Korean Job Discussion Forums

[blaseblasphemener]

[Gopher]

First, you remind us that people on this board have an annoying tendency to take American politicians' public statements naively and at face-value. For one thing, in this case, many if not most politicians court or count on Jewish-American support and take advantage of situations, such as when the President is abroad, in Israel, to score points, as Reid is clearly doing in the excerpt you cite here. For another, we are in an election year, and anything goes. W. Bush is fair game to slice and dice a million ways. Once that is done, the Democratic attack-machine will simply allege that a vote for McCain is a vote for W. Bush, and blah, blah, blah. In any case, I see no evidence that you have taken such complexities into account when interpreting Reid's "criticism" of W. Bush here -- and I remind you that Reid is the Senate Majority Leader and his words carry much weight re: the Democratic Party.

Second, you seem slighted and upset that leading American politicians do not tend to regard Canada as a close ally. But Canadians, perhaps the present govt excluded, do not tend to treat the United States as if it represented its close ally (let alone closest). Canadians typically approach America as hostile, overly- and unreasonably-critical elitists who often openly and ostentatiously condemn and sometimes oppose it. Canadians even stress a history of hostility between the two countries going back to the War of 1812, which Canadian nationalists allege was a war between the United States and Canada over Canadian territory.

Further, among America's closest allies are especially Britain, "the special relationship," and a few others in the North Atlantic on the Western European side (Kes van der Pejl shows who they are, in economic terms [he is a highly-committed Marxist-Leninist and can and will see it no other way], in his scholarship). Others, such as Germany, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan (I refer to their governments and not their larger societies) are also probably closer American allies than Canada.

So there you go. "Hilarious?" I would not say so. More like "pathetic" -- perhaps a more appropriate word for this inferiority complex which often expresses itself as Canada's bizarre NotAmericanism/antiAmericanism/why don't they love us? combination.

[aarontendo]

Basically Canada talks a lot of shit. Cant balk when we don't say how wonderful our relationship is.

[blaseblasphemener]

[VanIslander]

American t.v. news doesn't mention the Canadians who die regularly in Afghanistan.

And there is no reasonable public space in which to discuss the pro-Israel Jewish influence in American society in general let alone in politics.

[mises]

Gopher, you'll love this letter in the NYT:

To the Editor:

Re �Oil Prices Are Up and Politicians Are Angry. Yawn� (Week in Review, May 11):

In Canada we understand resources. One way to lower gasoline prices is suggested by your May 10 article �Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit�: take the revenue from a healthy windfall profits tax on oil companies and invest it in mass transit.

Subsidize monthly transit passes and more frequent service, expand transit networks, build more commuter rail and high-speed regional rail. Passenger traffic would expand exponentially. This will lower demand for gasoline, which will bring prices down. It will also lower carbon emissions and reduce road congestion.

D. Conrad
Vancouver, British Columbia
May 11, 2008

Start with an establishment of authority and then lecture.

Anybody ever ridden Van's mass transit?? It is about as useful as the one in Atlanta.

[Gopher]

Ha. Anything that starts with "In Canada" makes me laugh now. Because I hear Nicholson's outraged sermon to the Chinese mafia at the point-of-sale in The Departed.

[blaseblasphemener]

[mises]

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[RJjr]

[DCJames]

Great Britain is America's Closest Ally.

Israel is America's biggest recipient of Foreign Aid.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Just for the record 50,000 US soldiers died in the Korean war.

And the US has spent either three, ten or as much as 20 billion dollars a year (depending on how it is calculated on the defense of South Korea over a long period.

[Join Me]

[arjuna]

A loss of balance on Israel

May 20, 2008 04:30 AM

LINDA MCQUAIG

http://www.thestar.com/article/426719

Canada has a long history of supporting Israel. But the nature of that support, particularly under the Harper government, is almost unrecognizable from its earlier form.

Shocked by the horrors of the Holocaust, Canada played an important role in United Nations decisions that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. But what Canada supported was a package deal in which Palestine would be partitioned into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.

Whatever the flaws of that model, one thing is clear. No Canadian official ever advocated what has become the reality today: that a Jewish state would be created, while the much larger Arab population in Palestine would be left stateless six decades later, and in fact living under Israeli military occupation.

That Canadian attempt at even-handedness has utterly disappeared under Stephen Harper, who lavishly celebrated Israel's 60th anniversary with promises of Canada's "unshakeable" support, while utterly ignoring the fact that this is also an anniversary � although a very different one � for the Palestinians.

Israel's founding 60 years ago last week is also the 60th anniversary of what Palestinians call the naqba, or catastrophe, when some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled in the face of violence by militants determined to establish a Jewish state. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, speaking recently in Toronto, described this as "ethnic cleansing."

This bloody history has been largely banished from discussion in the mainstream North American media in recent years.

But at the time, violence by Jewish militants was widely acknowledged. Menachem Begin, a militant who later became Israel's prime minister, unabashedly pointed out in his memoirs that in the late 1940s British newspapers and politicians branded him "Terrorist Number One."

Members of the Canadian UN delegation that voted 60 years ago in support of partition did so partly to avoid more Jewish violence in the region. R.G. Riddell, a member of that delegation, described the partition plan as "dangerous and provocative" but he argued that failure to adopt it would "play into the hands of Jewish extremists who are said to be prepared to seize the whole of Palestine by force."

Another member of the delegation, Elizabeth MacCallum, a Middle East expert from the external affairs department, questioned Canada's support for a partition plan that would "turn over 65 per cent of the territory to the Jews, who now own only 6 per cent of the land."

Canada's justice minister, James Ilsely, expressed concern that partition didn't sufficiently answer "the very strong moral and political claims" of Palestine's Arab community.

To celebrate the founding of Israel without at least acknowledging the flip side of this occasion � the beginning of the Palestinian diaspora � is to deny that there are two sides to this story. With this denial, Harper � in line with the Bush administration � has become an obstacle to reaching a Middle East peace.

To continue to portray Israel as uniquely vulnerable stretches credulity. Yes, crude Palestinian rockets can reach into Israel. But Israel's existence is well-established. It is one of the world's best-armed countries, with a massive nuclear arsenal and unwavering U.S. support.

Meanwhile the Palestinians � in refugee camps, under military occupation in the West Bank and under siege in Gaza � barely eke out an existence.

If Harper isn't willing to be even a tiny bit even-handed, it would be helpful if he'd at least stop trying to play a role in the Middle East tinderbox.