WIKILEAKS - Canadians let down by first batch of U.S. Diplomatic files

The publication by WIKILEAKS of that first batch of U.S. Diplomatic files occurred on Sunday. Anticipation in Canada had been very keen, and our two major television news channels - CBC and CTV were giving hourly updates throughout the weekend. The disappointment here was huge when we learned on Sunday afternoon that Hilary and her State Department hirelings rarely discuss us. One columnist, contributing to the online magazine BACK OF THE BOOK drove the nail through the board when he sniffed that the docs are dull because "none feature the American ambassador calling Jean Chretien or Stephen Harper a douche bag, or anything else likely to titillate Ottawa." WIKILEAK cache slim on Canadian content, so far. Just before midnight on Sunday I checked the CBC News poll which asked the question "Should Wikileaks publish sensitive U.S. diplomatic files?" A whopping 84 per cent said YES? Does this suggest that Canucks have an appetite for the BIG issues of the day? Not a chance! The YAHOO news ticker recorded that the death of the ancient actor Leslie Neilson generated more stories here than did the WIKILEAKS document dump.
CBC News polled Canadians on the immanent release by WIKILEAKS of secret U.S. State Department cables. This screen shot was made at 11:45 PM November 28. There had been 64,995 unique votes [no multiple voting] and 84% were in favour of Internet publication.

So what did we learn from the Sunday document dumping? Well those of us who care about the machination's of the Fascist government in Beijing, learned a few things about China's illicit support for Iran's nuclear missile program. (A sampling of documents below). In February of 2010 Hilary Clinton's department sent warnings to the Chinese government that it was monitoring Chinese sales of critical components, such as missile gyroscopes. One of the offending firms named in the cable is "Hong Kong 4 Star Electronics Ltd." which is the H.K. registry of a Chinese company, 4 Star Electronics Ltd., located two hours from Shanghai. Another Chinese company named is "VibTel Industrial Co. Inc." A report commenting on what the cables indicate the Chinese are doing, written by CNN's David de Sola is here, with video. Since WIKILEAKS in under heavy attack today, and you cannot get through, I am posting the documents quoted by CNN:
.
These two messages, SECSTATE, WASH D.C. to AMEMBASSY, BEIJING and AMEMBASSY MOSCOW are both dated February 2010. They detail the web of companies and nations involved (Russia, China and Malaysia) in providing Iran with the missiles it needs to throw a nuclear weapon and "rain fire down upon the Israeli Satan". Now that WIKILEAKS has revealed that virtually every nation in the region wishes the U.S.A. to destroy Iran's nuclear program, the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia should cooperate and get the job done.
These documents show how the U.S. and China play the game. The U.S. informs Beijing that another illicit sale of war material has been detected, and requests that the regime investigate itself. Beijing responds coyly with a request for more information.
A photo of the latest generation of surface to surface missile being deployed in Iran. The Persians are getting perilously close to being capable of making good on their threat to annihilate the State of Israel and all of its citizens.

I noticed that Sunday's dumping of documents by WIKILEAKS included a packet from the U.S. Consulate in Vancouver. I am planning to go through those soon. Who knows, maybe something juicy worth sharing here.

A BROAD STRATA OF SOCIETY - We're all terrorists!

I love this. We are all now so sensitive to Muslim sensitivities, that journos even strain to get the spelling correct when quoting the terrorist war cry - "Allahu akbar!" Back in the day it was rendered simply "Allah akbar". He's got a catchy name too - Mohamed O. Mohamud.

In response to yesterday's bulletins about Mohamed O. Mohamud, the so-called "Christmas Tree bomber" in Portland, Oregon, MICHELLE MALKIN today offers a pungent assemblage of something we in Vancouver rarely get to see... the mug shots of the Bad Boys and Bad Girls who commit heinous acts. In the criminal matter at hand, the perfunctory profile of those who seem committed to perpetrating large scale acts of terror in the U.S.A., Michelle plays with the irony of it all. EVERYBODY is surveilled, EVERYBODY is body scanned, EVERYBODY is a suspect until the real Muhammad or Muhammadine detonates, or impacts or immolates.


Way back in June of 2006 Ms. Malkin picked up on the squeamishness of Canada's RCMP who used the term BROAD STRATA OF SOCIETY to describe the composition of a terror cell. The Mounties always talk funny. They often call the criminal under arrest a "gentleman" and often refer to themselves as "members"... as in "The gentleman had his girlfriend's severed head in his hands when he was confronted and taken into custody by one of our members."
... A gallery of members of the 9/11 strike team who knocked out New York's Twin Towers + 1, levelled a wing of the Pentagon, but failed to destroy Mr. Bush's White House. This is NOT an official Law Enforcement poster. It is satire, and credit for this display of wry humour goes to Photoshop artiste David Lunde.

Ms. Malkin offers some interesting commentary on the now infamous "Broad Strata of Society", who are persistently trying to defeat U.S. Homeland Security. Check out her Nov. 27th article and updated rogue's gallery.

The War in Afghanistan - Let's Cut the Crap, Shall We?

A police constable from Milton, Ontario allows an Afghan police trainee to admire a Canadian manufactured assault rifle. Mr. Harper has decided to extend "the Mission" past 2011, but he assures us Canadian personnel will only be ...heh, heh, training the Afghanis. No more combat pay for the Mounties. No more risk of suicides in barracks and lawyers engorging themselves on PTSD claims.

James Fergusson recently put his balls in the cross-hairs of the Americans who control the orbiting PREDATOR and REAPER drone aircraft which target and eliminate Taliban guerrillas. He visited Chak, a town "just 40 miles" southwest of Kabul which is garrisoned, taxed and administered by the Taliban - less than an hour jeep drive to where Canadians have been training the other Afghanis to march and salute their national flag. In his exclusive report published in the British newspaper THE INDEPENDENT he has plenty to reveal and it will only take five minutes of your time to read. My favorite anecdote records the personal best of a Taliban commander who destroyed 81 NATO gasoline tanker trucks in a single night ambush.

The Chinese are plenty busy in Afghanistan.... busy scooping up the rights to natural resources. Selling small arms ammunition, grenades and unguided rockets to the Taliban is just a sideline for Beijing. The real money is in metals and minerals. The Associated Press has an interesting story this week of an ancient site which archaeologists are rushing to excavate, because its sitting on six million tons of copper, and the Chinese have the exclusive right to scoop and run. It will only take you another five minutes to read CHINESE MINE IN AFGHANISTAN . Mes Aynak is only 20 miles south of Kabul. The Afghani National government has deployed 1,500 police to guard the Chinese mine site, as heavy equipment is starting to arrive. That is 1,500 cops trained at the $$ expense of Canadian taxpayers, folks. A regiment of cops has been mobilized to protect a Chinese government investment in strategic metals. Why, you may wonder, don't the Chinese deploy their own security force in Mes Aynak, as many Western resource companies do worldwide? Why should we Canadian taxpayers train, arm and fund the weekly payroll for the security zone around the Chinese mine? Because we are suckers, and always have been. The Copper King and the Crocodile. 1,500 Afghan police are deployed to patrol a security zone around a single Chinese mine site in Afghanistan.

Ottawa dubs KABUL "a calmer area" - and silly media parrots the sticky ministerial handout.

Canadian reporters are desperately scrambling to fall into step with the latest iteration of a Tory Afghanistan policy. The snippet exhibited in yellow above, is taken from a CBC web site. (The story is developing so fast today, that a link is worthless here.) Mr. Harper's plan for an orderly retreat is shredded.... literally. Establishment historians (UC and UT careerists) - thirty years from now, will find that very sensitive file heavily "weeded". Mr. Harper has decided to employ a variant of America's early Vietnam War strategy, which saw the American MACV posturing as an advisory force, but in actuality "kicking Charlie's ass" when the CBS camera boys were not looking. Yesterday a Harper henchman, termed "an official spokesman" by gullible reporters, was sucking and blowing about the new "Mission" plan - to reduce the Canadian Expeditionary Force to 950 uniformed bodies - 750 cops, and 200 clerk typists, cooks, etc. I guess that means the "iconic" Tim Horton trailer and coffee mama's will have to fall back to Kabul.

Colonel Geoff Parker was blown up in Kabul earlier this year. Not only was he Canada's highest ranking officer killed by Afghan guerrillas, he was Canada's 145th death in this WAR. How much armour will we transfer from Kandahar to Kabul to protect the "training" mission? No fricking way is Renfrew of the Mounted going to sport around a kill zone like Kabul in a Toyota RAV.

So let's get this straight... when our boys were getting their asses chewed off a few years back, the public was, with good reason, outraged. So to reduce the mauling, our government placed a RUSH order (cost plus bribes) for South African armoured vehicles, and hired Ukrainian Antonov aircraft to lift our Leopard tanks into A-Stan, for a whopping $$$1,000,000 per flight - so that "our troops have everything they need to get the mission done". Now we are pulling out the infantry, the armour and the drones... and we are going to leave our boys and girls naked in Indian country???!!! Not a fricking chance. Mr. Harper, you can lie to your Tory Faithful but don't lie to us. You are offering this stuff up out of political desperation, and the pity is we don't have a patriot like Stauffenberg joining you at the map table. Everything about this war, oops "MISSION," has been kept SECRET. The number of Canadian wounded and maimed, the number of Canadians who gave up army careers (1000 plus) rather than be sent to Afghanistan, the number of enemy we have have killed and wounded, and the true dollar cost of this, the greatest federal boondoggle.

THE U.N. GRAPHIC WHICH EMBOLDENED THE HARPER GOVERNMENT : UPDATE DEC. 27, 2010

This is the confidential UNITED NATIONS graphic which helped convince Prime Minister Steven Harper to commit nearly 1000 Canadian cops to an extended "mission" in Afghanistan. The map purports to show the national capital Kabul in a "low risk" area. As my article points out, with examples, Kabul is not a low risk zone, and some Canadians federal cops are going to be sent home in plastic bags as the "incidents" accumulated in 2011- 2013. The WALL STREET JOURNAL which published this map today, has a full explanation on why this graphic is so deceptive. - WSJ Story.

Mr. Harper Still Wants to Play War - Happy Remembrance Day!

Well ram a stick up my ass and call me a sucker! Thanks a lot Mr. Harper. I really believed you would keep your word, and pull the Canadian Forces out of Afghanistan in 2011. You are just the liar your political enemies say you are. Just a low down liar. And you compound the lie by announcing your decision during Remembrance Week! What a bastard you are. To use Remembrance Week, when we as a nation traditionally set aside our political views, to take one day to mourn our war dead... you know that the media and the political parties will stand down, loath to upset the greying Legionnaires, because this is their week. What a rotten trick. If there was ever a time RPC should rise again and kick some Tory balls, this would be it. But since the Tory Lawyers, Harper's lawyers, squat on the rights to the REFORM and "ALLIANCE" brands, that just won't happen.

Thanks a lot for humiliating us Stephen. This is the most egregious about-face since Chretien reneged on his GST promise. I was one of those citizen suckers with the SUPPORT THE TROOPS magnet on my car and wearing the YELLOW RIBBON ball cap to the shopping mall. I was a fool who engaged students and friends with positive, practiced homilies about "The MISSION," refusing to admit what it really is, a rotten, hopeless WAR. A war we sacrificed hundreds of lives and $$billions of dollars in taxes for, because you play politics, day after bloody day. You know not the concept of SHAME.

"If I die in a Combat Zone, box me up and send me home." They have not "fallen". They are obliterated. Maple wrapped, but not ready for a closeup, these Canadians died because Mr. Chretien thought he could sell A-Stan as a "Just Cause" and Mr. Harper thinks it plays well to aging Canadians who have no values at all, but like to think they do. One of Canada's best writers, Carol Shields wrote: "We cannot live without our illusions." It's too true!
For a healthy dose of reality read Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan on Wikipedia.


I'm giving thought to posting in the Blog photos of what obliterated Canadian soldiers look like. Ever since the C.E.F. went to France in 1915 the media have cooperated with the censors on NOT publishing photos of our dead. I think it's time that changed. We are also not allowed to see what Afghanis look like when they've been torn up by Canadian rifles, 20mm canon and claymores. That too must change. As of November 2010 A-Stan is no longer a Canadian "Mission". It is Mr. Harper's WAR. Chretien started it, but Harper owns it now. I would dislike sitting with a lying Tory constituency organization in the run up to the next Federal election. I wouldn't want to be saddled with selling Stephen's shit. It is has taken one titanic Tory lie to convert me to the anti-war movement. We can best support our troops by repudiating the scoundrel in Ottawa, and supporting any candidate but a Tory.

These four middle aged Afghan women were stuffed into army uniform and assembled for a "Photo OP" in Kabul, Sept. 23, 2010. Notice the NATO soldier in the background. HER embarrassment is so excruciating she turns her face away from the camera. Notice the masks carved into the wooden wall. The photographer who composed this photo has a great sense of the ironic.

The face of the Afghanistan guerrilla. This man will fight until he is dead or crippled. He does not waste time comparing his combat pay to regular wages. He doesn't lose sleep over the fact that he will never receive medals or a monthly pension. He hates the NATO invader and will kill him, or his sons will pick up the Kalashnikov and finish the job for him. He has many friends, including the Chinese, the Pakistanis and the Iranians. He is never alone in his beliefs and he is not on a "Mission" governed by strict "rules of engagement". He is a warrior fighting for what he values. He has already won.

Now I will post this unhappy piece and go to the TV to watch the memorial service at 11AM.

Dogs of War - improvements to early 21st Century Lethality

DOGS OF WAR - a British S.A.S. NCO in England (face digitally masked) demonstrates a HALO descent with special trained camera dog. The dog is trained to run into Taliban bunkers and ambush points to sweep their position with a head mounted video camera. Officially eight dogs have been shot and killed by Taliban irregulars but the attrition rate of on the dogs is probably higher.

A fascinating story in THE GUARDIAN today. All the scrapers are copying and pasting it to their own sites, but you can read the original story (here) HALO jumping (High Altitude Low Opening) is a technique used predominantly in special operations for inserting spies, saboteurs or elite combat teams into hostile territory. Is there any part of Afghanistan that isn't hostile?

The Austrian version of dog insertion by HALO drop. The dog is of course on pressurized oxygen and is also given a thermal vest to prevent its core temperature from falling. There is not doubt that Canada has been sharing in the dog/man HALO experiment, but we will not be informed lest it become a domestic political issue.

Now for you Gameheads who found this Blog article by keyword searching "HALO," the video game. Here is an amusing photo I scraped. Source unknown.