U.S. security -- the ignorance factor

American ignorance about Canada is a rich source of humour for many Canadians. Generally it isn't something to be taken seriously because, after all, we are a bit player in the grand scheme of world affairs and they are a giant. Why would they know very much about us? Oh yes, we are their major trading partner but trade is dull, not something most people spend a lot of time chatting about. So they know little about us, so what.

Well, occasionally it does matter. One such occasion is their obsession with security. Their hardening of the border, to use the current expression, to bolster their security is creating considerable difficulties for both trade and travel across the no longer "world's longest undefended border." To the extent it interferes with trade, as boring as the subject may be, it has serious ramifications for the economies of both countries, particularly ours. And, unfortunately, it appears the U.S. concern about security is based to no small degree not only on paranoia but on ignorance. Leading Americans from Hillary Clinton to John McCain to, and here is where it becomes deeply troubling, the head of U.S. Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, have at one time or another claimed the September 11 attackers came from Canada. In fact, none of them had been in Canada and all had entered the U.S. on valid American visas.

Napolitano has now retracted her view but was still expressing it up until a month ago. And her retraction was phrased oddly. "Now we know the 9/11 terrorists did not use the Canadian border," she is quoted as saying, as if her agency had just discovered something new.

If senators of border states (and Clinton wasn't the only one), presidential candidates and, of the greatest importance, the key figure in the American security establishment, all believe in this blatantly false but critically important piece of information, how badly informed are the Americans about security over all? Is their intelligence about Canada on this issue of the same standard as their intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? This is a scary prospect.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan referred to Ms. Napolitano's comments on the issue as a "slight misspeak." Let us hope he's just being tactful.

Three women honoured, one gratuitously insulted

Yesterday's issue of The Globe and Mail stood out for its inspiring stories about not one but three women of extraordinary achievement. The first was about Canada's very own master of the short story, Alice Munro, "our Chekhov," and her winning of the $100,000 Man Booker International Prize for fiction. Selected from a short list of internationally renowned writers, Ms. Munro adds the Man Booker to her impressive list of awards, including the Governor-General's Award for fiction (three times), the Giller Prize (twice), the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award and the W.H. Smith Literary Award in Britain. She has had 48 short stores published in the New Yorker and has been described in the New York Times as having "a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America."

Appearing on the front page of the Globe with Ms. Munro was U.S. President Barack Obama's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. Growing up poor in the Bronx, Ms. Sotomayor now aspires to the highest judicial office in her country. If she is confirmed by the Senate, as she almost certainly will be, she will become the first Latina justice on the Court.

Featured on the Globe's Law Page was Canada's most successful jurist, Louise Arbour. She achieved the highest honour available to a Canadian judge -- elevation to the Supreme Court -- and is also the most accomplished Canadian jurist internationally. She served as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, and recently completed a term as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

At a recent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, Ms. Arbour was praised by ambassador after ambassador, all expressing regret she was not seeking another term. All except the Canadian ambassador that is, who made no reference to her decision. The Harper government is known to have differences with her, but on occasions such as this, good manners call for differences to be set aside to say something nice about the person being honoured. But the Harperites seem to have great difficulty setting differences aside, it is always us against them. One wonders what the representatives of other members of the international community thought about this boorish slight by the Canadian ambassador toward one of his own.

Ms. Arbour will continue to play an international role, assuming the positions of president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that analyzes conflicts around the world and proposes solutions. Congratulations to her, and to Mses. Munro and Sotomayor, and a raspberry to Canada's ambassador to the UN.

Ahmadinejad challenges Obama

So Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has offered to debate U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations on, in his words, "... global issues as well as world peace and security." Challenging the elegant, eloquent Obama is quite the display of confidence for the bumptious Iranian.

Nonetheless, the debate could prove interesting. Top of the agenda would probably be nuclear weapons with Obama demanding that Iran refrain from developing them. He would point out that Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which forbids non-nuclear nations from developing atomic weaponry. Ahmadinejad would have little trouble countering this. He would claim Iran was not working on a weapon, but only advancing peaceful uses of the atom, and he could refer to the U.S.'s own intelligence reports to support that position. But that would just be for starters. He could then ask Obama why the Americans' best friend in the region, Israel, is allowed to have nuclear weapons and the U.S. has nothing to say about it. He could go on to point out that the Non-Proliferation Treaty also requires nuclear nations to disarm themselves of atomic weapons, which the United States is not doing and is therefore in violation of the treaty itself. Ahmadinejad wins this one easily.

Next up, probably, would be bringing peace and stability to the Middle East. Obama would accuse Iran of providing weapons to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and thereby creating instability. A fair charge. But again, Ahmadinejad could easily rebut it, stating that in the view of most people in the region Hamas and Hezbollah are legitimate resistance organizations. Obama would have trouble with that considering both groups have been legitimized to a U.S. standard by engaging in the democratic process and in fact being quite successful at it. As for the terrorism charges, both organizations have used terror but then so have Israel and the United States. And as for Iran's support of Hamas and Hezbollah, the United States has provided massive military aid to Israel creating a huge imbalance of power in the region. It is hypocritical, the Iranian president might say, to criticize Iran for providing a much smaller amount of aid to the other side, particularly as that side is the victim. In any case, after the Iraq debacle, the Americans have little credibility when it comes to peace in the region. Once again, Ahmadinejad has the edge.

A real danger for Obama would be Ahmadinejad going on the offensive about the history of the U.S./Iran relationship. He could bring up United States collaboration in the overthrow of the democratically-elected Mossadegh government, the first Islamic democracy in the Middle East. This was where the current hostility between the two countries really began. Not only would this put Obama on the defensive, it would undermine one of his real strengths, his country's support of democracy.

Will Obama take up the challenge, assuming Ahmadinejad wins Iran's June 12th presidential election? He has said he wants dialogue with Iran -- here is a splendid opportunity. As for my prediction for the debate, should it take place: Ahmadinejad wins on facts hands down. Obama, however, seduces the crowd with his charm and eloquence. I'll leave the final verdict to the members of the General Assembly.

The Tamil tragedy and their psychopathic leader

Psychopaths, bereft of conscience, commonly resort to violence in the pursuit of their pleasures. In normal human intercourse, this often leads them into behaviour that is unacceptably anti-social or even criminal. But when violence is socially acceptable, such as in war and revolution, the psychopath comes into his own. He can use violence to aggrandize himself not only with impunity but with honour, even glory. Rather than a social pariah, he becomes a revolutionary hero. History is replete with such figures: Lenin, Mao, Mugabe, the list is long. And recently another has been much in the news -- Velupillai Prabhakaran, the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Leading his Tigers in a just cause warped to his own sordid methods, Prabhakaran pursued a bloody, destructive civil war for 26 long years until finally dying, as he lived, by the sword. A master of assassination, suicide bombing and child soldiers, he was a man of considerably skill. Typical of psychopaths, despite his unimpressive appearance and unassuming manner he had a powerful charisma, described as an extraordinary "focus." He created a formidable military, complete with army, navy and even an air force.

Despite his substantial ability, his war was a miserable failure. He ruled the Tamils with the same merciless brutality he fought his Sinhalese enemies with, killing anyone who had the temerity to defy him. He brought his people 26 years of death and suffering and left them worse of than they were before. And one can't help but wonder how they would have fared if he had won. Not only does managing a country require very different skills than fighting a revolution, what would life under such a thug been like? Like Russian under Lenin? China under Mao? Zimbabwe under Mugabe? One shudders at the kind of society he may very well have created.

A more constructive, and far more enlightened, course for the Tamils was offered by a former revolutionary leader in neighbouring India. I refer of course to the greatest man of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi, who showed all of us that great things could be done, including liberating the second largest population on Earth, without raising a hand against anyone. Such inspiration so close yet the Tamils missed it and paid a terrible price.

But now, with the Tigers defeated and their leader dead, the opportunity presents itself again. If the Tamils take it, if they pursue justice in Sri Lanka, or even a state of their own, by the methods of Gandhi, or at least peacefully, one thing is certain. They will do no worse than they did under the leadership of the psychopath Prabhakaran.

Chernobyl still vexes British farmers

When on April 26th, 1986, reactor number four of the nuclear power plant near Chernobyl in the Ukraine exploded, radioactive dust quickly drifted across Europe. Reaching the British Isles within days, carried in fine rain, it seeped into the hills of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and there it remains. Hundreds of farms are still restricted in how they are allowed to use land and raise sheep. Radiocaesium-137 passes easily from soil to grass and accumulates in animals. Sheep grazed on upper pastures, where radioactivity levels are highest, have their heads painted red to identify them, and if a farmer wants to sell them for food, they must be scanned.

The number of farms requiring scanning steadily declines as the radioactivity fades, but the red-headed sheep will for a long time be reminders of the dangerous reach of nuclear power, even in its peaceful mode.

If the provinces can do it ...

The provinces continue to show some enlightenment on the challenge of global warming even if the federal government continues to keep its head in the sand -- the tar sands, of course.

Quebec was first with a carbon tax albeit a limited one. B.C. deserves credit for the first substantial tax and has enacted legislation to move toward a cap-and-trade system. Quebec will have cap-and-trade legislation in place by the end of June and Ontario and Manitoba will soon follow. The four provinces, along with seven U.S. states, are part of the Western Climate Initiative, which is working toward a regional cap and trade system.

None of this is enough to deal fully with global warming, of course, but it does show a commitment to the challenge. Meanwhile, the federal government lollygags, its efforts less than inspiring. The Environment Commissioner, Scott Vaughan, states that its targets are overstated and it has no system in place to measure results. The feds suggest we must wait on the lead of our southern neighbour.

The provinces don't agree. The premiers of Ontario and Quebec have indicated for some time that, if necessary, they will go it alone on climate change. According to Premier McGuinty of Ontario, "We both agree that we have an opportunity, even a responsibility here in Canada, to put in place a carbon-exchange register that will, one way or another, serve as kind of a pilot project that the federal government and maybe even the government in Washington can use as a base for a national program."

In other words, Canada can set an example. We could be a leader rather than a follower as our current federal government seems content to be. The situation was until recently the same in the U.S. States such as California led the way in dealing with climate change while their federal administration dragged its heels. With the election of Barack Obama, that's changed. Unfortunately, there is no Obama in sight in this country, but maybe we don't need one. The four provinces setting the pace include 80 per cent of the country's population and 75 per cent of our GNP, so much can be done without the help of the dawdlers in Ottawa.

What's Harper in it for?

A newly-minted Conservative attack ad on You Tube suggests Michael Ignatieff is "Not in [politics] for Canada," but only "In it for himself." My initial reaction was, are we talking about Michael Ignatieff or Stephen Harper? After all, it's something of a mystery why Harper wants to be Prime Minister of a country he doesn't seem to like very much. Consider the evidence:

• Speaking to an American right-wing think tank, he made comments such as, "Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it," and "if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians," revealing a not very elevated opinion of his country and his countrymen.
• Once asked if there was a Canadian culture, he answered, "Yes, in a very loose sense. It consists of regional cultures within Canada, regional cultures that cross borders with the US. We're part of a worldwide Anglo-American culture. And there is a continental culture." I think the answer was, in a very loose sense, not really.
• Then there's the famous firewall letter to Premier Klein of Alberta which he signed and which stated, "It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can approach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction."
  
• About Maritimers he has said, "There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress, or that's what you look to." So much for that benighted part of the country.
  
• And then there's his infamous inability to say he loves Canada, source of much mockery in the media.
  

So, to paraphrase the Conservative ad, what is Harper in it for? It can hardly be for love of country if he can't even say the words. Is the ad, therefore, some kind of unconscious comment on the Conservatives' own leader? Or maybe not so unconscious? Perhaps a pre-emptive attempt to portray Ignatieff as a political dilettante before the Liberals portray Harper as a mere ideologue?

But who knows what goes on in the minds of people who deal in attack ads. We are in a murky realm, a part of the political world that does so much to explain why decent people want little to do with politics. Best to just leave them to their silly games.

Will B.C.'s electoral choice harm Canada?

To say I'm disappointed with the B.C. referendum on electoral reform is putting it mildly. Not only did the voters of that province reject proportionality, they opted overwhelmingly for the corrupt first-past-the-post system (FPTP). Not that it necessarily makes all that much difference in B.C., a largely two-party province. In this election, for example, the Liberals approached a majority with 46% of the vote to the NDP's 42%. If a proportional system were in effect, the Liberals would have required a coalition to form a government and would probably have gotten one with the support of the Greens who, like the Liberals but unlike the NDP, supported B.C.'s carbon tax.

The real disappointment is what this might mean to the possibility of change at the federal level where it is most sorely needed. Not only does FPTP grossly corrupt the results of federal elections, it rewards division and punishes unity, the last thing a highly regionalized country like ours needs. In the 2008 election the Bloc Quebecois, the most divisive party in the country (it only bothers to run candidates in one province), was awarded 16% of the seats in the House of Commons for 10 % of the popular vote. The NDP, which runs candidates and wins seats in every region, won 12% of the seats with 18% of the popular vote. The Bloc was rewarded for its separatism with 61% more seats than it deserved and the NDP was punished for its all-Canadian approach with 33% fewer seats than it earned. The Conservatives commonly win more seats in the West than they deserve and fewer in the East, the Liberals just the opposite. So, thanks to FPTP, the two major regional divisions in the country, Quebec/English Canada and East/West, become greatly exaggerated in our national legislature.

This aggravation of regional differences is unhealthy and dangerous. Inasmuch as the B.C. referendum result discourages federal reform, it harms the entire country.

Who will run U.S. Middle East policy - Obama or AIPAC?

U.S. President Barack Obama has indicated he may do the only thing that will bring peace to Palestine and justice to the Palestinians. He will put pressure on Israel to agree to a fair settlement. During his election campaign, Obama said he regarded the lack of a resolution to the conflict as a "constant sore" that "infect[s] all of our foreign policy." It is indeed that serious and it has infected more than American foreign policy. It was a contributing factor to 9/11 and to Islamic hostility toward the U.S. generally. Recently, Obama's national security adviser, General James Jones, has said the new administration would be more "forceful" with Israel.

This is promising, but the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has other ideas, and this is a group to be reckoned with. It has sent a veritable army of lobbyists to Washington to convince members of Congress to sign a letter to the president dissuading him from a tougher approach to Israel. AIPAC may be the most powerful lobby group in the United States. When it holds a conference, half of Congress attends. Critics claim it has unseated members who, in its eyes, have been too critical of Israel. Its letter was in fact written by two influential Congressmen, Steny Hoyer, Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, and Eric Cantor, the Republican whip.

The letter, although calling for peace, in effect insists on allowing Israel to set the pace of negotiations. Israel, which steals more Palestinian land every day and continually intensifies the segregation of the Palestinians, is of course in no hurry to change the status quo. Asking the Palestinians to wait on the pleasure of the Israelis is reminiscent of Martin Luther King's words in Letter from a Birmingham Jail about requests for blacks to have patience: "'Wait' ... rings in the ear of every Negro ... This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'" It rings similarly in the ears of Palestinians.

So will Obama emulate the impatience of Martin Luther King and demand justice for the Palestinians now or will he succumb to the political muscle of AIPAC and ask them to wait. This may be the most important foreign policy decision of his term.

On listing "terrorists"

Terrorism is once again in the news. The end of the Tamil Tigers, pioneers of suicide bombing, is nigh in Sri Lanka. In the United States, increasingly disturbing revelations about the Bush administration's use of torture in their "war on terror" is riling tempers. And our government leaves Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik to rot in the Sudan because it has concluded, against all evidence, that he's a terrorist.

But if I'm going to talk about terrorism, I should first define it. To me, it means the use of terror against a civilian population to coerce it into adopting a certain political position. A definition is necessary because the word tends to be applied highly selectively, used by governments and others to demonize some individual or group they find disapprove of.

Essentially, terrorism is a military tactic, like an air raid or a blitzkrieg. It is sometimes called the weapon of the poor because it tends to be used by those who lack formal militaries, the Palestinians for example. Nonetheless, it is used by a range of agents, some poor, some not so poor. The greatest terrorist attacks in history, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were carried out by the United States, the richest, most powerful nation on Earth. and a democratic nation it is important to note. Probably the greatest use of terror overall has been by governments against their own people.

We consider terrorism to be particularly repugnant because it's directed at civilians rather than military personnel, i.e. at innocents. This is a finer distinction than it immediately appears, however. In modern warfare, most casualties are civilian. Consequently, when a nation decides on military action, it is consciously deciding to kill civilians. Distinguishing terrorism from conventional war is, therefore, somewhat arbitrary. Whether you die from a specifically terrorist attack or from collateral damage in a war zone is small consolation to the dead.

This reveals the rather arbitrary nature of terrorist lists. Placed on a list, an individual or organization becomes a pariah, not to be dealt with in any way by respectable people, possibly under threat of prosecution. The Canadian government has listed the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization, and therefore put them beyond the pale, and they have indeed done terrible things, but then so has the government of Sri Lanka, including the systematic repression of the Tamil people, yet with them we maintain full diplomatic relations. We have also put the Palestinian organization Hamas on a terrorist list and that both lacks logic and adds to the difficulty of creating peace in the Middle East. Yes, it has a military arm and that arm has used terrorism, but it also has a social arm that has brought much needed social services to the Palestinian people, and it has a political arm that is willing to participate in the democratic process which it has done with great success. To categorize a comprehensive organization such as Hamas as a terrorist organization makes no more sense than categorizing the United States and Israel as terrorist states because they have also used terror when it suited their purposes.

Listing groups as terrorists can at times be downright perverse. For instance, al-Qaeda and Hamas get lumped into the same do-not-touch category, yet have little in common. Hamas is an organization willing to subject its political and ideological goals to negotiation and democratic process. As a major player in Palestine, it can and should be a participant in the Middle East peace process. Al-Qaeda on the other hand answers only to God and therefore does not negotiate and pursues its ideological objectives only by violence. Hamas has goals amenable to reason, al-Qaeda does not. Hamas can be treated as a political entity, al-Qaeda only as a criminal organization. Treating Hamas as if it were al-Qaeda is a folly that leads only to hostility and lost opportunity, an action neither useful nor justified.

The situation with individuals is parallel. Abousfian Abdelrazik has broken no law, yet our government abandons him in a foreign land. The ostensible reason is that he is on the UN blacklist, yet the very placing of an individual on the blacklist egregiously violates due process. A government simply submits a name to the Security Council along with supporting details. The government doesn't have to publicly identify itself (in Abdelrazik's case it hasn't) and no formal standards of evidence are required. If there is no objection within five days, the person is added to the list. Their assets are frozen and they are not allowed to travel internationally. The person doesn't get a hearing and can't submit evidence to refute the allegations. They are guilty until proven innocent.

In Abdelrazik's case, the RCMP and CSIS have both vouched for his innocence, but our government remains unmoved. They do this to him because he is accused of being a terrorist; he'd be much better off if he were accused of being a common criminal. And that of course is how such situations should be dealt with. If he is suspected of committing a crime, subject him to due process; if he isn't, treat him as an innocent man. The same applies to groups who practice political and ideological violence. If they commit crimes, treat them as criminals. The law has ways of dealing with members of a criminal organization.

Listing is an arbitrary process that does more to confuse and subvert the search for peace and security than it does to enhance it. It should be abandoned along with the curious construct, the "war on terror," that gave it life.

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization"

It's April 30th, a day occasioning two things to smile about: the death of Hitler in 1945 and the filing deadline for your income taxes. As for Hitler shooting himself in the head on April 30th, 1945 ... well, enough said. But paying your income taxes is worth a few words outlining one of our country's best bargains.

At least that's what authors Hugh Mackenzie and Richard Shillington call it in their report, "Canada's Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending," published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The report is full of intriguing observations such as the fact that, depending on the type of tax cut, the vast majority of Canadians are better off with improvements in public services rather than tax cuts, and benefits from public services adds up to more than 50% of the household earned income for more than two-thirds of Canadians.

These conclusions support the opinion of the great American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization." Taxes allow for not only the basic infrastructure of a society but also for a more equitable, more compassionate society, i.e. a civilization.

As for the argument high taxes diminish a society's prosperity, an argument endlessly repeated in the corporate press, that is a lie. Sweden has the world's highest taxes, and it also has one of the world's highest GDPs per capita, higher than any country in North America. This is hardly a surprise. We should expect a healthy, well-educated population and good physical infrastructure to contribute to a successful economy. Quality is expensive and high quality public services require relatively high taxes. The price is high but the product is, as Mackenzie and Shillington report, a bargain.

The press will continue to push for lower taxes. They are good and faithful servants of the corporations who own them and corporations, focused solely on profit, always want lower taxes. We would all like to pay lower taxes, of course. I would like to pay less for bread, too, but not if it's mouldy. I'm willing to pay the price for good, tasty bread not past its due date, just as I'm willing to pay for high quality public services. I suspect most Canadian feel the same way, both about the bread and the taxes. Best then, to ignore the corporate propaganda.

So send in your taxes and smile; you're about to pay for the biggest bargain in the country. As the report says "For the vast majority of Canada’s population, public services are, to put it bluntly, the best deal they are ever going to get."

When torture worked

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

These immortal words of Pogo have been used a lot lately in the U.S. in the heated debate about the use of torture. Pogo was referring to pollution of the environment, of course, whereas current use refers to the Bush administration's pollution of American values.

Whether or not torture worked for American intelligence continues to be debated, but it certainly worked for the bad guys. I wouldn't attempt to get inside the heads of people who fly planes into tall buildings, but if I had to guess what their objectives were I would suggest two. One, to undermine American values, and two, to ignite a war between the West and Islam.

As far as the first objective is concerned, once the Americans turned to torture, they eroded one of their fundamental principles: respect for human dignity. The Eighth Amendment to the American constitution forbids the use of "cruel and unusual punishment." American values had been successfully undermined by the Americans themselves.

Regarding the second objective, there too, torture proved useful. When Colin Powell made his now-infamous speech at the United Nations to justify to the world an invasion of Iraq, he claimed Saddam Hussein was assisting al-Qaeda in obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. knew this because of information they had received from "a senior terrorist operative" who was "now detained." The Americans had indeed obtained such information from a captured member of al-Qaeda, but it was obtained under torture, and it was a lie. The terrorist later recanted his confession, saying he had only wanted to stop the pain. Be that as it may, his information helped achieve exactly what his comrades wanted, to start a war between the West and Islam. Once again, the U.S. had followed the terrorists' script.

The Bush administration had met the enemy and it was themselves.

Jeffrey Simpson, anti-American?

Although I read a daily paper, I don't pay a lot of attention to columnists. Not that their opinions don't matter -- everyone's does -- it's just that, with a few exceptions, most of them are neither entertaining nor informative nor thoughtful enough to spend time on. Their prose is no more rewarding than chatting with the anonymous guy at the bus stop.

I do routinely read Jeffrey Simpson, however. Why I'm not sure, perhaps he's just become a habit. His comfortable, middle-of-the-road style is somehow relaxing, addicting even. That's why his column in last Saturday's Globe "Can We Reduce Our Dependence on America?" caught me off guard. Like many liberal and conservative writers, Simpson feels obliged from time to time to accuse the left of being anti-American. In this column he surprisingly took on task himself. Catch a load of this:

The U.S. got itself massively indebted through terrible government decisions. lax regulation, private-sector greed and a political culture that refused to face elementary facts.

Or this:

... the United States, a country whose share of world trade and general economic activity is declining, whose massive indebtedness and self-indulgence are weakening its power, and whose overstretched military is bleeding the country's resources.

Wow! Let's see a run of the mill anti-American top that. Of course, everything he says is simply the truth, but still, it's quite the rant. And what's this all about? Well, here's the point -- and it's sharp:

It's one thing to be an appendage of a country in the ascendancy; it's quite another to be one of a country that has screwed itself up. Such is Canada's fate.

When even an anti anti-American tees off like this, a mere anti-American may be inclined to think he was right all along.

Tough choice in BC

As much as I appreciate exercising my right to vote, I'm not unhappy I won't be required to exercise it in the coming B.C. election. I would face a choice I would rather avoid. My usual party of choice, the NDP, are on the wrong side of one of the issues of greatest importance to me and sitting on the fence on another.

I believe electoral reform is an essential step toward improving our democracy. The egregious weaknesses of our current voting system, first-past-the-post, are well known. In the upcoming May 12th election, B.C. voters will have the opportunity to dump first-past-the-post and replace it with an excellent proportional system, single transferable vote (STV). To my chagrin, the NDP is not officially taking a position on the referendum even though the great majority of its members support the need for reform. The party of the people is not, it seems, unduly concerned about ensuring the people are fairly represented in their legislature.

An even bigger issue is global warming. Indeed this is the mother of all issues, the one that has to be dealt with if any other issues are going to matter at all. (I don't much like single-issue voting, but when it comes to the most important issue facing humanity, I could make an exception.) One of the key instruments in dealing with global warming is a carbon tax. We, all of us, should pay for our pollution. The B.C. NDP thinks otherwise and promises to rid the province of its carbon tax if elected. After Dion's hapless promotion of it in the federal election, this could fatally harm one of the best tools we have to deal with the greatest challenge we face.

All is not lost however. The B.C. Green Party supports both STV and a carbon tax. As a B.C. voter, I would have an alternative without having to support Gordon Campbell and his Liberals (mind you, they deserve credit for introducing a carbon tax in the first place). Only with reluctance would I abandon the party of which I am a member, but on two issues of this exceptional importance, I would feel forced into it. The NDP complains about the Green Party undermining the left by taking votes away from them --- in B.C. they are handing the Greens votes on a platter.

George W. Bush and Lady Justice

The United States Senate released a report yesterday that directly implicates senior members of the Bush administration in the use of torture. The report, the most detailed investigation yet into the background of "harsh interrogation," undermines the claim of administration officials that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was solely the work of rogue military personnel. The report connects the dots from former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Guantanamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq. It states, "The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees." It also claims the administration rejected advice against the techniques from the military, who questioned both the morality and the reliability of information gained. The release of the report coincides with President Obama's setting the stage for possible prosecution of Bush officials.

Bush and his colleagues stand accused of a number of violations of American and international law, but the biggest offence goes deeper. It is the violation of the Rule of Law itself, one of the pillars of our civilization. The Rule of Law simply says we are ruled by laws, not men. Laws are made by men, of course, but once made, they are supreme, even over those who made them. Justice is blind, and therefore does not distinguish between the great and the small. We are, each and every one of us, equally subject to the law. Nowhere is this more important than at the top. The greatest benefit, indeed the prime purpose, of the Rule of Law is to protect society against arbitrary rule. And the Bush administration was very arbitrary, making up the rules as it went along and abandoning U.S. and international law on the way.

Now Americans must decide. Will they allow George W. Bush and his constitutional bandits to get away with breaking not only the law but with fracturing its very foundation? Will they allow the murderers of 9/11, who no doubt intended to assault American values, succeed in undermining one its most fundamental principles? It appears President Obama may be preparing to say no.

Is Ahmadinejad entirely wrong?

Yes, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does shamelessly grandstand, and yes, once again he has set the cat among the pigeons on the racism front, but is much of what he says not true? In his tirade at the UN anti-racism conference, he is quoted as calling Israel a "cruel and repressive racist regime."

Let's parse that phrase in terms of Gaza. Wasn't the slaughter of 400 children during Israel's invasion of the strip earlier this year "cruel"? Is not the continuing blockade of Gaza "repressive"? And is denying the one million Palestinian refugees in Gaza the right to return home simply because of their race and religion not "racist"? So where in that phrase is Ahmadinejad wrong or anti-Semitic?

The problem is that Israel wants to maintain its racial integrity -- its very purpose -- and when you do that in a heterogeneous region you wind up doing unpleasant things. Like ethnic cleansing. like apartheid, like collective punishment akin to terrorism, all of which Israel has done. We in the West have great difficulty saying these things because our collective guilt over our mistreatment of the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust, has made Israel by far the most politically correct issue around. Serious criticism just isn't on. Ahmadinejad is not bound by this political correctness and says what he thinks, much of which is nonsense, but some of which is inconveniently true. He says that the Holocaust was a "pretext" for the dispossession of the Palestinians, and wasn't it? It is certainly used by us in the West to justify the state of Israel.

Various motives are ascribed to Ahmadinejad for his attacks on Israel. He is accused of playing to the home crowd with an election coming up, of trying to establish Iran as the leader of the Arab World, of appealing to European anti-Semitism, and maybe some or all of these accusations are true. But is it not also possible he is simply very angry about the suffering of the Palestinians? A great many people in the Middle East are, a sentiment we in the West do not seem willing to accept.

Worth noting is that while European diplomats boycotted the conference or walked out on Ahmadinejad's speech, the representatives of Third World nations stayed to listen, many to applaud. I suspect this is because his views are close to the Arab people's, many of whom understandably see Israel as a colonial imposition, and Third Worlders generally are much more sensitive to colonialism than we are. If we want to contribute to peace in Palestine, and in the Middle East generally, while removing one of the major catalysts of hostility toward the West, we might try listening to Ahmadinejad. Filtering out the chaff, certainly, indeed condemning much of it, but paying attention to the kernels of truth, and certainly appreciating the passion of a Third World voice more broadly representative than we might like to think.

Chavez as Oprah

Look at this picture. It is not a fake. That is the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, presenting a book to the president of the United States, Barack Obama, who is graciously accepting it. And yes, I am not making this up, Chavez is quoted as saying to Obama, "I want to be your friend." Hell may not have frozen over, but relations between the U.S. and its nemeses in Latin America appear to be thawing out. To quote the Venezuelan leader again, "President Obama is an intelligent man, different from the previous one." Yes, indeed, Mr. Chavez, very different indeed.

The book, "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano, has already surged to sixth place on Amazon's U.S. paperback sales chart. Three years ago Chavez praised a book by Noam Chomsky, "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," and it too shot up to the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

No word yet if Obama is reading his book.

India does democracy proud

Democracy has sometimes been considered a luxury reserved for rich nations. India has, for over 60 years, proved that notion wrong. Despite great poverty and illiteracy, a huge, almost unmanageable, population, and a vast range of ethnic groups and languages, India has remained steadfastly democratic for three generations.

Today, it embarks on its 15th election. It will be, as it always is, the largest democratic ballot in history with over 700 million voters eligible to troop to the polling booths. In order to manage the massive vote, the election will be held in five phases over 28 days. Candidates of over 1,000 registered political parties, from untouchables to members of the upper castes, from cricketers to Bollywood stars, will contest 543 parliamentary seats.

That such a populous, diverse and poor country can succeed at democratic governance is encouraging to democrats everywhere.

Calgary rides the wind

Considering it's a conservative city and home of Canada's oil industry, Calgary is establishing an impressive independence from fossil fuels. The C-Train system already runs entirely on power generated by the wind, and the city is now committing $250-million over 25 years to have all of its operations run by green power. An agreement with city-owned utility Enmax Energy will ensure all municipal operations, from swimming pools to city hall, follow the C-Train lead and are powered by the wind. Enmax will use the $250 million to build more wind farms. "We will become the largest green power consumer of any municipal government in Canada," boasts Mayor Dave Bronconnier. Calgary expects to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions to 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Environmentalists are quite naturally pleased. Alex Doukas of the Pembina Institute sees this as an example for the province as a whole. "Alberta could go from 70 per cent coal-fired electricity, which is what we have today, to 70 per cent clean electricity in 20 years," he observed.

If the oil capital of Canada can do it, any city can.

Buying a financial crisis

Financial deregulation, the root cause of the current economic crisis, did not occur spontaneously. It is thought of as a product of the ascendancy of neoconservative philosophy since the Reagan/Thatcher era, and of course it is, but it took more than the intellectual force of neoconservatism to make it real. It took cash, and lots of it. According to the report "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," by Robert Weissman and James Donahue, it took at least $5.1-billion US.

That's the amount the financial sector spent on federal lobbying ($3.4-billion) and political campaign contributions ($1.7-billion) in the U.S. in the decade leading up to the meltdown. Merrill Lynch alone spent $68 million and Citigroup $108 million. Big money for big rewards. In 2007, the financial sector was engaging 3,000 lobbyists to influence the federal government, more than five for each Member of Congress, and that only includes those officially registered. It doesn't include corporate PR campaigns or state lobbyists. The crisis was well and truly paid for.

This buying of Washington reveals a truth about our North American political systems. They aren't democracies, they are hybrid systems -- part rule by the people at large, part rule by the rich; part democracy, part plutocracy. The plutocratic part not only buys great influence over politicians, but through its control of the mass media, controls political discourse. And this aside from the power it exerts through domination of the economy.

The crisis has once again reminded us of the greatest challenge facing democracy in the 21st century: the struggle to diminish the power of the plutocracy. We need reminding because the plutocracy often exercises its influence in opaque and insidious ways: lobbying in backrooms, for example, and subtly requiring fealty from its media servants. We are currently paying the price for allowing this plutocratic mischief.

Growth: recipe for salvation or catastrophe?

One thing the nations of the world agree on during the current economic crisis is a need for growth. "The message is growth first," says John Kirton, director of the G20 research group at the University of Toronto. Some world leaders, like U.S. President Barack Obama and British PM Gordon Brown, emphasize stimulus, and others, like German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, emphasize regulation, but all support growth.

The need for a rejuvenated economy is overwhelmingly obvious, but is growth the panacea world leaders, uncritically supported by the mass media, think it is? They seemingly refuse to recognize that growth has limits. The planet is finite. And we are exhausting it. We are well past the point where it can sustain itself against our ravenous demand for growth.

Actually, growth hasn't been doing us all that much good lately. At least not us rich folks. Inequality is higher in the OECD countries than it was 20 years ago, and middle-class incomes in Western countries were stagnant in real terms long before the recession. Growth has, however, benefited poor nations. In China and India, for example, it has lifted millions of people out of poverty and we in the West can hardly criticize that. Nonetheless, we are left facing the outcome of billions more people aspiring to the level of affluence of the wealthier nations. To achieve that equality, the world economy will have to increase 15 times by 2050 and 40 times by the end of the century. At that rate, we will soon have an environmental crisis that will dwarf the existing economic crisis ... if it doesn't already.

The challenge, therefore, would seem to be less about restoring the destructive economic model of the past and more about replacing it with a sustainable yet balanced model, a world economy that reduces exploitation in the West while allowing undeveloped countries to catch up, an economy less about growth and more about sharing. The current crisis presents an opportunity to take up this challenge, to take a serious look at the structure of the world economy and consider serious changes.

An essential start is redefining prosperity. We seem to rely solely on GDP to measure our economic status even though it's more a yardstick of exploitation than of human welfare. There are a number of indexes out there that focus on human well-being generally, including the state of our environment, rather than solely on consumption as the GDP does. Any new definition must in its international application redefine prosperity so as to allow room for much-needed growth in poorer nations.

A recent report entitled "Prosperity Without Growth: The Transition to a Sustainable Economy," issued by the Sustainable Development Commission, the British government's "independent watchdog on sustainable development," presents a thorough analysis on how to shift to a world economy the planet can live with. The report recommends 12 steps to achieve a sustainable economy. These include investing heavily in jobs, assets and infrastructure for a green economy, increasing financial prudence, developing more environmentally sound measures of economic accounting and prosperity, sharing work and improving work-life balance, reducing economic inequality, creating healthier and more resilient communities, reversing the culture of consumerism, imposing clear global limits on resource use and pollution, creating ecological-based tax systems, promoting technology transfer to undeveloped countries, and funding investment globally in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the protection of carbon sinks and biodiversity in developing countries. Each of these steps is expanded upon in detail in the report.

Economic growth has become discordant with both environmental sustainability and human well-being, and it is time for world leaders to seek economic structures that are compatible with these elements. Unfortunately, they are rising to the challenge only with reluctance ... if at all.

Woe is us, we may have to go green

Our federal government's malingering when it comes to action against global warming is becoming an embarrassment. Yesterday's headline in The Globe and Mail is an illustration. "Ottawa faces pressure to align with U.S. on green plans," it reads. Our neighbours have to force us to accept our environmental responsibilities? How sad.

The U.S. Congress is proposing legislation that would include border duties on imports from countries considered lax on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and God knows we are lax. Leading Democrats, with President Obama's support, intend to strictly limit the emissions that industries are allowed. In order to protect their industries against competition from countries with lower standards, the proposed legislation would require the U.S. government to take action when American manufacturers lose market share to foreign companies that enjoy an unfair environmental advantage. This approach is essential if global warming is to be dealt with. Without counter measures, countries with low standards will not only have an unfair trade advantage but will be more attractive to investment and thus undermine environmental efforts. The only alternative to unilateral action is strong international standards.

Needless to say, the legislation will be opposed. Republicans and conservative Democrats, particularly those from coal-mining states, will seek compromise. Predictably, the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters association is complaining. China is not happy with the legislation, particularly about suggestions it will protect American jobs. China has profited greatly from both low labour and low environmental standards; perhaps the American action will put pressure on them to at least raise the latter.

It will certainly put pressure on us. Even our reluctant Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice, admits as much. "There are clearly measures that would have trade related consequences for Canada if we don't have equivalent environmental legislation in place," he says. So there you have it. The Conservatives may not care unduly about threats to the planet, but threats to trade get their attention in a hurry.

I would prefer to see us leading the way in the fight against global warming rather than being whipped along by economic threats, but if threats are the only way to get us to do the right thing, then I welcome them.

The RCMP encounters democracy

Democracy and uniforms are often incompatible. Institutions whose members wear uniforms tend to be rigidly hierarchal and therefore resist the democratic impulse. This, however, has not prevented police forces across the country from adopting the workplace's major instrument of democracy -- the labour union. Unions are in themselves run democratically while allowing workers to be fairly represented independent of management and collectively bargain for their working conditions. Indeed, collective bargaining is a major manifestation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms Article 2(d): freedom of association. It is rather remarkable, therefore, that it has taken so long for the Mounties to have this right recognized in the courts.

On Monday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Ian MacDonnell struck down a section of the RCMP Act that precludes unionization. Finally the Mounties have the right to join their brothers and sisters in other Canadian police forces and enjoy the privileges of a democratic workplace. "Why," asked Judge MacDonnell, "does the wider jurisdiction of the RCMP, or its status as a unique Canadian institution, make the labour relations modes in place for other police forces inappropriate?" Why, indeed.

The Mounties have experienced some bad patches lately, in part at least due to a seeming breakdown in communication or rapport between the members on the street and the brass in head office. A union will clarify that relationship, and will offer security to those members who are critical of upper management. As for the force going out on strike, the public needn't worry; Canadian police forces generally give up that right. We may freely welcome the redcoats to the world of democratic governance.

Should we bail the bastards out?

Initially, I supported the bailout of the auto companies. The idea of GM and Chrysler crashing and tens of thousands of workers losing their jobs was too much to contemplate. Then I watched the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and I changed my mind. The documentary, a remarkable tale of corporate chicanery, details how General Motors trashed their own car. They hadn't wanted to make an electric car because the big money in the auto industry is in service and electric cars require very little service. However, California was threatening stringent emission standards which GM, supported not surprisingly by the Bush Administration, was fighting in court, and they needed a plan B in case they lost. The electric car was Plan B. As it happened, they won. They then proceeded to call in all the electric cars they had leased and crush them. That, of course, is why they leased the cars rather than sell them. The lessees loved their cars and vigorously protested their destruction, but to no avail. GM, the Bush Administration and the oil companies won; California, the drivers of the electric cars, and the environment lost. The "free" market got hustled as it frequently does. And now GM wants a handout, a reward so to speak, for its malfeasance.

So should we help them out of their self-imposed misery? It's not as if people are going to stop driving cars. The automobile market will still be there although possibly for different types of vehicles. Workers would suffer, but then GM's manufacturing work force in Canada is predicted to fall to 6,000 from 22,000 a decade ago anyway. A collapse of GM and Chrysler may simply make room for other companies to step in and start making cars for the 21st century. They will probably be foreign, of course. Japan, South Korea and China are all well ahead of North American companies in producing green cars. China's BYD is building a car so appealing to investors that Warren Buffet's MidAmerica Energy Holdings has bought ten per cent of the company and will help distribute its cars in the U.S. China intends to make electric cars its forte. The answer to job loss may be to encourage companies like BYD to set up shop in North America, as Honda and Toyota have done. We might have to pay out a lot of unemployment insurance in the meantime, but will it be more than the $3-billion we are offering to bail out GM and Chrysler? And would it not be worth it if the result was a much greener automobile industry?

Foreign car-makers have honed the art of making a profit from small, efficient cars while the North American giants intend to continue to rely on bigger vehicles, crisis or no crisis. GM has shown no interest in building electric cars in Canada and I doubt very much the environmentally-challenged Harper government will pressure them to do it. So maybe it's time to let market evolution take its course. Let the dinosaurs die out, or at least restructure themselves into viable enterprises, while we welcome the new species of auto-makers that are better adapted to their environment.

Karzai -- a 21st century Diem?

The United States and its European allies are ­about to demote Afghan president Hamid Karzai. They intend to appoint a new chief executive who will "partner" Karzai and assume whatever decision-making the allies feel appropriate. They also intend to devolve spending power from Kabul to the provinces. They are, apparently, fed up with the corruption around Karzai and intend to bypass him. The diminished role for the president will be unveiled at a special conference on Afghanistan at The Hague on March 31. Top candidate for the new job is Interior Minister Mohammed Hanif Atmar, an American favourite.

It seems only yesterday NATO was crowing about the democracy they had brought to Afghanistan, wonderfully illustrated by the election of Karzai as president in 2004. Now he has become a liability, and apparently the allies won't be taking chances on elections this time.

This is yet another echo of the Vietnam war. In 1963 the Americans, led by a charming, young and progressive president, watched as the incompetent leader of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, steadily lost ground to the Viet Cong insurgency. The Americans acquiesced, therefore, when the South Vietnamese army decided to depose Diem. The U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, was apparently horrified when the military not only deposed him, they executed him. This time the Americans and their allies will do the job themselves.

Karzai will probably fare better than Diem, although there is the problem of what to do if he rejects the allies' plans, an anti-colonial stand many Afghans would support. He recently declared he would resist any dilution of his power. "Afghanistan will never be a puppet state," he is reported as saying, perhaps under the illusion that because he was elected it's his country to run. No doubt Diem felt the same way. Like Diem, he will soon be disabused of that notion. The quagmire deepens.

Please don't exacerbate me

Exacerbate. The ugliest word in the English language, yet one of the trendiest. A person can't read the daily paper, a magazine or a book without encountering an author who feels obliged to throw in an "exacerbate." To many authors, it seems to be a de rigueur word, essential to establishing their credentials as a modern writer. What he or she usually means to say is "aggravate," a perfectly good word. How then did this unfortunate situation come about?

The problem seems to lie in the double meaning of "aggravate." The common meaning is "to make worse"; however, it can also mean to "irritate" or "provoke." But if "aggravate" is used in the sense of "provoke," how does one intensify the provocation? The writer is deprived of the usual progression from irritation to aggravation. The answer it seems has been to drag in "exacerbate." Then, for some perverse reason, it has become a trendy replacement for "aggravate" in any sense.

I cringe every time I encounter the word. So please, fellow scribblers, do me a favour. If you mean "to make worse," use the sensible, and quite agreeable, "aggravate" and leave "exacerbate" in your thesaurus. As New yorkers would say (and some people blame them for the problem) spare me the aggravation.

The Guardian or the local rag?

Newspaper readership, we are told, is declining. That may or not be true. No doubt the readership of hard copy newspapers is declining, but I suspect readership of the web versions is increasing. It certainly has for me. I still buy a daily paper -- as I mentioned on a previous post, I'm addicted -- but I also do a lot of newspaper reading online. In fact, I have a routine which I follow most days. Starting with the CBC website, I then do the Guardian, Al Jazeera and the New York Times, in that order. And maybe one or two others if it's a slow morning.

I have little interest in my local papers, the Calgary Sun and the Calgary Herald. Both right-wing, they have little to say to me, and why would I buy a second or third-rate paper when I can read the best in the world such as the Guardian and the New York times -- and for free? This, I suspect, is the case with many readers. They haven't given up on newspapers, they've just given up on their local rag.

Eventually a day of reckoning will come, of course. The papers almost certainly can't make enough money from advertising on their websites to keep their newsrooms going, so presumably one day they will have to charge for reading their online versions. That will be fine with me. At least I'll be able to support a first-rate newspaper rather than a second-rate one. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy the free ride.

Executive pay: how much is too much?

The U.S. is quite rightly experiencing a flurry of outrage about AIG execs scoffing up healthy bonuses after running their company into the ground, and this on top of the corporation accepting a $170-billion handout from the federal government. Scandals about corporate executives piling up exorbitant incomes from salaries, bonuses and stock options, even if their companies are tanking, are commonplace these days. It prompts the old question: how much should the top guys be paid? How much more reward do they deserve than the people at the bottom?

The usual corporate defense of excessive incomes for executives is that they have to pay these amounts to get the best people. The United States most successful investor, Warren Buffett, disagrees. Mr. Buffet, chairman and chief executive of financial conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway and the world's second richest man after Bill Gates, pays himself, as he has for years, an annual salary of $100,000. Including directors' fees, he makes a grand total of $175,000 a year. He is somewhat more generous with his employees but not excessively so. The highest salary at Berkshire Hathaway is paid to the company's chief financial officer, Marc Hamburg, who made $786,500 in 2008. Buffet is an outspoken critic of lavish executive compensation packages and doesn't offer bonuses and stock options. If Berkshire Hathaway can achieve the outstanding success it has without paying anyone more than a million dollars a year, it's hard to see why any company should have to.

The idea behind generous compensation, particularly with stock options, is that it will improve executive performance and therefore company performance and therefore provide bigger rewards to stockholders. Unfortunately, the compensation seems to have become an end in itself, independent of either improved executive or company performance. That isn't surprising considering boards of directors determine executive pay, and boards of directors tend to be made up of local management and presidents and chairmen of other companies, usually chaired and dominated by the CEO himself. Quite naturally, these incestuous bodies take care of their own. And in doing so they often overlook the fact that all employees contribute to a successful organization, not just the top guys.

In any case, it hasn't worked. Lavish salaries seem to contribute more to greater greed than greater performance. Corporations might all do better following Warren Buffet's example: if it's over a million, it's too much.

Is this why our government doesn't give a damn about global warming?

Is the mystery unravelling? I have long wondered why our federal government doesn't unduly concern itself with global warming, the greatest threat facing our species. Finally we have a clue. We have a science minister who as much as admits he doesn't believe in evolution. Gary Goodyear, Minster of State for Science and Technology, apparently thinks evolution is a religious matter, not a scientific one, and doesn't care to talk about it.

This certainly explains why the Harper government shows little interest in basic science. Goodyear doesn't agree, of course, saying he is "passionate" about his portfolio and insists that because he experimented with automobile engines in high school, he's "been there on this discovery stuff."

Christian fundamentalists such as Goodyear tend to have trouble with facts about our universe, evolution first among them. If he has trouble with a pillar of science like evolution, is it possible he has doubts about global warming as well? And if Harper's minister of science has doubts, then perhaps others in the cabinet do also? Certainly, Environment Minister Jim Prentice seems more interested in defending the tar sands than in defending the environment. It's hard to believe this could be true, yet there must be some explanation for their cavalier approach.

That Christians had trouble accepting evolution was no great tragedy -- life went on --- but if we don't accept global warming and respond appropriately, life as we know it won't go on. The stakes are very much higher. We can no longer afford scientific ignorance, and that may just mean we can't afford this government.

Is the world coming to its senses on drug policy?

As the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs met in Vienna this week to set world drug policy for the next decade, a European Commission report claimed the UN strategy over the past decade has been a failure. Ten years of that strategy, operating under the ludicrous slogan "a drug-free world - we can do it," was described in the report as providing, "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced," and went on to say, "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially."

In the United States, chief promoter of the hardline approach, half a million citizens languish in prison for non-violent, drug-related crimes, yet drug use persists while prices decline. Last year, 6,000 Mexicans died in wars between the cartels. Recently, yet another leader of a drug-ridden country -- Guinea Bissau -- was assassinated. The United Nations estimates 70 per cent of international crime is fueled by drugs, an industry worth over $300-billion U.S. a year. Millions of victims suffer from HIV contacted from dirty needles. The failure has many faces but most stem from the laws, not the drugs.

The Economist magazine, which refers to past drug policy as "a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world," has proposed an approach that offers a way out of the current morass, arguing for legalization as the least bad solution. "Legalization," the Economist suggests, "would not only drive away the gangsters, it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public health problem, which is how it ought to be treated." The Economist approach would have governments tax and regulate drugs and use the revenues raised, as well as the billions saved on law enforcement, to educate the public about drug use. Prices would be set such that they would encourage neither drug use nor illegal trafficking with its attendant theft and prostitution. Justice systems would save enormous sums, and control of drugs would be transferred from criminals to the state.

As to the argument that legalization would contribute to more drug use, the Economist points out that "citizens living under tough regimes (notably America but also Britain) take more drugs, not fewer." As for addiction, while Sweden's drug laws are harsh and Norway's relatively liberal, the two countries have identical addiction rates. The Economist nonetheless concedes that cheaper, safer, legal drugs might lead to increased use. This would be balanced, however, by the ability to deal with use and addiction properly.

The United Nations admits it is losing its war on drugs, yet the action plan produced in Vienna remains focused on eradicating supply. The plan does, however, include support for "mainstreaming drug treatment and rehabilitation into national healthcare systems; and ensuring accessibility to drug demand reduction services." The intent of the plan is somewhat in the eyes of the beholder. More progressive countries, including Germany, the U.K. and Australia, interpret it as including harm reduction such as needle-exchange programs, while others, including the U.S., Colombia and Russia, object to that interpretation, saying it condones drug use.

While the UN conference showed little progress, developments in the United States show promise. President Obama has appointed a progressive as his new drugs czar. As Seattle's chief of police, Gil Kerlikowske oversaw treatment and rehabilitation replace prosecution as the first choice for dealing with drug abuse. If his nomination is approved by the Senate, Kerlikowske will become director of the office of national drug control policy for a president who has declared that the U.S. war on drugs, now 40 years old, is "an utter failure." A more enlightened approach from the traditional leader of the law-and-order crowd would be helpful indeed.

So small flashes of light are appearing in the darkness that is world drug policy. Legalization remains a distant goal, but we seem to be inching in that direction. No doubt it involves risk, too, but abandoning a policy that only makes things worse justifies a lot of risk.

The United States and the right to meddle

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently lashed out at Iran for its meddling in the Middle East. "It is clear that Iran intends to interfere with the internal affairs of all of these people [in the region] and try to continue their efforts to fund terrorism, whether it's Hezbollah or Hamas or other proxies," said Ms. Clinton.

This criticism of Iran's machinations in its own backyard exemplifies the Americans' monumental hypocrisy and lack of introspection. They have for many years meddled in the affairs of nations in their region as a matter of course. Nor have they been content to limit their interference to the affairs of countries in the Americas. They make the world their playground.

Yet when Iran involves itself in the affairs of its neighbours, including its quite legitimate support for Hamas and Hezbollah, the U.S. cries foul. It would appear meddling is the exclusive property of the Americans -- and perhaps its allies, at least if they are enhancing American interests.

If American meddling was a positive force, it might have some justification, but in the Third World it is more often negative. A good example is U.S. collaboration in the overthrow of democratically-elected governments, from the Americas, e.g. Guatemala in 1954 and in Chile in 1973, to the Middle East, e.g. in Iran in 1953 and in Palestine today. Indeed, it has been meddling in the Middle East for a long time and almost everyone is worse off for it, except Israel and amenable Arab dictators like Arabia's Sauds and Egypt's Mubarak.

Despite Clinton's bellicose statements, the Obama administration does seem to be shifting toward a more constructive and co-operative foreign policy putting, one hopes, the neocon policies of the Bush administration behind them. For example, they have convinced NATO to resume high-level relations with Russia, with Ms. Clinton calling for a fresh start with that country. And, in a very encouraging move, she announced the administration has proposed a conference on Afghanistan that is likely to include Iran, setting up the prospect of a face-to-face encounter between the two countries.

These are good signs. They don't presage an end to American meddling, of course, but they suggest at least a less belligerent, less self-righteous and more consultative approach. Perhaps even including a little more introspection along with more empathy for other peoples. That would be progress ... something to hope for, to borrow President Obama's favourite word.

Maybe the ICC isn't just "white man's justice" after all

On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, accusing him of "directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property." In January, the Court began its first case with Thomas Lubanga, former militia leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the dock. So far the Court has indicted thirteen individuals, all Africans. This emphasis on Africans has led to suggestions the Court is focusing on Third World leaders while overlooking the sins of Western nations such as the horrors inflicted on Iraq by former U.S. President George W. Bush.

African Union spokesperson Jean Ping, while supporting the Court, has nonetheless said, "What we see is that international justice seems to be applying its fight against impunity only to Africa as if nothing were happening elsewhere, [such as] in Iraq, Gaza, Colombia or in the Caucasus." Apparently more than 40 African countries are thinking of withdrawing their membership from the Court.

The ICC, the first permanent tribunal set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, is a major step forward for international justice, and it would be tragic if it were tarred with the brush of discrimination. A new investigation may put paid to that. The Court is considering whether the Palestinian Authority will be allowed to bring a case against Israel for war crimes committed in the recent assault on Gaza.

Proceeding will not be easy. There is a question of whether the Palestine Authority is sufficiently like a state to qualify for bringing a case. To date, the ICC has not recognized Palestine as a sovereign state and it is not a member of the Court. In addition to members of the Court, cases can be brought by the UN Security Council or the Court Prosecutor. The U.S. would veto the former possibility so hopes for an indictment may very well rest entirely with the Prosecutor. The odds of prosecution are not good, therefore, but the fact the Court is conducting a serious investigation may at least allay concerns that Western nations have immunity.

Beating crime with research

Sometimes a particular confluence of news items seems to jump out at me. Such is the case with three recent items: first, the Harper government's get tough on crime rhetoric; second, the concern expressed by science researchers about lack of support from that same government; and third, some intriguing research on FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) in the Prime Minister's home province of Alberta.

The Conservative government has introduced new crime legislation that would classify gang killings as first-degree murder, create a new offence and a minimum four-year prison term for drive-by shootings, and toughen Criminal Code sections on assaulting police officers. Even though the Liberals and the NDP have promised to support the provisions, Harper characteristically engaged in a preemptive attack, insisting, "Look, we know we're going to hear these critics. We know we're going to hear the Opposition parrot some of these critics because they all believe in soft-on-crime policies."

While Harper lashes the opposition for a lack of support for his crime legislation, researchers lash his government for a lack of support for scientific research. The connection? Well, as I have mentioned on this blog before, research can can be a critical tool in fighting crime. It can reveal the roots of crime and therefore offer prevention as an alternative to punishment. A good example is research being done on FASD in Edmonton by the Chimo Project. FASD refers to a range of disabilities observed in people whose mothers drank alcohol while they were pregnant, including learning problems, memory loss, short attention spans and difficulty understanding the consequences of actions. These can lead to serious anti-social behaviour. Indeed, not only is fetal alcohol syndrome the leading cause of brain damage in this country, up to 60 per cent of the people in jails are victims of it.

Researchers with the Chimo Project are finding that with animal-assisted therapy, FASD victims show significant increases in their social skills, as well as in their participation and motivation. The researchers use cats, birds, dogs, even a miniature horse, to get children to open up, and to decrease their levels of anxiety and depression. According to Kristine Aanderson, senior program manager for the Chimo Project, "We spent 10 years amassing this evidence about how effective it is. We've really reached a point now where the world is starting to recognize ... this is something amazing and it really can help these clients."

When every pregnancy is a healthy pregnancy and every infancy a healthy infancy, crime will drop like a stone. In the meantime we have to deal with realities like FASD and research is showing us how to do that. By developing ways of treating the victims of FASD and dysfunctional family life generally, we can save many of them from lives of crime and save the rest of us from becoming victims of that crime. Applying methods like animal-assisted therapy early is better for all of us than relying on the Criminal Code later. Hopefully, the Prime Minister and his Minister of Public Safety are paying attention.

Of course the U.S. is not leaving Iraq

I hate to say I told you so. Well, actually I don't mind at all. This is what I said in a posting on July 4th'08 about Barack Obama's promise to remove U.S. troops from Iraq:

"The United States now has a major military presence at the centre of the largest conventional oil reserves in the world and they are going to walk away from that? Not likely."

Some Americans, and others, weren't paying attention to the fine print of Obama's claim. What he has been saying all along is, to quote from a recent speech, "Let me say this as plainly as I can. By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end." Note the phrase "combat mission." He doesn't mention the occupying mission. He says he intends to leave up to 50,000 troops to advise Iraqi forces and protect U.S. interests. I suspect the emphasis will be on the latter and the major interest will be oil.

Nor, in fact, is he completely forgoing combat. He states that protecting U.S. interests will include "conducting targeted counterterrorism missions." Sounds like combat to me.

He does insist he will adhere to the deal that the Bush administration made with the Iraqis to remove all American troops by the end of 2011. Any bets on that?