The Two Michaels rule the front page of The Globe and Mail again today, but there is a hopeful sign the paper is easing its censorship of an obvious counter-narrative to the "rule of law" idiocy PM Trudeau's office has steadfastly put forward for the last year and a half.
"Ottawa can free Meng now, Arbour says," reads the top headline. Louise Arbour is one of the most widely respected international jurists Canada has ever produced.
The Globe and Mail could have splashed that headline across any of its 450+ front pages it has published since Kovrig and Spavor were apprehended, because it's not "news" that the government has had the authority to legally and with all due respect for "rule of law" send Meng home since the day we foolishly took her into custody.
Our first and wisest choice would have been to decline the US extradition request in the first place. What is it to Canada if a Chinese company ignores arbitrary and unilateral sanctions America has imposed on Iran?
Instead, we've been presented a steady stream of drivel about how our refusing to toady to the Americans would violate "the rule of law," whereas the sanctions themselves, having utterly no basis in any kind of law, are treated as some sort of self-evident act of moral virtue.
Uncle Sam good, Ayatollahs bad, and that's all any good Canadian needs to know.
By sucking up to the likes of Trump and Pompeo, Canada is further squandering whatever credibility she may once have enjoyed as an independent actor on the world stage.
Showing posts with label Iran Sanctions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran Sanctions. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Getting tough on China
The Globe and Mail has another editorial on view today castigating PM Fluffy for not "getting tough" on China.
The China-bashing in the pages of the Globe has ramped up significantly since the arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the behest of Washington. China retaliated with the detention of two Canadians, an act of "political hostage-taking," and cancelling contracts for some Canadian agricultural products. The editorial provides a dubious compare-and-contrast between the US and China.
China, we learn, is "an amoral authoritarian prison state that is entirely detached from the rule of law," whereas the US, in spite of Trump, "...largely follows the rules, and it has independent courts where complaints can be heard."
Like I said, dubious. But it gets better; "China... has no compunction about hurting smaller countries that displease it."
Huh? You mean countries like Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Libya? Venezuela?... Oh wait; it wasn't China hurting those countries, was it?
If we were operating in the realm of reality, the Globe and Mail would be forced to concede that the list of smaller countries hurt, if not outright destroyed, by the US, is exponentially longer than the list of counties hurt by China.
Alas, we are not in the realm of reality, we're in propaganda land.
Meng Wanzhou's original sin was that her employer allegedly broke sanctions the US unilaterally imposed on Iran. Rule-of-law America is under the impression that it alone has the right to dictate to other countries who they can and cannot trade with. This is flat out bullying and a breach of international law, but the US gets away with it because everyone can see what happens to smaller countries that displease it, and therefore very few countries dare to defy American dictats.
The argument that Canada had no choice but to arrest Wanzhou is nonsense, and every diplomat and former diplomat and every reasonably well-read Canadian fully gets this. The Trudeau government had any number of options to avoid getting stuck in the middle of a US-China spat. The choice they made had nothing to do with the rule of law, and everything to do with toadying to Trump. That was a poor decision made by an inept government.
Justin's PR team has been very busy clearing the decks of unpleasant facts before the upcoming election. They're still hoping the SNC thing goes away. The Norman prosecution has disappeared. A number of controversial files have been deferred till after the election. Yes, it would be very lovely for the Liberals if the two Michaels could be home by the time we cast our ballots...
Both the Globe and Mail and Andrew Scheer think our best bet to resolve this stand-off is to align ourselves yet more closely with the US.
That will prove an enormously short-sighted and self-defeating strategy in the long term.
The China-bashing in the pages of the Globe has ramped up significantly since the arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the behest of Washington. China retaliated with the detention of two Canadians, an act of "political hostage-taking," and cancelling contracts for some Canadian agricultural products. The editorial provides a dubious compare-and-contrast between the US and China.
China, we learn, is "an amoral authoritarian prison state that is entirely detached from the rule of law," whereas the US, in spite of Trump, "...largely follows the rules, and it has independent courts where complaints can be heard."
Like I said, dubious. But it gets better; "China... has no compunction about hurting smaller countries that displease it."
Huh? You mean countries like Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Libya? Venezuela?... Oh wait; it wasn't China hurting those countries, was it?
If we were operating in the realm of reality, the Globe and Mail would be forced to concede that the list of smaller countries hurt, if not outright destroyed, by the US, is exponentially longer than the list of counties hurt by China.
Alas, we are not in the realm of reality, we're in propaganda land.
Meng Wanzhou's original sin was that her employer allegedly broke sanctions the US unilaterally imposed on Iran. Rule-of-law America is under the impression that it alone has the right to dictate to other countries who they can and cannot trade with. This is flat out bullying and a breach of international law, but the US gets away with it because everyone can see what happens to smaller countries that displease it, and therefore very few countries dare to defy American dictats.
The argument that Canada had no choice but to arrest Wanzhou is nonsense, and every diplomat and former diplomat and every reasonably well-read Canadian fully gets this. The Trudeau government had any number of options to avoid getting stuck in the middle of a US-China spat. The choice they made had nothing to do with the rule of law, and everything to do with toadying to Trump. That was a poor decision made by an inept government.
Justin's PR team has been very busy clearing the decks of unpleasant facts before the upcoming election. They're still hoping the SNC thing goes away. The Norman prosecution has disappeared. A number of controversial files have been deferred till after the election. Yes, it would be very lovely for the Liberals if the two Michaels could be home by the time we cast our ballots...
Both the Globe and Mail and Andrew Scheer think our best bet to resolve this stand-off is to align ourselves yet more closely with the US.
That will prove an enormously short-sighted and self-defeating strategy in the long term.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Mark Wallace and the business of screwing business
In case you haven't noticed there's been a story floating around accusing Glencore of violating Iran sanctions.
While I've often hinted that in days gone by Glencore played fast and loose with sanctions, at the end of the day Glencore was in the business of business, not the business of politics.
Mark Wallace, on the other hand, is a leading proponent of the politics is business point of view. A lot of the current brou-ha-ha over Glencore stems from this story.
Wallace is a consummate Bush insider who played a key role in ensuring that the hanging chads swung Bush's way in Florida back in the day. He's now the driving force behind United Against Nuclear Iran, an organization that seeks to blackmail western corporations who are inclined to do business with the Islamic Republic.
His UANI group has had considerable success scaring Fortune 500 outfits away from their business dealings with Iran, whether or not their trade is in any way related to sanctioned technology or Iran's nuclear program.
The think tank here at Falling Downs views this as a counterproductive strategy. Ultimately, the people with whom it is most important to talk to are one's enemies. Doing business with "enemies", even enemies arbitrarily designated as such on the basis of revenge fantasies still nurtured by a certain clique in Washington bitter about the demise of the Shah, keeps channels of communication open.
Far better we keep those channels open than we communicate only via our long-range missiles.
While I've often hinted that in days gone by Glencore played fast and loose with sanctions, at the end of the day Glencore was in the business of business, not the business of politics.
Mark Wallace, on the other hand, is a leading proponent of the politics is business point of view. A lot of the current brou-ha-ha over Glencore stems from this story.
Wallace is a consummate Bush insider who played a key role in ensuring that the hanging chads swung Bush's way in Florida back in the day. He's now the driving force behind United Against Nuclear Iran, an organization that seeks to blackmail western corporations who are inclined to do business with the Islamic Republic.
His UANI group has had considerable success scaring Fortune 500 outfits away from their business dealings with Iran, whether or not their trade is in any way related to sanctioned technology or Iran's nuclear program.
The think tank here at Falling Downs views this as a counterproductive strategy. Ultimately, the people with whom it is most important to talk to are one's enemies. Doing business with "enemies", even enemies arbitrarily designated as such on the basis of revenge fantasies still nurtured by a certain clique in Washington bitter about the demise of the Shah, keeps channels of communication open.
Far better we keep those channels open than we communicate only via our long-range missiles.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Iran mounts massive gold smuggling ring to circumvent sanctions
Here's the evidence, straight from a Reuter's exclusive.
Looks like our NATO allies the Turks are ass-deep in the action, as are our other allies in Dubai.
Not sure what that says about our allies...
Looks like our NATO allies the Turks are ass-deep in the action, as are our other allies in Dubai.
Not sure what that says about our allies...
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Wiping Syria from the map
While researching the topic of oil embargoes and oil pipelines this morning I ran across this quote:
This is a new world order now. This is what things look like... particularly if we wipe out Syria... it is all about oil.
The speaker is James Akins, American ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the 1970's and a man who knew the oil business and petro-politics as well as anyone on the planet.
He's speaking in 2003 and quoted in a Guardian article about the feasibility of an Iraq-Haifa oil pipeline.
Those were heady times, those triumphalist months basking in the first blush of victory over Sadam. Anything was possible. The Pentagon had big plans for Ahmed Chalabi, international man of mystery and bullshitter supreme. With Chalabi in the driver's seat in Baghdad, not even the sky was the limit!
Then of course it all went for a shit.
Democracy, however imperfect, reared its head and cut short Chalabi's political career in Iraq. He is in many quarters today regarded as an Iranian agent.
The Israel-Iraq pipeline was never built, but according to a Guardian article by Richard Silverstein in 2008, the Haifa refinery met its crude oil needs by buying Iranian oil.
Also around that time, Iran and Iraq announced an agreement to build a pipeline from Basra in the south of Iraq to the Iranian city of Abadon. At the time, I believe the plan was to pump Iraqi crude to a refinery in the Iranian city.
One of the marvels of a pipeline is that its contents can flow in either direction. Would the Shia government in Iraq support their Shia brothers in Iran by shipping Iranian oil from Basra as Iraqi product? Just wondering.
A rise in Iraqi exports in step with a decline in Iranian exports could very well signal that this is happening.
The US-led embargo seems to be a fickle creature. Just the other day one of America's closest allies in Africa, Kenya, signed a major deal with Iran to import their oil.
One would almost think that the embargo is more about optics than about oil.
As for Syria, it looks like Akins' plan is running about ten years behind schedule.
This is a new world order now. This is what things look like... particularly if we wipe out Syria... it is all about oil.
The speaker is James Akins, American ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the 1970's and a man who knew the oil business and petro-politics as well as anyone on the planet.
He's speaking in 2003 and quoted in a Guardian article about the feasibility of an Iraq-Haifa oil pipeline.
Those were heady times, those triumphalist months basking in the first blush of victory over Sadam. Anything was possible. The Pentagon had big plans for Ahmed Chalabi, international man of mystery and bullshitter supreme. With Chalabi in the driver's seat in Baghdad, not even the sky was the limit!
Then of course it all went for a shit.
Democracy, however imperfect, reared its head and cut short Chalabi's political career in Iraq. He is in many quarters today regarded as an Iranian agent.
The Israel-Iraq pipeline was never built, but according to a Guardian article by Richard Silverstein in 2008, the Haifa refinery met its crude oil needs by buying Iranian oil.
Also around that time, Iran and Iraq announced an agreement to build a pipeline from Basra in the south of Iraq to the Iranian city of Abadon. At the time, I believe the plan was to pump Iraqi crude to a refinery in the Iranian city.
One of the marvels of a pipeline is that its contents can flow in either direction. Would the Shia government in Iraq support their Shia brothers in Iran by shipping Iranian oil from Basra as Iraqi product? Just wondering.
A rise in Iraqi exports in step with a decline in Iranian exports could very well signal that this is happening.
The US-led embargo seems to be a fickle creature. Just the other day one of America's closest allies in Africa, Kenya, signed a major deal with Iran to import their oil.
One would almost think that the embargo is more about optics than about oil.
As for Syria, it looks like Akins' plan is running about ten years behind schedule.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Obama plays favorites over Iran sanctions
We're getting tough on Iran. Yessirree, these sanctions are gonna hurt real bad...
Today Obama officially exempted ten Euro countries and Japan from sanctions designed to discourage them from importing Iranian oil.
If you compare a list of exemptions to a map of Europe you'll see that the so-called sanctions are right next to meaningless.
You'll notice that Luxembourg is not on the list of exemptions. We're getting tough on Luxembourg. Oh, they didn't import Iranian oil anyway? Hmmm, maybe that's why we're getting tough with them.
Lichtenstein and Monaco too. Watch out, irrelevant European statelets; we're gonna come down hard.
Meanwhile, Iran's biggest oil customers, India and China, continue to do business as usual with the Islamic Republic.
And of course any sanctions plan just opens up huge profit opportunities for middlemen like Glencor in Switzerland. Once that oil is on the tanker, who really knows where it came from? It becomes an exercise in creative paperwork.
Glencor is a world leader in creative paperwork.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Israel's refinery is still getting its crude oil from that network of creative paperwork.
Today Obama officially exempted ten Euro countries and Japan from sanctions designed to discourage them from importing Iranian oil.
If you compare a list of exemptions to a map of Europe you'll see that the so-called sanctions are right next to meaningless.
You'll notice that Luxembourg is not on the list of exemptions. We're getting tough on Luxembourg. Oh, they didn't import Iranian oil anyway? Hmmm, maybe that's why we're getting tough with them.
Lichtenstein and Monaco too. Watch out, irrelevant European statelets; we're gonna come down hard.
Meanwhile, Iran's biggest oil customers, India and China, continue to do business as usual with the Islamic Republic.
And of course any sanctions plan just opens up huge profit opportunities for middlemen like Glencor in Switzerland. Once that oil is on the tanker, who really knows where it came from? It becomes an exercise in creative paperwork.
Glencor is a world leader in creative paperwork.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Israel's refinery is still getting its crude oil from that network of creative paperwork.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Canada announces new and improved sanctions on Iran
Foreign Minister John Baird announced tough new sanctions against Iran today.
"Iran continues to undermine regional and global security and stability," Baird said.
Baird is the buffoon who allowed himself to be photographed signing bombs that were to be dropped on Libya during our rebels' struggle for freedom last summer. He has been noticeably silent on the Libyan question in recent months.
Which is not to suggest he hasn't been busy. It takes a lot of research to figure out that the main source of regional and global insecurity and instability is Iran.
In the immediate region, one would have to go back quite some time to find an era of peace and stability. There's that Afghan war on Iran's eastern border. That's a pretty big dollop of instability and insecurity in the region. Is Iran the author of that? No.
Then there's the instability and insecurity on Iran's western border. That festering sore is called Iraq, and it's been a festering sore since the prophets of American Exceptionalism chose it to be the model democratic state in the region. Is Iran responsible for that? No.
There are of course other hotbeds of insecurity and instability in the region. Israel, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Gaza. In every case the sources of the instability and insecurity can be traced to actors other than Iran.
None of which will deter Baird.
"Canada has taken aggressive actions and has among the toughest sanctions against Iran in the world."
When asked for comment, a senior Iranian diplomat replied, "what's Canada?"
"Iran continues to undermine regional and global security and stability," Baird said.
Baird is the buffoon who allowed himself to be photographed signing bombs that were to be dropped on Libya during our rebels' struggle for freedom last summer. He has been noticeably silent on the Libyan question in recent months.
Which is not to suggest he hasn't been busy. It takes a lot of research to figure out that the main source of regional and global insecurity and instability is Iran.
In the immediate region, one would have to go back quite some time to find an era of peace and stability. There's that Afghan war on Iran's eastern border. That's a pretty big dollop of instability and insecurity in the region. Is Iran the author of that? No.
Then there's the instability and insecurity on Iran's western border. That festering sore is called Iraq, and it's been a festering sore since the prophets of American Exceptionalism chose it to be the model democratic state in the region. Is Iran responsible for that? No.
There are of course other hotbeds of insecurity and instability in the region. Israel, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Gaza. In every case the sources of the instability and insecurity can be traced to actors other than Iran.
None of which will deter Baird.
"Canada has taken aggressive actions and has among the toughest sanctions against Iran in the world."
When asked for comment, a senior Iranian diplomat replied, "what's Canada?"
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