July 6 - When the US asked Canada to to extend the tour of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan so they could help provide security during that country's September elections, the answer was "no."

There is a critical lessons in this, one which is especially relevant for Americans who believe that having the U.N. and/or NATO inolved would therefore bring significantly increased military assets: while we do gain more "allies" who demand a voice at the table, they won't or can't commit military or monetarily to do what it takes to see the mission through.

Major-General Lewis MacKenzie (ret.) explains real reasons behind the Canadian refusal (Political excuses disarm military morale):

Unfortunately, it was left to a junior Defence department spokesman to explain why Canada would not agree to the U.S. request: "What the Americans are looking for is not exactly what our troops are trained for."

This need not have been such a highly embarrassing admission, as it is blatantly untrue. There are reasons why our contingent is incapable of taking on such a role, but it has nothing to do with a lack of training. On the contrary, they are the best-trained troops for such a mission in the multinational force.

[...]

Regrettably, a considerable degree of inflexibility was built into the organization of the Canadian contingent and a very un-Canadian solution was chosen.

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July 5 - Canadian Sampson believes he was freed as part of Saudi-U.S. terror deal:

OTTAWA (CP) - The tale of Bill Sampson, a Canadian jailed fort (sic) 31 months and accused of terrorism and murder in Saudi Arabia, has taken another bizarre twist with a claim that he finally won his freedom last year in a prisoner exchange brokered by the United States.

In return for the release of Sampson and other westerners held in Riyadh, the Americans agreed to send five Saudi terror suspects they had captured back to their homeland, the New York Times reported Sunday. The Canadian government had no immediate comment, other than to say it was looking into the matter.

Sampson, in a telephone interview from Penrith, Britain, where he now makes his home, said he's convinced the story is correct.

"It confirms information that I have found from different sources myself over the last nine months," he said.

[...]

"It's my information that the Saudis themselves broached the idea of an exchange," said Sampson.

"We were used from the very, very outset as hostages, and this had been deliberate from the start, to use us as a means of leverage against western governments."

The Times, quoting anonymous U.S. and British officials, said the prisoner exchange that finally freed Sampson was engineered by Robert Jordan, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

The deal was controversial in Washington, where some officials thought the U.S. was taking too big a risk by releasing potentially dangerous terrorist suspects from Guantanamo, said the newspaper.

But the Americans reportedly went ahead because they wanted to help British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a loyal ally in the war then shaping up in Iraq.

Blair's government had been trying to win the release of six Britons held along with Sampson, who is a dual Canadian-British citizen. Also held was Belgian Raf Schveyns.

All were arrested following a series of bombings in Riyadh that westerners claimed were the work of al-Qaida terrorists and the Saudis claimed were part of a turf war among western bootleggers involved in the illicit alcohol trade.

All eight westerners were finally set free in August 2003, three months after the five Guantanamo prisoners were sent home to Saudi Arabia.

Sampson said the Belgian documents, obtained and shown to him by Schveyns following their release, indicate that diplomats in Riyadh were worried about the three-month time lag.

05:12: CNN is carrying the story. The Saudis say the report is "pure fantasy" and US National Security Spokesman Sean McCormack said there was "no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions."

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.-D) is very worried about the release of the Gitmo prisoners and thinks there was undue influence by the Saudis, but his comments had nothing to do with the upcoming presidential campaign because CNN doesn't connect the two.

[Read on to see what kind of "influence" was being exerted, and I apologize to Canadians and the British for the indifferent CNN coverage]

The Daily Telegraph (UK) takes an entirely different slant:

United States officials yesterday accused Saudi Arabia of demanding - and receiving - the release of Saudi terrorist suspects from Guantanamo Bay as the secret price for last year's diplomatic deal to release six Britons accused of a deadly bombing campaign.

The allegations, levelled by senior American officials in the New York Times, cast new light on what was already one of the murkiest episodes in Saudi-British relations.

The six Britons and one British-born Canadian returned home last August after a bizarre two-year ordeal that saw them accused of plotting a string of bombings that ended in the death of a fellow Briton in late 2000.

Though western residents and diplomats insisted that the bombings were the work of Islamic militants, Saudi authorities claimed that the bombs were the result of a feud between foreign bootleggers, illegally selling alcohol within the expatriate community.

The seven confessed to a variety of "crimes", but later retracted their confessions. They have since launched a High Court legal action naming high-ranking Saudi leaders, saying they were tortured into false confessions as Saudi authorities tried to cover up the existence of al-Qa'eda terrorists in the kingdom.

Two men, Sandy Mitchell and a Canadian, William Sampson, were sentenced to public beheading, four were sentenced to 12-year jail terms and the seventh was detained for 10 months but not charged. They were all granted clemency last summer and were released three weeks later after signing a letter apologising to King Fahd and thanking his subjects for their hospitality. (Emphasis added.)

When they arrived in Britain, credit was given to British Government pressure and to the Prince of Wales, who made a private plea for clemency to the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah.

[...]

One American source described as knowledgeable about the negotiations told the New York Times: "This presented itself as a way for the United States to help its friends, both the Brits and the Saudis. It's what diplomacy is all about."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in London declined to confirm or deny US involvement in brokering the three-way deal, saying: "We worked very hard to secure the release of the men, and were relieved when they were released."

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July 3 - Today's news seems determine to bedevil me. I don't have a link for the story, but have a (temporary) link to today's Editorial in the Toronto Sun:

A Kinder, gentler Grapes?

SO, AFTER nearly seven months (!) of intense investigation, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages has determined CBC commentators like Don Cherry need sensitivity training to better understand this country's "linguistic duality."

Actually, as the Sun's Ottawa bureau revealed this week, that's only the preliminary finding by the bureaucrats assigned to probe Cherry's notorious comment that most of the NHL players who wear visors are "Europeans and French guys." We can only imagine how much more time and money will be wasted on producing a final report.

Of course, despite the fact this involves a taxpayer-funded language commission and a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster, there's no guarantee taxpayers will ever see the report, because of the "complainant's right to confidentiality." Well, it should be public. The public paid for it.

But at this point we're not sure what's worse, the fact the office felt it necessary to get involved in this supposed controversy in the first place, or that last week, it felt it necessary to justify its long investigations by putting up a "Frequently Asked Questions" file on its Web site.

"As an ombudsman, the mandate of the commissioner requires her to investigate all matters relating to the equality of status of our two official languages as well as all valid complaints against institutions relating to the Official Languages Act," it says.

To average Canadians, this is money-wasting lunacy at its finest. From the start, it's been unclear to most of us what, if anything, the Cherry controversy had to do with language.

His comment was about visors -- and as it turned out, he was only half right: more than half the visor-wearing players are European, but Quebec-born players (assuming that's what he meant by "French guys," although we're sure the language commissioner would prefer "francophones" or "Quebecois") were on par with the rest of the NHL.

So Cherry's guilty of being insensitive and inaccurate -- big deal. He didn't say French shouldn't be spoken in the NHL. He said nothing about language at all.

But as a result of all of this, some day soon it appears CBC guest commentators and contract employees will be hauled into rooms, told to hold hands and share their feelings about "linguistic duality" -- all thanks to a four-second Grapes gripe about visors.

We can't wait to hear his politically incorrect commentary about this one.

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July 3 - Michael Coren comments on the election results (June 28's dark shadow) and Liberal promises to form a national child care policy. Along the way, Coren defines state-run childcare:

... spend billions so women can go out to work so as to pay taxes so as to pay the salary of other women to look after their children while they go out to work rather than raise their own kids.

The schools and hospitals are in shambles. Most of the money supposedly earmarked for those institutions goes to support staff (read civil servants) and yet we are supposed to trust this culture of ineptitude to provide trustworthy institutions for raising our beloved children?

I remember some of the (seemingly) wilder anti-Communist accusations, such as "they will take away your children and brainwash them."

Well, they aren't bursting into our homes and seizing the children (well, not usually) but they are applying a more insidious pressure on us to surrender our kids: bankruptcy.

And no, they aren't brainwashing them, merely failing to teach them to read and write. Keep them ignorant, eh?

Oh by the way, Ontario, this is the month we begin to pay our extra health care premiums. You may believe that your employer should pay it, but I ask you: who voted the Liberals into power?

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Tanstaafl!

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July 3 - I have already confessed my embarassment that Moore and Nader had the arrogance to speak about the recent elections up here, but it's actually worse than I thought.

According to a CBC item, Moore boosts Kerry, Moore deliberately released his latest movie up here in an attempt to influence the elections:

Moore also wanted his film released before the Canadian election, saying he hoped it would help convince Canadians not to vote for Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

That's right: insulted. Moore was worried the foolish Canadians might choose wrongly so hurried to intervene with his peculiar brand of propaganda. I don't know if there's any way to ascertain if he actually influenced the elections, but that's hardly the point. He tried, so where's the righteous indignation?

Oh, that's right. The caring and compassionate left gets a free ride on their numerous violations of decency.

But let's think it through for a fraction of a second. If it's allowable for one wing of American political thought to deliberately intervene in Canadian matters, why isn't it allowable for the other wing? You know, do that fair and balanced thingy we hear so much about?

Suppose, just suppose, that positions were reversed and Canada leaned to the right. A huge scandal and a decade of mismanagement combined to look as though the ruling party was about to be unseated and a Liberal Party voted in, and then some Americans came up here to influence the vote.

You don't even have to speculate as to the reaction (unless you live on Mars ...)

Sen. Kerry, funnily enough, is exhibiting some belated caution as far as Moore is concerned:

Kerry has reportedly not asked Moore to appear at any campaign events (during the Democratic primaries, the filmmaker supported retired general Wesley Clark). According to a campaign spokesperson, it's not known if Kerry has seen the movie yet.

(Link via Paul.)

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July 2 - I thought this was a joke when I first read about it, but it is true: Cocaine hidden on Martin ship named for his wife, the Sheila Ann. (The ship is named after his wife, not the cocaine.)

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July 2 - Bill Whittle recently suggested that we observe "which way the rafts are headed" when we read and hear America-bashers. His point was that the immense numbers of people trying to get into the USA by any and all means - including those that prove fatal - effectively rebutts the hysterical claims of those who claim we and our country are hated by everyone in the world. He makes the further point that not many people are anxious to move to Cuba or the Mid-east, demonstrating that this test also works in reverse.

There are also some Canadian statistics on cross-border immigration which, as Peaktalk notes, may well have had an effect in the recent election up here.

Kate brings this full circle in Voting With Their Feet using those statistics to indicate in which direction the rafts are headed and that immigration numbers between Canada and the USA are a verifiable reality check on the propaganda claims by the Liberal Party of Canadian superiority.

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July 1 - First, Happy Canada Day to us up here in the Great White North. It's pretty warm in Toronto, and summer has officially begun. (Updated) Or, as Paul insists: Happy Dominion Day.

What is Canada Day? (I'm a bit jaundiced by the election results, so I'm letting this one go.)

I gave up watching the CBC coverage of Canada Day events when their military angle focused on tombstones. I get it, already. CBC doesn't think freedom is worth fighting and possibly dying for. Check.

In the news: Saddam was defiant during his court appearance. Lord knows he's watched enough CNN to know how to perform in court, so don't colour me surprised.

The internationalists are out in force whining that this trial will lack legitimacy. Let me see if I have this straight: those nations, some of which refused to oust Saddam in 1991, some of which harbour those who paid kickbacks to Saddam in order to profit in the UN Oil-for-Food program, many of which shipped expired medicines and hospital equipment that didn't work along with limousines, sports stadiums and plastic shredders, and most of which turned a blind eye to his crimes against his own people, and even those who acted within the U.N. to keep Saddam in power ... those people have the audacity to utter words like justice and legitimacy?

Why are they attempting to deprive Iraqis of their right to their day in court? Because they are anxious to give the International Criminal Court legitimacy, perhaps?

Sorry, International Community, but organizations and people gain respect by their deeds, not by their words. If you want to try a genocidal dictator, consider being aligned with those who stopped his evil regime and apprehended him.

Just a thought.

More to the point, who freaking cares what a bunch of wankers and self-appointed elitists think? We heard the same stuff from the same nations back around 225+ years ago; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now. (Kind of poor timing on their part, given the promixity of the Fourth of July, to cast doubt upon the capability of the Iraqi people to build a free and prosperous nation. I'm just saying ...)

Final thought on Saddam: Wolverines!!! (I just watched Laredo (a show I loved as a kid and which bears up well even today) on the Lonestar channel and William Smith was a regular on Laredo, and he was the eeevil Col. Strelnikov in Red Dawn. That's only three degrees of separation! Eat your heart out, Kevil Bacon.)

On a more sober note, it's not really a surprise that there would be more terrorist attacks on this day but it serves to remind us that freedom isn't free.

I don't have that much to say about the handover except Hurrah! As have many, I've been irritated beyond patience by the unending ominous pronouncements from CNN that every firefight in Fallujah "threatened the handover" because I felt every dead "insurgent" strengthened the ability of the incoming Iraqi government to organize elections and lead Iraq on a new path.

21:19: Spinkiller has an eloquent post over at The Shotgun Iraqis embrace their freedom... that is a must-read.

Peggy Noonan in today's Opinion Journal says

The early transfer of sovereignty to Iraq has hit everyone here, friend of the invasion and foe, as a brilliant stroke. Leaving early, and with such modesty--it was a pleasure to be here, let us know if there's anything we can do--tends to undermine charges of U.S. imperialism. President Bush is feeling triumphant--one can tell even from here--and the Western press is looking very irritable indeed. They don't like to be surprised, they don't like it when Mr. Bush scores one, and they don't like it when the troublemakers they've been so banking on to prove their point that Iraq was a fiasco don't even get a chance to stop the turnover.

That expresses a fear many of us have, that having addressed one root cause of terrorism, i.e., the lack of human rights and opportunities for self-advancement in the Mideast, and having done so with loss of American lives, the temptation to run and hide will translate into a belief that having friends who won't watch our backs but will spout all the correct sentiments is more important than being right, and that could lead to a Kerry victory in November.

I live in one of those countries which have strained relations with the USA because of Sept. 11 and the Iraq War, and I can assure Americans of one thing: they want us to fail because it will make them look less inadequate, not because we are wrong.

For proof, read Saddam was defiant again, and note that CNN is acting as though this monster has any credibility or respectability.

Noonan asks what President Bush can do about it, and I suspect that it is a rhetorical question, because most of us have expressed the wish that the president would be more vigorous in reminding us why we are fighting terrorism and why Iraq was key to turning the Mid-east to a new course.

He faces stiff opposition (mostly with alphabet names like CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC, BBC, and the other ABC) but I'm convinced the American people themselves just need a bit of encouragement and bolstering.

Those who want to retreat have to ask themselves very seriously: what will you expect from the American President when the next terrorist attack occurs? Sadly, Pres. Clinton's response was to investigate fundamentalist Christians, which lead to the Waco disaster. Is that what we want?

Call me a warmonger, but I prefer the Republican president's track record to the Democrat's candidate.

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1 Amen.

Posted by: Dex at July 01, 2004 08:17 PM (vpzED)

2 Excellent post, and cheers for the link as well.

Posted by: Paul Jané at July 02, 2004 01:10 PM (Ys+Ti)

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