Loopholes and Libya

Really? Because a mere two weeks ago, Steven Chase was reporting: 
Ottawa rewrites mandate for screening arms exports

"The Canadian government has quietly watered down its own mandate for screening the export of military goods, rewriting parts of the only substantive public statement available on Ottawa’s responsibilities for policing foreign sales."

Previous policy on military exports : Canada’s export controls are meant “to regulate and impose certain restrictions on exports in response to clear policy objectives.” 

New policy :"export controls are intended “to balance the economic and commercial interests of Canadian business with the national interest of Canada.”

So it's jobs, jobs, jobs vs "Canada prohibits the export of arms and related materiel to countries that are under United Nations Security Council arms embargos "

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan's guarded "hints" above yesterday come in response to this item two days ago : 

"Earlier this year, a UN report criticized the Streit Group, which has a plant in Innisfil, Ont., north of Toronto, for the "illicit transfer" of 131 armoured vehicles in 2012...   At least 79 Typhoon and Spartan patrol vehicles were delivered to the effectively lawless nation in 2014

"Streit's sales were brokered through middlemen. At least four separate companies, one American and three from the United Arab Emirates, purchased the vehicles."

This brokering through middlemen to a third country is called diversion, which was prohibited by Global Affairs until it changed the rules this year to allow it.

In 2012 and 2013, the United Arab Emirates was, according to Global Affairs, our second largest destination for military exports after Saudi Arabia. 

From international.gc.ca:

Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada - 2012
United Arab Emirates     $277,116,557  No armoured cars but $251,134,882 for : 
"Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned airborne vehicles, aero-engines ...specially designed or modified for military use"

 Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada  - 2013  ***

Libya            $3,116,000     "Ground vehicles and components" 
United Arab Emirates       $4,038,373  of which $1,659,530 was for "Ground vehicles"

Table 4: Exports of Military Goods and Technology - 2014

Libya            $2,681,000      "Ground vehicles and components"

United Arab Emirates    $10,204,844 - of which $5,205,000 were "Ground vehicles" and another $3,706,563 was for "Imaging or countermeasure equipment, specially designed for military use"

Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada - 2015

Nothing for Libya

United Arab Emirates   $3,629,728 worth of "Military Goods and Technology" but no mention exactly what was shipped.        

So are these ground vehicle sales part of the Streit Group shipment to Libya and South Sudan, or some other shipment altogether?

Well we're unlikely ever to know who shipped what where because of another change made this year to our government’s policy governing the export of military goods :

"The names of exporting companies are now specifically protected."

Neither will we know how much happens to find its way to "lawless nations" through the US, where Streit happens to have a plant, because :

"The tables do not report exports of military goods to the United States, which are roughly estimated to account for over half of Canada’s exports of military goods and technology each year."

*** Fun fact : Following the $347-million Libya * mission* and a few months after Steve had his very own Mission Accomplished moment, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird signed off on $2.68 million in armoured vehicle export sales to Libya during the UN investigation. 

Baird also announced a $65.3-million deal to sell General Dynamics LAVs to Colombia through the Canadian Commercial Corporation.

Because it's 2016 ... just like it was in 2012.

.

"Never again," said Harper

.... last Friday, “Never again will Gadhafi be in a position to support terrorism or to turn guns on his own citizens."

No, because as you can see from the pictuure above, that was our job.
.

Harper's very own "Mission Accomplished"

As already noted by Pogge, Campbell Clark at the Globe and Mail is just awesome proud of Steve winning his first ever war of his very own  : 
 With Libyan liberation, a political victory for Harper

"Stephen Harper’s first war victory was clinched in a few sudden hours when Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed and his last bastion of Sirte fell.  

Although Mr. Harper has led a nation with forces in combat since he took office in 2006, this was not a war he inherited but one he chose ..."

 Clark then quotes from Steve's victory speech :  

“Our government shall be speaking with our allies to prepare for the end of our military mission in the next few days,” he said.

Although as is clear from the clip above (full speech here), what Steve actually said was :

"Our government shall be speaking with our allies to pretend to prepare for the end of our military mission in the next few days."

Just an unfortunate slip of the tongue surely. 
Like when Government House Leader Peter van Loan told CBC's The House last month that the Conservative government wants to extend Canada's military role in Libya beyond the scheduled end date, a statement 'government sources' quickly denied the next day.

War in Africa is an investment.
As returning US Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz put it last month " in a State Department conference call with about 150 American companies hoping to do business with Libya" :

“We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources, but even in Qaddafi’s time they were starting from A to Z in terms of building infrastructure and other things” after the country had begun opening up to the West six years ago, he said. “If we can get American companies here on a fairly big scale, which we will try to do everything we can to do that, then this will redound to improve the situation in the United States with respect to our own jobs.”

R2P - the responsibility to protect investments.


Of course we don't talk about our humanitarian intervention like that up here when we're sponsoring regime change we can believe in! - in countries with the bad luck to be situated on top of what is clearly NATO's stuff to fight over.

"Never again," said Steve yesterday, will Gadhafi "be in a position to support terrorism or to turn guns on his own citizens."
Sure. Here's a list of 10 things likely to be missing from any future G&M account of Steve's war.

Rather heartening however is the G&M readers' response to Clark's article, with the majority of the 960 comments under it using terms like "delusional" and "jingoistic" and "colonialism".
.

The liberation of Libya

WikiLeaks cable 07TRIPOLI967, Nov. 15, 2007, from the US Embassy in Tripoli :
GROWTH OF RESOURCE NATIONALISM IN LIBYA

1.(C) Summary: Libya has a long history of resource nationalism linked to the policies and rhetoric of the Qadhafi regime. Beginning in the 1990's, many of these practices were scaled back; however, the removal of U.S. and UN sanctions and Libya's attendant opening to the world have prompted a resurgence of measures designed to increase the GOL's [Government of Libya's] control over and share of revenue from hydrocarbon resources. End Summary.

The cable goes on to laud the new "investment surge" of "more than forty international oil companies toil to discover marketable quantities of oil and gas", but warns of "nationalist rhetoric, policies" :

3.(C) With this inflow of capital, and in particular the return of international oil companies (IOCs), there has been growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism. The regime has made a point of putting companies on notice that "exploitative" behavior will not be tolerated. In his annual speech marking the founding of his regime, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2006 said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them -- now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son, Seif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, said in March 2007 that, "We will not tolerate a foreign company to make a profit at the expense of a Libyan citizen."

4.(C) There is a growing concern in the IOC community that NOC, emboldened by soaring oil prices and the press of would-be suitors, will seek better terms on both concession and production-sharing agreements, even those signed very recently. -- Libyan labor laws have also been amended to "Libyanize" the economy in several key sectors, and IOCs are now being forced to hire untrained Libyan employees.

7.(C)  But those who dominate Libya's political and economic leadership are pursuing increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector that could jeopardize efficient exploitation of Libya's extensive oil and gas reserves. Effective U.S. engagement on this issue should take the form of demonstrating the clear downsides to the GOL of pursuing this approach ....

Fast-forward two years ...

WikiLeaks cable 09TRIPOLI867, Oct. 27, 2009, from the US Embassy in Tripoli
PETROCANADA CAUGHT IN QADHAFI'S CROSS-HAIRS

1.(C) Summary: According to the xxxxxxxxxxxx of PetroCanada, xxxxxxxxxxxx the Libyan government demanded PetroCanada cut its oil production due to misunderstandings between Libya and Canada over Muammar al-Qadhafi's aborted trip to Canada in late September. 

FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH: PETROCANADA GM DETAILS RECENT ORDEAL

¶2. (C) xxxxxxxxxxxx of PetroCanada, shared with Econoff his company's recent ordeal in Libya that began with a threat of nationalization, but which was pared down to an order by the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to cut production by 50 percent. He said PetroCanada and Hrouj, its NOC-owned partner, had actually surpassed production quotas for the past six months but the NOC had never asked them to cut back. Although the NOC never gave PetroCanada a clear reason for the production cuts (and may simply have been passing down an order from PM-equivalent al-Mahmoudi), xxxxxxxxxxxx believed they were linked to the diplomatic row surrounding Libyan Leader Muammar al-Qadhafi's aborted trip to Canada. xxxxxxxxxxxx noted that press reports had "spun out of control," alleging that the Canadian FM had planned to see al-Qadhafi on his stop-over in Newfoundland to complain about Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi's "hero's welcome."

¶3. (C) xxxxxxxxxxxx said the Canadian company was suddenly threatened with nationalization during the week of September 27 which was then pared down to the required decrease in production.

¶6. (C) In spite of the current dispute, xxxxxxxxxxxx said PetroCanada still planned to continue with its plans to drill 49 new wells starting in the first quarter of 2010.

¶10. (C) Comment: Libya's moves against PetroCanada, set against the backdrop of an escalating conflict with Switzerland, have left the expatriate business community on edge. Libya's willingness to explicitly link commercial contracts to political disputes has only added to the international energy companies' growing frustration with the Libyan business climate.

Happily the international energy companies' growing frustration has now been resolved ...

Guardian : The race is on for Libya's oil, with Britain and France both staking a claim

The starting pistol has been fired on bids by Britain and other western powers to secure a slice of the oil prize in Libya ...

Rebel leaders had already made clear that countries active in supporting their insurrection – notably Britain and France – should expect to be treated favourably once the dust of war had settled.

although there has been the odd wrinkle ...

NYTimes : Files Note Close C.I.A. Ties to Qaddafi Spy Unit

Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite that country’s reputation for torture

Libya rebel commander contends was tortured, rendered by CIA

The top Libyan rebel military commander in Tripoli, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, dropped something of a bombshell in an interview with the New York Times yesterday: In  2004, he said, two CIA agents tortured him in Thailand and then "rendered" him to Libya. From that point on, he maintains, he was held in solitary confinement for the next six years.

Belhaj, known as "Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq" in jihadi circles, is the previous commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), "a jihad organization with historical links to al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Egyptian al-Jihad organization".

Never mind all that now. At least NATO got rid of that awful Qaddafi, who gassed his own people, was building a nuclear arsenal, threw babies out of incubators onto the floor, was behind 9/11 threatened to maybe nationalize Libyan oilfields sometime in the future.

Government House Leader Peter van Loan told CBC's The House yesterday that the Conservative government wants to extend Canada's military role in Libya beyond the scheduled end date.
.
Update : Chris Hedges : Here We Go Again
.

Canada's 'responsibility to protect' US oil bidness

"He simply will not last very long," Harper said of Gaddafi back in March, as Canada prepared to drop $27-million of smart money smart bombs on Libya in order to oust him.
As of now Gaddafi controls most of the country including the capital.

On Tuesday Parliament will debate Steve's resolution to support NATO's proposal for another three month extension, supported last time by all opposition parties.
One will recall that Steve does not like to miss a parade :

"I noted that there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein operates programs to produce weapons of mass destruction. Experience confirms this. British, Canadian and American intelligence leaves no doubt on the matter.

In my judgment Canada will eventually join with the allied coalition if war on Iraq comes to pass. The government will join, notwithstanding its failure to prepare, its neglect in co-operating with its allies, or its inability to contribute. ...  It will not join as a leader but unnoticed at the back of the parade."

As we wait for this war's versions of uranium yellowcake and "he gasses his own people" to go into spin overdrive, perhaps our opposition politicians - so eager to be onboard this latest 'coalition of the willing to protect the people of Libya while ignoring the similar plight of the peoples of Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria' - could take a moment to read Glenn Greenwald's perusal of the WikiLeaks cables info found in a Washington Post article :

In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war

"The relationship between Gaddafi and the U.S. oil industry as a whole was odd. In 2004, President George W. Bush unexpectedly lifted economic sanctions on Libya in return for its renunciation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. There was a burst of optimism among American oil executives eager to return to the Libyan oil fields they had been forced to abandon two decades earlier. . . .


Yet even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. ...

Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves -- 43.6 billion barrels -- outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects. . . .

By the time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited in 2008, U.S. joint ventures accounted for 510,000 of Libya's 1.7 million barrels a day of production, a State Department cable said. . . .
 But all was not well. By November 2007, a State Department cable noted "growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism. ... Libya's oil production has foundered, sagging to about 1.5 million barrels a day by early this year before unrest broke out.

Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition."

End of Greenwald.

So let's hear a rebel yell for the Harbour Group, the Washington public relations firm whose leadership includes former staff director for Hillary Clinton Richard Mintz, and for the Benghazi coalition, represented by former Libyan Ambassador Ali Aujali, seen here with Paul Wolfowitz in his April speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

In another pure coincidence, neocon Wolfowitz and his AEI buddies at PNAC, the Project for the New American Century, were the original architects of the war on Iraq, arguing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein back in 1998.  Later Wolfowitz and AEI were supposedly hoodwinked by Iraq's Ahmed Chalabi and Curveball into thinking the Iraqis would greet their US liberators with roses.  Nudge, nudge, wink, hoodwink.

Speaking of Hillary and Iraq :

"Hillary Clinton hosted a meeting of top executives from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Halliburton, GE, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Citigroup, Occidental Petroleum, etc. etc. to plot how to exploit "economic opportunities in the new Iraq." 

And so it goes ...
.

Ethical oil in Syria explained

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced on May 24 that Canada would be banning all further arms exports to Syria, as well as banning 25 senior members of the Syrian government from visiting Canada, should they have any desire to visit the country that is its third largest direct investor.

Baird's statement was made in response to reports that more than 1,000 demonstrators in Syria have been killed on the orders of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, pictured here on the left touring Suncor's $1.2 billion Ebla Natural Gas Plant in Syria a year ago.

Senior Suncor VP Mark Little explains in the Suncor 2010 Report on Sustainability :

"The fact is that, on a per-barrel basis, it’s much more expensive to produce a barrel of oil synthetic crude oil from oil sands than to produce a barrel of conventional oil or gas in either Syria or Libya. In Syria, now that we are producing natural gas, the operation will generate positive cash flow for the company. In Libya we have significantly reduced the funding that the country requires, and as we learn more about specific opportunities, we have realized that they come in relatively small investments with strong returns. So these foreign operations can help provide the near-term cash flow and return on capital needed to invest in long-term growth in the oil sands."

Suncor CEO Rick George in early May : "So what I would say is I think it's in everybody's interest...that we keep that facility up and running."

So there ya go. Our home-grown "ethical oil", as lauded by Environment Minister Peter Kent and Ezra Levant in his book of the same name, is financed in part by making a quick buck in the "blood oil" states of Libya and Syria.
.
Update : Re link above to "third largest direct investor"
On Aug. 11, 2011, the Government of Canada Canada-Syria Relations webpage was changed to delete the following sentence but a Google cache of the original page can be found here.

"Canada is now the 3rd largest foreign direct investor in Syria due to a $1.2 billion Suncor/Petro Canada gas project."

.