Bush-Lite by Stephen Harper

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. " ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

After 24 days of Fiji (Bula baby) I`ve come home to find that our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is still an American wanabe in Bush drag. And that means that our Prime Minister`s sphincter still throbs in spiritual pain with every gay marriage we endorse in this great country of ours. That`s "Steve" as George W likes to call him and now that he lost his moral crusade on same sex (sounds a little Republican American?) he is waving his moral dick at another long time Canadian tradition. We are no longer Peace Keepers and we`re following American know how (yuk,yuk) into the historical deadend of Afghanistan. I think this guy still thinks that George W is still the true leader of the "free world."  And that makes him, Cheney and Condi Rice (and maybe her boy toy Peter McKay) the last people on planet earth who share that distinction. Then again, Iggy Ignatieff may still be in the closet with them.

Harper`s a tough guy, kind of like that self proclaimed "war president" across our border. "The military don't start wars.  Politicians start wars. "~William Westmoreland  And Harper  wants us to commit to Afghanistan until 2009, or hint, hint, maybe longer. This is not much of a surprise from the man who publicly proclaimed that we should have followed the US into Iraq. Lucky us! We might have invested millions in Haliburton like George W  and pretended we were looking for WMD that International Weapons Inspectors had confirmed didn`t exist. Maybe "Steve" could have stood with George W on the deck of  that expensive warship declaring "mission accomplished" 4 years before we would leave Iraq with our honorable tails between our legs.

We need to understand why Canadian soldiers are dying and why we`ve killed 5 Afghani civilians in February alone. What are we accomplishing while the Afghanistan heroin trade increases to new, higher levels, Bin Laden is nowhere to be found and we piss off a lot of people in a world that foreigners rarely come to understand. Gwynne Dyer wrote a column in July,2006 that analyses the historical futility of military aggression in Afghanistan. Read Same war different players.  Political leaders need to become students of history so that they can avoid these entirely predictable military misadventures.

Harper and all Canadian politicians should read this first hand account of American mistakes in Afghanistan.  After all, this is an American led Nato project and "Steve" probably considers their advice. Lucky us!  Is this really what we`re dying for? Its a sorry account of corruption and neglect tha t we come to expect from the Bush Administration. Read it and weep. Then we might consider Jeffrey Sachs advice as a sensible basis for "winning the peace" rather than  the war in Afghanistan. Lets get back to our "peace keeping" roots before these guys find another Bush war for us to fight. This is starting to feel like the old cartoon where the little Dog is always kissing the big Dog`s butt as he follows him anywhere he goes. I wonder if "Steve" will follow George W into Iran?   Lets kick his sorry ass out of office before he gets the chance. Welcome to Bush-Lite!