In a posting to the Ploughshares peacelist yesterday I promised to comment on the recently-released report on the current state of Afghanistan by the Senlis Council, a prominent European think-tank. Since it runs to hundreds of pages and covers dozens of topics, where to start? On the CBC and other Canadian media, the first priority […]
Archive | Blog
RSS feed for this sectionWill the war in Afghanistan be an NDP issue in the next election?
Last Saturday morning I stopped by the Mariott hotel in downtown Ottawa where hundreds of NDP activists and future election candidates from across the country had gathered for an intensive election “bootcamp” called Breakthrough 2007. Many of the sessions were designed to help local, riding-level campaigns on everything from preparing election materials, doing media interviews, […]
Your help is needed! the pro-war lobby is targetting us
A Canadian battle tank in Afghanistan. Supporting the US-led War on Terror has undermined our peacekeeping reputation in the eyes of Afghanis and the world. (DND photo) Dear Ceasefire.ca supporter Canadians have a great reputation as peacekeepers around the world, but that role is under attack. And I am very concerned that combat operations instead of […]
The 2007 budget and military spending
Not many surprises in the budget today for military spending. While Finance Minister Jim Flaherty did not announce any new spending increases, the budget did include a shifting of $175 million from 2009-10 to be spent much sooner this year (2007-08). Here is what the today’s budget said about defence: Implementing the Canada First Defence Plan […]
The Space Security Index group meets in Montreal
As the war rages on in Iraq and Afghanistan, another disaster is unfolding slowly with almost no coverage in the media at all: the world is slowly sliding toward a new arms race – this time in space. One of the best tools available to us to monitor developments in space is called the Space Security […]
Afghanistan's Frozen Children
Almost without exception, the North American media have portrayed the NATO soldiers in Afghanistan as saviours, welcomed by the population, and grateful for their deliverance from the Taliban religious fanatics. But a recent article in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel explodes this myth. It portrays a confused and deadly mêlée that pits trigger – happy NATO soldiers and pilots against […]