How many lives is democracy worth?

A Canadian journalist, Scott Taylor, has the gall to point out the obvious truth about the bombastic propaganda streaming from the Canadian government on the state of the war in Afghanistan:

The official NATO line on the Taliban’s use of a young boy in a suicide attack [last week] was that this is further proof of a desperate defeated foe. Last year, when the Taliban in Kandahar province abandoned any attempt at conventional attacks and began relying solely on IEDs, we were told this meant our tactics were working because we’d driven them underground. On May 6, when Cpl. Michael Starker was killed in a rare firefight with insurgents, again we were told this was a positive step forward because we were now driving the Taliban out into the open.

Consistency in explanations? What for?

Nor are we really in Afghanistan for the sake of building democracy, Taylor points out:

that rosy little picture was irreparably ruptured last month when Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier denounced the governor of Kandahar as a corrupt official. While I have little doubt that Bernier has concrete proof of Gov. Asadullah Khalid’s sticky fingers in the funds, demanding that Afghan public officials be shuffled and replaced on demand would make the Karzai government appear to be nothing more than puppets of the Western occupation force.

Actually, Taylor could have gone further - Bernier didn't just denounce the governor but openly called for his replacement. I'm pretty sure if an Afghan minister visited Saskatchewan and demanded that the premier be ousted by the armed forces, Canadians would have something to say about it.

The blessings of the Orange Sky be upon Scott Taylor. Actually he sounds like Noam Chomsky. I didn't know Taylor, but it's not what I would have expected from an editor of Esprit de Corps.
Continue reading

Torture is Fun, Kids

When you're new to something like torture, you always want to solicit advice from those who have more experience in the industry. So I guess it doesn't surprise me all that much to learn that the U.S. military collaborated with its Chinese counterparts in torturing and interrogating detainees at Guantanamo Bay, beginning with a 2002 secret treaty.

Secret treaties like this are common in intelligence matters. Canada's currently subject to several hundred, according to public testimony. (Naturally there's no list of them anywhere.)

"... an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China's ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators... When Uighur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment."

And so on, and so on.

Source: Justin Rood, "Report: U.S. Soldiers Did 'Dirty Work' for Chinese Interrogators," ABC News, May 20.
Continue reading

Lessons in Free Market Economics; and, My Last Mac

A very dull story: a few weeks ago, Apple Computers acquired a small semiconductor manufacturing group, P.A. Semi, which is based in California. As usual, the information technology industry - kind of like the banking industry - has nothing to do with so-called "free market economics." In this case, the Department of Defence and major contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed promptly got involved because, you see, P.A. Semi is one of their own, and the DOD wants to make sure it gets a continued supply of P.A. Semi's products after the merger.

Being a defence contractor is generally a pretty good deal. On the one hand, you're helping people kill people. On the other, you get a continuous stream of top-notch government welfare, the sort conservatives usually deny to poor people on the grounds that it "enables dependence."

Unfortunately, this is where the story gets personal because


Source: Wikimedia

my favourite computers now come from a defence contractor. I think the army actually used to order the odd Apple server anyways, but now via P.A. Semi they're part of the regular dedicated contractor system.

I'm sad to say that now I will never get to buy a new Mac again.

The Church of the Orange Sky's continuing policy of minimizing beneficial association with professional killing institutions requires that purchases which benefit military contractors be kept to an absolute minimum.
Continue reading

Public Service Announcement

Canadian professional killers are permitted free Via Rail tickets for economy-class vacations during the month of July.

Bon voyage.

Of course, one happy effect of this will be that civilian customers who would have got cheap tickets during the summer will have to upgrade to first-class cars. A small price to pay to keep our nation safe.
Continue reading