Kick Russia out of the Helsinki Accords

Is the Helsinki Accord of 1975 a worthless scrap of paper? Because Vladimir Putin sure seems to think it's a joke.

I was not even three years old when the declaration was signed but my father, an emigré from Croatia, understood its meaning. As a younger it was impressed on me the importance of a document that, among its provisions, was a statement of several important principles:

• The inviolability of national borders in Europe, and that border disputes could only be resolved via peaceful negotiations.
• There should be no threat of use of force from one nation to another.
• Every country had a right to its own internal affairs without interference from another.
• That there were basic human rights that all persons had that could not be violated, including free speech, a free press and due process.

There were other areas discussed, including scientific cooperation and the opening of trade between western and eastern states, but it was these main points that came to the fore. While not a binding treaty, many dissidents took Helsinki seriously and used it to fight for what they saw were inalienable rights. Eventually, they were successful.

It's notable that NATO continued to stress that they did not recognize the illegal occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by the Soviet Union, and that Helsinki did not change this. Nor could Helsinki keep the former Yugoslavia from collapsing. When Germany reunited, it was tacitly a merger of equals but everyone knows that in actual fact the West annexed the East with the latter's consent.

It therefore seems pathetic that the West seems to be willing to let Russia get away with its games in the Ukraine. First, by illegally annexing Crimea (only five countries, including erstwhile western ally Afghanistan, have recognized Russian sovereignty). Second, by overtly arming Russian rebels in the east of Ukraine. And Putin is on record as saying he could take over all of Ukraine in just two weeks.

Helsinki was also about reducing tensions in Europe. Which it did. Merely by threatening to cut off the natural gas that heats a quarter of homes in the EU, Putin is raising the stakes.

And let's not forget, all the networks and most of the papers in Russia are government controlled or sympathetic. And that titans of industry have been imprisoned for wanting to speak the truth. Not to mention there haven't been any free elections in Russia since Boris Yeltsin resigned.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the permanent body that was established by the Helsinki framework, should be on top of this. This is the best forum, I think, to deescalate the tensions.

But Canada as a founding member as well as long time champion of the Accord (and far as I can tell has been faithful to its rules) needs to firmly put its foot down. If Russia won't call a timeout of its own to give a chance for things to calm down then perhaps it is time for the West to say that, if Russia won't play by the rules that ended communism and has helped keep the peace in Europe all this time, then perhaps it should be expelled or suspended from Helsinki. On top of current and coming sanctions, this is not a palatable option, but at stage I think it may be the only way to make Putin wake up.

A pinhole light of hope

Despite the deliberate ballot stuffing and other dirty tricks that Vladimir Putin tried to pull in this week's elections to the Duma, Russia's Parliament, the "United Russia" party fell well way below the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally change the country's constitution.   In fact it couldn't even muster a simple majority.   Maybe the people of that far-off land woke up and said that they wanted to have no part of Putin getting yet another six or even twelve years in office (the term for President was recently extended from four to six years).

There are protests on the streets of Moscow tonight despite an official ban.   Maybe an ominous sign of things to come, or maybe (one hopes) the next step of the people getting their country back from the apparatchiks and the Mafia.

If you can't track the guns, you can't track the criminals

The Brady Law in the States, which is supposed to ensure felons don't have access to guns (they are supposed to be flagged by a background check), has proven to be a joke, the NYT reports today.   In just one state -- the State of Washington -- nearly 3300 convicts have had their "right to bear arms" that they forfeited, restored.   In one case, a man out of jail for just two months shot dead his girlfriend's lover -- then forced the dead man's fiancée to dump him into a river.     How did he get the gun?   They were in safekeeping through another friend while the guy was doing time in jail; and the judge who paroled the man said he had no choice under state law even though the judge knew the suspect was a ticking time bomb.

Here in Canada, of course, gun ownership is a privilege and not a right.   I know of some people who are perfectly law abiding but would never be allowed to get a gun license because of various mental health issues.    But it raises a question -- with the Cons bent on abolishing the long gun registry, are we about to become the outlaw country that the United States is -- and an increasingly woman hating one, thanks to the mostly white supremacist religious right and the even more non-white hating and misogynist Tea Party (two sides of the same coin)?

Or that Switzerland is?   While some of its very lax gun laws have been somewhat tightened to comply with general policies in the Schengen open border area that it joined in 2008 after much internal resistance (trade and tourism were the deciding factors in finally giving in), the fact is that most domestic violence incidents that result in death are the result of mandatory firearms possession (every male in Switzerland must possess a rifle until they are at least 30, 34 if they have served as officers).   The rate of firearms ownership there is about 50% higher than Canada (per capita) but only half in turn as that in the United States.    Part of the history is a long standing fear of invasion from its "enemies" but since every country that surrounds Switzerland is a fully fledged democracy and all of which are trustworthy enough to have open borders with, it's more an anachronism than anything else -- albeit a lethal one.

However, one of the reasons Switzerland has a higher conviction rate is that all guns, regardless of size, must be registered and provided with a unique ID number.   That makes guns easier to track and to finger the shooter (since missing weapons must also be reported).   It is true that there are quite a few unregistered weapons there, but if you get caught there you will more likely than not forfeit the right to possess a legal weapon.

Some in this country of Canada go to the old canard that we were trying to make criminals out of legal gun owners, and that a lot of unregistered weapons were making it across the border anyway, which is why the registry has to be abolished.   I agree that some of the penalties for non-registry are ridiculous and need to be revisited; but if we're getting rid of a $2 billion tool that police rely on, doesn't getting rid of the bathwater actually make their job more difficult and make the Harper government guilty of dereliction of duty -- not to mention it actually goes against their promise to be tough on crime?

You can't have it both ways.   Either you get tough on crime and increase the penalties for misuse of a firearm or the illegal possession of one, or you relax the rules on both.   Going at cross purposes (getting "tough" on one but easing up on the other) is a recipe for disaster.   The provinces and territories are well within their rights to say, if the feds want to get rid of the registry, they'll maintain their own -- and this I would support provided that they maintain a unified system rather than a "Balkanized" one.  The jurisdictions would also have every right to demand just and timely compensation for what would be another unfunded mandate on top of the one the Cons are creating with their "crime" bill.

Put it this way:   It makes as much sense as having capitalism in a country with a dictatorship -- sooner or later the regime must fall.   It happened in Yugoslavia, it's happening across the Middle East and eventually Mainland China too will rise up against its communist masters and usher in democracy.   I would welcome that day.   But then we'd better be prepared, because if we can't keep our own country safe from lead paint imports from "over there" heaven help us when we let people through with their firearms and rifles, in full view and not merely concealed, because we said it's okay for our own people.

Mladić arrested

The bid of Serbia to join the European Union, perhaps as early as 2014, may finally be on track with today's news that Ratko Mladić has been arrested -- in Serbia.   It's taken far too long, 16 years, but maybe at long last the healing the Balkan region so desperately needs can finally begin.   With EU membership almost guaranteed now, both Serbia and Croatia (due to join most likely at the same time, 2014, although maybe sooner) should understand that membership comes responsibilities -- including due process and making sure another genocide never happens again.   Too much blood goes around on this one and no one is truly innocent, but if Germany could shake off its darkest past maybe these two countries can.   Progress can only come with peace and respect for human rights.

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The trouble with R and D

When the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development was created in 1989, its goal was precisely that what its name said -- and Brian Mulroney's decision to name Edward Broadbent as its first chair was no accident (although the fact it got up to speed during the Fall 1989 Revolutions in Eastern Europe certainly was) -- and Broadbent's nomination got quick ratification by Parliament.

By its very nature Rights and Democracy or R and D as it's come to be known was intended to be a non-partisan agency of Parliament and its leader an officer of Parliament in the same way the Auditor General, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Information and Privacy Commissioners are -- and as the other Parliamentary offices listed, intended to give independent advice to the executive branch, untainted even by the sometimes narrow interests of the Privy Council's Office.

To see the agency torn apart because some of its board members are Conservative hacks who have consistently denied funding requests to groups who question some of Israel's more hard-line policies in the West Bank and Gaza is quite alarming.   Conducting what some could quite rightly call a "witch hunt" against former board members is also disturbing as are suggestions R and D has "governance issues."   I don't consider stacking the deck to be merely a governance issue but contempt for Parliament itself.

Support of Israel should be a sine qua non, but using an agency of Parliament to promote a distorted agenda that is based on a false premise -- that criticism of Israel automatically should be equated with anti-Semitism -- is unacceptable.   Many people in Israel itself -- Jews! -- regularly criticize the ongoing presence of the Occupied Territories and what comes with it.   Does that make Jews themselves anti-Semitic?   A small number of rabbis outside Israel continue to hold to the position that no Jew has the right to "possess the land" until Moschiach comes.   Does that make them enemies of their own faith?

It is bad enough that those of us Christians who adhere to a "social gospel" view, or something like it, are denounced by the "Christianities" as not being Christian enough, or not their kind of Christian and therefore un-Christian period.   To bring in the controversy that exists within Judaism and use a taxpayer-funded and allegedly non-partisan agency to impose the views of a very narrow view of Christianity and Judaism violates the separation of church and state I thought we have here, what I believe we ought to have as part of the civilized society we call Canada.   Not to mention, the most enthusiastic "pro-Israel" politicians actually have a secret agenda:   the conversion of Jews at the end of the Age, under penalty of eternal damnation.   The Jews need not to be saved because they are already God's Chosen People.

It's going to take the wisdom of Solomon to fix the mess R and D got itself into -- wittingly or not.   The firewall between executive and legislative that statutes require for sui generis agencies of this type must be enforced.  I don't know if Broadbent wants his old job back, but surely there's someone one there in Canada with the kind of gravitas that genders respect from members of all four parties.   Otherwise, we need to de-fund the agency and create a new one that serves the purpose -- which is required to help Canada develop strong positions against those countries that aren't democracies or don't respect human rights:   Belarus, Fiji, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, just to name a few.

Methinks that Sinclair Lewis had a point when he wrote to the effect of "When facism comes to America, it will wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."

UPDATE (Monday 2010/12/20 9:08 AM EST, 1408 GMT):   Much after I posted this, I realized there is another Parliamentary Officer that is supposed to be hands off but is someone the old Reformers have long wanted to get rid off:   the Official Languages Commissioner.

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Anti-Semitism and Harper

For whatever reason -- whether it's his personal ideology or his religious beliefs -- Stephen Harper has confused legitimate criticism of Israel's policies with anti-Semitism.   The latter, of course, is something we should be constantly vigilant against; God's Chosen People have a specific place in the world and in history.

But to suggest that to be against how the State of Israel treats Arabs not just in the occupied territories, but even within the internationally recognized boundaries (those who are are considered Israeli citizens, and they regard themselves as an indigenous people) to be anti-Semitic is trying to make black and white out of a very complicated situation.

It's not even clear if Harper supports a two-state solution (with free access to all holy sites on both sides of the border) as most countries officially do, or if he would go the route of the currently and rightly banned Kahane Chai - Kach and support the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and the occupied lands.   Or is it a middle ground -- give Palestinians their country but have Israel remain in control of the airspace and the sub-surface (which would effectively make Palestine a vassal state with Israel the suzerain power over it).

As far as his claim that Canada's former stance as an "honest broker" made us weak, actually it did not.   We have long recognized Israel's right to exist -- since December 1948, about seven months after the British mandate ended.   We have long recognized Israel as an ally and in fact we even have a free trade agreement with the country.

But we have also played a major role in trying to keep a relative peace between Israel and its neighbours.    Remember that it was Canada that helped to negotiate a ceasefire over the Suez Canal crisis which involved Israel.    As well, owing to the fact that the status of Jerusalem hasn't been settled in the eyes of the world community, we from the beginning (1953 to be exact) have had our embassy in Tel Aviv.

Moreover, Canadians are actually quite divided over where they stand on the conflict -- roughly a third each are for Israel, for the Palestinians, or just plain don't care.

Being an "honest broker" means that while we make our allegiances clear, we are also willing to be a mediator between belligerent powers -- even if it's just "shuttle diplomacy" (running back and forth between neighbouring rooms because the two parties refuse to meet face to face).   Just because we were strongly on the side of France and West Germany and the United Kingdom during the Cold War didn't prevent us from reaching out to people behind the Iron Curtain; if anything relations with most of the client states in the Warsaw Pact were actually rather cordial, owing to the large ex-patriate communities here.    And we along with most of our NATO partners have had a long standing relationship with Cuba, much to the annoyance of the United States.

Canada will probably never be a superpower, unless there turns out to be even more oil and diamonds in "them thar hills" than currently proven.   But we can act responsibly in the eyes of the world and attempt to be more open-minded about world affairs.   Realpolitik is not weakness.   Being pragmatic actually demonstrates more hidden strength than just wielding the sword or sabre.   Perhaps Mr. Harper needs to remember outside of the UN Headquarters in New York City there is a monument where man "beats his swords into ploughshares and his spears into pruning hooks."   The statue specifically mentions the source, Isaiah 2:4.   The country that donated the statue?    The former Soviet Union.

Support Israel, I always will.   Seeking justice for the Palestinians -- provided they completely renounce violence once and for all -- I will also.    But carpet bombing an entire people to Kingdom Come, that is something I cannot support.   To have peace, you must sometimes wage war; but it must be measured and attack specific targets, not destroy entire infrastructures or force bombed out people on rations.

If he had just realized this simple fact, Canada might be in on the Security Council, the world's enforcement body ... and not sitting on the outside while the European Union now has four seats (five when Bosnia ends its term late next year) and effective control of the body.

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Fix the registry, don't abolish it

If as expected the "private member's" bill to abolish the long gun registry goes down to defeat (as I hope it does), then I think it's up to the Opposition parties not just to explain why they voted it down but how they're going to fix the remaining problems with the system while balancing rural and urban interests in advancing gun control.    The Conservatives calling those who support the registry "Toronto elites" is pretty rich, especially considering Harper went to a high school in -- oh my God -- TORONTO!

Perhaps Harper has forgotten that many of those so-called elites actually go hunting on the weekends or for week long outfitting trips?   Actually helping out their rural brothers and sisters in developing their economy?   Oh, I guess he has forgotten about that.   Or the huge license fees that the provinces and territories collect from legal hunters.

Rather than just talking tough on crime, how about also fighting its causes and actually putting money in to fix the broken windows to reduce the number of places criminals have to hide?

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No linkage

This past week, after President Obama announced that he was not going to go ahead with plans for a radar and missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, opting instead for a "marine-based" and "portable" deterrent, Russia responded by saying it will scrap plans to base missiles in its enclave of Kaliningrad. Sounds like good news, right? After all, both the US and Russia are concerned about an even bigger problem -- the stubborness of Iran and its push for a nuclear weapons program of its own that could target much of Europe.

No, it's not good news. It's appeasement, and at a time when the world can ill afford it. Iran is not trustworthy, but neither is Russia. Its slide back from democracy and into dictatorship should alarm anyone and everyone who is familiar with Moscow. While ostensibly aimed at Iran and other wannabe crackpots in the Middle East, the system would also have ensured that Russia doesn't keep pushing it with the EU and the tools Moscow has at its disposal to cripple further the European economy, especially with natural resources.
　
The world is safer when more countries are democratic. But democracies can only be protected when they stand up against those which oppose democracy and free speech. So until Russia gets back in line itself and restores the kind of openness and freedom that existed under Gorbachev Yeltsin (but was stripped away piece by piece after the rise of Putin) and returns, then unfortunately there needs to be a deterrent against rogue elements within Russia itself who may force that country's leadership to push the button.
　
Obama may have bought the West some time, for now -- but he will have no choice but to have some kind of strategy to have a land-based system on European soil at some later date. Short term expediency can have long term ramifications.

Just as the world agreed there could be no linkage between the Palestinian issue and Kuwait two decades ago, we must also agree there can be no linkage between defending free Europe and deterring Iran. Period. When Western Europe, Canada and the US took its hard line stance against the Soviets during the 1980s, communism fell and the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist. By being just as hard against Russia, the only conceivable result is freedom for the Russians. A free West and a free Russia working together to contain Iran will have much more credibility and chance of success long term, than a ragtag marriage of convenience without conditions.

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Thatcher opposed German unity

It can be said without exaggeration that the world changed forever eight years ago today. But we are also approaching the 20th anniversary of another pivotal event -- the fall of the Berlin Wall that completely surrounded West Berlin for twenty-eight years. Poignantly, and perhaps not too ironically, it happened on November 9th, exactly fifty-one years after Kristallnacht.
　
Today, however, quite a bit of a shock. Newly declassified documents show that Margaret Thatcher, the then PM of the United Kingdom and in effect the supreme governor of the "British sector" of West Berlin, was delighted with the fall of communism. But, Thatcher also worried that a too rapid reunification of West and East Germany would lead to a Europe heavily dominated by a single Germany and might eventually fall back into the "bad habits" that led to the partition of the country in the first place after World War II. Not only that, she also worried that a rapid union of East and West would undermine the authority of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. She and then French President François Mitterand fought bitterly against German reunification behind the scenes but eventually came to the realization that without either's support (France was also an occupier of West Berlin, the other state being the US) the Berlin question could never be resolved. However, neither could convince their fellow NATO partners on the issue; even Thatcher's own Cabinet objected to her position.

Apoplexy about Germany has been a historical constant for several hundred years. However, there is a major difference between pre-World War II Germany and now. In the past, various German emperors (and later, President Adolf Hitler) was in league with the Vatican either by mutual agreement or by blind ignorance of each other. And of course, all were dictatorships. Today, with Germany's economy fully integrated with its European neighbours in the EU, including a common currency for most states, and with democracy fully entrenched from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean, such concerns seem to be misplaced on the surface. Not to mention the full separation of church and state in most countries, freedom of religion in all, and a great reluctance to pay any of the pronouncements of the Holy See any creed; especially given its collusion on the sex abuse issue.
　
As well, the East German economy was left in such tatters after decades of Communist rule that the massive reconstruction costs to bring the East's infrastructure in line with the West was a drag for the Deutschemark and the Euro which subsumed it and 11 other currencies in 2002. Germany was in no position to dictate terms to its partners and even if it was, its neighbours would have strongly objected. Even now, people in Germany speak of an invisible curtain which divides not just the "East" and "West" states, but even inside the capital of Berlin -- it is quite common to say that one is from East or West Berlin, rather than Berlin as a whole. It's hard to see twenty years on how Germany wants to go back to the so-called "glory days." Such would require, first off, withdrawal from the Euro and resumption of the DM, and while there is support in some quarters of Germany for this it's a minority position.
　
The fact is, by a forced pooling of the resources of war, war has become impossible within Western and Central Europe; and the collective of NATO, most of the ex-Warsaw Pact and a handful of neutral countries is actually stronger -- and both the UK and Germany are better off financially as well as militarily by being allies and not rivals. Their main enemy is not each other, but an increasingly resurgent and more dictatorial Russian Federation.
　
As far as Gorbachev was concerned ... once he renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine and replaced it with the so-called "Sinatra Doctrine" (i.e. the Warsaw Pact states could "do it their way" and no longer had to submit to Moscow's foreign policy) the only issue was who was going to pay for the 300,000 Soviet troops stationed in the East. It turned out to be West Germany, and they stayed another four years until their withdrawal in 1993. And in any case, Gorby was gone by the end of 1991 not because the Warsaw Pact was history but because he waited too long to disavow Communism.
　
Naturally ethnic pride is bound to come forth, but there are enough safeguards in the individual countries as well as the collective nature of the system to ensure no one country can ever come to dominate the continent as a whole. In my humble opinion, Thatcher was wrong. Keeping the two Germanies apart was untenable -- once the border was gone, the point of having two separate governments was also moot and reunification was just a matter of time. However, there is a point to be made that the process happened way too fast; a couple of years more might have been preferable to ensure that it wasn't the shotgun takeover of the East by the West as it turned out, but rather a marriage of equals as the Allies intended it to be.

By the way, don't get me started on the whole "British Israelism" thing. It's not only a racist ideology, but its self-styled proponents are also false prophets. The man I refer to only by his initials, HWA, said that the UK would never join the EU -- five years before it did. Several months later, he predicted it would rapidly withdraw. It's still in 26 years later, and I think the British presence has only advanced the cause of democracy across Europe and not derogated from it.

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Russian ship's "secret stash"?

The case of a ship carrying lumber that went missing for three weeks -- presumably hijacked by pirates -- took a rather weird twist today when a Russian journalist named Mikhail Voitenko said he was forced to flee his homeland because he felt it was his duty to tell the truth; that the Arctic Sea was carrying a secret illegal arms cargo.

Many people have suspected that there was more to the story all along. How could a ship travelling through EU waters, the most heavily monitored on the planet, just disappear like that; and why would pirates want just €1 million of lumber? Wouldn't oil, or gold, or some other commodity, be more worth the trouble?
　
We need more truth tellers like Voitenko. Let's not forget it's been three years since a Russian journalist was gunned down, many think under direct orders from Vladimir Putin. Russia needs democracy and free speech back, and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.

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EU double standard

Iceland, which has gone through the wringer because of the financial crisis, may get fast-tracked into both the EU and the Eurozone in as little as three years or even less, given the close integration that already exists between the country and the trade block. Meanwhile, the applications for some other countries are being held up for all sorts of reasons: Croatia (a candidate country) still has a border dispute with Slovenia (in the Eurozone); Serbia still is seen as uncooperative with the UN War Tribunals; and of course Turkey -- well, most of Europe fears having a Muslim majority state in on the party.

Is it me, or is there a bit of ethnic prejudice going on here?

Maybe, but I also think people in the EU are still reeling from how fast Romania and Bulgaria were admitted to the EU before they were really ready. Transparency International still gives pretty low marks to both countries -- in terms of "cleanness" Bulgaria ranked 72nd (tied with Mainland China) last year, while Romania was 70th (tied with Colombia). Compare that to some other EU countries -- Poland (58th, tied with Turkey), Italy (55th), Malta (36th, tied with Puetro Rico), France (23rd), and at the top of the list for least propensity for corruption: Denmark and Sweden tied for first (along with New Zealand). Canada, by the way, was 9th. The US rated no better than Belgium and Japan (18th).

Earlier this year, the EU pulled about €450 million (about USD 640 million) in transfer payments to Bulgaria for what is seen as its lack of efforts to clean up the judiciary and purge the Mafia. True, Bulgaria is a "free country" as most Westerners would define it; and I will concede that it along with the rest of the ex-Soviet client states have made incredible strides since the revolutions of twenty years ago. But it is clearly still not at the point where it could adopt the Euro (the country originally set a target of 2012 but 2014 seems more realistic now, if that).

Romania has appeared to fare better, but it still has a large brain drain issue, with many migrants heading to wealthier EU states, including Italy. The strained relations between Italians and Romanians is well publicized.

Sadly, my parents' home country of Croatia still misses the mark on some economic indicators and its judiciary is still partially stuck in the Communist era with judges still not fully independent from political interference -- one of the key hallmarks of a democratic state. The border dispute over Piran and Istria is really a red herring. Canada still has several border disputes with the US but that didn't stop a free trade agreement between the two countries more than two decades ago.

To be fair, Iceland meets most of the criteria for EU membership and it could theoretically become a member tomorrow if an agreement could be made on its whaling practices. But really -- why should it get any more special favours than any other candidate country? Shouldn't it have to meet the convergence rules first and then made to wait, just like all the EU states currently in had to do? A fast-track is simply glad handing the banks there which made some really poor choices in investments then expected the world to bail them out.

EU membership shouldn't be a bailout, but a reward for good financial stewardship.

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Will Armageddon start at the North Pole?

A rather nasty confrontation last week as some Russian Tupelovs were dancing around in the High Arctic. It's not clear whether the planes actually entered Canadian airspace or were going to be in a holdover pattern -- in any case, two Canadian F18's intercepted the Russians and turned them back. Naturally, the Russians denied they were anywhere near our airspace. The timing, just before the Obama visit, was more than just curious.

This has been going on for quite some time but it is one of the rare ocassions we've heard anything about it. Is Stephen Harper just playing tough guy, saying we're here to defend our land -- land which most of the world, including the US, says is in international waters?

Or could this be the beginning of a potentially larger and more serious confrontation? Either way, we need to be very careful. We definitely have to defend our land -- but this is a case where it's better that the provocatoins be kept to a minimum. As it is, right now the Arctic nations are mapping out their ocean continental shelves and could declare any extensions to be their sovereign territory. The Russian had a claim which was rejected but is being resubmitted, meanwhile Canada has until 2013 to assert its claim.

If the Arctic Ocean beyond the 200 mile limit of all states was, as was Antarctica, international territory, then there wouldn't be an issue -- and making it nuclear free would require some long range missiles to be reprogrammed to go around countries' latitutdes, not longtitudes; making them less of a threat and giving more time to respond in case of a false alarm or launch.

Of course, hail to the good men and women who brave subzero temperatures months at a time to be our first line of defence. Let us pray they never have to take down an enemy in anger.

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James Dobson's fearmongering, seven days out

In a last ditch effort to GOTV and stop Barack Obama from winning next week, the unreconstructed James Dobson has issued a "Letter from 2012" predicting dire consequences for the US and the world if the election goes as expected. You have to love this -- it's from the Focus on the Family's own website (PDF format).

Supreme Court:

• Justice Anthony Kennedy, tired of the infighting at SCOTUS, retires; Obama hires überliberal replacement. Justice Antonin Scalia, an arch conservative but also a First Amendment champion, also resigns for "health reasons" allowing Obama to make the liberal majority 6-3. The Supreme Court is in the hands of the left for the next 30 years making any GOP policy reforms impossible.
• Boy and Girl Scouts of America votes to disband after SCOTUS legalizes gay marriage, and forces it to accept gay and lesbian scoutmasters.
• Compulsory sex education from grade one (remember, socons oppose any kind of sex education right through to grade twelve).
• Catholic and evangelical Protestant adoption agencies shut down rather than comply with SCOTUS rulings.
• Churches shut down because they aren't allowed to turn away gay and lesbian couples who may want to get married.
• "Don't ask, don't tell" repealed, career chaplains resign in protest.

Education:

• No more before and after school prayer meetings allowed.
• Churches no longer allowed to rent schools for meetings, even on Sundays. (Ditto for public parks and libraries).
• SCOTUS strikes "under God" from Pledge of Allegiance.
• Home schooling severely restricted.

Women:

• Hyde Amendment repealed.
• Nurses fired for refusing to participate in abortions.
• Doctors who refuse to perform abortions lose drivers' licenses.
• All forms of pornography legalized, freely sold at supermarket display racks.

Guns:

• Supremes reverse Heller decision, gun ownership now illegal. Inner city violence explodes as a result.

Military:

• Obama keeps promise to withdraw from Iraq; Al Qaeda promptly takes over country and imposed Taliban-like rule.
• At least two terrorist attacks on US home soil; Obama responds by increasing foreign aid to terrorist breeding grounds.
• Europe: Russia takes over the Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Obama does nothing like a good old fashioned appeaser.
• Latin America: Obama increases ties to Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba.
• Israel: Iran nukes Tel Aviv, Israel gives up large amounts of territory to Palestinians. Obama only calls for UN to condemn nuclear attack.

And on it goes.

What idiocy. What ignorance. What outright prejudice on the part of James Dobson.

If he thinks this is standing up for Christianity, it only serves to make us Christians look bad. Christianity is a religion of love, this promotes the ongoing Bush-Cheney-Rove agenda of hate and exclusionism and American exceptionalism.

A lot of people seriously believe Obama is weak (and in some areas he admittedly is), but is he really that weak overall? Or will he rise to the challenge of an increasingly dangerous world? I think by first withdrawing from Iraq, the US will be in a better position to defend itself against terrorist attack because an extra 140,000 troops would be on the homefront and not overseas. The money being spent on infrastructure in Iraq would instead be spent in the US, generating jobs and increasing revenues from income taxes paid to Washington, not Baghdad. That too will make America more secure.

Many in Europe still know what war's like. People in the EU will not stand for being invaded -- they'll crush Russia. France and the UK have nuclear weapons and the various military units across NATO can face off against the Russians any day. If the Kremlin thinks they can destroy the Common Market, Schengen's open borders and the overall greatest success in democracy and cooperation in the world's history, they are sadly misguided. America and the EU may be competitors economically but they will stick together if they're bullied by a common enemy -- after all they believe in democracy and Russia does not.

No doctor is going to be forced to perform an abortion. No priest or minister is going to be required to perform a gay or lesbian marriage. As for the Hyde Amendment being repealed -- a 7:2 liberal Supreme Court upheld it in 1978 and there's not a single reason to believe SCOTUS will change its mind on it even if Obama gets back to a 6:3 liberal majority.

Even if the "fairness doctrine" is reinstated, broadcasters (most of which are conservative, not liberal as the right claims) are not going to give equal time to their opponents overnight. They don't want to lose advertising revenue from the hands that feed them. Besides, many of us progressives have migrated to the Internet for our news -- the truthful news -- anyway.

As for the nightmare health care scenario that FOTF enumerates, it's bull. Obama's plan is more of a pay or play system like that in Hawaii or Massachusetts -- nowhere near Medicare in Canada or the NHS in the UK. If people want gold-plated health care they'll still be able to get it; if they want a basic policy they'll be able to afford it.

I never thought I'd live to see the day Karl Rove actually looked good. James Dobson has done precisely that. We truly are living in the last days!

More of this crap is going to come the next seven days. We progressives need to fight it until the last polls close -- tooth, nail and claw.

UPDATE (7:06 pm EDT, 2306 GMT): An earlier version of this post said that David Sweet who represents the ADFW portion of Hamilton in Parliament, and was re-elected last week, was a member of Focus on the Family. He was in fact the Canadian director of Promise Keepers, that bag of nutbags who believes a woman should follow a man in all circumstances. But that group and FOTF are ideological cousins -- and totally against my ideals as to what women in Christianity should be about.

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IINO (Independent in Name Only)

So Russia is now claiming that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are free countries independent of Georgia. Oh really?

It is a fundamental principle that a nation state cannot exist as being truly that without international recognition of its status. For example, Turkey claims that North Cyprus is an independent state but it is understood that it is a breakaway region of Cyprus as a whole and more or less under the control of Turkey -- and there is pressure to have Cyprus reunited as a condition of Turkey's application for admission to the EU to be taken seriously.

Another example are the former bantustans in South Africa, which were really puppet states to segregate black people and run under even more repressive conditions than existed in the main country during the apartheid era. It was also an excuse to allow vices that were prohibited by the Pretoria regime -- casino gambling, for example, at Sun City. When apartheid fell, the casino was allowed to continue to operate.

A sovereign state can only be such if it exercises its own sovereignty without assistance, or where the United Nations is required to defend it, only for a limited period of time until it can assert itself. This is not like the situation that existed with the Vatican which had no territory to rule over of from 1870 to 1929 (and which during that time refused to recognize the existence of Italy which surrounded it). Nor is it like Taiwan, which continues to view itself as the legitimate ruler of all China (and which China, in turn, continues to view as a renengade province); a situation even dicier when most nation states treat it as sovereign for business purposes but as having no status or a part of China for diplomatic reasons -- China, after all, has Da Bomb.

Kind of complicates matters, doesn't it -- when nuclear deterrence can be used to solve global issues? I'm sure Putin is itching to punch the button to get rid of one of his enemies once and for all -- innocent civilians be damned.

Can one compare this situation to Kosovo? Hard to say. One cannot forget that Stalin was a Georgian and during his rule he swapped provinces between republics like some switch player trading cards. Russia still chafes at losing the Crimea to the Ukraine. Since they can't get that back, they feel they need some more liebensraum. Just like when Hitler wanted the so-called Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to "protect" the German minority in the country. Only Russia has a shrinking population, and plenty of space out in Siberia.

Because Abhazia and South Ossetia are recognized to be part of Georgia by the vast majority of the world, although they are currently effectively under the control of Russia, they cannot be independent. If Russia is effectively exercising the sovereignty, it is in fact an illegal occupier -- and has illegally annexed the two provinces which belong to Georgia. It doesn't matter that a majority of people there may want to be independent. Unless the rest of the world accepts the fact, it can't happen and it's not going to as long as both the US and the EU maintain a common front on this issue. Canada should also refuse to recognize this charade.

No appeasement, period. The Russian troops must completely withdraw from the two disputed territories. If -- and only if -- they do withdraw from Georgia and become actual parts of Russia, then Georgia must be compensated for the loss. This could be tangible or intangible means.

Oh, and another thing: In all the appearances the Georgian President has made, he flies the EU flag next to his desk alongside the Georgian one. Legally he's not supposed to do that -- Georgia is not a member of the EU. It is not even a candidate country. He should stop pushing it and put the circle of stars away.

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The "new" Russia: resolving old grievances?

As the situation in Eastern Europe escalates and the US is offering humanitarian aid, some of my thoughts about what's going on.

Back in 1991, as the world's attention was diverted towards the first Gulf War, the then Soviet Union launched a surprise military invasion of Lithuania, the Baltic State then most stridently seeking independence. The world rightly condemned the move, but Moscow seemed unfazed, claiming it was a pre-emptive move to protect the rights of the Russian minority. Yet a month after the failed August coup later that year, Gorbachev allowed Lithuania along with Estonia and Latvia to secede -- and by the end of the year, the remaining twelve republics had decided to dissolve their union.

For the longest time, the Russian Federation -- the largest of the twelve -- raised hackles about both NATO and the EU expanding eastward to where the client states and, really the former vassal republics, held ground. No doubt they were worried about Poland and Lithuania in particular, as their joining both organizations effectively left the Kaliningrad Oblast -- formerly East Prussia -- completely surrounded and separated from the rest of the "motherland." But it was mostly words, until recently. So what changed?

It must truly be grating to most Russians that with the expansion of the Schengen area last year, it's actually more difficult to go from Russia to one of the Baltic States to visit relatives who live there (because of the tougher border controls at the perimeter), than it is to go from Russia to the Ukraine or Georgia to visit their cousins there. There are still substantial minority communities in the "outer countries," as some Russians call them, and they view attempts to diminish the rights of their brethren as an insult to their collective pride. For instance, Latvia is about ⅓ Russian and a new citizenship law requires its residents to speak Latvian even though many have lived in the country their entire lives from birth and didn't ever have a reason to speak the language, until now. So much for "For the Motherland, for Stalin." (Not that I ever cared for the Communists, of course.) Certainly, one should learn the majority language, but from a Russian perspective this is seen as a slap in the face.

Perhaps Russia could ultimately tolerate being surrounded by its enemies to the West, but a potential expansion of NATO to the south (including the Ukraine and Georgia, both of which also want to be in the EU) leaving them surrounded must have been too much to bear for the Big Black Bear, especially when both also have large Russian minorities. They can't easily access their own brothers in the three Baltic States (which minority, ironically, do have freedom of movement between those three countries, and the rest of Central and Western Europe as do all other EU citizens). Hence, the last week's events that have seen Russia and Georgia at war, so they don't lose any remaining connections.

This is much more than about a dispute over territories (South Ossetia and Abkahzia) or about a gas pipeline. It's about pride. Russia was going to push back. It was just a question of when. Doing it just before the Olympics certainly caught the world's attention which is exactly what Moscow wanted.

Should the Ukraine and Georgia be part of the organizations that have ensured stability, economic prosperity, and freedom in free Europe since 1949; which have extended that prosperity as the territories moved further east with the end of Communism? Something which both Obama and McCain are now demanding? In my opinion, yes. Absolutely. Are they going to join any time soon? No way. Certainly not as long as Russia continues to sink back into dictatorship. One democracy does not attack another. A democracy will certainly attack a dictatorship, or vice versa.

I shudder at the thought we may see another round of ethnic cleansing. Of course, not all Russians would want that, at all. But from many Russians' perspective (and it is a large number), Russia is wherever a Russian lives, even if she's outside Russia proper. So, even if Russia does become a democracy again (not for a long time, I'm afraid), this issue won't go away. Russia won't rest until they get some kind of Greater Russia with a contiguous population, just as much as Nazi Germany was able get more and more land in return for appeasement.

Welcome to the new reality. For the record I say, no appeasement. Avoid war at all costs, but absolutely no concessions, under any circumstances.

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The Georgia crisis

I doubt that this is the start of World War III, but the war that has broken out between Russia and Georgia over the status of South Ossetia is not going to make things easy for the West. Georgia says it is withdrawing its troops from South Ossetia -- at least, that's what they're telling us. Georgia, about the size of South Carolina, has not had an easy history since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991; and being at a major crossroads at the intersection of Europe and Asia both Russia and NATO want to have influence over the country.

I find it peculiar that the war broke out just as the Olympics were starting. So much for the so-called "Olympic truce," which dating back to ancient times called for the laying down of arms during the games and the athletes going to and from them as a sign of goodwill and peace. In the end, it's always the innocent that gets hurt the most and that's not going to do anyone any good.

Suffice it to say that were it not for the reckless campaign in Iraq, the outgoing US President might have had some influence in his lame duck year. We hear the phrase "territorial integrity" over and over, but it's sort of meaningless when people in the disputed territories don't want to be ruled by their current overlords; on the other hand, upsetting the apple cart doesn't do any good either.

Either way one considers it, this is a public relations disaster for both Putin and Saakashvili. The world needs to act fast before the violence really gets out of hand and we have a regional war on our hands -- which we need as much as the current worldwide recession.

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In memoriam: Aleksandr Solzhenistyn

If you've read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or The Gulag Archipelago, then you know who Aleksandr Solzhenistyn was. Along with the late Andrei Sakharov, he spoke out defiantly about the Soviet Union's system of dealing with dissidents. For a time, Solzhenistyn was stripped of his Soviet citizenship for his beliefs and he lived in exile in the States; it was only in 1990 that he was "rehabilitated" under Gorbachev's glasnost policies and permitted to return to his homeland, which he did in 1994. At home, he was one of the few allowed to open criticize what Russian "democracy" had evolved into, which is really the rule of the oligarchs.

To be fair, he was also rather a superpatriot, defending the Russian Orthodox Church's ability to stop evangelicals from entering the country and could also be accused of a certain amount of anti-Semitism. However, he was also absolutely right to condemn the West for its complacency in a changing world; that its demise could very well come through its arrogance and not because of a rise in Communism or terrorism.

Mr. Solzhenistyn died today outside of Moscow at the age of 89. He was the oldest Nobel laureate in the Literature category. The world of the printed word is quite empty without him.

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BREAKING NEWS: Karadžić Arrested

About. Effing. Time.

This should accelerate Serbia's application to join the EU quite a bit. My guess is that it will join its long time enemy Croatia as the next members of the bloc sometime in 2010 or 2011, presuming some way can be found around the current stalemate about the Lisbon Treaty.

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Morning whip (07/12/08)

Breaking news this morning: Tony Snow, former host of Fox News Sunday as well as press secretary under Dubya, died after a second bout with cancer at the age of 53. Love him or hate him there seems to be something totally unfair about a family guy dying. To see him exit stage left so soon after Tim Russert died is almost a slap to the face of news junkies. Obviously my prayers are with his family at this difficult time.

Also dead is Michael DeBakey, the famous heart surgeon, at 99. (Why couldn't he make 100?) He pioneered heart bypass surgery and invented the roller pump and 70 plus other medical instruments commonly used today. Well into the final decade of his life, he was still an active physician, performing a bypass operation on no less than Jerry Lewis two years ago. A life well lived should be rewarded in the hereafter.

Russia and China vetoed comprehensive sanctions against Zimbabwe, in particular the senior leadership there. No surprise there since both countries themselves are dictatorships ... and it sends a very poor signal as we're less than 30 days before the Olympics in Beijing. Clearly Mugabe is being given open license to do whatever the eff he wants. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if someone actually succeeds in bumping him I will not shed a single tear.

Finally, one of the largest mortgage lenders in the US, IndyMac (Independent National Mortgage Corporation) and once part of the troubled Countrywide Group, had its assets seized by federal authorities late last night after a $1.3 billion run on the bank in the last 11 days. The vast majority of depositors have less than $100,000 so are covered by deposit insurance (and those who have more than that will get 50 cents on the dollar on the excess); but this is the second largest failure of a financial institution in the country's history. How a company that was worth $40 billion on the books just three months ago could melt down so quickly is no longer remarkable; it is becoming part for the course.

Many will remember that when a large number of savings and loans (set up rather similar to a credit union, or a building society in the UK; although many have demutualized and have gone public) went under, that one of the deposit insurance set-ups -- the one protecting savings and loans -- itself went bankrupt and was forced to merge with the larger FDIC (which once covered the rear ends of only banks).

Financial institutions are much less regulated in the States than they are in Canada so we may see a bit of a domino effect as some more hailstones hit the ground. More than a few and even the FDIC may be endangered. And since we tend to follow US trends quite a bit, I expect the same to happen in Canada?

So what to do to stem the danger here? Some years ago, the Senate of Canada recommended our deposit insurance system go to a model of "co-insurance" whereby a somewhat larger amount would be guaranteed but if a bank or trust company went under the customer might forfeit some of the deposited amount, say 5%. We did the one thing -- raising the guaranteed amount from $60k to $100k to match the US threshold -- but did nothing about the co-insurance part. It's certainly worth considering. It would require a revamp of CDIC as we know it but to just do nothing is wrong.

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Stalemate in Ukraine over -- for now

Two and a half years after the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine saw the end of Viktor Yanukovych and the rise of Viktor Yushchenko, the country is in political paralysis. The former found his way back into the system as Prime Minister while the latter has had trouble implementing his reform program as President. To settle the issue, and after days of talks, the two have agreed to fresh elections in the fall.

I don't know what it really takes to rule a country, but sixteen years after the Soviet Union broke up it's clear some have done it right while others have gotten way off the rails. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are now all EU members and are set to adopt the Euro as early as 2010. They have also acceded to the Schengen acquis and will join the "borderless" continent regime at the end of the year, making it possible to drive from Tallinn to Lisbon without border checks -- unthinkable even just a few years ago.

Belarus is a Soviet-style dictatorship, Russia is a personality cult surrounding Vladimir Putin, and the "Stans" have become breeding grounds for radical strands of Islam with the governments there powerless to stop it.

Ukraine started out its new found freedom with a lot of promise, but since then has squandered it and quite frankly the patience of the world community. Seeing all the opportunities lost in my parents' former homeland of Croatia (as well as its unspoken but well known zeal to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina at some future date), I don't expect much better from Ukraine even after September. But stagnation is not a solution. It will either regress into oppression once more or it will move forward and not turn back.

Caving into Putin's dreams of restoring Greater Russia would not be the answer, however.

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