Syria debate in Oval Office focused on whether to put a military strike before Congress

The Washington Post -- 31 August 2013

Video: President Obama said Friday that he is considering a "narrow, limited act," against Syria after the country's alleged use of chemical weapons against its people.

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By Scott Wilson, Updated: Saturday, August 31, 8:01 PM 

President Obama campaigned for office as a critic of the Bush administration’s lack of regard for international consensus to resolve the most pressing issues of the day — whether climate change or the invasion of Iraq.

And yet, after a week of discussions over evidence showing that the government of President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons, Obama was believed by some of his closest aides to be willing to launch a military strike against Syria — even if his administration lacked the support of the United States’ closest ally, Britain, and the authorization of Congress. It would amount to perhaps the weightiest and riskiest solo action by Obama since his decision to approve the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

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At 7 p.m. Friday, a handful of Obama’s closest aides, including national security adviser Susan E. Rice and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, were summoned to the Oval Office, according to senior administration officials. The president had concluded he would allow a sharply divided and generally hostile Congress to debate whether the United States should proceed.

It was not the decision some of Obama’s advisers, including Rice and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel — who were said to be among the officials in favor of a missile barrage against Assad’s military assets in the coming days — were expecting to hear.

After two hours of debate, however, Obama was not dissuaded in his determination to have Congress debate the issue.

“While I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective,” the president said Saturday in an address in the Rose Garden. “We should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual.”

Senior administration officials, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, said the debate late Friday focused on the possible consequences of introducing a proudly obstructionist Congress into an urgent foreign policy issue, the implications of ceding executive authority over war powers to the legislative branch, and the risks of not setting a time frame for a U.S. military strike.

Aides said the president believes strongly that the Assad government was behind the use of chemical weapons that killed almost 1,500 people — nearly a third of them children — and that it needs to face consequences. But they added that the issue for the president is not solely about a humanitarian crisis, but also about containing chemical weapons.

“The situation we’re presented with is not a principally humanitarian interest,” said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communication. “We have not turned to military action for a variety of reasons in Syria, in part because we didn’t think military action would help the humanitarian situation.”

But Rhodes added that Obama, who has made restricting the spread of chemical and nuclear weapons a chief policy priority, assesses that taking action in Syria will also further his goal to limit the use of illicit weapons that pose a serious threat to U.S. national security interests.

Late Friday afternoon, the president walked around the South Lawn grounds with McDonough, a ritual of the restless chief of staff. Obama and his aides had spent a week discussing what to do, poring over gruesome intelligence gathered in the Damascus suburbs.

The president told McDonough, a Capitol Hill veteran, that he wanted Congress to draft new authorization of military force against the Syrian government and have the value and limitations of any military action put up for a vote on the merits.

Obama told McDonough two reasons for his approach to enlist Congress in any strike against Syria.
He wanted there to be political accountability — lawmakers from both parties, he believed, should be on the record in support or against the war.

Obama told advisers that congressional support, far from certain, given the animosity that extends the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, would ultimately strengthen support for the war and perhaps protect public opinion for a sustained operation.

The other reason? Unlike the U.S.-led military operation in Libya in 2011 — which was supported by the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League — the United States did not have the same level of international backing.

Obama’s proposal to invite Congress dominated the Friday discussion in the Oval Office. He had consulted almost no one about his idea. In the end, the president made clear he wanted Congress to share in the responsibility for what happens in Syria.

As one aide put it, “We don’t want them to have their cake and eat it, too.”

Obama delays Syria strike indefinitely by turning decision over to Congress

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 31, 2013, 10:04 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Barack Obama,  Syria,  US military action,  chemical weapons,  Tomahawk cruise missiles,  Binyamin Netanyahu,

Confounding tense expectations worldwide, US President Barack Obama again dodged a decision for a US strike on Syria by referring it to Congress. In a speech to the American people, Saturday, Aug. 31, he said the use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad must be “confronted not just investigated.” But then went on to say, “We are ready to strike whenever we choose. This operation is not time-sensitive. It could take place tomorrow, next week, or next month.

The US House Speaker meanwhile set Sept. 9 as the date for the debate to start.

By these words, the US president chipped away once again at US military plans for Syria - only this time, they looked like vanishing into the blue yonder, leaving Assad and his partners all the time in the world to line up their counter moves, and putting Israel in a tight spot on three counts:

1.  The hostile Iran-Syrian-Hizballah bloc comes out strengthened;

2.  Tehran can feel free to develop a nuclear bomb without fear of resolute US interference;

3.  Hizballah can celebrate its backing for the winning horse in Damascus.

4.  Binyamin Netanyahu’s six-year old policy, which was oriented on engendering understanding with Barack Obama, is in ruins, although it was endorsed by Israel’s defense ministers on the assumption that it was in the interests of national security.

As we reported earlier, President Obama confirmed Friday night that the forthcoming US military attack on Syria would be “limited” and “narrow” and not open-ended, in a  bid to avoid the risk of America being mired in the Syrian civil war.

DEBKA Weekly’s analysts calculated Thursday that by forgoing an air assault and relegating his projected military operation against Syria solely to seaborne Tomahawk cruise missiles - limited to 15 launches - the US president relinquished America’s “penetration and destruction” capabilities – depending of course on his sticking to this plan and not expanding its scope at the last minute.

The Tomahawk cruise missile has a range of 2,500 kms, weighs 450 kilos and can be fired from the five US destroyers and the four US nuclear submarines waiting in the eastern Mediterranean for orders to go.

However powerful, the exclusive use of this type of missile means that Washington has a priori sacrificed the following military objectives:

1. Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles will remain intact. The Tomahawks can damage surface structures at the bases hosting them, but not penetrate their underground storage sites.
Assad will be left in full possession of his CW arsenal.

2. Neither can Tomahawks alone cripple the Syrian Air Force or shut down its bases. They could damage runways, but only for the hours or days it would take to repair them.

DEBKA Weekly's military sources say that the Syria air force is left with six air bases still operational, out of a total of thirty. A heavier and larger missile onslaught than the limited assault planned could have destroyed them all, given the Syrian rebels a huge advantage and opened the way for a plan to impose no-fly zones over Syrian air space.
But Obama clearly chose to discard those options.

By delaying his go-ahead on military action against Syria, he gave the Assad regime time to tuck most of its air force bombers and attack helicopters away in fortified hangars early this week, safe from attack. As the hours slipped by with US action, the Syrian ruler’s self-confidence mounted.

3. Syrian missiles have likewise been hidden in underground bunkers. They include the Scud C and D missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

4. The big Syrian field command centers will also escape unscathed, although DEBKA Weekly’s military sources report that many of them figure as large as strategic assets on the list of targets which the Pentagon and US military chiefs originally put before the president.

Among them were the command and control centers of the Syrian army’s 4th Division and Republican Guard Division, which protect Bashar Assad and bolster his regime's hold on power.
It is not clear if the military command centers of Homs, Hama, Tartus, Latakia, the Aleppo area and Idlib remain on the final list.

Striking those targets would have shut down the Syrian military command system and seriously disrupted its operational capabilities.

A second list of 35 strategic targets was handed to President Obama by Syrian rebel commander Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, according to our sources. Their destruction was described as vital. However, not a single item on the list was approved by the president, the Pentagon on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, reflecting the distrust and disconnect prevailing between the US administration and military, and the Syrian rebel leadership.

5. Our sources say that the US military to-do list for Syria covers army artillery units, some of which participated in the chemical weapons launch of August 21 against eastern Damascus; local command and communications centers; and research institutes involved in the development and upgrade of Syrian chemical weapons.

This heavily pruned US operation, if it goes through, will leave Syrian President Bashar Assad sitting pretty with most of his military resources intact, and his hands free to continue his barbaric war on the Syrian opposition, including the use of chemical weapons, unhindered and undeterred.

It is still possible for President Obama to have second thoughts about his low-key operational plan and decide after all to land a strategic blow on Syria.

Theoretical Syrian Prospects...?

"For the U.S. and Western powers, there is a Syrian opposition that they'd like to see and that doesn't exist. The U.S. knows who it wants to back. It knows what it wants the Syrian opposition to look like. But those groups are only part of a larger, more disperse grouping of opposition."
James Fallon, Middle East Analyst, Control Risks, Dubai

"Uniting the different groups is almost an impossible task. It's going to take many months to shore up one particular part of the opposition and put it in a leadership position and make others rally around it."
Ghanem Nuseibeh, Cornerstone Global Associates, London

Ahmad Aboud/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

The city of Deir al-Zour on Thursday. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was projecting an extended conflict.

According to Mustapha al-Sheikh, one of the first senior officers who defected from the Syrian army, the Syrian rebels are too divided for any effectiveness. Should a Western military attack take place against the regime, the opposition would be incapable of gaining any advantage, significant or otherwise. "The strength of the regime comes from the weakness of the opposition", he explained.

A brigadier-general in the army of President Bashar al-Assad, Mr. al-Sheikh obviously knows of what he speaks. From the perspective of the professionalism of a state army, to the decidedly disadvantaged ranks of the rebels he hopefully joined, then departed from.

There are said to be something in the nature of a thousand disparate rebel groups. There is no co-ordination, no organization, no willingness to act together, no facility for dropping their tribal antagonisms for the greater good of a collective campaign to act in concert to eventually prevail over the professional organization of a well-armed military.

Together, the rebels could have the advantage; in battling the troops for their very existence, for the survival of the country, on behalf of their Sunni civilian counterparts. They lack the will, the enterprise, the vision. They are not entirely lacking assistance, however. Help they had initially acclaimed, welcomed, appreciated; the fully-armed, battle-hardened skills of the Islamists who streamed into Syria.

And who are now intent on saving Syria for themselves, for their own indelible vision of a strict, Sharia-led Salafist state, to be part of a greater concentration of other such dedicated states, and a final supreme, collaborative and dedicated Caliphate. Radical Islamist groups allied with al-Qaeda, jubilant with the creed of Sunni jihadist triumphalism.

So, should the West finally intervene and balance the situation more heavily in favour of the opposition to enable the fall of the Alawite Baathist regime, what then?

"The opposition is dominated by al-Qaeda and other extremists, so it's going to be bad, possibly worse than Assad himself", offers Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, now a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, London.

Syrians frolic in pool in regime-controlled Damascus suburb, Hassan Ammar/The Associated Press

Four Fingers Up

EGYPT, Cairo : Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's ousted president Mohamed Morsi clash with security forces, in Cairo, on August 30, 2013. TOPSHOTS/AFP PHOTO/MOHAMED EL-SHAHED

There's a new symbol. Yellow-painted hands with four fingers extended in an upward position. That symbol even found its way to Parliament Hill a few days back, in Ottawa, Canada, when Brotherhood-supporting Egyptian-Canadians rallied, holding posters of deposed Mohammad Morsi, demanding his return to government and the reinstatement of the Muslim Brotherhood. Among the hundred or so protesters assembled there were upraised hands, four fingers high.

Ottawa's Egyptian community rallied on Parliament Hill on Saturday. The group was protesting the violence against pro-democracy supporters in Egypt following the July 3 military coup. (Chris Hofley/Ottawa Sun)

Post-Friday prayers as the faithful followers of the Brotherhood streamed out onto the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities found similar scenes where yellow posters appeared everywhere. They are printed surreptitiously in small shops specializing in the production of Islamic documents, and the Koran. Little Islamic bookshops no one might suspect, and then the posters were distributed quietly by dedicated youth.

Tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters rallied. Government agents weren't certain where they would gather; this time around, messages of times and places were silently conveyed. In one area where Egyptian intelligence were prepared, erecting barbed wire, furnishing the area with police and security and the presence of army tanks, it became clear they had been tricked, and no protesters appeared there.

Small, discreet groups of as few as three meet in private nightly to debate the form of the protest to be taken, relating to the security situation as it pertains day by day. When they disperse they go to various mosques to relay the decision made to others, through coded telephone calls and text messages, effectively bypassing Egyptian intelligence.

Top Brotherhood leaders, though imprisoned are finding ways to communicate. A rumour was being circulated that the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie has died in prison. The Interior Ministry affirmed in a Saturday statement that he had suffered a heart attack in Tora prison, held there awaiting trial. That he died was firmly denied. His condition is said to be stable, with a team of doctors examining him.

Egyptian security officials have turned for assistance to police officers now retired, whose background in tracking Islamist groups would be invaluable now, in attempting to monitor the Brotherhood activities. With their help former lawmaker Mohammed el-Beltagy, a senior Brotherhood operator had been monitored for several days, evading capture, before he was finally arrested on Thursday.

The protests, not as large in their turnout as previously, although managing to assemble roughly ten thousand in Cairo, were largely peaceful, though some sporadic violence did occur. Security forces fired tear gas at some marches. Angry residents confronted Brotherhood supporters again as they have done previously, threatening violence at the disruptions they were mounting. Six people were confirmed to have been killed nationwide. A policeman was also killed.

Protesters succeeded in what they had set out to do, marching through the streets chanting slogans condemning army chief Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi. "The people want the death of the assassin!", Waving the Egyptian flag and holding aloft yellow posters with the outline of a four-finger-up hand, they chanted their defiance. Egyptians, much like their counterparts elsewhere in the Arab Middle East, are big on demanding death.

Their new symbol is seen everywhere now; online, in street campaigns, to recall the sit-in protest around the Rabaaah al-Adawiya mosque, which translates to Fourth, in Arabic. "When it started, it was only about the return of Morsi to power. Now it has gone past that. Blood has been shed.", explained Ahmed Osama. Again, a not-unusual event in the geography.

Protecting Quebec Values

"We know that the separatist government in Quebec would love to pick fights with Ottawa. But that's not our business. Our business is the economy. Our business is job creation for Canadians -- all Canadians, including Quebecers.
"And our job is social inclusion. Our job is making all groups who come to this country whatever their background, whatever their race, whatever their ethnicity, whatever their religion, feel at home in this country and be Canadians. That's our job.
"You know -- there are all kinds of competing rights; rights of religion, rights of gender equality. We will withhold our comment until we see what exactly is in the proposal. And we will assure ourselves, when we look at that proposal, that the fundamental rights of Canadians are protected."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

The very foundational principles of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms are being challenged by the Parti Quebecois in their intention to pass legislation that would effectively place restrictions on the hiring of public service workers through screening out those whose apparel betray their religious convictions. People living in Quebec respecting their choice of apparel and symbols relating to their religion.

Not simply a choice, but an imperative relating to the very essence of their religion and the cultural-religious attributes defining aspects of that religion. Some people think how quaint it is when they see a religious Jew wearing outlandish clothing; long, black garb and dangling hairpieces over the ears to distinguish men of Orthodox Jewish sects from others, while the women wear wigs and modest clothing.

Their Muslim religious counterparts tend to go them one better with the restrictively over-modest garb of women veiled and voluminously clad. Others find it offensive, inappropriate to a modern society, and deliberately separatist, eschewing homogeneity, embracing social partition. Here is the separatist-yearning government of Quebec, taking umbrage over what they feel are separatist tendencies of minorities/

Sikh headwear covering unbarbered hair and the paraphernalia of largely ornamental knives signifying religious devotion, a skullcap, a headscarf, a crucifix are admittedly less visually intrusive, still identifiable, and presenting little handicap in merging with and accepting the greater social contract within Canada. They represent both moderate and on the other hand, more fundamental symbols of differences between people. Because of their provenance and symbolism, forbidden in the public service.

But they are, for whatever they are worth to the bystander, all protected by laws guaranteeing equality of gender, religion, ideology, ethnicity, culture, heritage and sexual orientation in Canada. Crucifixes,  kippas, hijabs and turbans are all symbols of devotion to faith, of cultural inheritance. Varying geographic sources representing migrations from parts of the world far removed from North America have contributed to the pluralist society that Canada has become, and indeed always has been.

There is some truth to what former Quebec premier Bernard Landry contends, in expanding on the PQ intention: "The rule is, when you change country, you change country. They can't expect to find everything here that they had in their country of origin. Integration is a powerful signal that they need to adjust to a new nation." He speaks, however, in absolutes. And there is nothing whatever simple about human relations, interactions, heritage, custom and religious inheritance.

One of the hallmarks of Canadian values is the general atmosphere of willingness to accept people at the most basic level; we are all human, all have the same basic needs, all share very similar values and emotions, and all humans wish to be accepted. The hard truth is that human nature shrinks from those who present as different than we are. The soft reality is that it is incumbent upon us as decent people to accept those differences that do not impact deleteriously on what we ourselves value.

The PQ's planned proposal to legislatively create two levels of citizenship within the province, to express an outright alienation toward those whose religious customs may offend the secular-oriented values that Quebec largely propounds, will create a democratic social deficit. There are some standards of acceptance that would go well beyond what should be required; a fully burqua-clad teacher in the public school system goes a step too far creating a divisive message by its very unambiguous presence.

Disallowing the appearance of far slighter indications of religious and cultural variations also goes a giant-footprint too far. Canada is a multicultural landscape, even if the concept of official multiculturalism itself has become a social-mediating clunker. If Canadians are truly accepting and as tolerant as they believe themselves to be, the kind of 'accommodation' that it takes to become accustomed to trivial visual variations in personal presentation should not be a shore too far to breach.

“Limited, narrow” US strike on Syria risks leaving Assad's air force and chemical arsenal intact

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 31, 2013, 7:57 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Barack Obama,  Syria,  US military action,  chemical weapons,  Tomahawk cruise missiles,

US Tomahawk cruise missiles

President Barack Obama confirmed Friday night that the forthcoming US military attack on Syria would be “limited” and “narrow” and not open-ended, in a  bid to avoid the risk of America being mired in the Syrian civil war.   

 

DEBKA Weekly’s analysts calculated Thursday that by forgoing an air assault and relegating his projected military operation against Syria solely to seaborne Tomahawk cruise missiles - limited to 15 launches - the US president relinquished America’s “penetration and destruction” capabilities – depending of course on his sticking to this plan and not expanding its scope at the last minute.

The Tomahawk cruise missile has a range of 2,500 kms, weighs 450 kilos and can be fired from the five US destroyers and the four US nuclear submarines waiting in the eastern Mediterranean for orders to go.

However powerful, the exclusive use of this type of missile means that Washington has a priori sacrificed the following military objectives:

1. Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles will remain intact. The Tomahawks can damage surface structures at the bases hosting them, but not penetrate their underground storage sites.
Assad will be left in full possession of his CW arsenal.

2. Neither can Tomahawks alone cripple the Syrian Air Force or shut down its bases. They could damage runways, but only for the hours or days it would take to repair them.

DEBKA Weekly's military sources say that the Syria air force is left with six air bases still operational, out of a total of thirty. A heavier and larger missile onslaught than the limited assault planned could have destroyed them all, given the Syrian rebels a huge advantage and opened the way for a plan to impose no-fly zones over Syrian air space.

But Obama clearly chose to discard those options.

By delaying his go-ahead on military action against Syria, he gave the Assad regime time to tuck most of its air force bombers and attack helicopters away in fortified hangars early this week, safe from attack. As the hours slipped by with US action, the Syrian ruler’s self-confidence mounted.

3. Syrian missiles have likewise been hidden in underground bunkers. They include the Scud C and D missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

4. The big Syrian field command centers will also escape unscathed, although DEBKA Weekly’s military sources report that many of them figure as large as strategic assets on the list of targets which the Pentagon and US military chiefs originally put before the president.

Among them were the command and control centers of the Syrian army’s 4th Division and Republican Guard Division, which protect Bashar Assad and bolster his regime's hold on power.
It is not clear if the military command centers of Homs, Hama, Tartus, Latakia, the Aleppo area and Idlib remain on the final list.

Striking those targets would have shut down the Syrian military command system and seriously disrupted its operational capabilities.

A second list of 35 strategic targets was handed to President Obama by Syrian rebel commander Brig. Gen. Salim Idris, according to our sources. Their destruction was described as vital. However, not a single item on the list was approved by the president, the Pentagon on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey, reflecting the distrust and disconnect prevailing between the US administration and military, and the Syrian rebel leadership.

5. Our sources say that the US military to-do list for Syria covers army artillery units, some of which participated in the chemical weapons launch of August 21 against eastern Damascus; local command and communications centers; and research institutes involved in the development and upgrade of Syrian chemical weapons.

This heavily pruned US operation, if it goes through, will leave Syrian President Bashar Assad sitting pretty with most of his military resources intact, and his hands free to continue his barbaric war on the Syrian opposition, including the use of chemical weapons, unhindered and undeterred.

It is still possible for President Obama to have second thoughts about his low-key operational plan and decide after all to land a strategic blow on Syria.

Reversion + Fear = Terror

"Both the increasing frequency, and statistically the increasing deadliness of [their] co-ordinated nationwide bombings in Iraq underlines the extent of their operational reach and the huge depth of their resources."
Charles Lister, IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center

cbc.ca

Iraq held a brief flirtation with social quiescence, a damping down of the ferociously toxic tribal and sectarian violence unleashed with the absence of the tyrannical fist of Saddam Hussein. Even the presence of a hundred thousand foreign troops stationed there to guide the country back to a semblance of order and good government was incapable of curtailing the madness of blood lust that overtook Shia and Sunni factions intent on destroying one another in 2006/07.

But it did reach a crescendo of carnage and bloodletting. It merely represented sectarian distrust and fear one of the other translating into death, mutilation, horrors. And while it resulted in horrendous blights of human descent into madness, the results did not prove their permanence. The majority Iraqi Sunnis, witnessing the even greater ruthlessness and lack of humanity of the invading al-Qaeda jihadists experienced a revulsion greater than that they held for their Shia national counterparts.

That relative social peace that resulted lasted just about as long as the tripartite governance put in place with the encouragement of the United States was able to function. Until the Shia Prime Minister Nouri Maliki issued a warrant after the departure of the Americans, for the arrest of the Sunni Vice-president under the country's antiterrorism laws.  The Al-Iraqiya parliamentary bloc representing Iraq's Sunnis had already withdrawn from the coalition.

Tariq al-Hashemi had issued his own accusations against Prime Minister Maliki, of abuse of power. He is now a wanted man, finding haven in Qatar. Now the majority Shia who were once repressed under the minority Sunni Baath party of Saddam Hussein who fought a long, destructive and bitter war with Iran, holds the reins of power. And has forged an amiable relationship with Iran. Placing Iraq alongside Syria, though not yet in the same league, within the Shia power bloc.

And as in Syria, al-Qaeda's new affiliate, recently renamed the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is intent on slaughtering Shia Muslim 'heretics' and restoring the country to Sunni rule. The country has been wracked in the last several months with co-ordinated, well-orchestrated car bombings, al-Qaeda's specialty. The odds are looking fairly convincing that the country will be again gripped on bloody sectarian violence, as it experienced in 2006 and 2007.

A traffic policeman thought a car looked suspicious, parked close by a parking lot and alerted everyone on the street: "Car bomb!" Pedestrians responded immediately in a huge panic, not knowing where to run for shelter -- in which direction to rush, while cars turned about in confusion, clogging the streets, and drivers rolled down their car windows in anticipation of glass exploding inside the vehicle from the concussive force of a blast.

And in four minutes the car did explode with a plume of black smoke wending toward the sky. Seven people were killed, over a dozen more injured. This was only one of a dozen explosions within the space of an hour that overtook the country on Wednesday morning. In total several days ago the bombs that struck in mostly Shiite areas killed 74 people. Before that day, in the days previous, ghastly scenes of beheaded bodies were being discovered.

That same Wednesday morning jihadists entered the home of a Shiite family in the Sunni-majority town of Latifiya and slaughtered seven people. Four children and three adults. All the members of that family had been decapitated. Security forces have embarked on operations dubbed "the revenge of the martyrs" in Sunni neighbourhoods. Hundreds of Sunni 'extremists' have been arrested; the government claims a bomb-making factory was discovered.

The rift between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis is marked and steadily widening; while Shia government moves have antagonized the Sunni community, they have barely effected the level of violence erupting through the country. Al-Qaeda's Internet videos of executions they carry out within Iraq have inspired fear and foreboding throughout the country. The 'martyrs' on each side of the equation are set to exact their revenge.

Iraqis now fear that within their own country -- exclusive of the Kurdish autonomous region -- there is no safety to be found; not in the markets, their restaurants, the neighbourhood sport fields; even children's soccer games are vulnerable to becoming targets for the jihadists.

And with the ongoing conflict in Syria, the further influx of refugees from that war-torn country where the atrocities are accelerating, it appears more and more likely that Iraq too will be swept into a cyclone of terror and vengeance killings.

The spreading malignancy of Islamism and its jihadist mentality of hatred and annihilation.

History Simplified for Simpletons

"While a community standard of tolerance may constitute a reasonable limit on offensive advertisements which 'create controversy' is unnecessarily broad ... citizens, including bus riders, are expected to put up with some controversy in a free and democratic society."
Supreme Court of Canada Justice Marie Deschamps

A little bit of controversy never hurt anyone. The issues involved might make people think. They could present as sufficiently intriguing to provoke those interested in pursuing the matter further. In the process instructing themselves about the fine points, the complications, the complex issues involved. And then, fully armed with the well-rounded data they might have retrieved and thought about, they might be in a position to weigh the manner in which the controversy erupted.

That's obviously the best of all possible worlds, when people are interested enough in making themselves knowledgeable about issues that present in a facile manner, condemning one 'side' in a controversy, and in so doing, supporting the alternate side. People are often in a hurry when they make use of public transit, and not particularly inclined to pursue a matter of little interest to them personally; whatever they view is more likely to be accepted at face value.

In Vancouver, TransLink which represents the public transit system and sells advertising space to anyone interested in paying for it, has agreed to permit a special-interest political group to mount their own very special alert to the Canadian people about the situation in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. TransLink has had previous incidents that has made it wary about refusing to host controversial advertisements.

Its previous policies were to prohibit advertising that seemed "likely in the light of prevailing community standards, to cause offence to any person or group of persons or create controversy", and which "advocates or opposes any ideology or political philosophy, point of view, policy or action". Perhaps laudable in a way, but seen by the courts to offend against free speech. And so it was found to have violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Freedom of speech means telling it the way you feel like. After all, if it's there, printed and permitted to be on public view, it obviously represents an issue that someone in presumed authority has studied and is helpfully circulating so that others who haven't the time to make their own search for information can accept. And if like-minded of groups representing the Palestine Awareness Coalition put together a simple-to-absorb and evaluate chart, the casual onlooker is likely to accept it as is.

Unless they, like the coalition itself, have a vested interest or a previous introduction and conclusion that runs counter to what they see in a public venue. They are then free to protest. As have done Jewish groups on the basis that the "Disappearing Palestine" undertaking by the Palestine Awareness Coalition is simplistically insulting, and clearly represents an anti-Israel propaganda bias shaking hands with slander.

What the posters depicting four maps of Israel/Palestinian Territories depict is Palestine in 1946 becoming Israel in 1948, displacing and making hapless refugees of five million Arab Palestinians. The land originally inhabited by Arab Muslims and Christians, and Jews was partitioned by the United Nations to demarcate and separate the original Palestine geography to provide for two sovereign entities; Israel accepted, the Arabs declined.

Six hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs fled or were persuaded to leave, while the remainder stayed and became Israeli citizens and remain so to this day, electing their own Members of the Knesset in a democratic state. Eight hundred thousand Arab Jews were expelled from the Arab/Muslim countries of the Middle East, their properties confiscated, and they were absorbed by Israel, the new Jewish state whose purpose was thus being fulfilled.

Arab countries of the Middle East preferred not to absorb the Palestinians, although the Palestinians absorbed Lebanon, after attempting to do so with Jordan. The generational issue of the original refugees are said now to number about five million; their procreative abilities not hindered by their long-standing refugee status, special and unique within the United Nations. The state that the Palestinians grieve to own, sits as well on the geography where Israel exists.

That is the map that the Palestine Awareness Coalition prefers not to notice.


The fact that the Palestinian Authority regularly publishes maps, including those used for their school curricula, where the State of Israel does not exist, but over the entire area is the state nomenclature of Palestine, is of course another issue altogether. One that begs the question of the sincerity of the Palestinians in bargaining for peace and a country of their own to sit alongside that of Israel, in amity and co-operation.


Their version of a viable map is one that makes the State of Israel invisible, it has completely disappeared, no more, gone, an illusion and the Nakba a bad dream that has finally concluded.
 

Democratic Deficit = Housing Deficit

"We suspect that a substantial number of band councils do not make a reasonable effort to recognize and guarantee voting rights to their off-reserve members. I'm sad for the people who were not able to vote in the election. They've been denied their fundamental right of enfranchisement.
"It's gotten to the point now that something has to be done. This is about a fundamental point of law."
Betty-Ann Lavallee, National Chief, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples

Her appeal to the Attawapiskat band council to postpone their band council election scheduled for Wednesday was simply ignored. Similar appeals by band members located outside the Attawapiskat reserve, were also set aside as negligible and intrusive to band affairs as administered by the current chief, Theresa Spence, and her band of councillors.

The election violated the Supreme Court of Canada's decision made in 1999 holding that all members of a First Nation are entitled to participate in band elections whether they live on- or off-reserve. This is what democracy, after all, means. Participation by the people. Disallowing that participation is an offence against democratic principles. Ignoring or setting aside the decision by the Supreme Court is supremely insulting apart from being illegal.

Yet, according to Ms. Lavallee, Attawapiskat is not the only reserve that prefers to make up its own rules. To rule out, for example, the utility of accepting mail-in votes from those members of reserves who happen not to live on the reserve or are temporarily absent. Reasonable opportunities for all band members to add their concerned voice to the affairs of the band and the reserve are simply ignored as triflingly irrelevant.

And in Attawapiskat itself band members who live on reserve must carefully conserve their resentment, not voice it where it could be overheard to their detriment, lest they then be disadvantaged, as they fear and as experience has taught them, as punishment for opposing the powers that be. Those attempting to unseat the unsatisfactory incumbents know full well they leave themselves vulnerable to exploitive oppression.

Attawapiskat's registered population numbers 3,351 people. Roughly half of that number live off-reserve. As matters developed, the election took place as scheduled and those not able to cast their votes directly at the reserve were simply out of luck. No alternatives had been arranged on their behalf; they had to attend or not vote, despite inconvenience and cost related to brief return to the reserve for the purpose of the vote.

And, surprise! Out of fewer than 500 votes cast, approximately half that number went to Chief Spence. She has been re-elected, her band council re-elected, and they are back in business. The unsolved issue of disappearing millions unaccounted for remains but that too is irrelevant. And to divert attention from the unfortunate lapse from democratic values Chief Spence is once again reverting to her previous stance, demanding more funds from the federal government.

The band's emergency state of insufficient and inadequate dwellings for its members, and dwellings of inferior quality requiring repair, it appears, is not the responsibility of the band council to use the funding allocated to it for that purpose wisely and without diverting the funds to other purposes, but that of the general taxpayer of Canada who must see the need to continue increasing funding.

The band's large numbers of unemployed depend on the kindly compassion of workers in the rest of Canada upping their contributions so that they may be able to live decent and comfortable lives. That compassion is born of historical guilt and the manipulation of leaders like Therese Spence who trade honour and dignity, honesty and competence for usury and deceit.

Syria chemical weapons attack killed 1,429, says John Kerry

BBC News online -- 30 August 2013

John Kerry: "We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas"

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Syrian government forces killed 1,429 people in a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week.

Mr Kerry said the dead included 426 children, and described the attack as an "inconceivable horror".
Shortly afterwards, President Barack Obama said the Syrian chemical attack threatened US national security interests.
He said the US was considering a "limited narrow act".

The government of President Bashar al-Assad has denied carrying out last week's attack and blames rebel forces.

Analysis

Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent

Mr Kerry's speech was a clear and powerful statement of the rationale for military action against Syria. The focus was placed entirely upon deterring the Syrian authorities from ever using chemical weapons again. This was neither an intervention in the civil war nor an attempt to topple the Assad regime.
Mr Kerry sought to convince a US public that is tired of war that it was Washington's responsibility to act. The message was that there would be no need to wait for the UN inspectors' report; he insisted the report would tell Americans nothing they didn't know already.
The stage is set for action. While no final decision has yet been taken to strike, it may only be a matter of days.

UN chemical weapons inspectors are investigating the alleged poison-gas attacks and will present preliminary findings to the UN after they leave Damascus on Saturday. 

But Mr Kerry said the US already had the facts, and nothing that the UN weapons inspectors found could tell the world anything new.

He said that any response would not involve the US in a protracted conflict like Iraq or Afghanistan.
The US government earlier published an assessment of its intelligence, saying this information was backed by accounts from medical personnel, witnesses and journalists, videos and thousands of social media reports.

He said the evidence showed 1,429 people had been killed and that regime forces had prepared for the attack three days earlier.

"We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas and landed only in opposition-held areas," he said.

"All of these things we know, the American intelligence community has high confidence."

Mr Kerry called Mr Assad "a thug and a murderer" but said any response by the US would be carefully measured to avoid open-ended commitments.

The UN Security Council is unlikely to approve any military intervention because permanent member Russia is a close ally of the Syrian government, and has vetoed two previous draft resolutionsy

Analysis

David Kay Weapons expert, ex-Iraq Survey Group

There is no doubt that a chemical weapons attack took place but not such a compelling case on who did it. The evidence tying this attack directly to the Assad regime was largely circumstantial and asserted - not revealed.
What we would like are the details of the conversations, who carried them out and the background. This is one of the conundrums of intelligence - the reluctance of the people who collect it to reveal in detail what they collected because of the fear of loss of sources and methods.
Another key element missing is why is this important to US national security and important enough where we would consider a military attack because doubts persist in the US about why we should do this. About 100,000 died before from conventional munitions and we did nothing.
And Kerry did not in the same compelling fashion that he laid the chemical attack at the regime's feet explain why he was certain that a US military attack would bring the Syrian regime to the negotiating table.

The US was also dealt a blow on Thursday when the UK parliament rejected a motion supporting the principle of military intervention.

The vote rules the UK out of any potential military alliance.

However, US officials said they would continue to push for a coalition, and France said it was ready to take action in Syria alongside the US.
President Francois Hollande said the UK vote made no difference to France's position.
"Each country is sovereign to participate or not in an operation. That is as valid for Britain as it is for France," he said.

He said that if the UN Security Council was unable to act, a coalition would form including the Arab League and European countries.
"France will be part of it. France is ready," he said.

He ruled out strikes while the UN inspectors were in Syria. However he did not rule out the possibility that military action could be taken before next Wednesday, when the French parliament is due to debate the issue.
Neither France nor the US need parliamentary approval for action.

The use of chemical weapons is banned under several treaties, and is also considered illegal under customary international humanitarian law.

Key US intelligence findings

• US estimates the alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August killed 1,429 people, including 426 children
• Assesses with "high confidence" that Syrian government carried out the attack against opposition elements
• Laboratory analysis from victims of the incident revealed exposure to the nerve agent, sarin
• Assesses it is "highly unlikely" that opposition forces executed the attack
• Assesses with "high confidence" that Syrian government has carried out multiple chemical weapons attacks on a small scale this year
• Assesses the opposition has not used chemical weapons

The Syrian army is known to have stockpiles of chemical agents including sarin gas.

Earlier accounts of the attack in Damascus quoted officials from medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres as saying 355 people had been killed.
Opposition sources later claimed more than 1,000 people had died.

The UN inspectors have collected various samples that will now be examined in laboratories across the world.
The UN team is not mandated to apportion blame for the attacks.

In another development on Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - a vocal opponent of the Syrian government - said limited intervention in Syria "wouldn't be satisfactory".
Speaking at a reception in Ankara, he said any action should be more like the international intervention over Kosovo in 1999.

Despite the lack of a UN resolution, the US and UK supported more than 70 days of air strikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to protect civilians from further attacks in Kosovo.
The Obama administration is reportedly studying the Nato-led military campaign as a potential precedent for intervention without a specific UN mandate.

More than 100,000 people are estimated to have died since the conflict erupted in Syria in March 2011, and the conflict has produced at least 1.7 million refugees.

Forces which could be used against Syria:
• Four US destroyers - USS Gravely, USS Ramage, USS Barry and USS Mahan - are in the eastern Mediterranean, equipped with cruise missiles. The missiles can also be fired from submarines, but the US Navy does not reveal their locations
• Airbases at Incirlik and Izmir in Turkey, and in Jordan, could be used to carry out strikes
• Two aircraft carriers - USS Nimitz and USS Harry S Truman are in the wider region
• French aircraft carrierCharles de Gaulle is currently in Toulon in the western Mediterranean
• French Raffale and Mirage aircraft can also operate from Al-Dhahra airbase in the UAE

Syria: Napalm-Like Burns After School Attack

Shocking video emerges after an apparent fire-bomb attack leaves students with injuries that may have been caused by Napalm.

12:30pm UK, Friday 30 August 2013 -- Sky News

Video: Awful Burns After School Bombing

People suffering from Napalm-like burns have been speaking of an attack in which a plane apparently dropped an incendiary bomb on students in Syria.

Video said to be from the town of Urum al Kubra, close to Aleppo, shows a man reported to be a school teacher, who says the students were attacked as they tried to escape from an attack nearby.
"The plane hit a residential area in Urum al Kubra," he explains.

"We tried to get out quickly so we don't get hurt, but it seems someone's fate caught up with them today.

"A gathering of students formed, which is normal as the students needed to leave under these circumstances, and the plane hit us."

The injuries were like those caused by Napalm, according to doctors

The video, posted on the internet, is said to have come from an account associated with a rebel group in Aleppo.

In another video filmed in the aftermath of the attack, a doctor reports seven deaths and 50 injuries - and says the burns resembled Napalm injuries.
However, the use of the substance has not been confirmed.

A BBC television crew who witnessed the bombing reported no shrapnel injuries and said the victims resembled "the walking dead".

Napalm is not classified as an outlawed chemical weapon although it can cause devastating burn injuries.

UN chemical weapons inspectors will end their Syria mission by the weekend

Infamously used in the Vietnam War - as well as the Second World War - the jelly-like substance sticks to skin and burns at very high temperatures.

A United Nations convention prohibits using incendiary weapons against civilians, or against military targets located near civilian populations.

The pictures of the school attack emerged after MPs voted against military action over alleged chemical weapons gas attacks by the Syrian regime.

Some have described the outcome as a "humiliation" for the government and means the US may have to go ahead alone with any military strikes.

Speaking to Sky News, former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown said the vote had left him "ashamed" and said it was vital to act to stop attacks on innocent civilians.

The UK is "shrugging its shoulders" at the attack, says Paddy Ashdown

"In more than 50 years of trying to serve my country in one form or another, I don't think I have ever felt more depressed this morning or more ashamed.

"I now am condemned to watch those children burn in that schoolhouse yesterday and be a country that shrugs its shoulders and says 'nothing to do with me'."

White House ready for solo strike on Syria as US allies and influence fade

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis August 30, 2013, 11:00 AM (IDT)

Tags:  Barack Obama,  Britain,  David Cameron,  Syrian war,  chemical weapons,  NATO,

Barack Obama faces Syrian crisis

The shock Thursday, Aug. 29, of Britain’s David Cameron parliamentary defeat – thereby knocking America’s foremost partner out of the coming strike against Syria – highlighted public opposition to the operation in America and criticism in the top US military command. 

 

The White House hastened to stress that America, while still interested in engaging allies, was ready to act unilaterally without UN or allied support.

Nonetheless, the Syrian conflict after nearly three years continues to be covered in confusion, much of it generated by the Obama administration’s conflicting policies.

After resolute condemnation of the Assad regime’s “heinous crime” of using chemical weapons against its people, the president opted for a low-key, practically painless military strike against Syria. The Syria ruler would be able to wave his hands in a gesture of victory, followed by Vladmir Putin. Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would say, I told you so, the United States is a paper tiger and will never attack our nuclear program.

By voting for opposition Labor’s motion against UK involvement in military action in Syria, the British parliament not only shattered Obama’s multinational coalition for Syria; it struck at the heart of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), the historic bulwark of Western security since the last world war.

The alliance’s fortunes have faded progressively under the vacillating foreign and security polices of President Barack Obama.

In 2009, the US president announced a new policy direction that would henceforth hinge on a “tilt to the East.” It was followed by America’s untidy military exit from Iraq and fumbles in Afghanistan leaving both countries prey to the havoc of bloody sectarian warfare.

His refusal to acknowledge the menacing spread of al Qaeda was compounded by his muddled approach to the Arab Revolt : While endorsing the overthrow of two autocrats, Mubarak and Qadafi, he conducted a hands-off policy for the most bloodthirsty tyrant of the Arab world, Bashar Assad, and Iran’s hired terrorist chief, Hassan Nasrallah.

In the Middle East, Obama insisted that the US and the West stay out of the region’s affairs. While advising its leaders, including Israel’s, not to depend on America, he demanded their obedience at the same time.

In the Syrian crisis, Obama is reaping the harvest of his inconsistent foreign policies, which can no longer be papered over with fine speeches.  The fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which he championed as the epitome of Islamic moderation, shattered US influence in the region and placed it at a hazardous crossroads, while his tepid military plans for Bashar Assad have resulted in the sounding NATO’s death knell.

The half-hearted military operation against Syria, due to be launched in the coming days, and its muddled objectives, may finally close the book on the current chapter of US history in the Middle East – even if it successful.

The world will be left rubbing its eyes in amazement at the achievement of one individual, president Barack Obama of the USA, in smashing American influence in this sensitive region and Europe in the space of a few short years.

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s political future is in grave doubt after the House of Commons withheld endorsement from the government’s policy of participation in a US-led strike on Syria. Parliament voted 285 in favor to 272 against, with 30 members of his own Conservative party and 9 of his coalition partner, the Liberals, crossing the line and voting with the Labor opposition against the government.

Cameron may be just the first victim among Western and Middle East leaders who opted to toe Obama’s wavering line and continually shift around their national interests.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is fond of saying his policies are “responsible and balanced.” This mostly translates into inaction or procrastination on such vital issues as Iran’s nuclear aspirations and Hizballah’s massive buildup of rockets.

But now, Khamenei, Assad and Nasrallah will be buoyed up by America’s loss of allied support and more likely than not make good on their threats, heard repeatedly in the past week, to destroy Israel once and for all. It won’t be enough to keep on intoning solemnly that Israel is not involved in the Syrian conflict – which no one believes anyway. Netanyahu will have to start looking squarely at the perils just around the corner and move proactively.

The Very Face of Celestial Benevolence

"We were talking about Hezbollah, Hezbollah has social military, political, different branches within Hezbollah We were talking about the military branch. You know, The Resistance."
Said Harb, North Carolina Hezbollah-support cell

"Our numbers are increasing day after day, and we are getting better and our training is becoming better and we are becoming more confident in our future and more armed. And if someone is betting that our weapons are rusting, we tell them that every weapon that rusts is replaced."
"We will never let go of our arms. We consider our arms like blood flowing in our veins."
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File). FILE - In this August

2, 2013, file photo, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah speaks during a rally to mark Jerusalem day or Al-Quds day, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.

Hezbollah, the Party of God terrorist group that holds Lebanon in thrall within its malign, very well weaponized presence, has a significant presence elsewhere. Actually almost anywhere; Europe, North America, Australia and specifically Canada. When Mohammad Hussein al Husseini was arrested in Canada and interviewed by Canadian security officials he supplied very interesting information on Hezbollah's violence abroad and on their activities within Canada.

"Hezbollah", he assured his questioners before he was deported, "has members in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto - in all of Canada." He was capable of providing Canadian authorities with information relating to the cigarette and weapons smuggling benefiting Hezbollah through its criminal activities meant to further the advances of Hezbollah in the Middle East and elsewhere if the Canadian authorities were interested in a trade; information for a deal.

What was revealed was names, of those who operated the Canadian part of Hezbollah's funding and procurement network. Materials were sought and procured for Hezbollah. They indulged in credit card and bank fraud to partially cover the cost of items procured for Hezbollah. The network purchased battlefield items and smuggled them into Lebanon.

Commander James Campbell, formerly with U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency, a counterterrorism intelligence officer, cited night-vision devices (goggles, cameras and scopes), surveying equipment, global positioning systems (watches and aviation antennae), mine and metal detection equipment, camera and video equipment, advanced aircraft analysis and design software and computer equipment.

An extensive shopping list of vital must-have items to ensure that the terrorist group didn't run short of useful tools pursuing assassination attempts in the larger international community, or guerrilla-type activities closer to home. Wherever, in fact, their major sponsor the Islamic Republic of Iran ordered them to focus their attention. Since Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel, the procurement program had a certain urgency; to replenish its weapons stocks.

Missiles were provided by Iran and Syria. Small arms and ammunition and shoulder-fired rockets and dual-use items procured through Hezbollah procurement networks. Raising funds through criminal activities in Europe and North America and expending those funds in aid of advancing the program of Shia Islamism prepared to assert itself as the truly meaningful Islamist power usurping the conceits of Sunni Islamists.

Hezbollah agent Mohammad Dbouk indicted in U.S. federal court under Operation Smokescreen was trained by Iran as "an intelligence specialist and propagandist [who] was dispatched to Canada by Hezbollah for the express purpose of obtaining surveillance equipment", according to information collected by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Located first in Montreal and then Vancouver, later in Detroit.

A treasured member of Hezbollah, who, wishing to dedicate himself as a blessed martyr to the cause was instructed instead to continue his invaluable procurement and propaganda work. Now sadly incarcerated in an American prison where he was quoted as having said: "...he did not care about anything and was committed to securing all the items for the brothers at any cost; he was attempting to avoid going to hell and secure a place in heaven by so doing."

Granting such a sincere desire shouldn't really be all that difficult...  But then western justice doesn't lend itself to capital punishment outside trial and jury judgement, alas.

Ensuring Harmony

Repressive societies clamp down hard, mercilessly so on the minorities among them. Those minorities have scant status; occasionally denied citizenship, and whose presence is tolerated, nothing more. They are the oppressed, the wary, aware that the future promises them little but they endure for there is little much else they can do. The tyranny of the majority in most countries of the world provides scant comfort for the minorities living among them.

But those are mostly in traditional have-not countries, economically emerging countries, socially and technologically backward countries. Countries all too often where religion itself plays a huge part in stifling equality. In such countries minorities may not speak their own language. The language of the majority is required to be spoken. A minority religion, culture and heritage is forbidden to be valued, celebrated, respected and practised.

Those draconian language laws forbidding the use of languages not approved by totalitarian governments represent the most backward of global communities. Religions that must be practised in secret because they are deemed illegal in a country ruled by a tyrant withholding such privileges from those he rules represent a social and lifestyle stricture that many people in many countries are familiar with.

Just as well that North America is so removed from such oppressive tactics whereby human nature is given free reign to impose restrictions upon the vulnerable. So it is strange indeed that within Canada a province that prides itself on its culture, heritage, language and uniqueness as a nation, forbids the use of a language other than their own, other than within special circumstances.

Canada, after all, is a country dedicated to the egalitarian ideal, to freedom of religion, thought, communication, gender orientation. A country that goes out of its way to encourage diversity. A country that guarantees under the law freedom from persecution on the basis of religion, ethnicity, gender, ideology, culture or any other human social variable.

Within Canada the Province of Quebec, however, sees itself as a country dedicated to a vision of cohesive monotony; harmony in the social sphere with everyone acceding to laws demanding that French be spoken, given prominence and respect above all others; the linguistic commerce and communication tool of first choice through legislation.

Children may not be educated in English without some very precise qualifications. The English-language school board in Montreal is facing a dilemma whose "main enemy is the Quebec language laws", according to one of its representatives. Their enrolment has been steadily declining, threatening the very existence and future viability of their schools. Most English-language school boards in Quebec see increasingly fewer students altogether.

The provincial association cites a drop of over 150,000 students since the 1970s. Simply put, the province's parochial outlook and xenophobic horror of English swamping French has ensured that French would thrive and English would shrivel in its use; not by popular public choice, but by legislated decree. "We're not getting enough new oxygen into our system", said the president of the Quebec English School Boards Association.

Its very existence is under threat of eventually disappearing. Bill 104, following on the province's original restrictive language bill 101 that caused a mass exodus of Anglophone Quebecers from the province into Canada's other welcoming provinces, was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada. but even this was ineffective in halting the bleeding of English-language educational opportunities.

Canada itself is an officially bilingual country. Where numbers dictate, French is available to all who demand to be served in the language of their choice. Respect is given to French, even by those who are monolingual, viewing it as one of the founding languages of the country. In Quebec there is no respect whatever for English; signage, documents, translations, English-speakers are not readily available; not on highways, in hospitals or other public institutions meant to serve the entire community.

A strange social anomaly within a province which imperiously evokes its right to respect and recognition of its presence within Canada as a unique community, a nation unto itself, a culture and a history and a language apart from any other, proud of its heritage and determined that those outside the province must acknowledge all of that, and more.

Shared Respect, Accommodation, Commitment

"The current government recognized the existence of this fiscal problem and initiated a series of new policies to reduce it.
"The economic performance of recent immigrants is substantially below that of other Canadians."
"...large-scale" immigration since late 2980 raises "serious concerns" on the effects on "Canadian culture, religious tolerance and national security."
Economist Herb Grubel, Fraser Institute

Once a caucus colleague of Prime Minister Stephen Harper when both were elected in the 1993 election to represent the Reform Party of Canada as Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, Mr. Grubel, now with the Fraser Institute has produced a report emphasizing the cost to Canada of absorbing huge numbers of immigrants, representing roughly a quarter of a million annually.

After accounting for all received data and synthesizing it, his major recommendation is that the sponsorship of parents and grandparents be phased out in favour of an employer-driven formula for the purpose of attracting economic immigrants.

He points out as well that the average income of immigrants and refugees remains at 70% in total income of that of other Canadians. Consequently immigrants pay just over half of the taxes that other Canadians submit through taxation to be absorbed in general revenues.

Universal social benefits accruing to immigrants ranging from education, health and welfare, language training and other "public goods" are largely paid for by the general population. While taking slightly more of social benefits than the general population, immigrants are incapable of paying their share of the taxes that support them.

That poor performance is attributed in part to refugees and parents/grandparents not requiring to pass economic independence tests.

The tests used by government for economic migrants to assess whether they might fulfill Canada's needs while Canada fulfills theirs ensures that a certain level of education, training and language proficiency has been attained for immigration suitability. The categories of refugee and family sponsorship bypasses those requirements.

And even though in the instance of family sponsorships the sponsor is required to guarantee support, often that commitment falls through.

Lina, Bryan and Maria Abril sing O'Canada after being sworn in as Canadian citizens during a ceremony in Thorold on June 14. The three siblings moved to Canada from Ecuador with their father, Eddy, five years ago. (JEFF BLAY/Thorold Niagara News)

Mr. Grubel estimates that net transfers to immigrants who arrived between 1970 and 2004 amounted to $6,051 annually, for a total each year of $20-billion in cost to government and tax-payers. Other economists like Mohsen Javdani and Krishna Pendakur of Simon Fraser University take issue with those figures; their study argued that net transfer to immigrants during that period amounted to $450 per person, about $2-billion a year.

Either way, immigration is costly. And the numbers that are admitted annually are huge, far outstripping numbers that any other country introduces into their geography. Temporary foreign workers and refugee claimants increase the immigration numbers of 250,000+ upwards fairly significantly. Canadians, according to Mr. Grubel, should be able to debate the question of how many people should logically be permitted to migrate to Canada on an annual basis.

Canada has a relatively modest population size, particularly for its geographic space, the second largest on the globe. With a population of 35-million, growth figures of one million every four years seems rather excessive. Introducing a million new immigrants to Canada every four years represents a massive influx in a relatively short period of time. Adjustment, absorption, melding into the framework of an entirely different culture takes time.

Canada's vaunted multiculturalism system which respects the transfer of heritage, custom, religion and culture reflects the values of a free and open, egalitarian society. But bringing in all those qualities wholesale, and by this process encouraging not cohesiveness and the need for immigrants to fit themselves into the values and culture of a welcoming country, results in encouraging alienating group clusters, separate and apart from the mainstream.
This too requires a full conversation between Canadians.

Former immigration minister Jason Kenney famously introduced numerous reforms to the immigration system in an effort to improve the quality of skilled migrants to Canada. At the same time focusing on fraud, improving the efficiency of the processing machinery, and reducing the numbers of refugee claims that were clearly bogus in nature.

Obviously, there is much work yet to be done to ensure the formula of Canada welcoming new citizens and new citizens welcoming the opportunity to begin new lives of opportunity and equality requires a two-sided effort of mutual respect, accommodation and commitment.