harper Defends Saudi Arms Deal ...

NOTE: I wish I knew html. Then I could edit the bizarre formatting that blogger has introduced for reasons known only to itself.

Supposedly the geniuses at the heights of the Canadian political edifice don't think that human rights are a winning issue in Canada. That's why nobody really bothers to try to press the harpercons (or past Liberal administrations) about our fairly noxious record. Then, for a few days, surprise surprise, Canadians become outraged at the news of fleeing refugees drowning enmasse in the Mediterranean, and there's a bit of a blip. Then it's forgotten, because, polls show that Canadians are mainly concerned with "the economy" (which is to say, with their personal well-being). (Whereupon which all the parties peddle the same neo-liberal bullshit that's got us so completely fucked.) 

Personally I think what is wrong with this thinking is that it's the same empty-headed, self-fulfilling prophecies of all those "political experts" in the UK who declare Jeremy Corbyn as "unelectable" after they've lost election after election.

I wish there was more of a moral compass in this country. Take, for instance, our evil abuse of the First Nations, year after year, decade after decade. Under Conservatives and Liberals. After fucking the whole country over for around a decade, perhaps Paul Martin thought his Kelowna Accord would be some sort of personal legacy. We'll never know, because when Jack Layton asked him to stop destroying Canada's public health care system, Paul Martin refused. Martin was defeated and then lost the subsequent election all on his own due to his record of dithering and fall-out from AdScam.

The NDP's Charlie Angus and Niki Ashton are good on First Nations, but NDP governments in British Columbia show how deep such sentiments lie. They're good individuals, but politics is so corrupting that you can't depend upon anyone. Because this is a racist country. A capitalist (and therefore selfish and amoral) country.

Still and all, harper takes the prize for being the stinkiest piece of shit running down our collective leg. And I really think it would be easy to destroy Captain Closet if one really went at this issue with the intensity it deserved.

We have a $15 billion dollar sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia's internal security force. (Not its smaller national army.) Saudi Arabia is a gross human rights violator. A super-corrupt dictatorship that savagely oppresses half its population just for being female. (harper will fight against Muslim women in Canada who might even voluntarily wear veils or niqabs, but he will provide weapons to a country that FORCES women to wear them. Because he's a brainless idiot.) 

Actually, that last parenthetical statement? I feel I have to qualify it. harper is an idiot. But he's not literally "brainless." I'm pretty sure the hypocrisy of his war on the niqab in Canada and his support for the Saudi dictatorship has occurred to him. The thing is, he just doesn't care. Remember, harper ran for that closet the instant he heard the gunfire in the hallway. he abandoned a fellow Conservative who was in a wheelchair. he abandoned all his followers. Because he didn't care about them. he doesn't care about anything other than himself. The niqab is important to him because it is a useful wedge issue to drum up votes. If a woman in a niqab, or any woman in Canada, ran to a women's shelter from an abusive husband, harper's contribution would have been to have cut the shelters funding or whatever federal contribution ever went to victims of domestic violence.

Anyways, while he was on the campaign trail recently, a young woman asked him about the $15 billion deal with the detestable Saudi regime. Was he putting Canadian jobs ahead of human rights concerns. His reply:

Well look. um, as I've said in the debate, um, it has been, it's frankly, all of our partners and allies were pursuing that contract. Not just Canada. So this is ah, this is, you know, ah, a deal with a country that frankly, notwithstanding its human rights violations, which are significant, this is a contract with a country that is an ally against the Islamic state, a contract that any one of our allies would have signed. It is the largest contract in Canadian history. Some 3,000 direct jobs in the London area, and look, we expressed our outrage, our disagreement from time to time with the government of Saudi Arabia for their treatment of human rights, but I don't think it makes any sense to pull a contract in a way that would only punish Canadian workers instead of actually expressing our outrage against some of these things in Saudi Arabia.

Vile, evil, stinking bullshit from start to finish. The product of a selfish sociopath who also happens to be a mental mediocrity. Let's parse it, shall we?

"All of our partners and allies were pursuing that contract."

Absolutely irrelevant.

"Notwithstanding its human rights violations, which are significant ..."

What the fuck does THAT mean you cretin? "Yeah, okay, my fishing buddy is a serial child molester, sure, no question ..."  I mean, WTF??? How do you get a pass for such a "notwithstanding"???

"is an ally against the Islamic State."

Well, an honest look at the situation would tell you that Saudi Arabia is also an ALLY of the Islamic State. The latest enemy in the GBWT, And, besides, as the Tyee article shows, these carriers are for domestic suppression and NOT for the Saudi army to use in fighting foreign threats.

"A contract that any one of our allies would have signed."

1. Just goes to show how scummy our allies are.
2. If your allies jumped off a cliff, would you follow them??????

"The largest contract in Canadian history."

Irrelevant.

"3,000 direct jobs."

So, $15 billion for a mere 3,000 jobs. And we help prop-up a misogynist dictatorship that exports terror around the world? Considering the way that harper likes to flush our tax dollars down rat-holes and corruption, $15 is a drop in the bucket. I'd rather our government spent that money itself and gave out contracts for humanitarian purposes, like building transport helicopters to bring emergency relief to remote places; more efficient wind turbines, infrastructure for electric cars, mass transit, ... anything other that the blood-soaked dollars of the Saudi monsters to suppress their own people.

And all the rest of the shit. "We express our outrage from time-to-time." What utter, empty cynical bullshit. "Why do something like not give them weapons when we could ACTUALLY express our outrage against SOME OF THESE THINGS in Saudi Arabia?"

How do we "actually express our outrage" while at the same time contributing to their ability to commit them?

And then, in the last portions of his reply, you can hear his drooling, slobbering army of Earl Cowans begin to clap. It would be poetic justice if any of these ignorant, self-centered pieces of shit found themselves being tortured by a Canadian government that was getting all sorts of weapons and advice from other countries around the world. Then, maybe, just maybe, they'd think of all the poor victims of the monstrous House of Saud being oppressed and tortured and murdered with tools purchased from Canada and its other scum-bag allies.

Not that I want that to happen to these walking, talking farts. Besides, they're all so ignorant, lazy and stupid, that these thoughts don't enter their empty heads while they're relaxed and comfortable with full bellies. They'd be (justifiably) incapable of thinking about other people if they found themselves in a torture chamber.