It started two days ago. Earlier in the week the government announced its decision to replace the Beirut airport security chief Brig Wafiq Shoqeir for alleged ties to Hizbullah, He allegedly allowed Hizbullah to install their own security network with in the airport. The government also announced that it will close down Hizbullah’s telecommunication network. And thus overnight Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah contended that these decisions are declarations of war and thus moved his gurilla army to take over Beirut. And ...More »

Andrew Cockburn comments on a new US covert initiative that is truly frightening in its scope… “Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope." Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. ...More »

Politics is politics. Right and wrong only serve political ends when they suit political purposes, a reality that has spanned millennia. Today the Prime Minister called for Pakistan’s expulsion from the Commonwealth (updated: Pakistan has now been barred from the Commonwealth), something I’ll not argue given the undemocratic state of affairs in Pakistan. But one has to wonder why this wasn’t an issue during the years prior to this latest crisis? Is it because there is now a significant pro-democratic groundswell in Pakistan that justifies ...More »

There he goes flexing his muscles again. I am sick of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah's unrelenting threats and hypocrisy. In his latest speech Nasrallah went on to remind the world that he will not allow anyone to disarm Hizbullah. He argued that Hizbullah's weapons & fighters were prepared "day and night" to defend Lebanon. "The resistance is ready, day and night, to defend South Lebanon as well as all of Lebanon ... to achieve a historic victory that will change the face of ...More »

If pictures say a thousand words, the expression on President Bush’s face in the above photograph says only a handful – “what are you guys, stupid?”. It’s a face that he’s employed in the past on more occasions than I can count. Unfortunately, his track record when employing it is less than stellar. In fact, it’s utterly dismal. It’s the face that he uses when he seems to think he knows something that everyone else doesn’t. In the past I would have chalked that ...More »

I want to clarify that the focus of this entry is the practice of counter-intelligence and the very real historical ramifications that it has had with regards to Latin America. John Pilger’s entry posted today on the The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog entitled “The old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez” is an interesting read. In it, Pilger confronts some of Latin America’s harsh realities and, having also made a documentary entitled The War On Democracy, which “shows that the principles of ...More »

You have to absolutely adore hypocrisy. Unfortunately, that’s the only word one can think of with regards to Haiti given Canada’s complicity in the coup d'état that removed Aristide from power in 2004. First, I will not entirely condemn the Prime Minister, being that his government wasn’t in power when the coup took place, nor was it in power when the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti took place in Montreal. But even that only provides the thinnest of ice on which to skate. With regards to ...More »

Next week the Prime Minister will travel to Colombia and Haiti. One is the home of a right-wing government with direct connections to paramilitaries responsible for human-rights abuses. The other is home to a supplanted government that we helped put in place after participating in the overthrow of the democratically elected leader of that country in 2004, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Colombia Free trade is worth more than lives. Well, the lives of those deemed of less importance than those that free trade agreements benefit. Colombia has, for years, ...More »