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The View from Canada - Looking at Canada Printer friendly page Print This
By Jim Miles | Axis of Logic
Submitted by Author
Saturday, Apr 21, 2018

Miles Report No. 100 - Centennial Edition

Preamble
When I first started writing this periodical letter to Canadian Parliamentarians I never thought that I would continue for so long. I also never thought that they would be considered effective and useful by several obviously non-mainstream media so as to be published globally.

I am also under no illusion that the letters have had any effect on anything at all for Canadian or for global discourse. More than likely the commentaries are scanned by some political clerk, maybe noted as a dissident voice (rarely a complementary voice) while the sitting parliamentarian probably never hears or reads anything I have written. Yet somehow I continue as, perhaps, maybe some small fragment lingers somehow in the mind of a politician somewhere and like a subconscious mind worm even slightly deflects their thinking to a more critical humanitarian stance.

Rather than have my hundredth letter pass ignominiously as just another spur of the moment rant, I thought it best to make note in a more summary fashion as to where the various incorporation of ideas, lectures, and readings has taken my thought processes. Ultimately, I am a global thinker, and any concern or problem I come across is integrated into an overall perspective of how humanity interacts within a global environment.

Not so hidden…
The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist - McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. (Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, NY, 1999)

I keep returning to this Friedman quote as it says much more than originally intended. Two decades later however the "hidden hand" of the market and the "hidden fist" of the military for the U.S. are no longer hidden but plainly visible for all to see. They always were.

There are no free markets, only markets manipulated by corporate trade agreements, markets manipulated by a cabal of banksters, and markets manipulated by computer algorithms and high speed traders. All three are mainly concerned with creating wealth through a rentier economy that transfers wealth from the workers and labourers to the financial and corporate elite.

Certainly it is argued, "But what about the jobs these corporations create?" Well and good, but generally while the wealth of the top ten per cent - and much more so with the top one percent - has skyrocketed, the workers and labourers, including those relatively better off in the middle class, have seen their income stagnate over the past several decades relative to the cost of living/inflation. With the lack of increased income, combined with the ever increasing cost of living, a more comfortable acceptable method of wealth transfer is occurring - debt.

It is true that large corporations create jobs. It is also true that most employment is small business and self-employment and that part-time and ‘gig’ employment is becoming more and more widespread. In order to maintain a particular lifestyle - one imaginatively created by a lifelong dosage of advertising and media distractions - most people support this wealth transfer back to the banksters through personal debt - mortgages, educational loans, personal consumption loans, credit card interest, the ubiquitous on-all-and-any-transactions-bank-charges. So yes, work is created, after all we must have ‘growth’, but mostly what is earned will be transferred back to the bankster/corporate elite several times over. Few are "free" of these market forces. Debt also concerns the global situation more than most citizens are willing to consider, to which I will return after an interlude with the "hidden" military.

According to Friedman’s not so cute aphorism, it is the hidden military which keeps all this economic activity free - a severe case of cognitive dissonance if there ever was one. The military is obvious in all its factors. It is an economic/political tool for domestic consumption - both ideologically and for the money it spreads around to any electoral precinct where votes can be bought for a pinch of that wealth. It is a physical bludgeoning tool used by that same political/economic class to counter any challenge to the ultimate goal - global hegemony without any contenders for the purpose of harvesting the wealth of others for the central "one-percenters".

Many excuses are offered for that bludgeoning. Christianity and the civilizing factor of the Anglo based empire was the first. That developed into rabid anti-communism, shown by the violent repression of unions and trades workers through the 1920s and 1930s in the early anti-Soviet era (Homestead and Pullman workers’ strikes were violently repressed). That was followed by the even more rabid anti-communism of the McCarthy era, accompanying the solidifying of the invented missile gap between the Soviet Union and the U.S. during the heyday of the first Cold War. It then morphed into the more recent "global war on terror" wherein fanatic religious militants were created and used by the military to deter and contain Soviet actions in Afghanistan, with the unintended - perhaps - result that the militants expanded and created their own mode of operating resulting in the setup for 9/11. Most recently the prime target has been Russia, incorporating the use of terrorism (ISIS, al-Qaeda, et al) as the significant factor in the extension of US military activity around the world, but most specifically in the Middle East and Africa.

Birth of the US petrodollar
The reason for the military’s actions is to protect the wealth harvesting of the corporations (oligarchs) as they seek resources and wealth in other parts of the empire. This is true from the U.S. imperial acquisitions of the Spanish War, through the misadventures in China, its overt use in the so called banana republics (mainly because of corporations such as United Fruit of Boston - now Chiquita; Honduras, 1953), and on into countries from Iran (1953) to Vietnam. The CIA had large if not central roles to play in all these actions after WW II, but for now I subsume it under the general topic of the "hidden fist". Currently, it is about oil, and it is not about oil. It is about power and money. Ultimately it is about the survival of the US$ as the world’s petrodollar reserve currency.

Both Britain and the U.S. recognized the ease and benefits of the newly discovered sources of ample oil, both in the U.S. and in the Middle East. For the latter, the Jewish settlement of Palestine became a British governmental cause, not because of discrimination (although there was plenty of that) but because it would serve as an "outpost" of western power in order to control the oil resources and transportation routes (especially the Suez Canal) in the region. Skipping some of the intervening history, the post WW II history shows the U.S. increasingly involving itself in the region, overthrowing governments, colluding with governments (Saudi Arabia), and supporting the Jewish state as its frontline military outpost.

The big concern with the US$ arrived during the Vietnam war, when the old gold standard severely hindered the U.S.’s ability to pay its war debts and other countries were starting to repatriate their gold. Nixon went off the gold standard in 1971. After the CIA/Saudi oil embargo enabled by the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the US persuaded Saudi Arabia of the benefits of selling oil only in US$ - thus the birth of the petrodollar. As the Saudis recirculated the dollars for both military and consumer items, and made investments in the U.S., it also acquired a substantial holding of US debt, enough to be of concern to the US$ itself - a factor that plays a strong role in the US essentially ignoring Saudi support for terror throughout the region and elsewhere in Asia and Africa - and in trying to not reveal any Saudi complicity of any type in 9/11.

Dollar hegemony
It is the petrodollar as the global reserve currency that gives the US its ultimate power in manipulating the countries of the world. It is required for any country wishing to purchase oil, the prime energy base for the global economy. Thus all countries must have some reserves of US$ in order to purchase oil. Along with the oil based dollar, the U.S. has up to now had a stranglehold on all financial transactions through its network of "Washington consensus" establishments: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) , the World Trade Organization (WTO), Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), et al. Any country not wanting to bow down to the US manner of doing business found itself  manipulated through the power of the US$, either by direct bribery, or kickbacks, or currency manipulation, or CIA threats, or debt manipulation or other financial means. Then, if that failed, call in the marines, or more so lately, the war planes and missiles.

Attempts to get around the petrodollar have resulted in much of what is commonly considered the war on terror (as well as the old war on communism). While Iran’s government was overthrown (Mossadegh, 1953) well before "terrorism" became the charge of the day, a counter revolution overthrew the US installed puppet of the Shah and his US and Israeli trained Savak. The current Iranian government has long defied the restrictions and hegemony of the US dollar, which for some countries is a minor deal, but Iran also has a lot of oil outside US control and is willing to barter, trade for gold, or sell for yuan.

Looking at other countries with oil who defied US imperial control a distinct pattern emerges. Iraq was sanctioned for years and then attacked, partly for Israel, partly for gold, and partly for oil, the latter two having the biggest impact on the US$. Libya under Gaddafi was considering a pan-African gold based dollar and also had significant oil reserves. Syria has oil but more importantly it is a Russian/Iranian ally sitting on a major pipeline route for Arab oil transfers under the US$ regime - and is still technically at war with Israel, the latter having illegally annexed the Golan Heights. Sudan has oil with a significant Chinese interest, enough to create a civil war, divide the nation and kick the Chinese out.

Which more or less brings the topic up to date, with Russia being the big bogeyman, the great hindrance to US$ hegemony/imperial hegemony. This is a result of Russia’s oil, gold, a powerful military, a revived economy, a strengthening national spirit, and the rather significant alliance with China.

A Recalcitrant Russia
For a short period of time, after the U.S. ‘won’ the Cold War, after the dissolution of the USSR, Russia as a country was on the skids. With the advent of Boris Yeltsin, his drunken behaviour and erratic ruling style, the country slid even further towards outside control. Losing in the polls to the communist party before the 1996 elections, the U.S. stepped in with its manipulative political expertise and helped Yeltsin win the election. The setup for the continuation of the U.S. economic "shock doctrine" (it could be called the Jeffrey Sach's Harvard Doctrine) continued, and the Russian oligarchs became millionaires and billionaires, U.S. financiers walked away with more billions, and the economy and general health of the country declined significantly.

When Yeltsin quit his position (1999), a little known bureaucrat, Vladimir Putin (shortly before appointed Prime Minister), was placed into the presidency. Presumably this was done with the full knowledge and acceptance of Yeltsin’s U.S. handlers, expecting to be able to control one man in the presidency, a position they had helped create in the first place. At first, Putin’s rule was tentative and hampered by events in Chechnya, but as that problem was resolved and other events unfolded, Putin’s skill and power increased significantly. With that success came a strong degree of support from the Russian people, and while some did not agree with Putin, they objected to U.S. interventions even more.

Russia wanted to become part of the European/western business sector, wanted to work cooperatively as military partners with the U.S./NATO, in particular against terrorism. But the many events leading up to today’s U.S. overt aggression against Russia had its basis in several factors. First, the U.S. military-industrial-financial complex needs an enemy in order to account for the huge sums of money required to keep its economy going and to keep the voters somewhat content. Secondly, the Russians brought their oligarchs more or less under control at the same time protesting against the eastward expansion of NATO, stopping U.S. initiated aggressive actions in Ossetia, and in regaining control of Crimea and protecting the Russian population of Donbass from more U.S. initiated activity in Ukraine.

But the final factor is simply Russia’s desire to retain its independence from U.S. hegemony all the while that U.S. foreign policy turns on the principal of containing and dominating Russia. And once again it is about oil, gold, and the almighty US$. Added to that is the Eurasian heartland and the rise of China as an economic power that increasingly added its voice in denouncing the domination of the US$.

The east is rising
The rise of China to economic prominence is fully tied into U.S. financial and corporate interests. With many millennia of history, with the last couple of centuries suffering at the hands of western imperialism, China’s rise to a revived culture and economic success is amazing. The U.S. accuses the Chinese of unfair trade practices, of making it difficult to do business inside China, of manipulating their currency, of stealing patented and copyrighted material, of being protectionist and nationalistic for some of its prime industries. Ironically, those practices to some degree or other are what brought all the previous European empires to success, in particular the British empire, of which the U.S. empire is the offspring.

But what of the U.S.’s role? U.S. corporations willingly went along with whatever they had to in order to get into China’s huge markets, both for the cheap labour, cheap resources, and potential huge new sales markets. It played out well domestically as well. The cheap imports from China helped offset the lack of wage growth in the U.S. and China’s buying of U.S. debt allowed the U.S. to continue financing its military. It was, sort of, a win-win, except that the real losers were U.S. citizens - and those under U.S. military attack.

As China grew more prosperous, the U.S. maintained its belligerence in the region, in particular supporting Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea militarily and economically as part of the Eurasian heartland encirclement, wanting again to control and dominate it all. The continual aggressive stance towards North Korea - technically still at war - aggravated tensions between the U.S. and China. Recognizing this, China modernized its military capabilities, demonstrated its technical skills in computer engineering and space research, bought thousands of tons of gold, started buying oil for yuan/rubles, set up an independent though not global gold exchange, and most recently established a bourse for trading oil futures using gold backed yuan. Several times they announced that the US$ was too dominant and needed to be accompanied by other equally strong currencies or replaced.

Which circles the argument back to debt. China owns a lot of it, as do Japan and Saudi Arabia, and much smaller amounts with a whole host of other countries. The U.S. and its economic allies are seriously in debt trouble in spite of all the superficial braggadocio concerning the rising stock market indices and the official low unemployment rates. Because of its ability to simply print more and more money as the global fiat currency holder, the U.S. Federal Reserve (a private bank, not a government agency, although it is arguable as the two are highly entwined with each others actions) can simply print more money and more money yet to cover its needs. Many trillions of dollars were used to salvage the banks and certain corporations during the 2008-09 market downturn.

If the US$ loses its global reserve status, the Fed can continue to print money to cover U.S. debt and losses - with the result being rampant inflation and the devaluation of the dollar. The loss of US$ hegemony is the bottom line security concern of the U.S. That is why Iraq went down. That is why Libya went down. That is why Syria is being pushed down. That is why Iran is next. It is why Russia and China must be contained and controlled by the military-industrial-financial complex if the U.S. is to maintain its one-percenters global hegemony on wealth creation.
 
China has used the debt creation paradigm of the U.S. banksters in order to bankroll much of their rapid economic rise - but backing that up are the thousands of tons of gold that China has bought and imported (possession is the only true ownership) as well as mining significant amounts of its own. Even should the debt implode on them, they also have the civic and manufacturing infrastructure already in place from which to begin a Eurasian revival.
 
Russia's gold wealth disappeared at the advent of the Yeltsin oligarch era, but the Russian renaissance includes a very low foreign debt load (about 15-17 percent of the GDP) as well as the accumulation of - officially - almost two thousand tons of gold, probably much more mined within Russia and not reported as purchases or official stores. Both Russia and China are in a much better economic position than the U.S., and part of that position is the increasing economic interactions between the two avoiding the use of the US$.
 
Not so hidden...just ignored 
U.S. foreign policy is not about democracy; it is not about freedom; it is not about human rights. It is about a dominant US$ and global economic hegemony. But if it is not "hidden" as per Friedman, then why is it ignored?

The answer to that question is the immense control over the narrative by U.S. and western media. It is not just the evil guy Putin narrative but the whole matrix of control that envelopes the people of the western nations in its carefully structured psychological cocoon of wilful ignorance. That matrix consists of government propaganda (those "government sources" cited by the mainstream media). It consists of the incessant preaching about morality and the divine nature of the U.S. exceptionalism and indispensability. It covers all forms of media: TV newsrooms; magazines (TIME, Life); newspapers (Washington Post, New York Times); social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al); digital diversions ranging from video games through to the dominance of U.S. superheros.

It is inculcated into the population from birth, via the media, the education system, the daily onslaught of advertising for a life increasingly dictated by the many divertissements available to take one’s mind off global systemic problems. Even better, it sells pills for all that ails, provides loans for all one’s desires, provides distracting entertainments of all kinds like sports and simulated war games (Paintball), gives facelifts, stomach staples, and steroidal muscles to all who desire them, and now virtual reality and AI robotic playmates have entered the stage of unreality.

With all that, the market is obvious, as is the military. The work of the media advertisers and propagandists is to enable society to simply ignore it all - except - except for the all important fear factor. The fear factor is used two ways: first as an item of domestic control and the so-called wars on drugs, poverty, and crime which become ‘entertainment’ items within the media news to keep the fear level engaged at all times; secondly, fear is the largest factor used to sustain the U.S. military establishment, the creation of a fearful ‘other’ in order that the military-industrial-financial complex can continue its wealth harvesting domestically and globally.

Fear, repressed, unacknowledged, superficial or deep, weakens the ability of people to think critically. It becomes a fight or flight response allowing the rulers to fight their little wars, while the flight response seeks out all the mass entertainment diversions available to it. The psychology of fear and mass distraction allows the wars/subversions to go on while the citizens remain wilfully ignorant and insouciant about what happens to others.

Russian and Chinese responses
There is no winning an all out war with the U.S. military. The Russians and the Chinese seem well aware of this and are playing a very smart long game compared to the U.S.’s cycle of quarterly reports and short quick financial gains. The Russians and Chinese are both working towards strengthening and defending the Asian continent by using both economic and military strategies.

Economically the big idea is China’s "One belt, one road" or the "belt and road initiative", essentially a revival in spirit and new technology of the many centuries previous Silk Roads that carried trade around and through the continent. This is accompanied by a variety of trade agreements between different countries excluding U.S. involvement. China has initiated an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, has worked towards an effective BRICS bank, has established several trading bourses - all excluding the U.S.

Russia and China have engaged in large trade agreements, notably in oil and gas, priced in yuan/rubles, again outside of U.S. participation. While there is no formal military alliance between the two, cooperation in military terms - training, materials, technology - is strengthening. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, established in 2001, now covers the majority of the Eurasian landmass with a combination of members, dialogue partners, observers, and guest members (including the Russian based Commonwealth of Independent States and the UN). It has specifically denied the U.S. even a minimal role as observer. Its role, originally set up for security (i.e. terrorist) concerns, also works within the fields of military, economic, and cultural interactions.

Neither Russia nor China would want to see the U.S. initiate a nuclear war (nor obviously a ‘regular’ war). Nor would they wish the U.S. to collapse catastrophically as that would probably lead to a major decline in their own economies. A soft landing allows the two countries to continue to strengthen their own economies, continue buying gold, slowly weaken the US$ hold on international trade, and continue to build their defenses such that any U.S. military action would be, as it is now, suicide. While that may not satisfy the primitive instincts wanting a quick and explosive demise of the U.S., it is much better in the long term for the safety and security of the people and environment of the planet.

Yankee go home
Wouldn’t it be nice if the U.S. simply pulled its eight hundred plus military sites out of the one hundred and fifty or more countries where they are based? Fantasy, yes, countered also by the fantastical arguments about who then would keep the international order operating? Who would police the world? Who would support the "rule of law"? What about the neoliberal trading order? All hell will break loose! Maybe, maybe not, but the questions have no practical significance because it simply will not happen (unless the US$ collapses - see above).

A return to present day reality indicates strongly that the arguments presented above about the relationship between the US$, its economic and military power, and its manipulation of many sycophantic governments (including Canada - more later) are still in progress in the Middle East, always ongoing in Israel, moving through and destroying countries that object to U.S. hegemony, now focussed clearly on Syria (and thus Russia).

The most recent events concerning the Skripals in Britain, and the Douma liberation in Syria highlights all the duplicity, lies, rhetoric, hubris, arrogance, and ignorance of western beliefs and actions as presented and promulgated by various governments and most western media. Britain attempts to carry on its long lost imperial mightiness, while its belligerent offspring, the U.S., follows the same values of deception, lies, and ‘guilt before innocence’ of its parent.

The Skripal affair has all the hallmarks of a false flag setup. No proof or evidence has surfaced that remotely implicates Russia in the affair, although as Russian citizens, the Skripal affair obviously involves Russia - essentially as the created ‘evil’ other. British propaganda attempted to blame Russia, and Putin, as the guilty party in the attack. The British story lacks coherence (How did the chemical get into Britain? How was it used? When was it used? How did the Skripals manage to walk around for so long? It it was so deadly, why are they now alive? And why are they not allowed to talk to the media on their own?) and is significantly short of evidence as to what the chemical used actually was. It is British hubris and arrogance at its best, almost Pythonesque if its intentions were not so globally deadly.

The Douma liberation from insurgent fanatics of ISIS and al-Qaeda and the supposed gas attack is the next in line false flag. Western media regurgitated the official U.S./British "sources" using social media videos as their main source. Anyone with a sense of critical analysis can see in the videos that the children involved are a bit perplexed, but not until they are doused in water and have some form of antihistamine inhalator stuffed up their noses do they actually look distressed.

One of the world’s preeminent war correspondents, Robert Fisk, journeyed to Douma shortly after the U.S./British/French airstrikes in Syria. His report [1] clearly signals that yes, the videos are ‘real’, but only in the sense that they were staged by the so called White Helmets (another U.S. subsidized terror organization). The real culprit apparently was a massive amount of dust/smoke settling into the tunnels built underneath Douma by ISIS creating a hypoxic environment for those sheltering there. The details of the article will not be repeated here, but given the status of Robert Fisk as a war correspondent who has witnessed some of the worst atrocities in the Middle East going back to the Iraq-Iran war, his account is the one to be believed, not the lies and evasions of the U.S. and Britain (and their French poodle).

The aftermath of the subsequent U.S. missile attack against three alleged chemical bases in Syria poses more questions than it answers. One set of questions concerns the ideological realm: the conversation/narratives around why it was done in the way it was done and through whom was it actually authorized and why Russia did not (as yet) respond. The second set of questions concerns the material aspects of the attack: why those three sites and not others, whose account of missiles fired/missiles killed is the reality - in other words questions about the effectiveness of the U.S. offense versus the effectiveness of the Syrian defense. The two cannot truly be separated as the lack of Russian military response has an impact on the discussion about the overall effectiveness/purposes/behind-the-scenes action of the whole operation.

That discussion will not take place here, but I would summarize from all that I have read that Trump was allowed to get his ‘hit’ against carefully chosen former or non-chemical sites (i.e. else why no concerns about spreading chemical weapons residues caused by the attack). Further the attacks stayed well away from Russian and Iranian assets, indicating perhaps a combination of two things: first, the U.S. is well aware of Russia’s defensive ability to strike back hard at the same time they have “had enough” of U.S. intransigence; secondly, just maybe, an iota of concern rose in the U.S. defense department that they were not quite yet willing to start WW III.

Another aspect is that it creates a sensation in the media allowing the Skripal affair to fade into oblivion as it has pretty much been thoroughly discredited as a false flag, regardless of Boris ‘Donald’ Johnson continuing to rant on against Russia. It also precludes an investigation by the OCPW, making that investigation an after the fact bit of research that can also be lost in the ‘fog’ of war, or in this case the fog created by the suppliant compliant mainstream media.

Why Syria?
Short answer: for all the above reasons. The Syrian people have the misfortune of being in the geopolitical hotspot between Russia and the U.S., as well as being the most proximate sore spot against Israel’s ambitions for its own regional hegemony. Both are highly relevant to each other.

Syria is geographically located on what could be a major pipeline route for U.S. oriented hegemony oil from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other gulf states. Conversely, it could also be a major route for Iranian and Iraqi oil as Russian partners. 

Syria is a long time client ally of Russia and contains - now - two significant Russian military bases, well protected with the latest Russian field technology. 

Syria is well located to become a focal transit point for the Chinese belt and road initiative, a node leading to and from the Mediterranean and thus Europe.  

Turkey and Russia have a cantankerous relationship, with Turkey being a NATO partner, but at the moment it appears to be working remarkably well with Russia’s interests, while Russia has allowed some degree of freedom for Turkey to attack the Syrian Kurds, temporarily befriended by the U.S. If Turkey should turn solidly NATO again (if it does, probably through a coup d’ètat) Syria becomes even more important - and dangerous - for Russia, but it also becomes more important and dangerous for the U.S./NATO.

Iran is partnered with Syria, Israel’s currently avowed enemy at large. Iran has supported Assad in Syria, demonstrating a strong ability to fight asymmetrically and within the confines of urban warfare. Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese partner, fights with the Syrian government, showing significant power against the terrorists along the Lebanon-Syria border.

Israel is the real cancer of the Middle East, but as the tumour in the centre of all the action, it is being generally ignored or supplicated while the symptoms, the mainstream action, occurs in Syria. In the meantime Israel continues its settlements, its military occupation of green line Palestine (truly all of Palestine), its murderous policy against peaceful protesters in Gaza (“every bullet is accounted for”), and its belligerent rhetoric against Iran at the same time cozying up more publicly with its long time ally Saudi Arabia. The Saudis could care less about the Palestinian plight - other than for superficial optics - as long as the US$ continues to guard their lazy ignorant theocracy with a stranglehold on the region while attempting to prove their manliness with its U.S./Israel supported war in Yemen.

Israel is quite happy to see the fanatic religious elements within the Middle East battle it out with each other, and are known to have assisted ISIS and al-Qaeda in their fight in Syria. They have established an extension of their illegally annexed Golan Heights territory, keeping a small part of Syria strictly under their military control. 

Another way of answering why Syria is to say because of Israel. Israel is the geopolitical keystone holding the U.S. on attack mode for the region. It is the tail that wags the U.S. dog. It is one of the main reasons for the U.S. uncaringly destroying government after government in the region, leaving behind only chaos and more militant fanatics, all to provide Israel with their ‘other’, their set of terrorists to campaign against and control their weak but carefully constructed narrative about being the victim of all that terror. As the most powerful military in the area, using the military preemptively against all its neighbours, and using the military to control the Palestinian population (now larger than the Jewish population if Gaza is included), the Israeli narrative is the glossy cover that receives the support of western mainstream media and the greater part of western governments.

All along the U.S. domestic scene remains relatively insouciant, ignorant, not at all war weary. The military-industrial-financial complex makes huge profits from this series of wars - really just one amoeba like war, inching from territory to territory - and the politicians, part and parcel of it all, retain their share of the profits. 

So what about Canada?
After all, this periodic newsletter has its origins as a letter to Canada’s parliamentarians. 

Canada is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. - economically, politically, militarily, even culturally. We are at best an independent if sycophantic country, at worst the fifty-first state of the union. 

As with the U.S., Canada fits well into Friedman’s paradigm of hidden fists and hidden military with the added layer of ‘hiddenness’ being the pretence as a peaceful neighbour to the U.S.’s aggressive warmongering. Canada, however, is very much a component of empire, well placed within the military-industrial-financial complex, every now and then taking some action or making some comment in order to maintain the facade of independence. 

With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) currently under renegotiation, the economy of Canada is a good place to start. Somewhere between 65 and 75 percent of Canada’s trade is with the U.S. (varying by source). It does not take much thought to realize that if the U.S. economy drops, so must the Canadian economy. At times Canada might appear as a safe haven for investors, and for some short term items it probably is, but overall it is almost entirely dependent on the U.S.

NAFTA has little to do with ‘free’ trade. But, as with all these agreements, it is designed to protect corporate investors and their profits. It has a tribunal settlement mechanism that does not go to the sovereign judiciary but is an internal mechanism working in private and with any and all ‘experts’ that the corporations wish to have testify. So far its main usage has been to allow corporations to sue governments - usually the Canadian government - for possible - not even probable - lost profits due to some law, regulation, or adverse condition (adverse to the corporations). Governments in turn cannot sue the corporations for environmental damage or workers rights. In effect, Canada has suborned its sovereignty to the U.S. corporations. 

As for the Canadian dollar, it is essentially worthless other than the faith people have in it as it compares to the US$. It is just another paper fiat currency backed by nothing - Canada has no gold - it is a faith based currency. During the period of the NAFTA negotiations - which should make one wonder about the correlation - and after its implementation in 1994 - mainly under the guidance of the Conservative Brian Mulroney, but put into effect by the Liberal Jean Chretien - Canada divested almost all of its gold. On February 29, 2016, Canada officially held 77 ounces of gold (about 2.2kg). [2] Essentially Canada has no economic sovereignty, thus no political sovereignty. It is fully reliant on the U.S. for its economic survival. 

As economies are well tied into the military in the U.S., does the same hold for Canada? Not to the same degree as a percentage of the economy, but as an economic function and as a foreign policy function, Canada’s military deals with the best of the best - the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia among others. Canada is a large supplier of military wares to Saudi Arabia. Israel is a major partner for ‘security’ reasons - meaning crowd control, technical expertise, and armaments. Certainly no match for the U.S. arms industry, Canada has supported U.S. military endeavours around the world, not always directly, and sometimes standing back publicly (e.g. Iraq), but always there. The most recent supposed gas attack in Syria is a good case in point. Canada did not want to participate in a missile attack but did offer support to the U.S. decision to make the attack - again, well before any real evidence or proof has been seen (if ever).

In some areas, Canada is probably more of a leader than the U.S. From its British imperial origins, Canada has been at the forefront for supporting Jewish settlement in Palestine. As with other countries, Canada had limited Jewish immigration in order to strengthen migration to Israel/Palestine. All Canadian political parties support Israel’s “proportionate” actions against Gaza, being wilfully ignorant of the reality on the ground, enabled by the partnership with the CBC, a not so independent thinking crown corporation broadcaster. The vote in Parliament rejecting support for the Palestinian BDS movement, while not criminalizing it, did provide a statement of principle against it. [3]

Canada is not a unified front. The previous Conservative Harper government was much more direct and explicit about its pro-Israel, anti-terror agenda, receiving much of its support from U.S. think tanks and other institutions. The current Trudeau government clothes itself in identity politics as it steals ideas from the pretend left of the NDP, at the same time continuing to support the U.S.'s Russophobia, all in a more humanitarian democracy-creating jargon than the previous government. The presence of Chrystia Freeland as Canada’s Foreign Minister, a generational expatriate Ukrainian, fully supports U.S. xenophobia and Russophobia in particular after the U.S. instigated neonazi coup in Kiev. 

Having said that, Canada’s politics operates in a similar mode to that of the U.S. The two main parties, Conservatives and Liberals, are two sides of the same corporate-military coin as the Republicans and Democrats are in the U.S. Harper was the belated Canadian response to Bush II; Trudeau is Canada’s belated answer to Obama’s servile eloquence; it is too early to see who Canada’s response to Trump will be - Doug Ford or Andrew Scheer. Domestic policies differ somewhat, rhetoric differs somewhat, but the end result is the same: Canada’s lack of real sovereignty, lack of true peacefulness, and an economy and foreign policy subservient to the U.S.

For current events, as seen with Israel, Ukraine, and Syria, Canada has followed the U.S. line and U.S. rhetoric. The language used by the CBC is carefully structured to paint the Russians as the bad guys and to support the Israeli narrative in its “clashes” in Gaza. The experts chosen by CBC for interviews are clearly well established pundits that support the government/western propaganda. Both accounts for the recent Skripal affair and the false flag gas attack in Douma were readily accepted by the Trudeau government and the directors/producers of the CBC without critical comment.   

Parliamentary debates and parliamentary web sites are carefully worded to reflect official legal positions (e.g. the two state solution for Israel/Palestine as per the UN) but often do not match with subsequent actions. Canada has rules about arms sales to countries that may use those arms against civilians, but has insisted it is going ahead with its 15 billion dollar deal selling armed vehicles (supposedly “light” but demonstrably “heavy”) to the Saudis in spite of their internal repression of Shias, their armed support of Bahrain (again against Shias), and their bombardments of civilians and civic targets in Yemen. 

Conclusion
This article started with arguments and discussion mainly concerning the military-industrial-financial empire of the United States. As Canada is a strong supporter and strong participant in that empire it is a fitting place to begin. As the discussion developed into economic events and more current events in the Ukraine, Syria, and Britain, it simply highlights aspects of the empire to which Canada is not just attached, but is an integral part.  

Could Canada act truly independently? An important question and the response is, probably not. The systems in place and our shared heritage make it almost impossible to set out on a different path even if the intent and interest did arise.  

As Canada is not as powerful as the U.S. and has cultivated a much softer image, it is often considered to be a benevolent force for good in the world. It is domestically dependent upon its economy working with that of the U.S. Its foreign policy generally supports and sometimes leads that of the U.S., partly through its inherited British imperial tradition and partly through its economic/financial ties to the U.S. system.  

Canada’s place in the world is tenuous, resting on its passive aggressive response to some U.S. activities, but dominated by its many intersecting interests and attitudes within the not so hidden fists of the U.S. corporate and military entities. 



[1] See here.

[2] See here. (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-03/its-official-moment-canada-as-no-gold-reserves-left)

[3] One of the best sources for information on Canada’s complicity with the U.S. militarily, economically, and in relations with Israel are the several books by Yves Engler. His work provides detailed references demonstrating that Canada is far from being the global peacemaker that governments try to present.



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