Miles Report No. 11 - More double standards

Syria

Admittedly the Assad government is committing some atrocious actions against some of the people in Syria. It would also not be far fetched to believe that the opposition is also committing some atrocious actions against some of the people in Syria - supported by the U.S. and its cronies.

A local newsroom made a parallel between the maybe militia nature of the killings in Syria, comparing it with the Latin America. The truth in that is that the death squads of Latin America were trained by the U.S. in the School of the Americas at Fort Bennington (now under a new more Orwellian name - the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Operations) learning how to kill, torture, and otherwise get rid of people who want a social representative government. It would not be surprising to find - as their usually is in these circumstances, U.S. special ops forces inciting their own militias in Syria.

Yes, Syria is different, but wherever the U.S. and its cronies intervene (Vietnam, all of Latin America, most of the Middle East) death and destruction follow.

Kicking out the Syrian ambassadorial staff on whatever grounds simply highlights the double standards that the Harper government operates with. How can the inability to communicate help anyone? After a guesstimated 9,000 deaths the Harper government says enough, we are not talking anymore. The only other option for this government then is either military action or simply being an inactive bystander.

The Arab countries

At the same time that Syrians are killing each other, we have seen the democracy movement in Bahrain crushed, supported by that great democratic country of Saudi Arabia (and the U.S., and thus Canada) and its Wahabbi fundamentalist monarchy. The Arab countries that are clamouring for regime change in Syria are the very ones that are the most decidedly non-democratic in the Middle East.

Why do we not kick their ambassadors out for the atrocities and subjugation of their people who are trying to achieve the western ideal of democracy and freedom?

Israel

Israel has been killing and evicting Palestinians in their land for the past sixty years, a slow but ongoing process. There have been peace talks going on forever with Israel, to no success, as they simply use if as a smokescreen or façade to cover up their ongoing annexation and occupation of Palestinian territory. Ten thousand Palestinians, men, women, and children, remain in Israeli prisons (not to mention that Gaza is in effect a huge open air prison with 1.5 million people contained). Thousands of Palestinians have been killed, and the rest are constrained by military rule that allows no civil law and operates the occupation against international law, assisting the colonial settlers and the take over of Palestinian land.

Why do we not kick their ambassador out for the atrocities and subjugation of the Palestinian people who are trying to achieve the western ideal of democracy and freedom?

And more double standards with Israel. They are threatening war with Iran (itself illegal under international law) because of their enrichment of uranium, which they are allowed to do under the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel operates outside the NPT with an estimated 200-300 deliverable nuclear weapons, yet nobody in the west seems to think much of that. Nor has Israel or the west attacked Pakistan or India or North Korea who all have nuclear weapons capabilities outside the NPT.

Internal double standards

Once again the government has back-stopped a large corporation over its union (CP Rail). Didn’t give dialogue much of a chance here either. As if it was “dialogue” when the corporate side knows it has the government behind it.

Obviously this government cares little for workers, in spite of their jobs, jobs, jobs, rhetoric. Of course, what the Conservatives really want is for everybody to be non union so that wages can be held low, benefits can be non-existent, and the ignorant masses can be placed under an austerity regime to keep them that way while the wealth of the country flows upwards to the corporations and their political cronies (or is it the other way around, or perhaps one and the same…?).

This also ties in with the changes in EI. Keep the workers poor and mobile, keep them fearful, and thus keep them controlled.

On the other hand, the politicians themselves are quite willing to live off the people of the country with their cushy salaries and ridiculous pensions. Forget the bleeding heart arguments about lost employment time in the private sector and how much time you spend working at your job with all the committees and all that. Spare me - it is part of your job, you chose it, and you are more than well compensated.

By your example, every group should be able to vote their own pay raises and vote for their own overly generous pensions - the unions are not any way near that greedy, nor do they have the power and arrogance to do so.