in his own words

Libya violence and Canadian political silence

Libya by Nidal Elkhairy, a Palestinian artist living in Amman, Jordan.

Editor's note: This article was written before Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, the youngest son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, was reported killed in a Nato air strike on April 30, 2011. Three of the elder Gaddifi's grandchildren were also reported killed by the strike on the family compound in Tripoli. 

As Canada enters the final days in 2011 election campaigning, politicians streaking across the country have offered little more than resounding silence on Canada's military role in Libya.

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in his own words

Afghanistan: The crucible for reorienting Canadian foreign policy

Operation Apollo, Operation Athena, Operation Archer, Operation Accius, Operation Altair... since Canada first entered the war on Afghanistan in 2001 the list of extensions, renewals and "spin-offs" has gone on and on and on. Originally scheduled to end in 2003, Canada's involvement in this imperialist aggression threatens to continue until 2014 if Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets his way.

Afghanistan has been the central preoccupation of Canadian foreign policy over the past decade. It has also been a main focus of peace movement activity. Mobilizations against the war in Afghanistan have not been nearly as spectacular as those against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The build up was slower, and it took more time to locate a basis of unity upon which to build mobilizations.

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rabble news

The Afghan War diary data -- an initial look

The Wikileaks dossier allows us to map where thousands of deaths have occurred in the war, and the evidence points to many failures by the NATO forces and the horrible price Afghanis have paid.

An initial look at the first 76,000 records in the "Afghan War Diary" leaked by Wikileaks yields some important information, much of which has been known or suspected by analysts for years. Given the sheer size of the database, there is a great deal more to be learned, but here are some initial findings.

Casualty data

The first impression is one of an extremely lopsided war, like all wars of occupation, where occupied casualties are vastly higher than those by the occupier.

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Progressive Voices

Yves Engler: Libya, Syria and Iran

November 30, 2011
| We speak with Yves Engler on the imperialist nature of Canadian foreign policy. The effects of Canada's bombing of Libya, and the potential for war against Syria and Iran, are discussed.

20:17 minutes (18.57 MB)
in his own words

They are fanning the flames of the Iran war option

How many times have we heard in recent weeks either outright threats to attack Iran mainly emanating from Israel or the more muted posture adopted by the United States that leaves ‘all options' on the table including ‘the military option'? What has Iran done to justify this frantic war-mongering in a strategic region that is sorting out the contradictory effects of the long Arab Spring and is the contested site of energy geopolitics that has replaced territory and minerals as the core issue of world politics?

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rabble interview

Dying to be remembered: Poisoned peacekeeper considers hunger strike

Former Bosnian war peacekeeper Pascal Lacoste suffers from painful symptoms his doctors say is heavy metal poisoning from 14 metals, including depleted uranium. He says the government ignores him.

As a Canadian paratrooper in the former Yugoslavia, Pascal Lacoste learned to hold in his pain. But even today, sometimes the pain is just too great.

"I need someone now," he writes on his Facebook profile one summer morning, leaving his address and phone number for the world to see. "I'm half-conscious."

He gets $50 a week from the Canadian government to pay for homecare, and for the rest he must rely on his friends. "It's hard for my social life, because my friends say, 'Pascal always wants something from us.'"

He wishes it didn't have to be that way.

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Redeye

Drumming up support for the invasion of Libya

October 14, 2011
| Any government contemplating a new war works hard to ensure the support of its population. The invasion of Libya was no exception.

20:50 minutes (19.08 MB)
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