The Shotgun Blog
« I Spoke too Soon | Main | Harper's gets a pass »
Friday, May 19, 2006
Canada sanctions Iran?!?
Canadian government is limiting its Iran related official contacts according to this story via International Trade Ministry of Canada web site.
This is getting very interesting...
Read the rest @ The Spirit of Man
Posted by Winston on May 19, 2006 in International Affairs | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200d834c1186f69e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Canada sanctions Iran?!? :
Comments
Well, they DO want to put the modern day version of "yellow stars" on Jews. I could see why Harper's Canada might want to distance themselves...
RG
Posted by: RightGirl | 2006-05-19 2:34:47 PM
I doubt that Yellow-Star story to be true but we'll see. I wouldnt be surprised to hear that it is true. The mullahs are awful when it comes to their minorities
The current Iranian regime is doing many unexpected & unacceptable stuff, that we know.
Freedom for Iranians and the regime change policy must be our main objectives today
Posted by: Winston | 2006-05-19 2:41:52 PM
This is a sensible policy. Allow private actors to trade, ignore their oppressive government.
Bravo Canada!
Posted by: Robert Seymour | 2006-05-19 3:26:49 PM
That is fantastic and unexpected news from the Trade Commissioner Service in Tehran. Halting "any existing programs of cooperation between Canadian government agencies and their Iranian counterparts" until "Iran has taken steps to launch a credible and independent investigation and judicial process into the Kazimi case" is exactly the right decision. This demonstrates once again the moral decency and backbone of this nascent Stephen Harper government. I have so much respect for that guy, and I feel proud to be Canadian again.
Posted by: EBD | 2006-05-19 3:29:34 PM
Wonder what Iamamadjihadist has in store for gays, blacks, gypsies, mentally and physically disabled and Slavs plus all non-Iranian in his new version of creating a master race?
Justin, finally we find common ground with you and a common enemy we can fight together.
Even though your fellow fudge-packers will have no descendants, how dare this modern-day architect of his New World Order take away the freedom to have a penis in your ass as you're allowed to have in the west?
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-19 3:45:16 PM
Could this mean the Canadian government is growing - gasp! - a backbone?
Posted by: Scott | 2006-05-19 4:16:18 PM
'Fraid not Scott. It actually means the National Post is growing - gasp! - a big long Pinoccio nose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday Times (http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,19196947%255E1702,00.html)
Jewish MP denies Iran badge plan
From correspondents in Tehran
20may06
IRAN'S only Jewish MP strongly denied reports in a Canadian newspaper overnight that Iran may force non-Muslims to wear coloured badges in public so they can be identified.
"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed said in Tehran. "It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain" by doing so.
The National Post newspaper quoted human rights groups as saying that Iran's parliament passed a law this week setting a public dress code and requiring non-Muslims to wear special insignia.
Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear a yellow, red or blue strip of cloth, respectively, on the front of their clothes, it said.
Mr Motammed said he had been present in parliament when a bill to promote "an Iranian and Islamic style of dress for women" was voted. "In the law, there is no mention of religious minorities," he added.
MPs representing Iran's Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian minorities sit on all parliamentary committees, particularly the cultural one, he said.
"This is an insult to the Iranian people and to religious minorities in Iran," he said.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said overnight, during an official visit to Ottawa, that "anything of that kind would be totally repugnant to civilised countries, if it's the case, and something that would just further indicate to me the nature of this regime. It would be appalling."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had only seen reports about the law but that he would not be surprised by them.
"Unfortunately, we have seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," he said.
"It think it boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany," he added.
"The fact that such a measure could even be contemplated, I think, is absolutely abhorrent."
Harper's parliamentary secretary, Jason Kenney, told the House of Commons that Canadian officials were trying to verify the claims.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can you say major major major OOOOPS! I don't think the Post can with all that egg on their collective faces.
The Post has pulled the story.
Let's try to remember this one the next time some boob puts up a bad photo of Cheney/Bush/Rice/Harper and everyone screams 'liberal MSM bias!!!!' The media is full of incompetent hacks and mistakes are made. Doesn't mean there is a conspiracy.
Ted
Cerberus
canadiancerberus.blogspot.com
Posted by: Ted | 2006-05-19 4:21:43 PM
Those diplomatic restrictions were put in place under Martin's Liberals after one of many spats over the Kazemi case; some time in 2005, if I recall, pettigrew announced the changes.
It was, nevertheless, a show of backbone by a Frenchman. ;)
Posted by: anm | 2006-05-19 5:11:17 PM
Guess that means Imamadjihadist is misunderstood and he really, really loves everybody.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-19 7:10:02 PM
Ted - What does that have to do with the Int'l Trade Ministry Policy?
Posted by: C. H. | 2006-05-19 9:21:20 PM
The Mogambu Guru has a lot to say, which frankly, explains a lot:
QUOTE:
If you think this brouhaha with Iran will one day blow over, you’re wrong-o. Iran wants, and needs, to have a war with the United States. Why? Let me quote from the Milken Institute Journal of Economic Policy. They note that in "1979, Iran's GDP roughly equaled Spain's; it pumped one-tenth of the worlds oil and nurtured a vibrant middle class. Today, per capita income is one-third that of Spain, oil production is down by 30% and the middle class is being squeezed by inflation, unemployment and stagnant wages." And it ain't just the middle class suffering, and by a long, long shot.
In short, the Iranian morons need a scapegoat for their self-inflicted problems just as much as American morons and the loathsome Bush crowd needs one, and for the same reasons: bankruptcy from sheer economic stupidity. That has always meant war, and I have no reason to think that "this time is different." Ugh.
:UNQUOTE
http://dailyreckoning.com/Writers/Mogambo/DREssays/MG051006.html
Think of inflation and all-round government economic mismanagement as the spurs that drive the four horsemen of the apocalypse and you'll get the picture. I think you'll find these reasons at the heart of all of the great catastrophes of the 20th century, including the Russian revolution, WWI, The Ukrainian famine, the Great Depression, WWII, the Chinese revolution, and the Great Leap Forward. I suspect that they were present before and during a lot of the lesser catastrophes as well, such as the genocides in Armenia, Cambodia and Rwanda, and probably they were behind many dozens of smaller wars in places like Africa and South America - look at Zimbabwe where inflation is the No.1 tool in the government arsenal to fight the economic illness caused by bad economic policy, which in turn will probably lead to a genocidal civil war.
While the USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, etc. are not nearly as extreme and as dangerous as Iran or Zimbabwe, the same evils of inflation and government economic intervention are present, and in the end they will leave you poorer, sicker and possibly deader than you would have been if your money and your life had been left alone.
Posted by: Justzumgai | 2006-05-20 8:01:48 AM
Justzumgai:
I believe you're onto a basic pillar of human nature.
Think of your first reaction to the last time somebody pointed out some flaw in you or a mistake.
Since the ego naturally cannot perceive of its owner to be anything less than perfect, the mind thrashed about looking for someone or something to blame.
Comedian Flip Wilson made a career out of it: “The Devil made me do it.''
While the person's delusion of his own importance and perfection can be maintained without bruising the ego, all anybody actually watching and listening knows all that declaration means is ‘If I blame somebody or something else, I am so convincing that everybody else will believe me.'
Ha! I don't believe politicians or anybody else who uses this well-documented Step 1 of the Four Steps of denial which has been so brilliantly articulated here.
I continue to watch with great amusement about how people cannot understand how silly they look with their inability to break the cycle.
The problem with blame-shifting politicians, of course, is that they have access to weapons and many innocent people die during the course of their ego trip.
Imamadjihadist is no exception. In the Islamic world, there is no concept as compromise. The guy who has an annoying habit of pointing out the truth often finds himself at the end of the Sword of Satan.
Those ME leaders, Saddam included, perfected the art of confirming their ego trips by throwing their consciences aside as they go about consolidating their power on earth.
Despite the bad scoop by the National Post, some good will come out of this debate. More and more people will see just how dangerous it is to embrace these thugs and when they try their deceptions in Canada, we'll figurately hack off their heads with the truth.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-20 9:33:47 AM
Maurice Strong and his copmpany powercorp,through a subsidiary,TOTAL SA,have over 2 billion invested in an Iranian natural gas play.Don't hold your breath waiting for any meaningful sanctions.
Posted by: wallyj | 2006-05-20 10:17:56 AM
wallyj:
Now, you're getting warm, the real Svengali of the whole global warming scam.
What I'm about to write is almost beyond belief, but it is a series of solid facts, unlike the National Post's bad scoop on Friday.
Strong is just one of the players in Powercorp.
The big guy is Paul Desmarais, who through some sheer co-incidence of history I'm sure, happens to be the son-in-law of a guy we all know well ... Jean Chretien.
Powercorp is a major shareholder in the French oil company Total Elf Fina. Through the close personal relationship between Saddam Hussien and Jacques Chirac, a cushy deal oil-for-airplanes deal was struck.
Total Elf Fina was given exclusive rights to develop an oilfield in Iraq. One of the difficulties with the scheme is much of the field lay in the southern part of Iraq, ancestral land of the Marsh People.
I know this reads like some kind of science fiction thriller, but the facts are all readily available for thoswe who care to search them out.
Remember, the Marsh People were predominantly Shiites who rose up in rebellion against Saddam's regime in the wake of his expusion from Kuwait way back in 1990 during Gulf War I.
At the recommendations of French engineers sent to determine the best way to extract the oil, Saddam build a dam on the Euphrates (or is it the Tigrus .. fact check, please).
That effectively shut off much of the feedwater for the Marsh Arabs. A lifestyle that had survived in the marshes for thousands of years was now in jeapoardy and and environmental disaster was in the making.
Bring in Strong again, who purported to be the man who saves the world from environmental disaster by authoring the ridiculous Kyoto Protocol.
So, when push came to shove at the UN, it was in France's best interest to talk the talk about the international community's abhorrence of the Saddam regime. Reference wikipedia, UN resolution 1441, a culimination of the international community's insistence of Saddam holding up to his original promise of revealing where his weapons of mass destruction were.
W pushed the issue at the UN and when it came time to walk the talk, it came to absolutely nobody's surprise that France decided it would not support a coalition to oust Saddam.
Let me correct that with one other factual incident that defines why France and its friends need to portray the US as the bad guy.
On the day Colin Powell addressed the United Nations, he spoke with French foreign minister Dominique de Villepen (sp?), who assured him France would totally support the US in its efforts to enforce the 14 UN resolutions.
De Villepin gave Powell the keys to his New York apartment. Powell flipped on the TV as he sat in de Villepin's room and watched in horror as de Villepin called an impomptu news conference in front of the UN building announcing France, in all conscience, could not support military action in Iraq.
In my books, that's about as big a betrayal as I'm aware of.
But the, I only started getting interested in the topic at about the time of 9/11.
So, next time you look at your paycheque, ask yourself how much of your hard-earned money went to Chretien, his friends, his family.
Is it any wonder Chretien balked at any suggestion of military action in Iraq? He was only protecting the millions he and his entourage were in line to get from their Iraq oilfield development.
Once again, all the aformentioned facts are easily available, just like the truth of our existence is right in front of noses if we'd only care to open our eyes.
In relation to this original post, I can guarantee you France will once again do anything in its power to make sure there is not unanimous consent by the security council for an possible Persian invasion.
This also cleary demonstrates the reason most of Quebecers are taken in by tribal talk and believe the deceptions of their French cousins.
Take it all the way down the line ... Quebec's popular opinion against Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, the Liberals' tactic of bashing the US and how does that mimic the position of France. In my mind, there's not question their nationalism overcomes their reason in this case.
And, I'll just stay away from any comment on how their particular brand of power centralization Catholicism made these despicable acts seem only natural.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-20 10:59:37 AM
I suggest it is not of yesterday that countries are srongly motivated by their economical interests.
Although I support the war in Irak because of terorism, it would be interesting to ask the question:
Without any oil in Irak, would there have been a war?
Posted by: Rémi Houle | 2006-05-20 11:41:53 AM
CTV and the Gloat and Wail are reporting leaked information that says Harper will scrap Kyoto.
What can I say: this is very, VERY good news!!!
Posted by: Scott | 2006-05-20 11:46:13 AM
Remi:
If France had their way, there would not have been a war in Iraq and all the monies earned from its exploitation at the expense of desecrating the environment paid for by the lives of the Marsh Arabs would be flowing today.
Where would they flow? Why, straight to the treasuries of France and New France ... Desmarais, Strong and Chretien.
Since you're apparently closer to the situation than I am, for the information of all the fine people here – can you explain how Canadian politics in so many spheres has so closely mimicked France.
As was pointed out in the written version of All the Presidents men but not in the movie ... follow the money.
Scott:
Harper cannot scrap Kyoto without the blessing of our European friends.
The money, in this case, would flow directly through the bank accounts of Maurice Strong, father of Kyoto. Naturally, he believes he deserves an administrative fee for his work.
It's no secret the Conservative position is dead-set against this poorly-cloaked wealth-transfer scheme. They've clearly articulated in Parliament this past two weeks cleaning up the environment is a priority. Six billion is much more than I see on my paycheque.
The good thing is, my money will not be sent to that godless Commie Putin, whose true colours are finally starting to show though his facade.
BTW, Putin also has his envious eye on Iranian oil. See this week's article on the topic in MacLeans magazine.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-20 1:34:47 PM
SYF,you obviously have more knowledge on this Iranian bullshit than most. Have you ever thought about how Pettigrew can afford his little Paris playhouse? Powercorp bought Mrs. Chretien a 2 million dollar mansion shortly after hubby retired. It must be nice to have friends like that.
Posted by: wallyj | 2006-05-21 3:03:41 PM
wallyj:
Glad to see you're tuning into the program .. .this is just skimming the surface so far.
I haven't got through the CIA dossier on Iran yet, but I do have the book which has been gathering dust for the last two years.
OK, I fibbed a bit. Now that I check my book collection, I got through 36 pages of a book called The Persian Puzzle by Kenneth M. Pollack published by Random House in 2004.
It seemed somewhat far away at the time.
Iraq is a much different question.
Scant months before the US invaded Iraq, I finished reading a book by the same author entitled The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.
FYI ... he spent time seven years working for the CIA as a Persian Gilf Military Analyst and was a director on the National Security Council, the principal working lvel official responsible fore implementation of US p[olicy toward Iran.
Since this information was readily available before the invasion, it give a lie to the critics who say a veil of secrecy and deceit surrounds the decision to invade.
Weapons of mass destruction was an unfortunate choice for justification to invasion ... there were many other reasons. This stuff is readily avialable for all to see.
I knew about the corruption in the oil-for-food program THREE years before it his the mainstream media. Enough time for Michael Moore and his ilk to spread their blinding cloak of doubts and deceptions on the unsuspecting public.
I also have a book titled The French Betrayal of America by a US journalist who spent a quarter-century studying the cozy relationship between Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein.
That one is being lent out right now, and I can't recall the author's name off hand.
Interesting stuff about Mrs. Chretien, Like I've written many times before, the truth always come out as long as people are willing to reveal it and others are willing to listen to all options and decide for themselves where the truth lies (clever, eh?)
There are many sources of truth.
Only intellectual sloth prevents us from seeing it. Don't take anybody's word for anything. Don't let anybody define you.
And, once you're satisfied you've found the truth, defend it.
There are plenty of people out there who would run your life for you if you let them. The secret is not to let them. Take care of your own business and excepting this, tell anybody who offers you unsolicited advice about how you should be doing things to piss off.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-05-21 3:36:25 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.