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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: frankw1900 who wrote (23002)	1/7/2004 11:04:14 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793709

Anybody contacted you, Frank? "Village Voice" Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway Uncle Sam Wants You, Eh? Our Military Tries to Recruit Canada's Inuit December 24 - 30, 2003 Mondo Washington this week: The Martial Plan Police State Tactics Transform a Nation—Our Own Uncle Sam Wants You, Eh? Our Military Tries to Recruit Canada's Inuit Bush-League Censorship Artist's 9-11 Work Honored Then Pulled And the Saddam-Capture Conspiracy Theories Begin s Bush was ramping up the Iraq war last winter, Canadian military officials were startled to discover Pentagon recruiters roaming through their nation's native population reserves trying to persuade Inuit and others to enlist in the U.S. military. The Americans started cropping up on the Atlantic Coast in Quebec, in the Sault Sainte Marie area of Ontario, and in Western Canada. A Canadian Defense Ministries report said the U.S. claimed that under the 1794 Jay Treaty it had the right to recruit Canadian native inhabitants for its military because aboriginal Canadians held dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship. Alarmed top Canadian officials from the ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Defense huddled with Privy Council bigwigs and, screwing up their nerve, decided to tell the Americans that Canada didn't like what was going on. "As a result of our interaction with the U.S. embassy, a letter was sent from the director, Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, to the vice chiefs of the U.S. military services, reminding them that their recruiters are to refrain from entering Canadian territory," Foreign Affairs official Reynald Doiron told The Vancouver Sun earlier this month. The prohibition on recruiting applies to U.S. activities in Canadian high schools and university job fairs as well as on native reserves. The U.S. embassy confirmed that it would stop active recruiting in such places in Canada. If Canadians want to join the U.S. military, they will have to cross the border to do so. The American recruiting efforts are aimed at filling the ranks of an army stretched thin by the Iraq war and by having to post troops in other world hot spots such as Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The U.S. may well have to put a permanent military presence in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa, to protect oil and gas reserves against regional squabbles. The U.S. currently recruits from among green-card holders—people with permanent resident status who aren't yet American citizens. In an effort to boost recruitment from such groups, Bush has signed an order reducing the time holders of green cards must wait before becoming citizens. Currently some 37,000 such people are in the military, out of a total of 1.4 million. The way some Canadians see it, the U.S. has already stolen their oil and gas, metals, diamonds, and water, and owns much of their industry. Now their manpower? Even the most laid-back of our neighbors to the north think this is going a bit far. But perhaps they don't realize it's all for the greater good and represents but a drop in the bucket for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's heroic goal of privatizing large chunks of the U.S. armed forces. The Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root is under billion-dollar contracts to provide much of the logistical support for the military, doing such things as setting up base camps, providing the food, and digging the latrines. And Halliburton is but one of some 90 or so companies that are engaged around the world in recruiting private armies, which then are leased out to governments like those of the U.S. and Great Britain—franchised versions of the French Foreign Legion. Numerous jobs in Iraq are held by private soldiers working for government subcontractors from places like Bangladesh. There's a problem with all this. Some private troops might well fall outside the protection of the Geneva Conventions, which protect prisoners of war. Not that this seems to bother Rumsfeld, who in one case can invoke the Geneva Conventions and in another ignore them—whichever best serves the Bush administration's purposes. They might be considered mercenaries, who are specifically excluded from protections. villagevoice.com

To: frankw1900 who wrote (23002)	1/14/2004 5:06:19 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793709

"A MEETING OF THE MINDS" Thats what Fox says is the description being floated of the meeting between the President and the new Canadian Prime Minister, Paul Martin. Apparently the meeting went so well the two kept "shooing away" aides trying to break up the meeting and keep them on schedule and the net result was a plus for Canada's participation in Iraqi reconstruction. Bush: Canada Can Bid on Iraq Reconstruction Tuesday, January 13, 2004 Fox News MONTERREY, Mexico — President Bush, working to smooth relations with allies who opposed the Iraq war, reversed course Tuesday and said Canada could bid for lucrative Iraqi reconstruction projects. Three or four other countries also will be eligible, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, but he declined to identify them. France, Germany and Russia have been furious that Bush excluded them from postwar contracts because they opposed the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein (search). In Paris, French officials said they were unaware of any policy change on contracts. Bush announced his change of heart about Canada in his first meeting with the country's new Prime Minister, Paul Martin (search). "It actually does show that, working together, you can arrive at a reasonable solution," Martin said at a picture-taking session with Bush. U.S. officials said Canada would be eligible to bid on roughly $4.5 billion in reconstruction projects. Later, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said any country that, like Canada, had been excluded because of opposition to the Iraq war could now qualify if it had made a pledge toward Iraq's reconstruction at a donors' conference in Madrid, Spain, in October. Bush cited Canada's pledge of $225 million toward Iraq's reconstruction -- one of the largest at the conference -- and its expressions of support for the U.S.-led political efforts in Iraq as the reason it won a spot on the contracting list. McClellan also held out the possibility for other nations, perhaps such as those that have agreed to forgive some of Iraq's massive foreign debt. That category would include France, Germany and Russia, none of which made contributions in Madrid. It was Bush's second fence-mending session at the Summit of the Americas, a gathering of 34 leaders from throughout the hemisphere. On Monday, Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox (search) put aside two years of differences and rallied behind a new U.S. proposal to grant legal status to millions of undocumented workers. U.S. relations with Canada were strained when Martin's predecessor, Jean Chretien, stood with France, Germany and Russia in refusing to join the United States in the war on Iraq because they said the invasion lacked U.N. authorization. Martin served as Chretien's finance minister for nine years, and backed Chretien's decision to abstain from the fighting in Iraq. Bush, asked whether the change in leadership could thaw U.S.-Canada relations, said: "That assumes there was a freeze. And I didn't feel there was." Yet events since Bush took office in 2001 had sent the relationship into a deep chill. Deeply angered by the Canadian stance on the Iraq war, Bush canceled a trip to Ottawa planned for last May. Relations had begun deteriorating earlier, when a U.S. bombing accident in Afghanistan in 2002 killed four of Canada's soldiers and injured eight more. And the two governments have squabbled over trade issues, ranging from U.S. tariffs on lumber imports from Canada to U.S. restrictions on Canadian meat products because of a lone case of mad cow disease. The beef issue flared anew last month with discovery of the disease in Washington state in a cow that came from Alberta. Bush and Martin pledged to cooperate in tackling the issue. "This is a North American industry, and the solutions are science-based, and those science-based solutions are going to be arrived at between the two of us," Martin said. On another topic, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a letter to Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham that the United States would notify Canadian consular officials of any intention to deport a Canadian citizen to a third country. Martin called the step unprecedented. Gordon Giffin, the U.S. ambassador to Canada from 1997 until May 2001, called the Iraq-contracts announcement "an enormous positive step forward." "It's a demonstration by the administration that they're interested in rejuvenating the historic close working relationship with Canada," he said. Last month, after Congress approved $18.6 billion in Iraq reconstruction money, Bush said he would limit eligibility to countries that had helped militarily or had made other major contributions as "coalition partners." Yet administration officials suggested the policy was not as black-and-white as Bush indicated, and in recent days they have unveiled a multi-staged decision process that would allow for bringing other countries into the bidding. FOXNews.com