Many readers would be offended if someone were to suggest the Roman Catholic Church was a former terrorist organization with cult-like attributes. Still, wouldn’t terrorism be a fair description of the Inquisition, the brutal effort to root out heresy carried out from the 12th to the early 19th centuries by
Continue readingTag: Russia
The Disaffected Lib: You May Not Like These Odds
The odds aren’t good. Three times out of four, the result is war. Such is the nature of superpower politics. Over the centuries superpowers have come and gone. There have been 16 instances where a dominant power was muscled out by an ascending power. 12 of those ended in war.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Geopolitical Sunday: Don’t hold your breath waiting for the state of war to officially end on the Korean Peninsula
If the Korean War formally ends any time soon, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Why not? Just because he presides over a very large military and leads a country that’s not very nice to it’s own citizens when they step a centimetre
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Mission accomplished in Syria? Don’t bet more than you can afford to lose on that claim!
Mission Accomplished? Donald Trump’s crowing Tweets prove the wisdom of Karl Marx’s dictum: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. This fact is a significant blessing, nonetheless, at least insofar as Friday night’s tactically and legally dubious missile raid by U.S. military forces on Syria is concerned. How
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Well, With the Week He’s Had Who Wouldn’t Want to Let Off a Little Steam?
The United States has launched missile strikes against government targets in Syria. This time Britain and France tossed in a few missiles of their own, brothers in arms sort of thing, I suppose. Trump announced the strikes in an address to the nation Friday evening. “The purpose of our action
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Was the Russian Embassy’s press secretary expelled from Canada for telling the embarrassing truth? Sure sounds that way!
PHOTOS: Kirill Kalinin, former First Secretary and Press Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Canada. Below: Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, and the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. Was Kirill Kalinin some kind of intelligence operative, as the Trudeau Government and the Globe and Mail now want us to think, or
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Reflections on Easter Sunday, 2018: There really is a war against Christianity … it’s being waged by Christians
PHOTOS: Easter Sunday shoppers at West Edmonton Mall. Is nothing sacred? Well, actually, something is: The Almighty Market, god of Canada’s state religion. Below: A brass idol to the Market God in New York City’s Wall Street district. Below that, two unchristian politicians beloved by North American Christian conservatives: Doug
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Russian Intervention in Syria – Some Context – Robert Fisk
Why is Russia so involved in the conflict in Syria? Robert Fisk looks into some possibilities. “There are, however, other small Chechen ghosts floating over Syria. A large number of Chechen Islamists, fleeing the forests of Chechnya after Russia’s victory, arrived in Syria to attack the regime. One of the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: I’ve Got an Idea to Rescue Justin From His Slump
Unfair or not, Justin Trudeau has taken a hit in the public’s mind over his pretty clumsy trip to India. With JT et famille sporting an elaborate wardrobe of Bollywood’s best fashions, the Indian press took the piss out of him pretty relentlessly. The local scribblers piled on. Now Trudeau’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: He’s no bot, but Russia’s social media and press guy in Canada manages to stir up controversy just the same
PHOTOS: Kirill Kalinin, Press Secretary of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Ottawa, in a reception room of the Soviet-era structure on Charlotte Street. Below: An image shot last week of the exterior of the Embassy, built in 1956 after the original building on the site burned down; the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Blast From the Past. Remember the "Peace Dividend"?
The world but especially the Western alliance breathed a huge sigh of relief at the collapse of the former Soviet Union in late 1991. Over the following years, nation after nation dialed back their military preparedness, declaring what was then called a peace dividend. Defence budgets fell from about 4%
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Whose side should Canada take if two NATO states start shooting at each other? Don’t laugh … it could happen
PHOTOS: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. If he looks ticked off, it’s probably because he is. (Photo: Kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons.) Hey! Don’t blame me if the only good royalty-free pictures of President Erdoğan come from Russia! Below: U.S. President and Commander in Chief Donald J. Trump (Photo: Gage Skidmore,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conrad Black is right: The media is full of baloney about the president!
PHOTOS: Presidents Donald J. Trump of the United States and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at the 2017 G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany (Photo: Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons). Below, the great former Canadian, Lord Black of Crossharbour. It is hard not to concur with the words of the prominent formerly Canadian
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Evisceration of a Thug.
Few have done it so well as Roger Cohen’s op-ed dissection of Donald Trump in Der Spiegel.Many of us tend to take Trump’s insults to decency as they come, one at a time, but Cohen stitches them all together to paint a picture that’s much darker and dangerous than we
Continue readingAlberta Politics: From the Twitter account of the former Deputy Leader of Free Alberta: Angela Merkel’s the leader of the free world
PHOTOS: The leader of the free world, listening to Neil Young on sound cancelling headphones. Click here for the soundtrack to this post. The confused looking elderly man with a comb-over to her left is thinking: “Who is that person?” Probably not in those exact words, though. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.)
Continue readingThe Political Road Map: To Trump All Secrets
Donald Trump is a man of no secrets, even though much of the media is making him out to be someone with a lot to hide. A man who talks so much, but often says very little This should come as no surprise to many of us, as the entire
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Dmitry Medvedev on US airstrikes on Syria: “On the verge of a military clash with Russia”
Responding to the US airstrikes on Syria, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev declared in a Facebook post: “On the verge of a military clash with Russia”. Justifying the airstrikes, PM Justin Trudeau said Assad’s “use of chemical weapons and the crimes the Syrian regime has committed against its own people cannot
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: That Could Touch a Nerve
There was a quiet and barely noticed event at last year’s Republican convention when Donald Trump was officially chosen as the party’s presidential candidate. It involved one plank of the official Republican platform that called for America to provide “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukrainian forces fighting off Russian intrusions. Of
Continue readingIn This Corner: The Return of Stuff Happens, week 10: The beginning of the end for The Donald?
So, what’s the over/under on the Trump presidency? I would have thought two years before he was impeached, but now I’m leaning towards one year. Eighteen months, max. Trump has now lost his first big promise, to repeal and replace Obamacare. His plan alienated his own party to such a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Chrystia Freeland should not be punished for her grandfather’s sins, but for misleading Canadians about them
PHOTOS: Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland during her visit to Edmonton in the midst of the 2015 federal election. Below: Former Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Who would ever have imagined major Canadian media companies would conclude collaborating with the Nazis when they were on
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