Wasn’t There Any Real News?

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Today, the Canadian media declared Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the newsmaker of the year. This isn’t the first time for the Canadian leader, as he was awarded the journalistic title last year.

Granted, Harper managed to quash many political fires, saving citizens from yet another federal election – it seems we have two seasons in Canada – winter and election season. However, Harper really didn’t excel as a Canadian leader, so why did a group of journalists take the easy way out and just hand it to the same guy from last year?

Maybe that’s exactly what they did: “who should be our newsmaker of the year? Duh, I dunno, let’s just give it to the dude who won it last year, what was his name again?”

Being granted newsmaker of the year should come with some hefty reasons – I mean we’re talking newsmaker for the majority of 365-days, not just for a month, a week or a day – it’s the whole year.

Prime Minister Harper didn’t solve the hole in the ozone layer, bring about world peace, or cure cancer – but then who has? But he didn’t do what many other potential newsmakers have done, and really stand out from the crowd.

Sure he met U.S. President Barack Obama, but so did Governor General Michaelle Jean – and she actually received a personal invitation from the American president to come to his house in an unofficial capacity. Though she did alienate many when she ate a seal’s heart during a visit up in our Arctic.

What about Canadian Defence Minister Peter Mackay? Many can’t get the image of the buff politician in a skin-tight wet suit doing donuts on his ski boat out of their minds – the image is both entertaining and disturbing. He’s responsible for finally ending our part in the American invasion of Afghanistan, as he declared this year that all Canadian troops would be out of the war-torn region by 2011.


Though if we’re going to name Canada’s newsmaker based on entertainment value alone, then this year it would have to be Garth Drabinski. He’s the former Canadian theatre mogul who was fined and sentenced to prison time, for ripping us off through his Live Entertainment Corp. – also called Livent. He even received the Order of Canada back in 1995 for producing Canadian-made movies, television and theatre events. But he’s currently a jailbird after being convicted on fraud and forgery charges. Maybe in seven-years when he’s out of the slammer?

I can see just how hard it must have been for Canada’s media to find an honest, hard-working Canadian to be the newsmaker of the year.

Not many choices so far – a blood soaked Governor General with seal guts oozing from her smiling face, a Defence Minister that looks more like a surfer dude, and a convicted criminal.

Surely there must be someone deserving of the title Canadian Newsmaker of the Year?

I know!

Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) funny man Rick Mercer. Rick Mercer probably won’t cure cancer, and he’s not a likely candidate to solve global warming, or bring about world peace.

But he brings out the best in Canadians by showing us who we really are in his silly skits and television comedy shows. Even better, he gets our neighbours to the south in the States to think about us every so often – which is something they rarely do.

Mercer was the first Canadian television personality to venture to the States, and ask Americans what they knew about Canada. The piece was hilarious, showing us how little they really do know, but also in a way, educating Americans a bit about us Canucks.

Comic relief may be the best way to solve many world problems. If we could all laugh at ourselves a little more, than perhaps we’d have fewer wars, and a more efficient and effective society?

Rick Mercer makes us see just how silly and trivial many things we take far too seriously are – mainly how too seriously we take ourselves.

And for those reasons, Rick Mercer should be Canada’s Newsmaker of 2009.

America’s Second Vietnam Continues

Last night American President Barack Obama addressed his country live, on television, to justify sending more of his citizens into another American-made Vietnam.

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Vietnam was the anti-communist war which America entered in 1950, to support South Vietnam against the communistic North. In April 1975, the communists won, when North Vietnam captured Saigon, ending the war. Over four million Vietnamese on both sides died during the war, and 58,159 American soldiers lost their lives.

Despite the massive number of fatalities, the North and South were reunified a year after the war’s end. Many politicians took enormous flack over the Vietnam War, because it of itself did little more than end many lives, disrupt many families, destroy numerous natural habitats, and cost millions of dollars.

Now President Obama is risking the same blame leveled on former American Presidents, diplomats, and other politicians, for a war which may prove just as pointless, and even more deadly.

Originally known as Operation Enduring Freedom, then-American President George W. Bush, along with support from then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, launched an all out air strike in Afghanistan in October 2001 in retaliation against the bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
The initial goal was to get Osama Bin Laden, then thought of as the key person responsible for the terrorist attacks in the States.

Originally against the American-led attacks, the United Nations eventually had to lend support, as the American-led invasions had ruined the infrastructure, leading to looting, rioting, and complete lawlessness and chaos in the already war-torn country – wars have been the one constant in Afghanistan’s history.

The United Nations created the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and began peace policing in December 2001. By July, 2009, ISAF’s numbers were at an all-time high, with over 64,500 soldiers from 42 UN countries, including a number of Canadians, Americans, and British troops.

Lawlessness and chaos still run rampant in Afghanistan, and the original mission has never been accomplished – to get Bin Laden.

Thousands of civilians and soldiers have died in Afghanistan, yet the country remains in ruins, the body bags keep piling up, and the costs to keep fighting a never-ending battle keep rising – at last count the American’s bill for the war in Afghanistan was in the trillions of dollars.

Despite all of this, current American President Barack Obama wants to continue pumping dollars and lives into this pointless, and very deadly war.

With the failure to capture Bin Laden, and terrorist attacks still taking place around the world, many already know the real reason behind America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – black gold.

Afghanistan and Iraq are home to the most oil-rich producing regions of the world, and just as in the board game Monopoly, the player who controls utilities, usually wins.

Rather than taking the money spent on destroying other nations under the guise of The War on Terror, and spending it on finding alternatives to oil, America drags her allies into a war which is really designed to bolster American’s control over the black liquid.

Ironic, because many times President Obama has spoken about reducing America’s dependence on foreign-produced oil, and talked at length of investing and supporting more environmentally-friendly American-made alternatives.

But just as politicians in the past have said one thing but done another, U.S. President Barack Obama has said he will invest in American green initiatives, while really investing in foreign-produced oil by pumping more dollars into the American-made wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

However there is one stark difference between Vietnam and America’s War on Terror. Unlike Vietnam, which managed to reconcile its differences as soon as the American’s left and the war ended with the taking of Saigon, both Afghanistan and Iraq have been so badly damaged by the American-made war, neither country is likely to mend itself after all the troops have left.

So in a sense, Afghanistan is worse than Vietnam – and much of the blame will be laid at President Obama for failing to do the right thing.

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A Visit to the White House – What a Nice Distraction

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a joy ride south of the border last Wed. – or at least that’s probably how it seemed to him.

He met with American President Barack Obama for an hour-long meeting in the White House’s Oval Office. The two leaders discussed the economy, just ahead of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh starting today and running through the weekend.

They also discussed each country’s roles in the mission to Afghanistan. Canada has had soldiers in the battle-whipped country for over eight-years, but there are plans to pull all Canadian Forces troops out in 2010.

President Obama on the other hand is pushing for more American soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan this year and next year.

Canadian Soldiers should never have gone to Afghanistan in the first place – and will most likely end up in another place they should never be sent – Iraq in 2010 or 2011.

Afghanistan and Iraq are strictly American conflicts, begun by then-American President George W. Bush. Bush, the sly scoundrel he is, used the intense emotions stirred in his citizens by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 to launch attacks on these two relatively innocent countries.

President Bush originally launched air strikes in Afghanistan in what he called his “shock and awe” military attack, to get Bin Ladden and those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on American soil.

Almost a decade later, Bin Ladden (who boldly boasts of his success in his involvement of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but no one anywhere has actually provided proof of his involvement) is still running free, occasionally popping up to in grainy videos to taunt the Americans.

As the hunt for Bin Ladden dragged on, the American political machine needed a new scapegoat to distract the public’s attention from their failing mission in Afghanistan (the goal was to get Bin Ladden).

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

That’s when President Bush and the rest of the executive branch of the White House launched their smear campaign against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

They claimed Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and urged the United Nations (UN) to take actions against Iraq. Despite all the doctored images – which looked real at the time but have since been proved tampered with – the UN didn’t budge and would not support an outright attack against Iraq.

The UN did begin sanctions against Iraq, and sent over their own inspectors, to look for these weapons of mass destruction.

None were ever found, and the UN was satisfied Iraq and its leader were in the clear.

But trigger-happy American President Bush still launched an attack against Saddam Hussein, and in the process destroyed all the infrastructure of the tiny Middle Eastern country in the process.

Canadian soldiers are dying in great numbers in Afghanistan, as American soldiers are dying also in great numbers in Iraq.

But both these missions were unnecessary, and mismanaged from the get-go. American President Bush didn’t really care about bring those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to justice, he just used that event to go after the countries in the Middle East with the richest oil reserves, to secure oil for his country, and his former colleagues in the oil industry from where he originally came.

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Now America’s current leader, President Obama has to deal with the massive cost, lost lives, and lack of any signs of real victory in two wars. He’s also struggling with his push to launch universal, government-funded healthcare across all 50 States, similar to our Canadian healthcare system.

Here on his home turf, the Canada’s top politician is being made to jump over massive hurdles, just to do his job. Some of the heat is due in part because he’s only got a minority government, the other part is due to the childish antics of the opposition parties.

Prime Minister Harper is always facing threats of election calls for his head, by the Bloc, the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, or a combination of them. Currently, the Liberal Party is threatening to call a non-confidence vote to end the Prime Minister’s rule, and lead Canadians into yet another federal election – has it even been a year since the last election?

With the intense pressures both the current American and Canadian leaders are facing, their meeting must have been a nice distraction from the horrors of their worlds. Let’s just hope that distraction was short lived, and they can both get back to the business of running their respective countries.

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