One question we don't ask about those civilians trapped beneath Mariupol

It should be an obvious question, but we are so bedazzled by our own propaganda that it never occurs to us. Who has them trapped? Why, the Russians, of course! Well, think about it. International media is obviously on the scene, as you can readily see for yourself when CNN or al Jazeera post footage of the occasional successful “rescue” of civilians from Azovstal. Those are Russian troops helping those civilians to the buses. So if it’s not the Russians trapping them, who else could it be? Maybe those guys who until very recently were acknowledged by CNN, BBC, NYT, the Guardian etc, to be the kind of folks who executed collaborators and used civilians as human shields? That would be the Azov battalion, the same guys doing the same crimes outlined in at least half a dozen Amnesty International reports from 2014 on. The problem is that the collective West has been brainwashed by its own bullshit. Ukraine is winning this war. In fact, no less an authority than US Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced Ukraine’s victory in early April. Yup, they just need a few more billions in US made munitions to put the finishing touches on this glorious triumph of good over evil. Except that was all bullshit, and still is, as confirmed in stories beginning to seep into Western media. Check out this story from Agence France Presse, the France based major news agency. “For every 300 artillery rounds they fire at us, we fire back three.” That’s a wounded Ukrainian soldier talking. They’re ordered to “hold the line.” They are being slaughtered, and the more we drag out this war, the more Ukrainians will die. That Russia had effectively won this war was evident in the first few days. Remember that 50 mile-long Russian convoy that was “trapped” north of Kyiv for ten days? We were treated to all sorts of speculation from Western experts about poor morale, Russia running out of fuel and supplies, etc. Seemed plausible at the time… Except. For ten days, that 50 mile-long sitting duck was not attacked by Ukrainian forces on the ground, from the air, or from long-range artillery. Instead, they tied down tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops waiting for an assault on Kyiv that never materialized, while the Russians created a land bridge to Crimea. Then that 50 miles of Russian heavy weapons made their way to the south, where, two months later, they’re decimating what’s left of the Ukrainian army. The retired US Army generals on CNN told us this was evidence of a heroic Ukrainian victory and was labelled a “Russian retreat.” Telling the truth would have killed the twenty billion in US military exports that have ensued. Why kill Lockheed and Raytheon profits when you can kill people instead? That’s where we’re at. We can keep escalating this war to the brink of global nuclear catastrophe, or we can change course and bend our efforts to making peace.

Is the mission of a free press to elucidate or obfuscate?

This story from the Washington Post (August 23) has found its way into my Sunday Star today, four days later. Only the title has been simplified for the benefit of the Canadian readership; Was the cost of defeating Daesh in Mosul too high?

Writers Kareem Fahim and Aaso Ameen Schwan never get around to answering their rhetorical question, because, by gosh, it's just too hard to figure out what the cost was. Nobody seems to know how many civilians have died in Mosul. We are provided with a reassuring quote from a US Army spokesman about "how we apply rigorous standards to our targeting process" and of course even one civilian casualty is too many.

The best estimate they can come up with is 1,429 civilian dead, sourced from the Iraqi military. Had they tried a little harder and spent five minutes with Google, they might have happened upon this story from PRI citing an Amnesty International report that came out a month and a half before their story, that claims 5,805 civilian casualties.

Or they might have stumbled over this story by Patrick Cockburn in The Independent. Citing Kurdish intelligence, Cockburn speaks of 40,000 deaths in Mosul.

PRI, Amnesty International, Patrick Cockburn, and The Independent are all legitimate (although Western) sources who are quoted without hesitation when their reportage suits the narrative we're trying to spin. When it doesn't, they can be safely ignored.

In a similar vein, a story by Ann Hui in the Globe and Mail last week included the audacious claim that China has more journalists in prison than any country in the world. Say what? Even a pot-addled hillbilly from the backwoods of Bruce County knows that's a crock of shit!

I fired off an appropriately miffed letter to the editor providing a link to more recent information than what their reporter apparently had access to. Within a few hours I got a reply from the Globe's "Public Editor," Sylvia Stead.

Well, by golly, the reporter had made an oopsie and mistakenly used statistics from December of 2015 for a story written in August 2017. That's an honest mistake of course; major news platforms use outdated stats all the time when it suits the narrative they're spinning. We must never be allowed to forget that China is a totalitarian state with no press freedom.

To their credit, they printed a correction of sorts the next day - China no longer had the most journalists locked up. They could have gone a little further and pointed out, given the latest available stats (and if I can find them, Ann Hui could too), there are currently about five times as many journalists in the prisons of our NATO ally Turkey (population 90 million) than in the Peoples Republic of China (population 1,400 million), but I guess that would be asking too much.

It would undermine the narrative. As we all know, NATO is a force for freedom and democracy while China is an evil dictatorship.

It's worth fudging the facts to preserve such an essential truth.

Is Canada complicit in Kurdish war crimes?

On November 3rd Maclean's carried a story by Adnan Khan advising us that Canada's role in the Iraq war is "bigger than you think." Definitely worth a read if you're one of those Canadians who wonder what our troops and our tax dollars are accomplishing over there.

Four days later, Amnesty International came out with a report accusing the Kurdish fighters of committing war crimes in some of the Arab villages they've been helping the Canadians liberate, or we them.

That should raise some questions, wouldn't you think? I mean questions for the opposition in parliament and questions our ever-vigilant fourth estate should be pestering our political leadership with.

When Canada signed on (or more correctly, when our leaders signed us on) for this mission, the public was assured that our military would be well back from the front lines, "advising and training" the Kurdish fighters. It's since become obvious that they've been doing a lot more than that, up to and including taking the fight to "the enemy."

That's a conundrum, isn't it? Who exactly are our "enemies" over there? At the moment, our enemies are radical Sunni jihadists who nevertheless have some degree of popular support among the Sunni population of Iraq. Mainwhile, our NATO ally Turkey is fighting our allies the Kurds, and we are further allied with Hezbollah militias who remain on Ottawa's terror list.

Confusing? You bet!

Canada has zero strategic interests in the region, a fact that should have tempered our enthusiasm for for getting involved in the first place. Nevertheless, our leaders were after some strategic brownie points in Washington and Brussels, so there we are.

Are we complicit in Kurdish war crimes? We won't know anytime soon.

The rehabilitation of Uruhu Kenyatta

Kenyatta has gone from international pariah to president of Kenya to esteemed chappie having secret meetings with John Kerry in remarkably short order.

This is bound to frost the do-gooders at Amnesty and HRW, who have been braying for the crucifiction of Kenyatta since 2007.

And it serves to underline what's really important to the Big Dogs of the West; we are quite prepared to overlook a man's crimes against humanity if he can be of use to us.