yamfood

Once again Harper’s government plays the wind-up toy for America’s diplomatic maneuverings. Again the Canadian people must demean themselves on the international stage, to serve the interests of private bankers instead of our own national needs and international obligations.

The World Bank and IMF are controlled by the rich countries (mostly America) and although they are ostensibly there to reduce poverty and increase opportunity in the underdeveloped world, their actual function has been to enrich private banking institutions and corporations through brutal, free-market economic policies. The head of the World Bank is almost always an American and the IMF almost always a European (currently a Frenchwoman, despite calls for greater representation from the South). Now with two excellent candidates from the third world, Obama wants to anoint his unqualified puppet.

Instead of propping up these undemocratic institutions meant to preserve elite rule, Canada should reclaim its independence. Why is our monetary and fiscal policy determined by unaccountable bankers in private institutions such as the Bank for International Settlements? I wonder if Canadians are aware of how much money we pay in interest to service our massive debt (over 13% of budget). We used to borrow from the Bank of Canada and pay ourselves the interest. Why don’t we do that anymore?

Don’t ask our lawmakers, ask the bankers. They’re the boss.

Mike Sampat

Dimanno got this one utterly wrong and the letter writers compounded her mistake. They enumerate the West’s losses in blood and treasure, but it is never acknowledged how much Afghanistan has lost. The analysis is also completely divorced from history. According to Dimanno, the “U.S., Canada and NATO engineered” Afghanistan’s rapid advancement from 19th century practices under the Taliban, with such things as women’s rights. But women’s rights would have been far more modern under the communist regime supported by U.S.S.R. in 1978. That was before America decided to wage a proxy war against the Soviets through their former allies: the Taliban.

It was during this conflict that the Americans began training and arming the fighters of their agent Osama Bin Laden. Once the Soviets had been pushed back, after years of devastating ground war, the Americans abandoned Afghanistan to its own devices, where it became a narco-state, a sponsor to dangerous terrorists, and a breeding ground for anti-U.S. sentiment. Perhaps OBL, America’s rogue operative, planned the terrorist attacks of 9/11 there, presumably the reason we attacked Afghanistan in the first place. Yet even though that culprit has supposedly been assassinated, we continue to occupy the country and commit atrocities against its people. Soon we will abandon them to fate again.

Imperialistic Western foreign policies have brought Afghanistan to its current state and revisionist historical analyses will not right those wrongs. As long as we remain the wind-up toys and apologists of the American military-industrial complex, Canada will continue to tritely defend the indefensible.

_Mike Sampat, Toronto