PHOTOS: The Senate chamber, empty, as it should be. Below: Stephen Harper, apparently still the de facto leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Conservative Opposition…
Continue readingTag: Vladimir Putin
Alberta Politics: Year in review: from plunging oil to rising hope, the Top Ten news stories of 2015
PHOTOS: Cameras try to follow a nearly invisible Rachel Notley through the crowd at an Edmonton hotel on May 5, 2015, moments after she had been declared the winner of the Alberta election. No one could quite believe that the NDP had just won a majorit…
Continue readingLeDaro: Donald Trump ‘honoured’ by Putin compliment, much to Republicans’ chagrin
Poor Trump. He is so proud of his buddy Putin. Repugs are not fair to him.:)))).
Continue readingLeDaro: Donald Trump ‘honoured’ by Putin compliment, much to Republicans’ chagrin
Poor Trump. He is so proud of his buddy Putin. Repulsive are not fair to him.:)))).
Continue readingLeDaro: Officially, Vladimir Putin’s net worth is $ 70 billion
“Officially, Vladimir Putin’s net worth is thought to be around $70 billion according to Forbes, which makes the Russian the second-richest man in the world since Bill Gates’ net worth is $79.3 billion in 2015.Mar 7, 2015.”However, …
Continue readingLeDaro: Officially, Vladimir Putin’s net worth is $ 70 billion
“Officially, Vladimir Putin’s net worth is thought to be around $70 billion according to Forbes, which makes the Russian the second-richest man in the world since Bill Gates’ net worth is $79.3 billion in 2015.Mar 7, 2015.”However, …
Continue readingLeDaro: Vladimir Putin calls Donald Trump a ‘very colourful and talented man’
Russian president speaks warmly of US presidential hopeful at press conference in Moscow, following Trump’s praise for him.
What Vladi is upto? Maybe he is thinking that with a stupid man, Donald Trump,in the Whitehouse he can screw U.S.
Continue readingLeDaro: Vladimir Putin calls Donald Trump a ‘very colourful and talented man’
Russian president speaks warmly of US presidential hopeful at press conference in Moscow, following Trump’s praise for him.What Vladi is upto? Maybe he is thinking that with a stupid man, Donald Trump,in the Whitehouse he can screw U.S.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Are moderate Alberta conservatives likely to find themselves waking up to a Wildrose nightmare?
ILLUSTRATIONS: It’s a nightmare alright – but whose? Actual Alberta voters may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and NDP Premier Rachel Notley. (Both shown in CBC photos.) The prevailing narrative in the Alberta m…
Continue readingLeDaro: Putin orders sanctions against Turkey
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday called for sanctions against Turkey, following the downing this week by Tur1key of a Russian warplane.The decree published on the Kremlin’s website Saturday came hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Er…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Reassessing NATO: Canada shouldn’t let itself be ‘Article Fived’ into a war by Turkey’s Islamist president
PHOTOS: A bunch of NATO political bureaucrats try to look busy in this file photo. Recognize anyone? Below: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Does it benefit Canada in …
Continue readingLeDaro: Turkey downing Russian jet
Europe is distancing itself from Turkey, it looks a reckless action by Turkey in shooting down the Russian plane. It has potential implications because Turkey is a NATO country.Vladimir Putin is a ruthless dictator, but he is very clever and crafty. Th…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brad Wall’s call to block refugees from Syria is just more of the same old conservative wedge politics
PHOTOS: Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall (CBC Photo). Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott and B.C. Premier Christy Clark. Bottom: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is either demonized or ignored by Western mainstream media. In light of the inevitably angry and emotional response to the Paris terror attacks
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Lawyers, guns and money: Russia’s intervention in Syria offers a useful teaching moment for Canadians
PHOTOS: A Russian Su-34 bomber releases a bomb near the provisional ISIS capital of Raqqa in Syria. (Russian Ministry of Defence photo.) Below: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war has offered a unique teaching
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Russian boots on Syrian ground create new reality for Canadian leaders, whether they discuss it or not
PHOTOS: Russian President Vladimir Putin – creating new realities for Canadian leaders to talk about … or not. Below: The three Canadian debating amigos, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. As the three principal contenders for the job of running the country
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why Stephen Harper Has Suddenly Stopped Talking About the Russians
It's the greatest Arctic mystery since the Franklin expedition. Why after taunting the Russians and their leader for the last two years, in relentless pursuit of the ethnic vote. And shooting his mouth off like a cannon, as only that Con clown could… Why is Stephen Harper suddenly not talking about the Russians anymore?Why
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Alberta’s attack on gay-straight alliances rests on the same logical fallacy as Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law – coincidence, or what?
Russian police arrest citizens protesting against the country’s anti-gay laws, which rely on the same logical fallacy as the Prentice Government’s moves to suppress a bill that would have supported gay-straight alliances in schools. Below: Alberta Liberal MLA and GSA advocate Laurie Blakeman, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Alberta Premier
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Risk of ‘accidental’ nuclear war: Chomsky on the ‘worst case scenario’
It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which any world power would deliberately start a nuclear war given the dire consequence for the planet. Rational thinking and the will to survive prevents us from believing that any nation… any leader… could be crazy enough to intentionally unleash what could wind up being a terminal war of reciprocal destruction. But what is often overlooked is the increasing likelihood that a nuclear war might well be started by accident.
During a recent RT interview Noam Chomsky addressed this possibility:
The worst-case scenario, of course, would be a nuclear war, which would be terrible. Both states that initiate it will be wiped out by the consequences. That’s the worst-case. And it’s come ominously close several times in the past, dramatically close. And it could happen again, but not planned, but just by the accidental interactions that take place – that has almost happened. It’s worth remembering that just one century ago, the First World War broke out through a series of such accidental interchanges. The First World War was horrifying enough, but the current reenactment of it means the end of the human race.
Chomsky’s reference to a nuclear war begun ‘by accident’ makes sense when you look at how this might come about. An escalation factor might be faulty intelligence, leading for example to a mistaken belief that the other side is planning an imminent nuclear strike. The decision may then be taken to use tactical nuclear weapons in order to seize first-strike advantage. Underlying intelligence failure of this sort could be a more general strategic misreading of the enemies’ intent and other communications failures that fuel a pattern of escalation.
A report entitled Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership lays out a new vision for the NATO alliance. It contains a number of statements that confirm the importance of nuclear weapons “in the quiver of escalation”… ostensibly to prevent “existential dangers.” But in fact their use is also clearly about maintaining a winning edge however couched in the language of prevention, as this statement from the report suggests: “What is needed is a policy of deterrence by proactive denial, in which preemption is a form of reaction when a threat is imminent, and prevention is the attempt to regain the initiative in order to end the conflict.” Tactical nuclear weapons are very much a part of any so-called “proportional” response. This scenario opens the door for all kinds of potential disaster.
Tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons are now part of the toolkit of the world’s major militaries. These weapons can be calibrated to suit the challenges on hand. Variable yield allows operators to set the weapons’ explosive power in consideration of target and conditions. Small-yield tactical nukes might encourage preemptive strikes especially if a conventional force is facing defeat. They may be used in other ways to seize the advantage. Under war conditions the step from tactical to strategic nuclear weapons might not be such a huge leap, especially on the part of a military staring down the barrel of defeat.
Bottom line, our continued use of these weapons raises the ante when it comes to the prospects of large scale nuclear war. Chomsky sums up the stark choice we face in this paragraph:
We can think back as far as 1955, when Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein produced an appeal, a joint appeal to the people of the world, in which they said to all of us, you have a choice that is stark, unavoidable, the question is, will you eliminate war or will you eliminate human race? These are your choices.
Right now we are making bad choices. The provocations of the West in Eastern Europe and the expansion of NATO’s reach to the borders of Russia is fraught with risks that can’t be taken lightly. Chomsky rightly characterizes NATO as a “US-run intervention force.”
The official mission of NATO became to control the international, the global energy system, pipelines. That means, to control the world. Of course, its [a] U.S.-run intervention force, as in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 – it was a U.S.-run intervention force. That’s the new NATO and it did expand to Russian borders…
The demonization of Russia in Western media and the toxic cold war-like environment that is being whipped up is driven by geopolitical ambitions, energy and resource considerations and a very particular animus toward a major global power that is unwilling to alter its long held values and traditions. This offends some people, who over and above the larger geopolitical considerations, appear willing to risk heightening an already tense situation in the course of pressing a Western-centric rights agenda.
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