Would somebody like to sing "Do They Know It's Christmas"?

From Dec 27 to 29, 2008

Israelis : 5 dead, 31 wounded

Palestinians : 375 dead, 1500+ wounded

Haim Ramon, the deputy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert :

"The goal of the operation is to topple Hamas. We will stop firing immediately if someone takes the responsibility of this government, anyone but Hamas. We are favourable to any other government to take the place of Hamas."

In 2006 Israel jailed one third of the Hamas cabinet, democratically elected by a majority.

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Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad official, on the economic blockade :

"It has not manipulated Palestinians into hating Hamas, but has probably been counterproductive. It is just useless collective punishment."

Haaretz :

"Israel has always believed that causing suffering to Palestinian civilians would make them rebel against their national leaders. This assumption has proven wrong over and over."

Robert Fisk :

"One and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza."

Center for Strategic and International Studies via the G&M:

"Israeli leaders synchronized their retaliatory attacks to the political calendar in the U.S., thinking it was better to strike before President George W. Bush left office on Jan. 20 because they weren't as sure about what president-elect Barack Obama's reaction would be.

The governing Labour and Kadima parties are believed to want to improve their odds in coming national elections, demonstrating that they are as tough as hawkish Likud Leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls."

Yes, where are all the "good Canadians"?

Christopher Sands, "an influential analyst on Canada-U.S. relations" for the Hudson Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the North American Competitiveness Council brought his deep integration big stick up to Ottawa on Friday.

"In exchange for continued visa-free access to the United States, American officials are pressuring the federal government to supply them with more information on Canadians.
Not only about (routine) individuals but also about people that you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge."

You mean people like Maher Arar?

"People in Canada have turned the man into some sort of national hero, but if you expect the next administration to join you in sending him laurels, I think you're going to be mistaken. Even Barack Obama ... is not going to go near that with a 10-foot pole."

Arar "will not have his name removed from the U.S. no-fly list "in my lifetime," he added.

Sands recounts a conversation with Stewart Baker, assistant secretary of policy at the Department of Homeland Security :

Canadians have "had a better deal than anybody else in terms of access to the United States and for that they've paid nothing."
Now "we want to give you less access, but we want you to pay more and, by the way, we're standardizing this (with other visa-free countries) so you're not special anymore."

According to Sands :

"Homeland security is the gatekeeper with its finger on the jugular affecting your ability to move back and forth across the border, the market access upon which the Canadian economy depends."

Dr Dawg's Shorter Sands : "Nice country you've got there--be a shame if anything happened to it."

It's just too bad we mostly missed the boat on Iraq, isn't it?
Back in January 2007, Sands introduced Sockwell Day to the Hudson Institute thusly :

"I was struck back in 2003 after doing a briefing with some people in the Administration. It had been a rough year. We were getting ready to go to Iraq.
Canada-US relations were somewhat strained by that. At the end of the riefing which had been a little bit grim -- about how Canada and the US could work together better in this war on terror that we were facing, the person I was briefing paused and said to me, 'Chris, where are all the good Canadians?'

When he said that it broke a little bit of my heart, because I'm an American but I love the Canadians. I think what he meant by that was 'Where are the Canadians of World War I and World War II, that people understood to be... even when Europeans didn't, those allies we had come to count on.'

Well, I have good news. Our speaker today is one of the good Canadians..."

Good Canadian Sockwell Day, our new Minister of International Trade.
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Big "Collaboration Conference" in Banff

The theme of the 8th Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas being held in Banff, Alberta this week is "Confidence Building through Co-operation and Collaboration".

So how is all that "collaboration" coming along?

US Defense Secretary Robert M. Iran Contra Affair Gates addressed the conference yesterday :

"We have a collective dream: a free, prosperous and secure hemisphere,” he said. “By working together, we can transform that dream into reality and embrace the great promise and potential of the Americas."

Canadian Defence Minister, chief collaborator, and host of the conference Peter MacKay :

"Now more than ever, we are all connected and need to cooperate to achieve the security, democratic development, and prosperity we all desire."

Col. John Cope, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, spoke at a conference pre-meet back in August sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies :

"The lack of operating procedures causes redundancies that could be avoided with greater coordination in the region to streamline efforts. If the Americas can achieve a successful system for disaster response, Cope argued, this will build confidence in regional cooperation and increase countries’ willingness to collaborate in other areas."

Naomi Klein would probably call that "pre-disaster capitalism".

(Speaking of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also known as CSIS-no-not-that-CSIS-the-other-CSIS, and "collaborating in other areas", whatever happened to their North American Future 2025 Project, conducted in collaboration with the Conference Board of Canada, to draft a blueprint for economic integration of the continent : "the overriding future goal of North America is to achieve joint optimum utilization of the available water."?)

Ok, back to the conference:

US State Department : "Sub-themes for this year's gathering include generating military assistance for regionally or nationally hosted events like the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada and peacekeeping support in places like Haiti. CDMA's final communiqué may address the need to create a multi-nation disaster task force."

A multi-nation disaster task force? Mutual military assistance for the 2010 Games? That's TOPOFF 5, isn't it? Say, how is TOPOFF 5 coming along anyway? Military contractors still doing both the writing of and bidding on government proposals for the U.S. of A.'s largest counterterrorism exercise next year? Now there's a collaboration for you.

CP : "MacKay says the size of the [hemisphere] makes it challenging to co-ordinate efforts.
He says the ministers will discuss how to co-operate on providing armed security during natural disasters such as hurricanes or major national events like the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver."

Yeah, there we go. The 2010 Games as a natural disaster. Go, Petey!

America.gov : "[Conference delegate] Carlo Dade, executive director of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas in Ottawa, told America.gov that hemispheric military police relations are a subject of special interest to Canada."

Canadian Foundation for the Americas, better known to us as FOCAL, a quasi-government booster of free markets and private enterprise for Latin America, published this in June :

Alberta Oil Sands: Sustainable Energy Security for the Americas?

"The oil sands hold the promise that both North and South America can rely on Alberta and its energy resources for decades to come, as trade within the Americas grows and Canadians become more fully integrated into pan-American economic and cultural streams."

Collaboration boosters scorecard :

Water - check.

Oil - check.

Military integration - check.

And you all thought the SPP was dead. Oh, ye of little faith.