“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” Thomas Jefferson
Behind all the arrogance and smugness, Canada’s Stephen Harper is just an insecure petty tyrant. Like any unjust, unconstitutional ruler, he must fight a relentless war against his own country so that he can force it to serve the foreign and corporate interests that put him in power. To do this, he disdains Parliament, violates Canadian law, persecutes critics, tramples on civil rights, and sabotages national institutions.
As expected, Harper is increasingly isolated and loathed at home, so to maintain a power base he must increasingly count on support from a select political circle–”of hell, presumably–”consisting of corporate kleptocrats, media lackeys, pro-Israel pressure groups, and gormless true believers.
The same is true in foreign affairs. The world sees Harper as crude, ignorant and bumptious, so it’s hard to believe he enjoys any respect among civilized nations. “Civilized” connotes reason, compassion, intellect, and respect for the law, all of which Canada is supposed to stands for, and all of which Harper is determined to stamp out.
Harper, who rose like a methane bubble from the cesspit of right-wing populism, is not a tyrant in the usual sense. He exploits Canada not for his own interests but for the interests of a higher-order tyrant. As Israel’s proconsul in Ottawa, he serves the Zionist Imperial Authority as well as assorted multinational interests.
Back in June, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson gave this sampling of Harper’s tactless bombast in the wake of Canada’s first ever failure to win a seat on the UN Security Council:
“Canada’s once-sterling reputation for caring about Africa is over. Canada’s reputation in the Arab world is mud because although ministers never criticize anything Israel does they never miss a chance to lecture the Palestinians.
“Canada is about to be spurned in its efforts to join the emerging trade bloc, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Canada’s Commonwealth partners are worried the Harper government might wreck the next meeting in Sri Lanka because of its hectoring of that country’s government, a policy that curries Conservatives’ favour with the large Tamil community in Toronto. Canada’s feeble non-climate-change policy is universally panned.”
Undoubtedly, Harper knows that the long-term damage he is deliberately doing to Canada and Canadians will cost him in the next election, but he bulldozes ahead as if it didn’t matter. Even though the next election is three years away, and Canada’s political opposition lacks the brains or the balls to agitate for his impeachment, Harper’s fellatial servility to Israel may well turn out to be his greatest liability.
It’s one thing for a tyrant to boast of political support from foreign governments if he enhances his country and at least gives the illusion that the mass public benefits in some way; it’s quite another to do so for purely selfish reasons at the expense of his own citizens and his country’s reputation. Far from being a source of political power, the obscene, conspicuous support Harper gets from Israel may be his undoing.
His Master’s Voice–”Iran
Harper’s latest act of zionist fawning was his unprovoked decision to cut diplomatic ties with Iran and expel its embassy staff:
Did Iranian embassy staff violate Canadian law? No.
Did Iran violate international law? No.
Does Iran pose a military threat to Canada or any nation? No.
Did Iran do anything to justify such an extreme, hostile response? No.
Here is the official excuse: “[Iran] is the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today.” Harper’s foreign minion John Baird eventually had to admit that Iran hadn’t actually done anything to justify the expulsion, but had, in his words, “the capacity for increasingly bad behaviour.”
Leaving aside the inanity of this excuse and the non-existence of “bad behaviour” in international law, who made Canada the world’s moral arbiter, what did Baird mean? Developing nuclear power? Well, Iran has every right to develop nuclear power. Unlike Israel and the U.S.–”both of which have nuclear weapons and have not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty–”Iran has no nuclear weapons and is a signatory. Moreover, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Iran is not even close to building a nuclear weapon, and this finding is unchanged from earlier this year.
“We believe that there is time and space to continue to pursue a diplomatic path, backed by growing international pressure on the Iranian government, said a National Security Council spokesman: “We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.”
This view is supported by Shannon Kile, head of the Nuclear Weapons Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: “I still think that we are talking about several years … before Iran could develop a nuclear weapon and certainly before they could have a deliverable nuclear weapon.”
In response, a spokesman from the Iranian Foreign Ministry called Harper’s government “racist” and condemned the decision as “unprofessional, unconventional and unjustifiable.” So, naturally, Israel rushed in to bury Harper with praise. Fellow fascist Benjamin Netanyahu gushed: “I think what you did, severing ties with Iran, was not only an act of statesmanship but an act of moral clarity.” Moreover, The Jerusalem Post praised Harper as “Israel’s strongest advocate in international forums.”
Canada’s ingratiating posture toward Israel was perhaps best expressed by Baird in February: “I think the U.S. is a good friend [to Israel], too. I like to think we are better, a stronger friend.”
Of course, why Canadian government officials should be advocates for Israel, or any country other than Canada, should be debated loudly inside and outside the House of Commons. On the subject of statesmanship…