the war in Afghanistan. This has been accompanied by initiatives from both Liberal and Conservative governments to increase spending on the military. Most recently, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government announced a plan for a significant expansion of Canada’s military. In May, the National Post gave a “sneak preview” of the plans.
Over the next 20 years, the Tories want to commit Ottawa to spending $30-billion more on the military. Mr. Harper foresees an expansion of our Forces to 100,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen. Troop strength will include 70,000 regular forces, up from 65,000 today, while the reserves will expand from 24,000 to 30,000. Ageing warships will be replaced, and new transport aircraft and armoured vehicles will be purchased. New medium-lift helicopters will be bought immediately to ferry our troops over and around roadside bombs and snipers in Afghanistan.[6]
This was confirmed while the fund-raiser was in progress. On the evening of Thursday June 19, 2008 – “the night before Parliament adjourns for the summer”[7] – a major document appeared on the National Defence web site, announcing a 20 year, $490-billion “Canada First” Defence Strategy to steadily upgrade Canada’s military capacity over a generation.[8]
This is being accompanied by a serious intensification to recruit young people into the Canadian military. In February 2006, then Chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hiller, launched “Operation Connection” whose goal was to enlist all the uniformed personnel of the Canadian Armed Forces into the recruitment effort, saying: “I expect every sailor, soldier, airman and airwoman to recognize their role as a potential CF recruiter, effectively spreading the load from the shoulders of recruiting centre personnel to the shoulders of all Regular and Reserve personnel.” The effect would be to enlist 85,000 uniformed personnel as active recruiters to the armed forces.[9]
This pressure to pull young people into the service of Canada’s wars abroad is not going to end anytime soon. Building a movement to get the troops out of Afghanistan, is going to require building a movement to get the military out of our schools. No blood for oil, no youth for the killing fields.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] “Briefing Note: Cooperative Education and the Canadian Armed Forces,” Toronto District School Board, June 5, 2006
[2] “Briefing Note”
[3] “Briefing Note”
[4] “Military co-op opens door to a career,” ylife: York’s Weekly Newsletter for Students, October 2, 2006
[5] Sherene H. Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004)
[6] “Bolstering our Forces,” National Post, May 14, 2008
[7] David Pugliese, “Parliament in the dark on major weapons purchase,” Canwest News Services, June 19, 2008
[8] “Canada First Defence Strategy,” National Defense, Canada, June 18, 2008
[9] “Op CONNECTION: Reaching out and touching Canadians,” National Defense, Canada March 9, 2006. For the response of the anti-war movement, see Dylan Penner, ed., War Free Schools: The Rise of the Counter-Recruitment Movement (Toronto: Act for the Earth, 2006)
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Harper’s Afghanistan solution – send in the killers
Do a google search for “24th Marine Expeditionary Unit” and “John Moore”. The first search result provides a picture that says, more than any article, what the real implications of the Tories’ war plans will be in Afghanistan. The picture shows five members of the marines, heads shaven, three of them chomping on cigars, coming off the plane at Kandahar airfield.[1] This should send shivers down the spine of all of us. When the marines go in, the killing starts. But getting the marines into Kandahar is the price Harper (backed by Dion) accepted in exchange for prolonging the war to 2011.
The Harper/Dion deal to extend the war to 2011, was based on the “demand” that NATO allies help out the Canadian war eHarper’s Afghanistan solution – send in the killers
The Harper/Dion deal to extend the war to 2011, was based on the “demand” that NATO allies help out the Canadian war effort, providing at least 1,000 new troops to the dangerous southern region around Kandahar. But there is little taste for taking casualties among many of the European NATO countries. Anti-war sentiment directed at the Iraq war kept many countries in Europe out of that war (France and Germany being the most prominent), and led to huge protests in others – Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom seeing hundreds of thousands on the streets. That anti-war sentiment has not yet focused on Afghanistan, but only because that war has yet to see thousands of coalition casualties.
So, the NATO deal to “help” Canada, does not involve any new countries putting soldiers into combat zones. France has agreed to deploy a battalion (about 700 or 800 soldiers) into eastern Afghanistan, freeing up the U.S. to send 1,000 troops to the danger zone in Kandahar.[2] There is no excuse for any illusions about what this means.
Let’s have former marines tell us about their history of intervention. William Crandell served with the U.S. 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. “We went to preserve the peace and our testimony will show that we have set all of Indochina aflame. We went to defend the Vietnamese people and our testimony will show that we are committing genocide against them. We went to fight for freedom and our testimony will show that we have turned Vietnam into a series of concentration camps.”[3] Crandell gave this testimony during the Winter Soldier Hearings in Detroit in 1971, sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, to expose war crimes in Vietnam.
21st century U.S. soldiers know very well that this is not just a history lesson. Because of the barbarism of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. based Iraq Veterans Against the War organized “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan” to document the horrors committed in those “theatres.”[4] Because of modern technology we have the “privilege” of witnessing some of this barbarism in a way that was impossible for the Vietnam generation. Web sites like “Democracy Now” have done a brilliant job of making this available to the world.[5]
Harper and Dion are making Canada complicit in this history of U.S. military intervention and barbarism.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] John Moore, “Marines Land,” Getty Images, in SignonSanDiego.com, Mar. 11, 2008, http://photos.signonsandiego.com
[2] CTV.ca News Staff, “NATO agrees to send 1,000 more troops to Kandahar,” Apr. 2, 2008, www.ctv.ca
[3] William Crandell, “Opening Statement,” Winter Soldier Investigation, Vietnam Veterans Against the War Inc., January 31, February 1 and 2, 1971
[4] Iraq Veterans Against the War, “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan”, www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier
[5] Amy Goodman, “Haditha Massacre: Was it an Isolated Event and Did the Military Try to Cover it Up?”, May 30, 2006, www.democracynow.org
The Harper/Dion deal to extend the war to 2011, was based on the “demand” that NATO allies help out the Canadian war eHarper’s Afghanistan solution – send in the killers
The Harper/Dion deal to extend the war to 2011, was based on the “demand” that NATO allies help out the Canadian war effort, providing at least 1,000 new troops to the dangerous southern region around Kandahar. But there is little taste for taking casualties among many of the European NATO countries. Anti-war sentiment directed at the Iraq war kept many countries in Europe out of that war (France and Germany being the most prominent), and led to huge protests in others – Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom seeing hundreds of thousands on the streets. That anti-war sentiment has not yet focused on Afghanistan, but only because that war has yet to see thousands of coalition casualties.
So, the NATO deal to “help” Canada, does not involve any new countries putting soldiers into combat zones. France has agreed to deploy a battalion (about 700 or 800 soldiers) into eastern Afghanistan, freeing up the U.S. to send 1,000 troops to the danger zone in Kandahar.[2] There is no excuse for any illusions about what this means.
Let’s have former marines tell us about their history of intervention. William Crandell served with the U.S. 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. “We went to preserve the peace and our testimony will show that we have set all of Indochina aflame. We went to defend the Vietnamese people and our testimony will show that we are committing genocide against them. We went to fight for freedom and our testimony will show that we have turned Vietnam into a series of concentration camps.”[3] Crandell gave this testimony during the Winter Soldier Hearings in Detroit in 1971, sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, to expose war crimes in Vietnam.
21st century U.S. soldiers know very well that this is not just a history lesson. Because of the barbarism of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. based Iraq Veterans Against the War organized “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan” to document the horrors committed in those “theatres.”[4] Because of modern technology we have the “privilege” of witnessing some of this barbarism in a way that was impossible for the Vietnam generation. Web sites like “Democracy Now” have done a brilliant job of making this available to the world.[5]
Harper and Dion are making Canada complicit in this history of U.S. military intervention and barbarism.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] John Moore, “Marines Land,” Getty Images, in SignonSanDiego.com, Mar. 11, 2008, http://photos.signonsandiego.com
[2] CTV.ca News Staff, “NATO agrees to send 1,000 more troops to Kandahar,” Apr. 2, 2008, www.ctv.ca
[3] William Crandell, “Opening Statement,” Winter Soldier Investigation, Vietnam Veterans Against the War Inc., January 31, February 1 and 2, 1971
[4] Iraq Veterans Against the War, “Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan”, www.ivaw.org/wintersoldier
[5] Amy Goodman, “Haditha Massacre: Was it an Isolated Event and Did the Military Try to Cover it Up?”, May 30, 2006, www.democracynow.org
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Putin, Chechnya and imperialism
The Mulroney-Schreiber affair has brought the little Central Asian country of Chechnya back into the headlines. Mulroney’s very bizarre defence for acting as Schreiber’s paid salesman, includes a reference to peddling military vehicles to Russia for use in “peacekeeping” in Chechnya. In this context, it is useful to look in some detail at the situation in Chechnya. The article posted here, makes the case that Russia’s oppression of Chechnya is a classic example of Great Power Imperialism. There is nothing remotely resembling “peacekeeping” in its actions there.
This article (slightly revised with updated references) was originally written in February 2000. It is of course marked by its context. Eight years ago, Russia was only two years removed from the catastrophic winter of 1998 where some pensioners were literally dying of starvation.[1] We could not know at the time that eight years later, Russia would be at the centre of the “BRIC” (Brazil, Russia, India China) resurgence of economies in the Global South. But given these limitations, it still is useful as a documentation of the imperialist nature of Russia’s relationship to Chechnya.
The butcher of Chechnya[2]
FEBRUARY 2000 – Vladimir Putin is the butcher of Chechnya. There is really no other title that so captures the essence of the new president of Russia. When former president Boris Yeltsin elevated Putin to the prime minister’s office in August 1999, he was a complete unknown with virtually no public recognition or support.
He changed that by presiding over a racist campaign against the Chechen minority in Russia, accusing them of instigating the terrorist bombings that had killed upwards of 300 Russian civilians.[3] Putin’s campaign of racist scapegoating was followed by an artillery and air assault on the small republic of Chechnya and then, in the fall of 1999, an all out invasion of the republic with a massive army of 100,000.[4]
The butchery of this war is his one and only political act to date. The racist patriotism he whipped up in the course of that war is what allowed his Unity Party to go from obscurity to capturing close to 25 per cent support in the December elections.[5] This support was sufficient to allow Yeltsin to resign and elevate Putin from the prime minister’s office, to the much more powerful presidential suite, on New Year’s Eve, 1999.
The very purpose of the war was to elevate Putin to power. In the summer of 1999, the Kremlin rulers looked to be in deep trouble. Yeltsin was thoroughly discredited, and there was no candidate on the horizon, trusted by the billionaire oligarchs who control the economy, in a position to take his place. But war-frenzy has diverted the attention of millions from the everyday despair of their lives. And Putin has ridden that frenzy to power.
Yeltsin, from 1994 to 1996, had presided over an appalling war against Chechnya where that country was “reduced to a wasteland” with “100,000 people killed.” In spite of this barbarism “Russia failed to impose its will on the breakaway republic. A tiny Chechen force, rather, had imposed upon the Russian army a humiliating defeat.”[6]
Putin is using “terrorism” as an excuse to avenge this defeat, and his war, like Yeltsin’s, has led to terrible atrocities. The capital of Chechnya, Grozny, has been under constant bombardment for weeks. “There is nothing to eat in the city,” said Maria Gakisheva, 61. “They are bombing us from the air and from the ground. There are a lot of dead bodies in basements because people are afraid to leave the basements to bury them.” Gakisheva left Grozny January 14, but says many people cannot leave. “Those people will not make it out of there if they get a safe corridor. They are like skeletons. They are too weak to leave. They can only be carried out,” she said.[7]
“The Russians are simply destroying the Chechen nation,” said Ramazan Isbriev, a 48-year-old mechanical engineer. Isbriev was considering supporting the Russian invasion as an alternative to the chaos that has reigned in Chechnya since the 1994-1996 war. But the brutality of the Russians has changed his mind. “They call this an anti-terrorist operation. And in 1994 they said they were restoring constitutional order. What will they say in 2004? They’ll invent something else.”[8]
For a few days in early January, the Russian brutality went so far as to see any Chechen male between the ages of 10 and 60 accused of being a potential terrorist. Boys and men of this age were ripped out of refugee columns and sent to segregated prisons for interrogation. “It’s madness,” said Aminat Deniyeva, a mother of an 11-year-old who was unable to escape from the war because of the crackdown. “What can a child do? He can’t even lift a machine gun. It’s too heavy.”[9]
We don’t know how many thousands have been killed, maimed and wounded. At least 200,000 people in the tiny republic have been forced from their homes.[10] At least 1,000 Russian soldiers have died in the process.[11] The new president of Russia is indeed the butcher of Chechnya.
Welcomed by the West
Yet both liberals and conservatives in the West have greeted this butcher with open arms. An unsigned front page article in the liberal Toronto Star gushed: “A Putin presidency would ... be good for Russia and the West. The 47-year-old moderate ... would bring a welcome note of stability to Russia’s chaotic administration. He would ensure that Russia stays on the path to democracy, rather than sliding back to its authoritarian past.”[12] Britain’s conservative magazine The Economist wrote: “Russia needs a strong leader, able to get laws passed and obeyed, and institutions built, rebuilt or cleansed of corruption.”[13] U.S. President Bill Clinton said, “the United States can do business with this guy.”[14]
The praise from these conservatives and liberals did not stay at the level of words. There are bags of cash in the pipeline to assist Putin’s new regime. Just two days before Yeltsin’s surprise New Year’s Eve resignation, the World Bank announced it was lending Russia $100-million to “develop its coal sector.” A Russian official hinted that soon to follow would be a renewal of lending to Russia from the International Monetary Fund.[15] That renewal of lending will release billions of dollars into the hands of the Russian ruling class.
The hypocrisy of this stance by the West is breathtaking. Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo committed far fewer acts of barbarism than Putin has committed in Chechnya. Yet Milosevic was greeted with bombs and artillery, while Putin is greeted with smiles and cash. How do we explain the difference?
Making Russia open for business
Part of the answer can be found through an examination of the ten year old campaign to make Russia and its former allies in Eastern Europe, open for business. Western multinationals, and their governments, have a long term interest in prying open the markets of the old Russian empire to make profits.
Look at the conditions that are attached to the World Bank loans. Two of these conditions are that Russia show progress in closing money-losing mines, and that the government move away from subsidizing uneconomic production. In other words, the World Bank’s principal concern is not murdered civilians in Chechnya, but rather encouraging an increase in the number of bankruptcies in the already devastated Russian economy and a parallel increase in the number of unemployed workers.
The west also has its eyes on the great prize of oil from the Caspian Sea. This sea – which is central to the Chechen region – contains the largest known reserves of oil outside the Middle East. For months, western governments – in particular the United States – have been manoeuvring to ensure that the pipelines to carry oil from this sea pass through countries loyal to the West and not Russia. Chechnya is central to Russia’s attempt to control the flow of oil from the Caspian Sea. But a Chechnya, shattered by war, will be in no shape to compete for such a prize. The western powers, then, care not a whit if it is burned to the ground.
Old enemies and new enemies
But more than just economics is at play in the region. Russia may have lost its empire. But it is still the second biggest nuclear power in the world. The United States and the West have every interest in systematically reducing the size and power of the Russian nuclear arms cache. The Clinton administration is pushing hard for the Russian parliament to ratify the Start III treaty, which would require cuts in Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. To get Russian co-operation on this, it would be imprudent to rock the boat too much on the issue of Chechnya.[16]
Probably more important in the calculations of the Western powers is the new threat that has emerged with the decline of Russia – China. The U.S. won the Cold War against the Soviet Union. It has now, increasingly, identified China as the new big “threat” on the world scene. It has used a barrage of propaganda about this “threat” to justify the push for an anti-ballistic missile system. This hideously expensive Star Wars fantasy envisages ringing the United States with missiles to “protect” it in the case of a nuclear strike by an enemy. One of the countries to be “protected” by this umbrella of “defensive” nuclear missiles would be Taiwan. China sees this as a direct assault on its vital interests, and is strongly opposed to the ABM treaty. Getting Russia onside is critical to allowing the U.S. to legitimize its push for anti-ballistic missiles.
All of these calculations are far more central to the thinking of Western political leaders than any humanitarian concerns in Chechnya. They will mouth these concerns from time to time, but they have absolutely no intention of doing anything serious to stop the butchery.
Making the world a more dangerous place
The net effect of all this is to make the world a far more dangerous place. The Unity Party, which backs Putin, does not have sufficient support to govern in its own name. The rich “oligarchs” who are the backbone of the Russian ruling class know this, so they found Putin some allies. The results of this alliance were shown in the recent round of elections to the Duma, or parliament.
The oligarchs control all the television stations. To get airtime on those stations, you had to agree with the Kremlin’s line on the war in Chechnya. That meant vast quantities of air time for Putin’s “Unity Party” (created out of whole cloth just last year) and for the two parties he can most rely on – the Union of Right Wing Forces (or SPS), and the so-called Liberal-Democratic Party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a party so far to the right, many have labelled it fascist.[17]
“All three parties got a lot of administrative and financial support from the Kremlin in the campaign,” said Andrei Piontkovsky, a political analyst in Moscow. “Zhirinovsky and Kiriyenko (leader of SPS) were on TV screens all the time. This was part of the deal: ‘You support the government and we give you the government’s resources.’ It was a cynical campaign, but it demonstrates the efficiency of the Kremlin’s information technology.”[18]
The Putin presidency has made the world more dangerous in more direct ways. His only claim to fame has been his war mongering in Chechnya. He has followed the logic of this open militarism to revise the way in which Russia plans to use its nuclear arsenal. Previously, Russia’s stated position on the use of nuclear weapons was they would be used only if the existence of the country were threatened. The new position, approved by Putin on January 6, 2000, now envisages the use of atomic weapons “to repel armed aggression,” a much less specific term.[19]
So the “strong man” so praised by the Toronto Star, The Economist, and Bill Clinton, is a man who brings in his wake the shadow of authoritarianism and the far-right, and an increased threat of the use of nuclear weapons.
Shattered dreams of 1989
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 – beginning the process that was to lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union – this was not what we were promised. We were promised the triumph of the market which would go hand in hand with the triumph of liberal democracy which would go hand in hand with an “end of history” making the world a more peaceful place.
By 1998 we had seen the first of these dreams collapse. The terrible implosion of the Russian economy in that year, virtually wiped out the middle class. The economy is now 40 per cent smaller than it was in 1991.[20]
We have now seen the ideals of liberal democracy become deformed into elections manipulated by billionaires who control the press, elevating to power people like Putin who allies himself with the likes of Zhirinovsky. And the “end of history” has seen a series of “Great Russian” wars against oppressed minorities, and the elevation of the threat of the use of nuclear weapons.
In the wake of the collapse of the hopes of 1989, liberals like the editors of the Toronto Star, have turned in desperation to search for a “strong man” who can put the Russian house in order. Throughout the Cold War, these same liberals painted terrifying pictures about the Russian spy apparatus, led by the KGB. Putin is a lifetime senior member of the KGB and its successor organizations. But suddenly, this is no obstacle to his credentials as saviour of Russia.
From heroes to zeroes
For the moment, Putin is riding high and is the darling of the west. But the ground he is standing on is riven with fault lines. His entire rise to power has been predicated on a successful war in Chechnya. Should this war unravel, he will be in trouble.
Putin is having credibility difficulties. In early January 2000, The Independent in Britain published a report, which, if true, would undermine Putin’s entire rationale for going to war. The paper obtained videotape on which a Russian officer, captured by the Chechens, says that Russian special services, not Chechen terrorists, were responsible for the apartment block bombings – the bombings that were the pretext for the war. On the video, shot by a Turkish journalist last month before Russian forces cut off Grozny, the officer identifies himself as Alexei Galtin of the GRU (Russian military intelligence service). “I did not take part in the explosions,” he says, “but I have information about it. I know who is responsible for the bombings ... It is the FSB (Russian security service), in co-operation with the GRU, that is responsible for the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow.”[21] Rumours about Special Forces involvement in the bombings have been circulating for months. Should the war turn against the Russians, people just might start to believe them.
Putin is also having military difficulties. January 9, Chechen fighters seized strategic buildings in towns the Russians had held for weeks and months, killing dozens or maybe hundreds of Russian soldiers in the process. In just one of the towns, bodies were everywhere. “They say it was three or four, but in fact 30 died!” yelled a Russian soldier standing next to an armoured personnel carrier as a small group of journalists walked past. “Write that!”[22]
The Russian army is very vulnerable, in spite of its massive size. Many of its foot soldiers are terrified young teenagers, poorly armed and with little training, far from home and with no idea what they are fighting for. “I don’t feel safe in this machine at all,” said one young teenage soldier to a western reporter, pointing to his overheated tank. The soldier, who would only give his first name of Sasha, said, “I don’t understand why we’re fighting.”
“Several soldier’s in Sasha’s unit said they had been drafted just six months ago, after graduating from high school. Sasha ... was drafted in June, when he was 18.” This in spite of government assurances that no conscripts will be used who have less than a year’s experience. “When asked whether his men were ready for battle, the unit commander said: ‘Somewhat: We shouldn’t be going at all,’ he added.”[23]
The military setbacks provoked the first open criticism of the campaign by major Russian newspapers. “Every day of the war is bringing more and more casualties,” said an article in Kommersant. “The experience of the past Chechnya campaign shows that people quickly become tired of war, while its initiators turn from heroes into political zeroes.”[24]
It is from this process of crisis and splits in the Putin camp that a real alternative to the crisis in Russia could emerge. There is a small but growing anti-war movement in Russia. Plans are underway for protests against the war in Chechnya in March.[25] “In December, a militant anti-war demo in Moscow lasted 10-20 minutes before a third were arrested and the rest dispersed.”[26] There are the beginnings – albeit small – of an independent workers’ movement, the only social force with the power to tackle the terrible problems facing Russian society.[27]
We should have no illusions that these are any more than the first baby steps on the way to the type of mass resistance that will be necessary to put forward a real alternative in Russia. After two generations of Stalinist state capitalism, the language of socialism and the workers’ movement has been discredited in Russia, and it will take years and many struggles to put things right.
What is needed are some very simple steps:
• an immediate end to the war;
• self-determination for the Chechen people and all the oppressed people in Russia;
• seizing the money of the oligarchs who are strangling Russia’s economy to enrich themselves; using the money to create jobs and rebuild social services;
• fighting for an independent workers’ movement, the only social force capable of regenerating society.
These steps may be simple, but they will not come spontaneously from either the liberals or the conservatives who alternate between welcoming Putin and “cluck-clucking” over his authoritarianism. These simple steps are equally completely incompatible with the so-called “socialism” that ruled in Russia from the time of Stalin.
Rediscover these simple steps and you rediscover the genuine socialist tradition, a simple tradition of solidarity, freedom and human emancipation.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] Moshe Lewin, “The collapse of the Russian state,” Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, November 1998, www.mondediplo.com
[2] Revised version of Paul Kellogg, “The butcher of Chechnya,” (unpublished), February 2000
[3] Geoffrey York, “Putin urges blockade of border with Chechnya,” The Globe and Mail, Sept. 15, 1999, p. A18
[4] “US DEPT OF STATE: Daily press briefing,” M2 Presswire, November 9, 1999, p. 1 ProQuest document ID: 46278360
[5] Olivia Ward, “Murder and mafia – it’s a Russian election,” Toronto Star, December 12, 1999, p. 1: Paul Quinn-Judge, “Russia’s election surprise,” Time, December 31, 1999, Vol. 154, Iss. 27, p. 210.
[6] Christian Caryl, “War against the people,” Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), June 9, 1998, p. 1
[7] Associated Press, “Russian Press Effort to Move Deeper into Grozny,” The New York Times, January 16, 2000
[8] Geoffrey York, “Russian plans backfiring in Chechnya,” The Globe and Mail, January 15, 2000
[9] York, “Russian plans backfiring”
[10] Andrzej, Rybak, “Fear and loathing keep Chechens far from home,” Financial Times, February 12, 2000, p. 5
[11] Sergei Venyavsky, “Russia covering up war casualties,” Toronto Star, January 27, 2000, p. 1
[12] “Welcome change in Russian leadership,” Toronto Star, January 2, 2000, p. 1
[13] “Putin the Great Unknown,” The Economist, January 8, 2000, p. 19
[14] Cited in Jim Hoagland, “Clinton should be careful with fawning praise,” The Gazette (Montreal), February 24, 2000, p. B3
[15] Julie Tolkacheva, Reuters News Agency, “Russia wins loan from World Bank,” The Globe and Mail, December 29, 1999, p. B11
[16] Jane Perlez, “Chechnya Challenge: War Threatens U.S. Strategic Goals,” The New York Times, November 15, 1999
[17] For example: Vladimir Solovyvov, Zhirinovsky: Russian Fascism and the Making of a Dictator (London: Addison-Wesley, 1995)
[18] Geoffrey York, “Election puts Kremlin in powerful position,” The Globe and Mail, December 21, 1999
[19] Reuters, “New Russia Defense Doctrine Lowers Atomic Threshold,” January 14, 2000
[20] Anders Aslund, “Russia’s collapse,” Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct 1999, Vol 78 Iss 5, pp. 64-77
[21] Cited in Helen Womack, “Russian ‘confesses’ to bombings; Blasts at Moscow buildings,” The Spectator (Hamilton), January 6, 2000, p. C1
[22] Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Takes Chechen Town, but Can it Keep It?” The New York Times, January 14, 2000
[23] Andrew Kramer, Associated Press, “‘I don’t understand why we’re fighting:’ Russian teenage soldier” The Globe and Mail, December 28, 1999
[24] Geoffrey York, “Chechen rebels trap Russians in daring raids” The Globe and Mail, January 10, 2000
[25] “War and Human Rights,” March 3, 2000, www.hro.org/war/166.htm
[26] Steve Kerr, “Russian Anti-War Movement,” from International Solidarity with Workers in Russia, http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html
[27] Steve Kerr, “Workers’ action is the key” Socialist Worker (Canada) 323, January 5, 2000
This article (slightly revised with updated references) was originally written in February 2000. It is of course marked by its context. Eight years ago, Russia was only two years removed from the catastrophic winter of 1998 where some pensioners were literally dying of starvation.[1] We could not know at the time that eight years later, Russia would be at the centre of the “BRIC” (Brazil, Russia, India China) resurgence of economies in the Global South. But given these limitations, it still is useful as a documentation of the imperialist nature of Russia’s relationship to Chechnya.
The butcher of Chechnya[2]
FEBRUARY 2000 – Vladimir Putin is the butcher of Chechnya. There is really no other title that so captures the essence of the new president of Russia. When former president Boris Yeltsin elevated Putin to the prime minister’s office in August 1999, he was a complete unknown with virtually no public recognition or support.
He changed that by presiding over a racist campaign against the Chechen minority in Russia, accusing them of instigating the terrorist bombings that had killed upwards of 300 Russian civilians.[3] Putin’s campaign of racist scapegoating was followed by an artillery and air assault on the small republic of Chechnya and then, in the fall of 1999, an all out invasion of the republic with a massive army of 100,000.[4]
The butchery of this war is his one and only political act to date. The racist patriotism he whipped up in the course of that war is what allowed his Unity Party to go from obscurity to capturing close to 25 per cent support in the December elections.[5] This support was sufficient to allow Yeltsin to resign and elevate Putin from the prime minister’s office, to the much more powerful presidential suite, on New Year’s Eve, 1999.
The very purpose of the war was to elevate Putin to power. In the summer of 1999, the Kremlin rulers looked to be in deep trouble. Yeltsin was thoroughly discredited, and there was no candidate on the horizon, trusted by the billionaire oligarchs who control the economy, in a position to take his place. But war-frenzy has diverted the attention of millions from the everyday despair of their lives. And Putin has ridden that frenzy to power.
Yeltsin, from 1994 to 1996, had presided over an appalling war against Chechnya where that country was “reduced to a wasteland” with “100,000 people killed.” In spite of this barbarism “Russia failed to impose its will on the breakaway republic. A tiny Chechen force, rather, had imposed upon the Russian army a humiliating defeat.”[6]
Putin is using “terrorism” as an excuse to avenge this defeat, and his war, like Yeltsin’s, has led to terrible atrocities. The capital of Chechnya, Grozny, has been under constant bombardment for weeks. “There is nothing to eat in the city,” said Maria Gakisheva, 61. “They are bombing us from the air and from the ground. There are a lot of dead bodies in basements because people are afraid to leave the basements to bury them.” Gakisheva left Grozny January 14, but says many people cannot leave. “Those people will not make it out of there if they get a safe corridor. They are like skeletons. They are too weak to leave. They can only be carried out,” she said.[7]
“The Russians are simply destroying the Chechen nation,” said Ramazan Isbriev, a 48-year-old mechanical engineer. Isbriev was considering supporting the Russian invasion as an alternative to the chaos that has reigned in Chechnya since the 1994-1996 war. But the brutality of the Russians has changed his mind. “They call this an anti-terrorist operation. And in 1994 they said they were restoring constitutional order. What will they say in 2004? They’ll invent something else.”[8]
For a few days in early January, the Russian brutality went so far as to see any Chechen male between the ages of 10 and 60 accused of being a potential terrorist. Boys and men of this age were ripped out of refugee columns and sent to segregated prisons for interrogation. “It’s madness,” said Aminat Deniyeva, a mother of an 11-year-old who was unable to escape from the war because of the crackdown. “What can a child do? He can’t even lift a machine gun. It’s too heavy.”[9]
We don’t know how many thousands have been killed, maimed and wounded. At least 200,000 people in the tiny republic have been forced from their homes.[10] At least 1,000 Russian soldiers have died in the process.[11] The new president of Russia is indeed the butcher of Chechnya.
Welcomed by the West
Yet both liberals and conservatives in the West have greeted this butcher with open arms. An unsigned front page article in the liberal Toronto Star gushed: “A Putin presidency would ... be good for Russia and the West. The 47-year-old moderate ... would bring a welcome note of stability to Russia’s chaotic administration. He would ensure that Russia stays on the path to democracy, rather than sliding back to its authoritarian past.”[12] Britain’s conservative magazine The Economist wrote: “Russia needs a strong leader, able to get laws passed and obeyed, and institutions built, rebuilt or cleansed of corruption.”[13] U.S. President Bill Clinton said, “the United States can do business with this guy.”[14]
The praise from these conservatives and liberals did not stay at the level of words. There are bags of cash in the pipeline to assist Putin’s new regime. Just two days before Yeltsin’s surprise New Year’s Eve resignation, the World Bank announced it was lending Russia $100-million to “develop its coal sector.” A Russian official hinted that soon to follow would be a renewal of lending to Russia from the International Monetary Fund.[15] That renewal of lending will release billions of dollars into the hands of the Russian ruling class.
The hypocrisy of this stance by the West is breathtaking. Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo committed far fewer acts of barbarism than Putin has committed in Chechnya. Yet Milosevic was greeted with bombs and artillery, while Putin is greeted with smiles and cash. How do we explain the difference?
Making Russia open for business
Part of the answer can be found through an examination of the ten year old campaign to make Russia and its former allies in Eastern Europe, open for business. Western multinationals, and their governments, have a long term interest in prying open the markets of the old Russian empire to make profits.
Look at the conditions that are attached to the World Bank loans. Two of these conditions are that Russia show progress in closing money-losing mines, and that the government move away from subsidizing uneconomic production. In other words, the World Bank’s principal concern is not murdered civilians in Chechnya, but rather encouraging an increase in the number of bankruptcies in the already devastated Russian economy and a parallel increase in the number of unemployed workers.
The west also has its eyes on the great prize of oil from the Caspian Sea. This sea – which is central to the Chechen region – contains the largest known reserves of oil outside the Middle East. For months, western governments – in particular the United States – have been manoeuvring to ensure that the pipelines to carry oil from this sea pass through countries loyal to the West and not Russia. Chechnya is central to Russia’s attempt to control the flow of oil from the Caspian Sea. But a Chechnya, shattered by war, will be in no shape to compete for such a prize. The western powers, then, care not a whit if it is burned to the ground.
Old enemies and new enemies
But more than just economics is at play in the region. Russia may have lost its empire. But it is still the second biggest nuclear power in the world. The United States and the West have every interest in systematically reducing the size and power of the Russian nuclear arms cache. The Clinton administration is pushing hard for the Russian parliament to ratify the Start III treaty, which would require cuts in Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. To get Russian co-operation on this, it would be imprudent to rock the boat too much on the issue of Chechnya.[16]
Probably more important in the calculations of the Western powers is the new threat that has emerged with the decline of Russia – China. The U.S. won the Cold War against the Soviet Union. It has now, increasingly, identified China as the new big “threat” on the world scene. It has used a barrage of propaganda about this “threat” to justify the push for an anti-ballistic missile system. This hideously expensive Star Wars fantasy envisages ringing the United States with missiles to “protect” it in the case of a nuclear strike by an enemy. One of the countries to be “protected” by this umbrella of “defensive” nuclear missiles would be Taiwan. China sees this as a direct assault on its vital interests, and is strongly opposed to the ABM treaty. Getting Russia onside is critical to allowing the U.S. to legitimize its push for anti-ballistic missiles.
All of these calculations are far more central to the thinking of Western political leaders than any humanitarian concerns in Chechnya. They will mouth these concerns from time to time, but they have absolutely no intention of doing anything serious to stop the butchery.
Making the world a more dangerous place
The net effect of all this is to make the world a far more dangerous place. The Unity Party, which backs Putin, does not have sufficient support to govern in its own name. The rich “oligarchs” who are the backbone of the Russian ruling class know this, so they found Putin some allies. The results of this alliance were shown in the recent round of elections to the Duma, or parliament.
The oligarchs control all the television stations. To get airtime on those stations, you had to agree with the Kremlin’s line on the war in Chechnya. That meant vast quantities of air time for Putin’s “Unity Party” (created out of whole cloth just last year) and for the two parties he can most rely on – the Union of Right Wing Forces (or SPS), and the so-called Liberal-Democratic Party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a party so far to the right, many have labelled it fascist.[17]
“All three parties got a lot of administrative and financial support from the Kremlin in the campaign,” said Andrei Piontkovsky, a political analyst in Moscow. “Zhirinovsky and Kiriyenko (leader of SPS) were on TV screens all the time. This was part of the deal: ‘You support the government and we give you the government’s resources.’ It was a cynical campaign, but it demonstrates the efficiency of the Kremlin’s information technology.”[18]
The Putin presidency has made the world more dangerous in more direct ways. His only claim to fame has been his war mongering in Chechnya. He has followed the logic of this open militarism to revise the way in which Russia plans to use its nuclear arsenal. Previously, Russia’s stated position on the use of nuclear weapons was they would be used only if the existence of the country were threatened. The new position, approved by Putin on January 6, 2000, now envisages the use of atomic weapons “to repel armed aggression,” a much less specific term.[19]
So the “strong man” so praised by the Toronto Star, The Economist, and Bill Clinton, is a man who brings in his wake the shadow of authoritarianism and the far-right, and an increased threat of the use of nuclear weapons.
Shattered dreams of 1989
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 – beginning the process that was to lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union – this was not what we were promised. We were promised the triumph of the market which would go hand in hand with the triumph of liberal democracy which would go hand in hand with an “end of history” making the world a more peaceful place.
By 1998 we had seen the first of these dreams collapse. The terrible implosion of the Russian economy in that year, virtually wiped out the middle class. The economy is now 40 per cent smaller than it was in 1991.[20]
We have now seen the ideals of liberal democracy become deformed into elections manipulated by billionaires who control the press, elevating to power people like Putin who allies himself with the likes of Zhirinovsky. And the “end of history” has seen a series of “Great Russian” wars against oppressed minorities, and the elevation of the threat of the use of nuclear weapons.
In the wake of the collapse of the hopes of 1989, liberals like the editors of the Toronto Star, have turned in desperation to search for a “strong man” who can put the Russian house in order. Throughout the Cold War, these same liberals painted terrifying pictures about the Russian spy apparatus, led by the KGB. Putin is a lifetime senior member of the KGB and its successor organizations. But suddenly, this is no obstacle to his credentials as saviour of Russia.
From heroes to zeroes
For the moment, Putin is riding high and is the darling of the west. But the ground he is standing on is riven with fault lines. His entire rise to power has been predicated on a successful war in Chechnya. Should this war unravel, he will be in trouble.
Putin is having credibility difficulties. In early January 2000, The Independent in Britain published a report, which, if true, would undermine Putin’s entire rationale for going to war. The paper obtained videotape on which a Russian officer, captured by the Chechens, says that Russian special services, not Chechen terrorists, were responsible for the apartment block bombings – the bombings that were the pretext for the war. On the video, shot by a Turkish journalist last month before Russian forces cut off Grozny, the officer identifies himself as Alexei Galtin of the GRU (Russian military intelligence service). “I did not take part in the explosions,” he says, “but I have information about it. I know who is responsible for the bombings ... It is the FSB (Russian security service), in co-operation with the GRU, that is responsible for the explosions in Volgodonsk and Moscow.”[21] Rumours about Special Forces involvement in the bombings have been circulating for months. Should the war turn against the Russians, people just might start to believe them.
Putin is also having military difficulties. January 9, Chechen fighters seized strategic buildings in towns the Russians had held for weeks and months, killing dozens or maybe hundreds of Russian soldiers in the process. In just one of the towns, bodies were everywhere. “They say it was three or four, but in fact 30 died!” yelled a Russian soldier standing next to an armoured personnel carrier as a small group of journalists walked past. “Write that!”[22]
The Russian army is very vulnerable, in spite of its massive size. Many of its foot soldiers are terrified young teenagers, poorly armed and with little training, far from home and with no idea what they are fighting for. “I don’t feel safe in this machine at all,” said one young teenage soldier to a western reporter, pointing to his overheated tank. The soldier, who would only give his first name of Sasha, said, “I don’t understand why we’re fighting.”
“Several soldier’s in Sasha’s unit said they had been drafted just six months ago, after graduating from high school. Sasha ... was drafted in June, when he was 18.” This in spite of government assurances that no conscripts will be used who have less than a year’s experience. “When asked whether his men were ready for battle, the unit commander said: ‘Somewhat: We shouldn’t be going at all,’ he added.”[23]
The military setbacks provoked the first open criticism of the campaign by major Russian newspapers. “Every day of the war is bringing more and more casualties,” said an article in Kommersant. “The experience of the past Chechnya campaign shows that people quickly become tired of war, while its initiators turn from heroes into political zeroes.”[24]
It is from this process of crisis and splits in the Putin camp that a real alternative to the crisis in Russia could emerge. There is a small but growing anti-war movement in Russia. Plans are underway for protests against the war in Chechnya in March.[25] “In December, a militant anti-war demo in Moscow lasted 10-20 minutes before a third were arrested and the rest dispersed.”[26] There are the beginnings – albeit small – of an independent workers’ movement, the only social force with the power to tackle the terrible problems facing Russian society.[27]
We should have no illusions that these are any more than the first baby steps on the way to the type of mass resistance that will be necessary to put forward a real alternative in Russia. After two generations of Stalinist state capitalism, the language of socialism and the workers’ movement has been discredited in Russia, and it will take years and many struggles to put things right.
What is needed are some very simple steps:
• an immediate end to the war;
• self-determination for the Chechen people and all the oppressed people in Russia;
• seizing the money of the oligarchs who are strangling Russia’s economy to enrich themselves; using the money to create jobs and rebuild social services;
• fighting for an independent workers’ movement, the only social force capable of regenerating society.
These steps may be simple, but they will not come spontaneously from either the liberals or the conservatives who alternate between welcoming Putin and “cluck-clucking” over his authoritarianism. These simple steps are equally completely incompatible with the so-called “socialism” that ruled in Russia from the time of Stalin.
Rediscover these simple steps and you rediscover the genuine socialist tradition, a simple tradition of solidarity, freedom and human emancipation.
© 2008 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] Moshe Lewin, “The collapse of the Russian state,” Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, November 1998, www.mondediplo.com
[2] Revised version of Paul Kellogg, “The butcher of Chechnya,” (unpublished), February 2000
[3] Geoffrey York, “Putin urges blockade of border with Chechnya,” The Globe and Mail, Sept. 15, 1999, p. A18
[4] “US DEPT OF STATE: Daily press briefing,” M2 Presswire, November 9, 1999, p. 1 ProQuest document ID: 46278360
[5] Olivia Ward, “Murder and mafia – it’s a Russian election,” Toronto Star, December 12, 1999, p. 1: Paul Quinn-Judge, “Russia’s election surprise,” Time, December 31, 1999, Vol. 154, Iss. 27, p. 210.
[6] Christian Caryl, “War against the people,” Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), June 9, 1998, p. 1
[7] Associated Press, “Russian Press Effort to Move Deeper into Grozny,” The New York Times, January 16, 2000
[8] Geoffrey York, “Russian plans backfiring in Chechnya,” The Globe and Mail, January 15, 2000
[9] York, “Russian plans backfiring”
[10] Andrzej, Rybak, “Fear and loathing keep Chechens far from home,” Financial Times, February 12, 2000, p. 5
[11] Sergei Venyavsky, “Russia covering up war casualties,” Toronto Star, January 27, 2000, p. 1
[12] “Welcome change in Russian leadership,” Toronto Star, January 2, 2000, p. 1
[13] “Putin the Great Unknown,” The Economist, January 8, 2000, p. 19
[14] Cited in Jim Hoagland, “Clinton should be careful with fawning praise,” The Gazette (Montreal), February 24, 2000, p. B3
[15] Julie Tolkacheva, Reuters News Agency, “Russia wins loan from World Bank,” The Globe and Mail, December 29, 1999, p. B11
[16] Jane Perlez, “Chechnya Challenge: War Threatens U.S. Strategic Goals,” The New York Times, November 15, 1999
[17] For example: Vladimir Solovyvov, Zhirinovsky: Russian Fascism and the Making of a Dictator (London: Addison-Wesley, 1995)
[18] Geoffrey York, “Election puts Kremlin in powerful position,” The Globe and Mail, December 21, 1999
[19] Reuters, “New Russia Defense Doctrine Lowers Atomic Threshold,” January 14, 2000
[20] Anders Aslund, “Russia’s collapse,” Foreign Affairs, Sep/Oct 1999, Vol 78 Iss 5, pp. 64-77
[21] Cited in Helen Womack, “Russian ‘confesses’ to bombings; Blasts at Moscow buildings,” The Spectator (Hamilton), January 6, 2000, p. C1
[22] Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Takes Chechen Town, but Can it Keep It?” The New York Times, January 14, 2000
[23] Andrew Kramer, Associated Press, “‘I don’t understand why we’re fighting:’ Russian teenage soldier” The Globe and Mail, December 28, 1999
[24] Geoffrey York, “Chechen rebels trap Russians in daring raids” The Globe and Mail, January 10, 2000
[25] “War and Human Rights,” March 3, 2000, www.hro.org/war/166.htm
[26] Steve Kerr, “Russian Anti-War Movement,” from International Solidarity with Workers in Russia, http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html
[27] Steve Kerr, “Workers’ action is the key” Socialist Worker (Canada) 323, January 5, 2000
Friday, 28 December 2007
Mulroney - the real crimes are war and imperialism
My daughter was born in 1988, the year of the second Mulroney majority election victory. Growing up as she did under the man who was ultimately to become one of the most hated prime ministers in history, it made absolute sense to her when we gave her a stuffed doll, with the Tory’s face on it, and the label “Lyin’ Brian” on the back. She and her friends got hours of pleasure from the little Tory doll.
The doll would come in handy now, a generation later. Mulroney is today very publicly involved in an embarrassing dispute with international arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. A man as Tory Blue as Erik Nielsen, Mulroney’s deputy prime minister for two years in the 1980s, might even find the doll appropriate. “I think there was a phrase that attached to Brian years ago where he was known as Lyin’ Brian, and for my own part, I believe that they’re both in the same boat – Schreiber and Mulroney.”[1]
The Schreiber/Mulroney controversy is approaching historic dimensions. December 13, for the first time in recent history, a former prime minister was forced to appear before a House of Commons Committee.[2] Mulroney was there to answer questions about his dealings with Schreiber, under a cloud of suspicions that Mulroney had received a payoff from Schreiber for having Air Canada buy AirBus planes in the 1980s, money that he at first did not declare as income to the tax department.
Now much of this has been in the public domain for more than a decade. Stevie Cameron, in 1995, spelled out in 576 pages well-documented pages, that Schreiber was linked to Airbus, that Mulroney was Canadian prime minister during Air Canada’s last full year as a crown corporation (1988), and that in that year Air Canada bought Airbus planes worth some billions of dollars.[3] As the years went by, more and more details came to the surface. In 2001, Philip Mathias, then a reporter with the National Post, phoned William Kaplan and told him that he had information that in June 1993:
Mulroney sent a government limousine to pick up Karlheinz Schreiber from his Rockcliffe home and deliver him to Harrington Lake, the official summer residence of Canadian prime ministers. Within weeks, Schreiber ... opened a secret Swiss bank account and deposited $500,000 in it. One hundred thousand dollars, withdrawn in cash, was handed over to Mulroney, still a Member of Parliament, in August 1993, at the Chateau Mirabel, while the former prime minister's RCMP driver patiently waited outside. More payments followed in 1994. Three hundred thousand dollars in total. In cash. In hotels.[4]
We’ve all been connecting the dots ever since, and it hasn’t been all that difficult.
Now, a generation later, Mulroney has finally had to try and defend his actions. First he claims it wasn’t $300,000, just $225,000. OK – it can be hard to count bills in envelopes in public in hotels. So maybe $75,000 was missed. Second, he claims it didn’t happen while he was in office, but after he had left. Fair enough Brian. We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. And, apparently it’s not true that he didn’t pay taxes on it – just not right away. But he fixed this in 1999 by filing a “voluntary tax disclosure correcting record.”[5] We’ve all sometimes made tax mistakes. Let’s even forgive Brian that.
This is all really beside the point. The real scandal is not about sleaze and corruption at the very top of the state. The real scandal involves the services Mulroney did in exchange for this money.
“According to his testimony, Mulroney was making international representations on behalf of Thyssen Canada (part of the ThyssenKrupp Group of Germany) ... to explore interest abroad in purchasing armoured vehicles made in Canada.”[6] In Mulroney’s own words, “one of these involved a visit with [then Russian] President Yeltsin where I put forward on a social, personal occasion, the discussion with President Yeltsin as to knowing their requirements for peacekeeping vehicles and their own problems in Chechnya and elsewhere.”[7]
This is far more scandalous than any admission of tax evasions. There is no possible relationship between the words “peacekeeping” and “Chechnya”. Russia has conducted generations of bloody war against the people of that embattled country. In the 1850s, what is today Chechnya was conquered by the armies of the Russian Tsar. After World War II, Stalin followed in the Tsar's footsteps, sending hundreds of thousands of Chechens into exile in Siberia and Central Asia, unable to begin the return home until 1957.
Had Mulroney been successful in selling his “peacekeeping” vehicles to Yeltsin, they likely would have been used December 11, 1994 when Russian troops invaded the newly-independent republic, starting a war that would last until May 1997, then resume in late 1999 when a second Russian invasion led to at least 100,000 deaths, and 400,000 refugees.[8] Mulroney’s defence is appalling – he was peddling weapons to a big-power imperialist for use in a genocidal war against a small, oppressed nation.
Mulroney is not the only former Canadian prime minister to private personally from big-power politics. In June 2003, Jean Chrétien was still prime minister of Canada. There was little publicity when the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, paid him a visit. However, “human-rights groups were aghast – the dictator has led a crackdown on opposition parties, journalists and NGOs.” That political link would turn out to be very useful for Chrétien in a few months. February 3, the Calgary-based corporation, PetroKazakhstan, hired the now private citizen Chrétien as a special adviser on “international relations.” “PetroKazakhstan, which operates in the former Soviet Republic, has been feuding with the Kazakh government over alleged overpricing, and CEO Bernard Isaultier hopes Chrétien can smooth relations.”[9]
Chrétien has spent much of his time in the years since running the Canadian government, as an ambassador for Canadian corporations operating in Central Asia. In 2004, Turkmenistan President Niyazov “invited Oman and Canada to participate in oil and gas projects, including construction of a Trans-Afghan Pipeline ... A Omani-Canadian delegation including Yusuf bin Alavi, foreign minister of Oman and Jean Chrétien ... met Niyazov to discuss cooperation in the energy and hydrocarbon sectors. Heads of some major Canadian and Omani energy companies were also in the delegation. Chrétien is adviser to Bennett Jones, a Calgary-based law firm specializing in energy issues.”[10]
Mulroney peddles weapons to Yeltsin for use in the slaughter in Chechnya. Chrétien emerges as a hired hand for corporations doing business with Central Asian governments with questionable human rights records, and attempting to profit from a country (Afghanistan) opened to western investment by western (including Canadian) troops. Lets fill the press with the real scandals of our elected leaders – the scandals of war and imperialism.
© 2007 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] Brian Laghi and Alan Freeman, “Former deputy doubts Mulroney’s testimony,” The Globe and Mail, Dec. 15, 2007, p. A1.
[2] According to Sun Media National Bureau, “Former PM’s appearance of historical significance,” The London Free Press, December 13, 2007
[3] See Stevie Cameron, On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Era (Toronto: Seal Books, 1995)
[4] William Kaplan, “What Mulroney needs to tell us,” National Post, December 13, 2007
[5] Kathleen Harris, “Mulroney faces gauntlet,” The Toronto Sun, December 13, 2007
[6] Duncan Cameron, “Mulroney’s tank selling troubles,” rabble.ca, December 20, 2007
[7] “Unedited transcript: Brian Mulroney at the Commons Ethics Committee, Dec. 13, 2007”, NP Posted, http://network.nationalpost.com
[8] Information from “Chechnya," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Dec. 28, 2007
[9] Dawn Calleja, “Jean’s help: priceless,” Canadian Business online, February 2004, www.canadianbusiness.com
[10] “Canadians Eye Pipeline Work In Turkmenistan,” Pipeline and Gas Journal, Oct. 2004, Vol. 231, Issue 10, p. 10
The doll would come in handy now, a generation later. Mulroney is today very publicly involved in an embarrassing dispute with international arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. A man as Tory Blue as Erik Nielsen, Mulroney’s deputy prime minister for two years in the 1980s, might even find the doll appropriate. “I think there was a phrase that attached to Brian years ago where he was known as Lyin’ Brian, and for my own part, I believe that they’re both in the same boat – Schreiber and Mulroney.”[1]
The Schreiber/Mulroney controversy is approaching historic dimensions. December 13, for the first time in recent history, a former prime minister was forced to appear before a House of Commons Committee.[2] Mulroney was there to answer questions about his dealings with Schreiber, under a cloud of suspicions that Mulroney had received a payoff from Schreiber for having Air Canada buy AirBus planes in the 1980s, money that he at first did not declare as income to the tax department.
Now much of this has been in the public domain for more than a decade. Stevie Cameron, in 1995, spelled out in 576 pages well-documented pages, that Schreiber was linked to Airbus, that Mulroney was Canadian prime minister during Air Canada’s last full year as a crown corporation (1988), and that in that year Air Canada bought Airbus planes worth some billions of dollars.[3] As the years went by, more and more details came to the surface. In 2001, Philip Mathias, then a reporter with the National Post, phoned William Kaplan and told him that he had information that in June 1993:
Mulroney sent a government limousine to pick up Karlheinz Schreiber from his Rockcliffe home and deliver him to Harrington Lake, the official summer residence of Canadian prime ministers. Within weeks, Schreiber ... opened a secret Swiss bank account and deposited $500,000 in it. One hundred thousand dollars, withdrawn in cash, was handed over to Mulroney, still a Member of Parliament, in August 1993, at the Chateau Mirabel, while the former prime minister's RCMP driver patiently waited outside. More payments followed in 1994. Three hundred thousand dollars in total. In cash. In hotels.[4]
We’ve all been connecting the dots ever since, and it hasn’t been all that difficult.
Now, a generation later, Mulroney has finally had to try and defend his actions. First he claims it wasn’t $300,000, just $225,000. OK – it can be hard to count bills in envelopes in public in hotels. So maybe $75,000 was missed. Second, he claims it didn’t happen while he was in office, but after he had left. Fair enough Brian. We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. And, apparently it’s not true that he didn’t pay taxes on it – just not right away. But he fixed this in 1999 by filing a “voluntary tax disclosure correcting record.”[5] We’ve all sometimes made tax mistakes. Let’s even forgive Brian that.
This is all really beside the point. The real scandal is not about sleaze and corruption at the very top of the state. The real scandal involves the services Mulroney did in exchange for this money.
“According to his testimony, Mulroney was making international representations on behalf of Thyssen Canada (part of the ThyssenKrupp Group of Germany) ... to explore interest abroad in purchasing armoured vehicles made in Canada.”[6] In Mulroney’s own words, “one of these involved a visit with [then Russian] President Yeltsin where I put forward on a social, personal occasion, the discussion with President Yeltsin as to knowing their requirements for peacekeeping vehicles and their own problems in Chechnya and elsewhere.”[7]
This is far more scandalous than any admission of tax evasions. There is no possible relationship between the words “peacekeeping” and “Chechnya”. Russia has conducted generations of bloody war against the people of that embattled country. In the 1850s, what is today Chechnya was conquered by the armies of the Russian Tsar. After World War II, Stalin followed in the Tsar's footsteps, sending hundreds of thousands of Chechens into exile in Siberia and Central Asia, unable to begin the return home until 1957.
Had Mulroney been successful in selling his “peacekeeping” vehicles to Yeltsin, they likely would have been used December 11, 1994 when Russian troops invaded the newly-independent republic, starting a war that would last until May 1997, then resume in late 1999 when a second Russian invasion led to at least 100,000 deaths, and 400,000 refugees.[8] Mulroney’s defence is appalling – he was peddling weapons to a big-power imperialist for use in a genocidal war against a small, oppressed nation.
Mulroney is not the only former Canadian prime minister to private personally from big-power politics. In June 2003, Jean Chrétien was still prime minister of Canada. There was little publicity when the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, paid him a visit. However, “human-rights groups were aghast – the dictator has led a crackdown on opposition parties, journalists and NGOs.” That political link would turn out to be very useful for Chrétien in a few months. February 3, the Calgary-based corporation, PetroKazakhstan, hired the now private citizen Chrétien as a special adviser on “international relations.” “PetroKazakhstan, which operates in the former Soviet Republic, has been feuding with the Kazakh government over alleged overpricing, and CEO Bernard Isaultier hopes Chrétien can smooth relations.”[9]
Chrétien has spent much of his time in the years since running the Canadian government, as an ambassador for Canadian corporations operating in Central Asia. In 2004, Turkmenistan President Niyazov “invited Oman and Canada to participate in oil and gas projects, including construction of a Trans-Afghan Pipeline ... A Omani-Canadian delegation including Yusuf bin Alavi, foreign minister of Oman and Jean Chrétien ... met Niyazov to discuss cooperation in the energy and hydrocarbon sectors. Heads of some major Canadian and Omani energy companies were also in the delegation. Chrétien is adviser to Bennett Jones, a Calgary-based law firm specializing in energy issues.”[10]
Mulroney peddles weapons to Yeltsin for use in the slaughter in Chechnya. Chrétien emerges as a hired hand for corporations doing business with Central Asian governments with questionable human rights records, and attempting to profit from a country (Afghanistan) opened to western investment by western (including Canadian) troops. Lets fill the press with the real scandals of our elected leaders – the scandals of war and imperialism.
© 2007 Paul Kellogg
References
[1] Brian Laghi and Alan Freeman, “Former deputy doubts Mulroney’s testimony,” The Globe and Mail, Dec. 15, 2007, p. A1.
[2] According to Sun Media National Bureau, “Former PM’s appearance of historical significance,” The London Free Press, December 13, 2007
[3] See Stevie Cameron, On the Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Era (Toronto: Seal Books, 1995)
[4] William Kaplan, “What Mulroney needs to tell us,” National Post, December 13, 2007
[5] Kathleen Harris, “Mulroney faces gauntlet,” The Toronto Sun, December 13, 2007
[6] Duncan Cameron, “Mulroney’s tank selling troubles,” rabble.ca, December 20, 2007
[7] “Unedited transcript: Brian Mulroney at the Commons Ethics Committee, Dec. 13, 2007”, NP Posted, http://network.nationalpost.com
[8] Information from “Chechnya," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Dec. 28, 2007
[9] Dawn Calleja, “Jean’s help: priceless,” Canadian Business online, February 2004, www.canadianbusiness.com
[10] “Canadians Eye Pipeline Work In Turkmenistan,” Pipeline and Gas Journal, Oct. 2004, Vol. 231, Issue 10, p. 10
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