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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (411975)	6/5/2003 9:04:30 PM
From: jim-thompson	Respond to of 769670

Panty Yields, I just listened to Diana Shepherd from Toronto hyping her new magazine "Divorce." She sounds just like your pitiful government. The magazine will not allow any horror stories concerning divorces. Only happy news stories on divorces. Reminds me Panty Yields, of how your government has handled the SARS mess in Canada.

To: Land Shark who wrote (411975)	6/5/2003 10:42:00 PM
From: jim-thompson	Respond to of 769670

Panty Yields, this is how Canada handled mad cow disease in 1991. It worked then, so it seems to me like they need to start destroying some herds. They had no qualms about banning beef from Brazil, so why are you guys upset about smart countries banning beef from Canada? It sure seems like you should worry about handling the scandals in your government rather than worry about what is done in the United States.

To: Land Shark who wrote (411975)	6/6/2003 12:04:26 AM
From: jim-thompson	Respond to of 769670

Panty Yields, this is a good link on the Somalia atrocities committed by your military and was given a cover-up stamp of approval by your PM. International news July 28, 1997 Canadian government defends military over Somalia atrocities By Keith Jones THE CANADIAN government has dismissed the findings of a judicial inquiry into- atrocities committed by Canadian troops participating in the US-led, 1992-93 occupation of Somalia. Faced with a 2,000-page report that details the attempts by Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) officers serving in Somalia and top military and civilian personnel at Defence Department headquarters to cover up the murder of two Somalis by Canadian soldiers, Prime Minster Jean Chrétien declared, "There was no cover-up." Defence Minister Art Eggleton termed the commission's report "unfair and unjust." He took exception to the commission's finding that the "testimony of witnesses was characterized by inconsistency, implausibility, evasiveness, selective recollection, half truths and plain lies." Eggleton specifically rejected its recommendation that the testimony of senior officers be reviewed by judicial authorities to determine whether they had committed perjury. "There is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing that has not already been investigated," he asserted. Shortly thereafter, the Liberal cabinet reaffirmed its support for the current Chief of Defence Staff, Vice Admiral Larry Murray, who, when called to testify before the commission last January, denounced its treatment of the military and flouted its authority. The commission's final report says that Murray, who headed the military police in 1993, has yet to adequately explain why he waited five weeks to initiate an investigation into the fatal shooting of an unarmed Somali, and did so only after a CAF surgeon had publicly accused Canadian soldiers of an "execution-style" killing. Disruption campaign The Chrétien government's dismissal of the commission's report is the climax of a month-long campaign to disrupt, restrict and belittle its work. In January the government ordered the commission to issue its report by June 30. No government in Canadian history had previously shut down a judicial inquiry; the commissioners protested that such action made it impossible for them to properly investigate the atrocities and their subsequent cover-up. Concerned that the Somalia affair was threatening to expose the complicity of the top brass in criminal actions, the Liberal government, in effect, assumed responsibility for completing the cover-up begun by the CAF and Defence Department. The commission itself suggests as much: "Our schedule was aborted just as we were beginning to question the highest levels of leadership of the Canadian forces and the Department of National Defence as to the allegations of cover-up." The government's decision to abandon "its earlier declared interest in holding senior leaders and officials to account" and end the inquiry prematurely "raises new questions concerning responsibility and accountability." The Somalia inquiry was established in November 1994, after the military's portrayal of the Somalia atrocities as the work of a few bad apples had been undermined by a series of devastating leaks. It was learned that army officers had promised to reward the first soldier to kill a Somali. Scores of Canadian troops had heard the cries of 16-year-old Shidone Arone as he was beaten to death over several hours, yet none intervened. Snapshots and video tapes surfaced that showed Canadian troops engaging in barbaric hazing rituals and using racist epithets to describe Somalis and otherwise mocking and humiliating them. The commissioners-two judges and a professor-never called into question the purpose of Canada's intervention into Somalia. Their concern was that the atrocities and the cover-up had undermined the military's effectiveness and usefulness. The atrocities had shaken public confidence in Canadian "peacekeeping," making it more difficult to rally public support for the dispatch of Canadian troops overseas. Also, the cover-up, particularly the attempts of the top brass to scapegoat junior men, was sapping the confidence of the ranks in the high command. Two fundamental questions are raised by the Canadian inquiry into atrocities in Somalia. The first concerns the nature of "Operation Restore Hope." The brutality inflicted on civilians was not incidental to the military intervention in Somalia. There is evidence of similar atrocities being committed by Belgian and Italian troops, and hundreds, if not thousands, of Somalis died in armed clashes, when they challenged the right of foreign armies to occupy their country. Imperialist intervention The UN-sanctioned and US-led invasion of Somalia was an imperialist operation. Undertaken shortly after the collapse of the USSR, big and small powers alike used it to inure their populations and armies to the deployment of troops overseas, to better position themselves in pressing claims for resources and influence. Popular revulsion at scenes of the mass suffering in Somalia was exploited by imperialist governments for ends that were neither humanitarian nor altruistic. The Somalia Commission report expressly praised the aims of Canada's intervention in Somalia. Indeed many of its recommendations concern how to better prepare the CAF for future missions overseas. But in reporting on some of the deficiencies of the Somalia operation-Canadian troops were ill-equipped and lacked adequate rations of food and water-the commissioners let slip that more than concern for the fate of starving Somalis lay behind the haste with which the intervention was organized. "Political expediency and a desire to be visible on the world stage overrode all practical logistical concerns," says the commission's final report. The second fundamental question raised by the inquiry concerns the decay of bourgeois democracy. The Canadian government went to extraordinary lengths to shore up the military high command, running roughshod over its commission of inquiry and turning a blind eye to perjury and other violations of the most elementary principles of the subordination of military to civilian authorities. One journalist, not known for his liberal views, said the Chrétien government had effectively "collaborated in a military coup against itself.... What is at stake ... is no less than democratic rule, and whether the military is answerable to the institutions of civil authority. Let it be said the government has come down hard on the side of military."