“We became brothers in love.”

“Now we are united. We became brothers in love,” said Mustafa Khalil, (Mustafa Abdul Jalil) chairman of the National Transitional Council.

Well then.  That explains this, I guess:

Homa Arjomand of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada said the wives of men who worked under the Gadhafi regime as pharmacists, teachers and other occupations are already being targeted for rape.  "According to Shariah law, enemies' wives should be raped and they have started raping these women already," Arjomand said.

Seems that freedom of the Libya nation only applies to half its population.  Less than half, in fact since children are chattel as well as women.

(Mustafa Abdul Jalil) urged Libyans (employ) “honesty, patience and tolerance” as the nation moves toward reconciliation.

Except when it comes to women, children, and people you just don’t like.  But needing the stamp of legitimacy on their desire to commit horrible atrocities, the interim government simply wipes out all laws and human rights by leaving such things in the hands of the vague interpretation – by men – of a barbaric set of religious laws constructed by men for men.

The top leader of NTC also reiterated that the Islamic sharia would be the main source of the law of new Libya, and any law contradicts with the Islamic sharia would be suspended.  The future of Libya will be created by the Libyan people, Jalil stressed.

So NATO goes in, helps remove a brutal tyrant, and a brutal regime takes over.  It is tempting for some people to throw up their hands and say the hell with such countries, you can’t save them from their own ignorance and cruelty, all we are doing is arming them so that they can then use our own weapons against us and continue to violate the human rights of their own citizens.

A  part of why we fail is that we approach such countries and cultures with a very patronizing, self-righteous, and ignorant attitude, wrongfully assuming that our ways are the best ways for everyone and  that we are somehow entitled to force our values and ways on everyone else.

Another reason – and it’s a big one – why we fail is that our governments – and many of our citizens – freely violate  the very same laws they want to impose on others.  We talk about fairness, equality, international laws applied to all by all in the same way, but our actions do not reflect those ideals we claim to be committed to.

We pick and choose which cases we will defend, which we will ignore, and whose rights we will violate arrogantly believing in our great, superior wisdom and enlightenment and that this entitles us to bend the rules in a case of the ends justifying the means.  But just for us.   All those who are not us are law breakers and savages if they attempt to justify their actions as we do. 

So what can we do to help further the human rights of other human beings?  Bombing the crap out of their country won’t do it, as we have seen over and over.  Some other brutal regime can easily move back in and the people whose homes, families, and workplaces we have destroyed will not likely want to embrace our way of life.

The only way to help spread human rights is to start here, at home, and spread out through example and by providing platforms where women, children, an y other suppressed folks, and human rights activists can speak freely and safely.

Why would any people look to Western societies and believe we are free of corruption, we are fair, all are treated equally?  We violate human rights, we shape our laws to suit the small percentage of wealthy people, we pick and choose who will be punished, we stifle free speech.

We need to make sure that what we ask of others, we can follow ourselves and rather than tell them these methods produce a happier, healthier population, show them by example, then let them decide.  Our governments should keep pressure on other governments to allow access to outside sources of information so that people everywhere have an opportunity to become informed and make decisions on their own behalf.

Rather than bludgeon people into implementing our policies, we should help them gain access to platforms where they can speak freely, exchange ideas, and discuss what policies of their own they would like their government to put in place. 

And we should set an example here that separation of church and state is absolute.  If we allow any religion to enter into our system of forming policies, laws, and legislation, how can we tell others that their laws must not be based on religious beliefs?  That means that here at home, religious based morality cannot be deciding factors in whether or not injection sites should continue, whether or not gay marriage should be allowed, whether or not women have the right to make their own reproductive choices.

The new Canada

Now Canada can be hated for war-mongering as well.

As the Libyan war enters its third month the Defence Department has quietly ordered more than 1,300 laser-guided smart bombs.

These are for the Libyan campaign.  The one where Canada’s involvement was supposed to be limited to securing air space.

Of course, king steve isn’t telling his precious citizens what we are paying for those bombs.  So let’s go to the U.S., as usual, to see what we will be paying through some fucking tax or other to kill a bunch of brown people -

John Pike, director of the Washington-based defence think-tank GlobalSecurity.org said the smart bomb cost about $100,000 each.

That’s 130 million, over and above what we have already spent on what we have dropped so far.  And that isn’t likely to be the end of the dollar cost in kicking Libya’s ass.  Being all tough on the world stage.  Trying to show big, tough US of A that we can fight, too.

"What kind of war did Canada think it was going to fight? Did they think this war was going to be over quickly or that the Americans would drop all the bombs?" (Said Pike)

Well, Mr. Pike, yes.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said shortly after the bombing campaign started in mid-March that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's days were numbered. "He simply will not last very long," Harper predicted.

Harper is, after all, a master strategist.  He said we would not have a recession and...ok...he said the Chalk River nuclear plant would not fail and...oh...

Anyway, forget all that.  Winning a majority clears the slate.  Tabula rasa.

So harper can start fresh with a bunch of new wrong calls.

But Gadhafi's forces are holding their own against the largely untrained rebel forces and the ongoing NATO bombing campaign.

As for that promise to engage Canada only in securing air space -

Britain's top military official, Gen. Sir David Richards, recently called for an increase in the bombing campaign, suggesting NATO should start hitting Libyan infrastructure. Shortly after he made that comment, NATO jets bombed a key oil terminal in the country.

Nice.  Maybe all the people working at the terminal were rabid, murdering Gadhafi supporters.

Why is this man smiling?

He’s had a nightmarish couple of weeks in Parliament and in the press with scandal after scandal competing for space on the front page of every national paper.  The talk two days ago leaned heavily toward an almost certain spring election, one in which harper would be placed on the defensive, his very character and judgment under attack.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to use a massive tragedy for his domestic political gain, steve used the Japan disaster to push his own agenda.  That pretty much blew up in his face, showing him to be the heartless, opportunistic bastard that he is.

So why is he smiling?  He gets to use words such as “act of war”; “military operation”; “casualties”; “military action”; “campaigns”...

He gets to hang out with military defense staff, pose for photo ops in from of really fucking cool military equipment, gets to wear military gear.  He gets to has his picture taken next to real world leaders.

Best of all, he gets to play on voter’s emotions by using terms he has no real respect for:

"One either believes in freedom or one just says one believes in freedom," he declared.  "The Libyan people have shown by their sacrifice that they believe in it. Assisting them is a moral obligation upon those of us who profess to believe in this great ideal."


The reality:

...Harper never tried to persuade Canadians to keep combat troops in Afghanistan because of a "moral obligation" to fight for the great ideal of freedom.  It's not too hot, not too cold: the Goldilocks foreign policy. A hawk in opposition, Harper rarely gets too far in front of public opinion, now that he's in government.

The new, militant tone on Libya is a case in point. Did we hear Harper or his ministers baying for the downfall of Gadhafi before the UN decided, after much delay, to use force against him? No. But, now, we hear the ever-cautious Lawrence Cannon, Canada's foreign minister, insisting that "Gadhafi must leave."

So we are expected to forget, for the time being at least, that our own freedoms were brutally and ruthlessly stomped on during the G20, at the Montebello summit, in the perimeter agreement with Obama...

We are supposed to forget, for the time being, at least, that he has such contempt for our rights that his bunch faces contempt charges, is under investigation by Elections Canada, and hired a felon as one of his closest advisors.

We are supposed to forget, for the time being at least, that he suspended Parliament twice to save his own ass, denying Canadians their right to an active government.

We are supposed to forget, for the time being at least, that he gave us the biggest deficit in our country’s history, has spent more of our tax dollars on self-promotion than any other PM, has relentlessly attacked the very independent watchdogs put in place to defend our rights and freedoms.

We are supposed to forget, for the time being at least, that he runs the most secretive government in our history when access to information is essential for citizens to maintain their rights and freedoms.

We are supposed to forget all of this because this self-serving, opportunistic sociopath will play on our mindless, emotional response to war and kicking ass - someone else’s ass.

It’ll most likely work.  At least short term, and that’s all harper cares about - getting through his current crisis.

If Gadhafi is quickly taken out with minimal bloodshed - preferably with most of the blood pouring from Libyans - stevo will come out looking good in the eyes of many Canadians, and all will be forgiven, for the time being at least.  It won’t matter that he didn’t back the invasion until after the Liberals brought it up, and it won’t matter that he waited to see what other countries were doing or that they will likely be the ones determining the outcome.  Harper will do what he always does - take credit for what works out well, and place blame for abysmal failures.

If the Libya mission drags on and kills off more Libyans than ground fighting would have, well, it won’t matter to harper because he’ll have pulled through the next couple of weeks by making many Canadians forget what an incompetent, self-serving, lying, small-minded, anti-democratic politician he is.