On Wednesday, the Canadian Government announced the awarding of two huge shipbuilding contracts worth a total of $33 billion. Most of the money will go to build ships for the Royal Canadian Navy, making this the largest military procurement in Canadian history. According to news reports, the larger of the two contracts, totalling $25 billion, […]
Archive | October, 2011
Spin Watch: Journalists and "war reporting" awards from the defence lobby
As I read Mr. Brewster’s war stories I can’t forget the fact that in 2010 he accepted an award from a military advocacy group funded by the Department of National Defence.
Rights groups call for torture inquiry
Two human rights groups are calling for a public inquiry into Canada’s handling of Afghan detainees following a UN report on the torture of prisoners in Afghan government custody (Robert Hiltz, “Rights groups call for Afghan-detainee inquiry after UN report,” Postmedia News, 11 October 2011): Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association released a […]
Granatstein joins anti-American masses
Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute commentator Jack Granatstein, normally quick to dismiss any Canadian who criticises the United States or its foreign policy as a knee-jerk “anti-American”, appears to have finally succumbed to that great Canadian reflex himself (J.L. Granatstein, “Our American friends are trouble,” Ottawa Citizen, 9 October 2011): The American people are […]
Ten years in Afghanistan
On Friday, the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan marked its tenth anniversary (“Afghanistan war marks 10 years with little commemoration,” CNN, 7 October 2011). The conflict is already the longest war in U.S. history, having surpassed the duration of the Vietnam War in 2010. Canada’s participation in the war has not yet reached the ten-year […]
International Red Cross reaches Sirte, but more aid needed
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross operation in Sirte has reported that the organization has been able to provide hospitals in the Libyan town with life-saving supplies such as oxygen and dressing kits after the Red Cross was finally given access to the area on October 1st, following weeks of siege […]