This guy wrote a book a few years back about Canada’s dealings with haiti and now he’s back doing a book tour with a critique of Canadian foreign policy. Anybody heard of him? Who the hell is he and do his claims have any merit at all?
Oh, and in case youre wondering why I didn’t put this in the Book review forum, it’s because this lovely tome is being market as a TEXTBOOK for use in courses in “USA, UK and Europe,”.
Here’s from a review of what the yanks and others will learn about Canada if they get a Uni course with this thing:
:raspberry:
He alleges:
[quote]THE TOP 10 THINGS YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW ABOUT CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY
On dozens of occasions since 1915, Canadian gunboats have been deployed to the Caribbean and Central America.
Canada has been the fifth- or sixth-largest contributor to the U.S. war in Iraq.
Ottawa asked London for its Caribbean colonies after World War I.
Days after the elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown, Canada’s ambassador to Chile called victims of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s repression the “riffraff of the Latin American Left.”
In a number of countries, Canadian “aid” has been used to rewrite mining codes to the benefit of Canadian mining companies.
Canada had between 250 and 450 nuclear-armed fighter jets based in Europe in the 1960s.
Washington did not press Ottawa to break relations with post-revolution Cuba because it wanted Canada to spy on the island.
Throughout Pierre Trudeau’s time in office and before, Canadian companies were heavily invested in apartheid South Africa.
Canada helped depose Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, one of Africa’s first independence leaders, who was then killed.
Many commentators, including the world’s leading intellectual, Noam Chomsky, consider Lester Pearson a war criminal because of his significant support for the US war on Vietnam, particularly Canada’s role in delivering US bombing threats to North Vietnam.
And Choamsky’s on his bandwagon, ensuring little intellectual wannabes everywhere will jump all over him.
[quote]“We bear responsibility for what governments do in the world, primarily our own, but secondarily those we can influence, our allies in particular. Yves Engler’s penetrating inquiry yields a rich trove of valuable evidence about Canada’s role in the world, and poses a challenge for citizens who are willing to take their fundamental responsibilities seriously.” —Noam Chomsky fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/402[/quote]
Although what Choamsky says there isn’t so bad, I just detest him lending his name to this thing.
What do you all think? There’s no truth to any of this stuff, or is there? We need a timfoil emoticon for posts like these.
And does anybody care? Does not reading this make me a sheeple sticking my head in the sand? Do I have a responsibility to read it?
Canada provided the nuclear reactor that was used to extract the enriched uranium used to make India’s first nuclear weapon. They also provided the same make of reactor to Taiwan. They could be indirectly and directly responsible for nuclear proliferation in North and South Asia. Pakistan developed their nuclear program to balance that created by India and also sold their know how to North Korea, and Libya and indirectly to Iran.
You don’t HONESTLY think those guys just sit around quaffing maple syrup and talking about ice fishing and hockey, do you?
Anyway, I’m sure all those claims are easily enough proven or disproven, but I seem to recall reading about the Caribbean colonies one before.
Offhand I can say at least half are things I know to be true or don’t find at all surprising. Tossing WWI stuff out though is pretty lame. We used to prevent Asians from buying homes in nice neighborhoods, too. Hell we interned the Japs. yeah, that event really says a lot about who we are in 2009.
Iraq funding, yes, though I don’t know if it is fifth (of course what does this actually mean in real numbers?). I mentioned this on numerous occassions when Fred would run off about us not helping. Can someone whisper this in dante’s ear?
Yes. CANDU reactors, which are considered a “safer” nuclear energy option, still produce plutonium. However, the plutonium produced by a CANDU reactor is not exactly weapons grade. It is what is called reactor grade, and it is supposedly incredibly difficult to refine in order to make a nuclear weapon. Other technology transfers at the time may have made it possible for India to develop a nuclear weapon, but it wasn’t with material from the relatively safe CANDU reactor.
[quote=“Wookiee”]Yes. CANDU reactors, which are considered a “safer” nuclear energy option, still produce plutonium. However, the plutonium produced by a CANDU reactor is not exactly weapons grade. It is what is called reactor grade, and it is supposedly incredibly difficult to refine in order to make a nuclear weapon. Other technology transfers at the time may have made it possible for India to develop a nuclear weapon, but it wasn’t with material from the relatively safe CANDU reactor.
That might be the case with the CANDU but it was a reactor called the CIRUS which was specifically designed by Canada to produce weapons grade uranium for the Manhattan Project. They provided the reactors to India and Taiwan. However, the CANDU also produces as a byproduct the explosive casings needed to detonate a nuclear bomb.
Is this a joke? If that’s it they’re practically saints.
Ooohhhh…Canada once had aspirations of colonies. Ooooh…Canada had a bunch of nukes on ready in the 60’s. Ooooh, a Canadian might have once committed a war crime.
Anymore I don’t know what to believe. I don’t think any of the claims he makes are really that bad. It’s just that Canada likes the rest of the world to believe that the only foriegn policy activities Canada ever takes part in are nicey-nice peacekeeping activities. t’s time to blow the lid off of that. It’s just embarrassing.
The gloves are about to come off in a big way over the arctic circle. Russia is threatening war with us and I can’t see Obama doing anything except maybe engaging in talks or something to make it look like he’s doing something.
Canadians are really nice until you try to take a piece of their country away from them. Maybe if the rest of the world wa more aware of REAL Canadian foreign policy they wouldn’t act as if taking a piece of Canada away from Canadians was an easy act thet can just take for granted. We’re nice, but we’re not the worlds doormat.
