Disease was brought in by the British, the French, the Spanish, but I don't believe that it was deliberate genocide. The U.S. also experienced Smallpox epidemics. Were they deliberate?
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5100
Genocide Canadian style
- Thread starter darkbeaver
- Start date
Disease was brought in by the British, the French, the Spanish, but I don't believe that it was deliberate genocide. The U.S. also experienced Smallpox epidemics. Were they deliberate?
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5100
According to historian Francis Parkman, Amherst first raised the possibility of giving the Indians infected blankets in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet, who would lead reinforcements to Fort Pitt. No copy of this letter has come to light, but we do know that Bouquet discussed the matter in a postscript to a letter to Amherst on July 13, 1763:
P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine.
On July 16 Amherst replied, also in a postscript:
P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present.
On July 26 Bouquet wrote back:
I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed.
We can argue numbers and intent but when it comes down to it. We are the descendants of colonial invaders. The native population was greatly reduced by contact with whiteman's diseases. Very early Spanish explorers inadvertantly infected Mississipi Valley natives which quickly spread killing thousands. Even before calculated pogroms were enacted native populations had already been seriously depleted. there is no hiding the cold calculating mistreatment of natives in residential schools. Can you imagine if all new immigrants were seperated from their children until the children had been taught english and made in to good christians. The whiteman's true burden is his treatment of native populations. We came as immigrants and stayed as conquerers. And we are amazed that they are not happy at the changes we wrought and that many families still suffer the effects of a goverment sponsored program to wipe out their culture.
I think most of the living are disturbed anyway. Most have at least one card missing from the deck, IMO. 
That's what happens when your grandparents were abused, and they in turn abused your parents, who abused you. It's a cycle (and it's not specific to any particular race).
You're confusing the issue. Residential Schools from the late 18th century had a mortality rate of over 50%. This lasted for well over a century. Who puts a people in this position if the intent is less than noble?
Same thing happened in the US.
We've faced our dark history. That part of history isn't even Canadian, I don't see what the problem is.
What I am saying is that there was never a Canadian policy of genocide. I don't argue that the residential schools were underfunded and terribly run disasters. Nor do I disagree that whiteman's diseases decimated the native population who were far more vulnerable and susceptible to European diseases.
I do not believe, as the topic header maintains, that the Canadian government deliberately spread disease to kill the natives.
http://www.historylink.org/essays/ou...m?file_id=5100
1990 - Present : Comes the big chunk Iraq.
Never in contemporary history has the International Community and the United Nations been a direct culprit in mass genocide like it has done in Iraq.
In 1990, the most cruel embargo and set of sanctions were imposed on the Iraqi people with the blessings and the complicity of the United Nations. That same United Nations that was born out of the birth pangs of “Never Again.”
After the “liberation of Kuwait”, the sanctions were maintained with vehemence and an iron fist.
Some of you may know but it is good to remind you, that over 1.5 million people died as a result of a decision taken by the Security Council in 1990 and maintained even though it had no more reason to continue maintaining it since the small oil banana republic Kuwait was finally liberated.
13 years of mass genocide and of mass murdering by the UN and the Security Council.
Not less than 1.5 million men and women dead, out of which not less than 500,000 children under the age of 5. And you know the famous phrase by Madeleine Albright the American :”The Price was well worth it.”
The going rate of infant death from 1990 until the “liberation” of Iraq and its invasion , i.e. 2003 was 5,000 per month. 5,000 children per month… Never again?
The total number during those 13 years of sanctions were a double Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together.
For 13 long years, Iraqi civilians were not allowed the following:
*medication and medical supplies and equipments:
- advanced cancer patients in agonizing pain were given aspirin , one box to be shared by a whole ward. Morphin and other anti cancer drugs were forbidden. Children with leukemia were left to die in death wards under the helpless eyes of doctors and the heart torn mothers.
- vaccines for children against yellow fever, hepatitis, chicken pox, polio and other preventable diseases were forbidden.
- cardiac, diabetic patients were left to die too- again forbidden drugs. Ditto for hypertension and other chronic illnesses. Give them aspirin said the United Nations…
- Depleted Uranium generously sprayed during “Desert Storm” gave rise to the most grotesque infant deformities that make Frankenstein look like a beauty pageant, rare forms of cancer with zero hope, cancer that attacks the soft tissues in the most vulnerable, children and women. Thromboblastic tumors in children galore, uterine and breast cancer galore, prostate and kidney cancer galore, lung cancer galore… and no drugs . Again, give them aspirin said the United Nations. But then even Aspirin was like gold, a rare commodity. Never again?
- anesthesia for surgery was banned. Patients undergoing surgery fully awake under the cold surgeon’s knife with their mouths stuffed with paper so they would grin and bear it. No paper tissues, forbidden. We used newspapers instead . Never again?
- X ray machines, X ray films, electrocardiograms, any medical supply and equipment- forbidden.
My own uncle died because the hospital had no films for a chest X ray or ink for an electrocardiogram. He died following complications of a chest infections coupled with congestive heart failure aged 55. He had 7 kids to look after. Never again?
- No surgical gloves, no surgery thread, no disposable needles. Forbidden.
A surgeon friend of mine swears that he made operations and sewn the patient with a tailor’s needle. I believe him because I have seen worse. Result? Mass Genocide.
The little medication we received was expired and some of the hospital sheets given generously by our international community dated from world war II - am not kidding you. Never again?
* Spare parts and Food.
- Desert storm destroyed most electrical and power plants. Which meant no electricity and no clean water. Chlorine to purify water? Forbidden. Result, dirty water drank by the majority. Result . Hepatitis, Typhoid, cholera, dysentery,TB… Result? Mass genocide.
- No electricity. Spare parts forbidden. Result? power cuts, rotting food in refrigerators, patients under surgery woken up because the surgery could not be continued, sick patients, children and families dehydrating collectively. Sleepless nights sitting by candlelight, no tv and even no radio, batteries were forbidden.
- whatever Iraqi industry we had was halted, destroyed by smart bombs. This means a halt to any local production. No powdered milk, no food fresh or canned , no milk, no butter, no cheese, not even tomato paste. Families lived on bread alone and the more wealthy ones on aubergines because we could grow them in our backyards. We became natural vegetarians…
Even the bread which was rationed by the government was inedible. We would find little stones in it. Endless queues for anything that could be edible. Result? Mass malnutrition, mass starvation.
- computers and the rest - forget it . These are for the civilized world like yourselves.
* Education and miscellaneous.
- Ironically, a street named after one of the most famous poets in the History of Arab literature, Al Mutannabi.
The Al- Mutannabi street was filled to the brim with all kinds of second hand books. From Anatomy to Linguistics … in Arabic, French and English. School books, drawing books, history books, psychology books, religious books…..etc…
People started selling their books. What you love to call in your politically correct jargon, their intellectual property.
- Pens and pencil were forbidden. Giving someone a pencil was giving him/her the elixir of life.
The reason for this prohibition. Pencils might be used in the fabrication of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
- Schools had no benches nor tables. Pupils would sit on pieces of brick and give up school when the sewage flooded their classrooms. University students had no access to the latest developments and discoveries in sciences and other subjects….it was forbidden. The United Nations decreed so.
I personally met with a 75 years plus old Hajji. A venerable title for an older man (that has nothing to do with your dirty slang) sitting on a dusty dirty pavement holding a transparent plastic bag in his hands filled with dead flies.
I said to him “Hajji what are your exactly selling?”. He replied : “What is the matter Bintee (my daughter) can’t you see? I am selling dead flies, freshly captured. Do you rear birds. Take a fly for your bird.”
In another side street the more desperate ones were selling their furniture and paraffin heaters, their prams, their beds, their wardrobes, their everything…keeping the bare necessities.
In another side street, the clothes…coats, hats, dresses, trousers, shirts, canes and some even their underwear…
In the dark stench filled alleyways with nauseating sewage smells, others were concluding deals to sell their organs. A kidney here, a finger there, maybe two or more…
And in the even darker alleys, some were selling themselves.
Even toilet soap was forbidden. Sorry could not make ourselves smell good for your invasion.
A big ghetto of massive proportions. A huge concentration camp. No visas were given, people were stuck in mass genocide.
Those who managed, worked as waiters, garbage collectors, taxi drivers carefully hiding their university diplomas. And the less lucky ones, ended up in brothels in neighboring countries. Some as young as 14 years old, hoping to find refuge in exchange for food and shelter and a bit of pocket money promptly sent home under the benevolent eyes of the brothel’s Matron.
This is just a glimpse of what happened during the sanction years under the auspices of the United Nations, the one that was born out of “Never again.”
No one budged.
When given the facts and figures, they and their masters, the US and GB debated the “methodology’ arguing about it ….
Understandably so. When you find out that each UN employee specially in the higher echelons gets a tax free salary in the vicinity of 25,000 US dollars per month plus other benefits, you will understand why. The Perez de Cuellar, the Boutros Ghalis and the Kofi Anans of this world…
A bunch of dead corrupt wood with falsified fake diplomas, engaging in constant political ass kissing. Sitting on their big fat behinds, driving their spotless brand new cars and issuing reports that hardly anyone reads and entitling them, “Never again!” Except for the select few of course.
But and thank God for the buts, a few who had not been polluted by the above dirt spoke out during the sanction years , giving you and I, hope that Truth will prevail.
The names are few but they need to be remembered and respected:
They are Dennis Halliday, Ex-Secretary General heading the Humanitarian oil for food program, Hans Von Sponeck, UN aid coordinator for Iraq and Jutta Burkhardt head of UN World Food Program. the 3 of them had the guts to resign.
They resigned because they knew and as they know now , that the UN sanctions program was a program of mass genocide - Never again?
I know, and please bear with me, this is getting to be a long article, and I usually like it “short and sweet”. But this is a holocaust, a day to be remembered, I can’t simply gloss over it.
I am not the UN and I don’t have a symphony orchestra, nor a mausoleum, I just have my words…
Today, the 29th January 2007, Iraqis long for the days of the sanctions.
Iraq has been “liberated”, from 2003 till the present.
Today in Iraq, people are collectively raped, murdered, tortured, experimented on with various drugs and drills and American bombs. Laser bombs, phosphorus, cluster, DU….
Today in Iraq, every city has become a massive ghetto. Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul, Haditha,etc…
Today in Iraq, there are mass concentration, rape and torture camps.
Today in Iraq there are 3.7 million refugees seeking shelter outside.
Today in Iraq, there are 700,000 plus dead since 2003, add to this figure 260,000 children. Today in Iraq, there is no aspirin, no food, no water, no electricity, no nothing….
Today in Iraq, people are persecuted for their name tags.
Today in Iraq, there are no more universities or schools.
Today in Iraq, people have stopped selling their organs and are selling their kids instead.
Today in Iraq there are no hospitals left and cancer patients are considered lucky.
Today in Iraq, the secret letter circulating in the UN prior to the occupation warning that over 1.4 million children will die, has come true.
Today in Iraq there is a holocaust happening before your very eyes.
During World War II, Schindler saved around 1,000 victims from the holocaust.
Since then, how many were you able to save? What is your list ? 1, 2, 3, names?
Do I hear anything? No? Of course not…
You can go back to sleep now.
Palestine, Bosnia, Iraq have one common denominator…I leave it to your intelligence to guess what it is ….
Never again? Yes sure thing …Bring on the UN General Assembly and the lamenting violins for me now …
I, personally hold the International Community and the United Nations responsible for Crimes against Humanity as they are happening today in Iraq. I hold the United Nations responsible for a holocaust. I hold it and all other silent ones, apathetic, indifferent, complacent ones, responsible for this Holocaust, today, in the day of “Remembrance and Beyond.”
Never again ?
http://www.pej.org/html/php?sid=6565
P.S: Do forgive me Afghanistan, blame it on proximity but you are not forgotten.
Now you might argue this has nothing to do with Canadians, and you'd be wrong, we are guilty, we have supplied arms, we supported the sanctions, we support the policys, we love to kill and starve the enemy.Western democratic ideals, what are they good for, absolutely nothing, they've been dead for a long time.Genocide, great sport,we love it.:wave:
Never in contemporary history has the International Community and the United Nations been a direct culprit in mass genocide like it has done in Iraq.
In 1990, the most cruel embargo and set of sanctions were imposed on the Iraqi people with the blessings and the complicity of the United Nations. That same United Nations that was born out of the birth pangs of “Never Again.”
After the “liberation of Kuwait”, the sanctions were maintained with vehemence and an iron fist.
Some of you may know but it is good to remind you, that over 1.5 million people died as a result of a decision taken by the Security Council in 1990 and maintained even though it had no more reason to continue maintaining it since the small oil banana republic Kuwait was finally liberated.
13 years of mass genocide and of mass murdering by the UN and the Security Council.
Not less than 1.5 million men and women dead, out of which not less than 500,000 children under the age of 5. And you know the famous phrase by Madeleine Albright the American :”The Price was well worth it.”
The going rate of infant death from 1990 until the “liberation” of Iraq and its invasion , i.e. 2003 was 5,000 per month. 5,000 children per month… Never again?
The total number during those 13 years of sanctions were a double Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together.
For 13 long years, Iraqi civilians were not allowed the following:
*medication and medical supplies and equipments:
- advanced cancer patients in agonizing pain were given aspirin , one box to be shared by a whole ward. Morphin and other anti cancer drugs were forbidden. Children with leukemia were left to die in death wards under the helpless eyes of doctors and the heart torn mothers.
- vaccines for children against yellow fever, hepatitis, chicken pox, polio and other preventable diseases were forbidden.
- cardiac, diabetic patients were left to die too- again forbidden drugs. Ditto for hypertension and other chronic illnesses. Give them aspirin said the United Nations…
- Depleted Uranium generously sprayed during “Desert Storm” gave rise to the most grotesque infant deformities that make Frankenstein look like a beauty pageant, rare forms of cancer with zero hope, cancer that attacks the soft tissues in the most vulnerable, children and women. Thromboblastic tumors in children galore, uterine and breast cancer galore, prostate and kidney cancer galore, lung cancer galore… and no drugs . Again, give them aspirin said the United Nations. But then even Aspirin was like gold, a rare commodity. Never again?
- anesthesia for surgery was banned. Patients undergoing surgery fully awake under the cold surgeon’s knife with their mouths stuffed with paper so they would grin and bear it. No paper tissues, forbidden. We used newspapers instead . Never again?
- X ray machines, X ray films, electrocardiograms, any medical supply and equipment- forbidden.
My own uncle died because the hospital had no films for a chest X ray or ink for an electrocardiogram. He died following complications of a chest infections coupled with congestive heart failure aged 55. He had 7 kids to look after. Never again?
- No surgical gloves, no surgery thread, no disposable needles. Forbidden.
A surgeon friend of mine swears that he made operations and sewn the patient with a tailor’s needle. I believe him because I have seen worse. Result? Mass Genocide.
The little medication we received was expired and some of the hospital sheets given generously by our international community dated from world war II - am not kidding you. Never again?
* Spare parts and Food.
- Desert storm destroyed most electrical and power plants. Which meant no electricity and no clean water. Chlorine to purify water? Forbidden. Result, dirty water drank by the majority. Result . Hepatitis, Typhoid, cholera, dysentery,TB… Result? Mass genocide.
- No electricity. Spare parts forbidden. Result? power cuts, rotting food in refrigerators, patients under surgery woken up because the surgery could not be continued, sick patients, children and families dehydrating collectively. Sleepless nights sitting by candlelight, no tv and even no radio, batteries were forbidden.
- whatever Iraqi industry we had was halted, destroyed by smart bombs. This means a halt to any local production. No powdered milk, no food fresh or canned , no milk, no butter, no cheese, not even tomato paste. Families lived on bread alone and the more wealthy ones on aubergines because we could grow them in our backyards. We became natural vegetarians…
Even the bread which was rationed by the government was inedible. We would find little stones in it. Endless queues for anything that could be edible. Result? Mass malnutrition, mass starvation.
- computers and the rest - forget it . These are for the civilized world like yourselves.
* Education and miscellaneous.
- Ironically, a street named after one of the most famous poets in the History of Arab literature, Al Mutannabi.
The Al- Mutannabi street was filled to the brim with all kinds of second hand books. From Anatomy to Linguistics … in Arabic, French and English. School books, drawing books, history books, psychology books, religious books…..etc…
People started selling their books. What you love to call in your politically correct jargon, their intellectual property.
- Pens and pencil were forbidden. Giving someone a pencil was giving him/her the elixir of life.
The reason for this prohibition. Pencils might be used in the fabrication of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
- Schools had no benches nor tables. Pupils would sit on pieces of brick and give up school when the sewage flooded their classrooms. University students had no access to the latest developments and discoveries in sciences and other subjects….it was forbidden. The United Nations decreed so.
I personally met with a 75 years plus old Hajji. A venerable title for an older man (that has nothing to do with your dirty slang) sitting on a dusty dirty pavement holding a transparent plastic bag in his hands filled with dead flies.
I said to him “Hajji what are your exactly selling?”. He replied : “What is the matter Bintee (my daughter) can’t you see? I am selling dead flies, freshly captured. Do you rear birds. Take a fly for your bird.”
In another side street the more desperate ones were selling their furniture and paraffin heaters, their prams, their beds, their wardrobes, their everything…keeping the bare necessities.
In another side street, the clothes…coats, hats, dresses, trousers, shirts, canes and some even their underwear…
In the dark stench filled alleyways with nauseating sewage smells, others were concluding deals to sell their organs. A kidney here, a finger there, maybe two or more…
And in the even darker alleys, some were selling themselves.
Even toilet soap was forbidden. Sorry could not make ourselves smell good for your invasion.
A big ghetto of massive proportions. A huge concentration camp. No visas were given, people were stuck in mass genocide.
Those who managed, worked as waiters, garbage collectors, taxi drivers carefully hiding their university diplomas. And the less lucky ones, ended up in brothels in neighboring countries. Some as young as 14 years old, hoping to find refuge in exchange for food and shelter and a bit of pocket money promptly sent home under the benevolent eyes of the brothel’s Matron.
This is just a glimpse of what happened during the sanction years under the auspices of the United Nations, the one that was born out of “Never again.”
No one budged.
When given the facts and figures, they and their masters, the US and GB debated the “methodology’ arguing about it ….
Understandably so. When you find out that each UN employee specially in the higher echelons gets a tax free salary in the vicinity of 25,000 US dollars per month plus other benefits, you will understand why. The Perez de Cuellar, the Boutros Ghalis and the Kofi Anans of this world…
A bunch of dead corrupt wood with falsified fake diplomas, engaging in constant political ass kissing. Sitting on their big fat behinds, driving their spotless brand new cars and issuing reports that hardly anyone reads and entitling them, “Never again!” Except for the select few of course.
But and thank God for the buts, a few who had not been polluted by the above dirt spoke out during the sanction years , giving you and I, hope that Truth will prevail.
The names are few but they need to be remembered and respected:
They are Dennis Halliday, Ex-Secretary General heading the Humanitarian oil for food program, Hans Von Sponeck, UN aid coordinator for Iraq and Jutta Burkhardt head of UN World Food Program. the 3 of them had the guts to resign.
They resigned because they knew and as they know now , that the UN sanctions program was a program of mass genocide - Never again?
I know, and please bear with me, this is getting to be a long article, and I usually like it “short and sweet”. But this is a holocaust, a day to be remembered, I can’t simply gloss over it.
I am not the UN and I don’t have a symphony orchestra, nor a mausoleum, I just have my words…
Today, the 29th January 2007, Iraqis long for the days of the sanctions.
Iraq has been “liberated”, from 2003 till the present.
Today in Iraq, people are collectively raped, murdered, tortured, experimented on with various drugs and drills and American bombs. Laser bombs, phosphorus, cluster, DU….
Today in Iraq, every city has become a massive ghetto. Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi, Mosul, Haditha,etc…
Today in Iraq, there are mass concentration, rape and torture camps.
Today in Iraq there are 3.7 million refugees seeking shelter outside.
Today in Iraq, there are 700,000 plus dead since 2003, add to this figure 260,000 children. Today in Iraq, there is no aspirin, no food, no water, no electricity, no nothing….
Today in Iraq, people are persecuted for their name tags.
Today in Iraq, there are no more universities or schools.
Today in Iraq, people have stopped selling their organs and are selling their kids instead.
Today in Iraq there are no hospitals left and cancer patients are considered lucky.
Today in Iraq, the secret letter circulating in the UN prior to the occupation warning that over 1.4 million children will die, has come true.
Today in Iraq there is a holocaust happening before your very eyes.
During World War II, Schindler saved around 1,000 victims from the holocaust.
Since then, how many were you able to save? What is your list ? 1, 2, 3, names?
Do I hear anything? No? Of course not…
You can go back to sleep now.
Palestine, Bosnia, Iraq have one common denominator…I leave it to your intelligence to guess what it is ….
Never again? Yes sure thing …Bring on the UN General Assembly and the lamenting violins for me now …
I, personally hold the International Community and the United Nations responsible for Crimes against Humanity as they are happening today in Iraq. I hold the United Nations responsible for a holocaust. I hold it and all other silent ones, apathetic, indifferent, complacent ones, responsible for this Holocaust, today, in the day of “Remembrance and Beyond.”
Never again ?
http://www.pej.org/html/php?sid=6565
P.S: Do forgive me Afghanistan, blame it on proximity but you are not forgotten.
Now you might argue this has nothing to do with Canadians, and you'd be wrong, we are guilty, we have supplied arms, we supported the sanctions, we support the policys, we love to kill and starve the enemy.Western democratic ideals, what are they good for, absolutely nothing, they've been dead for a long time.Genocide, great sport,we love it.:wave:
Canada's arms industry
Canada is home to two of the world's top 100 defence corporations, CAE Inc. and DY4 Systems, with year 2000 defence-related revenues of $539.8 million (Can) and $86.3 million (Can) respectively. However, there are many foreign-owned corporations in Canada producing arms, such as Computing Devices, Bell Helicopter Textron, and General Motors. All of these corporations are significant arms exporters to the US and countries around the world.
The Canadian government has learned that an arms industry is dependent upon exports to keep the factories running. When domestic military programs end, the government aids exports through low-cost loans, diplomatic support, and even using the armed forces to showcase military technology to potential foreign arms buyers.
Canadian government assistance has helped our arms industry become internationally significant. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has ranked Canada as the world's 13th largest arms exporter for the period 1996-2000. The United States is Canada's largest customer.
The "war on terrorism" provides the rationale for a global buildup of arms and increases in military spending, but it is the need to provide security for corporations—not the need to protect citizens from terrorism—that is driving the expansion of military power and the arms industry. Aided by the WTO, military economies are favoured over civilian economies. Over time national economies will become militarized and draw greater government military spending, leaving fewer public dollars available for vital social and environmental programs.
Steven Staples is the chair of the International Network on Disarmament and Globalization (www.indg.org) and lives in Ottawa.
Converted July 21, 2002 - Lg
To follow up on this article, contact the author or the organizations/individuals mentioned; do not contact the Peace and Environment Resource Centre - we cannot provide follow up or contact information. This article is an archival copy of the printed one in the Peace and Environment News (PEN). Viewpoints expressed should not be taken to represent the opinions of the Peace and Environment Resource Centre, the PEN, or our supporters.
Canada is home to two of the world's top 100 defence corporations, CAE Inc. and DY4 Systems, with year 2000 defence-related revenues of $539.8 million (Can) and $86.3 million (Can) respectively. However, there are many foreign-owned corporations in Canada producing arms, such as Computing Devices, Bell Helicopter Textron, and General Motors. All of these corporations are significant arms exporters to the US and countries around the world.
The Canadian government has learned that an arms industry is dependent upon exports to keep the factories running. When domestic military programs end, the government aids exports through low-cost loans, diplomatic support, and even using the armed forces to showcase military technology to potential foreign arms buyers.
Canadian government assistance has helped our arms industry become internationally significant. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has ranked Canada as the world's 13th largest arms exporter for the period 1996-2000. The United States is Canada's largest customer.
The "war on terrorism" provides the rationale for a global buildup of arms and increases in military spending, but it is the need to provide security for corporations—not the need to protect citizens from terrorism—that is driving the expansion of military power and the arms industry. Aided by the WTO, military economies are favoured over civilian economies. Over time national economies will become militarized and draw greater government military spending, leaving fewer public dollars available for vital social and environmental programs.
Steven Staples is the chair of the International Network on Disarmament and Globalization (www.indg.org) and lives in Ottawa.
Converted July 21, 2002 - Lg
To follow up on this article, contact the author or the organizations/individuals mentioned; do not contact the Peace and Environment Resource Centre - we cannot provide follow up or contact information. This article is an archival copy of the printed one in the Peace and Environment News (PEN). Viewpoints expressed should not be taken to represent the opinions of the Peace and Environment Resource Centre, the PEN, or our supporters.
Wow isn't this good news for our country, we can kill terrorists and make money from it, isn't the new economy great. Murder and destruction is a growth industry
and we can be a bigger part of it. Thank god for 9/11, was it a bad thing, maybe, but I prefer to be a proactive thinker like our arms industry who loved 9/11, there is a silver lining in every dark cloud.If we have more 9/11s we'll do just fine because we are the good guys and our glasses are half full, of blood. I mean no disrespect to the victims but they definately did not die in vain.:laughing7::laughing7::wave:
and we can be a bigger part of it. Thank god for 9/11, was it a bad thing, maybe, but I prefer to be a proactive thinker like our arms industry who loved 9/11, there is a silver lining in every dark cloud.If we have more 9/11s we'll do just fine because we are the good guys and our glasses are half full, of blood. I mean no disrespect to the victims but they definately did not die in vain.:laughing7::laughing7::wave: