Oil has been discovered in the waters around the Falklands. This has revived the decades-old conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom, both of which claim the islands – and this time the rest of Latin America is united behind Argentina. Will we see the developed world unite behind England?

Given the realities of peak oil, finding more is a good thing. However, as oil becomes more and more precious as the supply dwindles – and as foolish Western governments have failed to prepare for – the potential for conflict becomes very high indeed. The United States has a massive military presence in the Middle East to protect its “national interests” there, and the United Kingdom is likely to take the same view of any oil discovered anywhere they can make any sort of claim to.
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Galbraith & Kennedy: A chance encounter that almost changed the course of history? Photo Credit: CBC-TV

President John F. Kennedy has been dead for nearly 50 years. Yet his memory still shines brightly for many people. This is in large part because he was an attractive, charismatic leader in his day and because he did not grow old with us. Despite numerous attempts by revisionist historians to disparage his reputation, there are huge numbers of people around the world who still hold him in high esteem. Although tarnished slightly, for the general public, JFK’s place among the pantheon of American heroes is secure.

In my view, John F. Kennedy was in some ways a mediocre President. His pursuit of lascivious pleasures and his opinion of the opposite sex would have risked huge embarrassment in today’s politically correct culture. His legislative record of passing laws was dismal. His domestic policies were often not as brilliant and as progressive as our faulty memories would suggest. In the private arena of the White House, he was not always the calm, well-mannered individual his spin doctors made him out to be.
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The last several weeks have seen the development of the Afghan detainee story unfold in multifaceted directions.  First we had the testimony of senior level bureaucrat Richard Colvin, whom after serving a stint in Afghanistan and numerous other positions as an overseas diplomat and being “promoted” to the top intelligence position representing Canada in the United States, comes before the Special Committee on the Afghanistan Mission and describes what some of us had already known: torture is going on in Afghanistan. Several international organizations have already reported that the NDS (National Directorate of Security) was torturing or allowing the torture of detainees handed over by Canadian soldiers. Colvin places this on a backdrop of poor documentation and negligent attention to warnings from him to the Canadian government and senior military officials.

Upon confrontation in the house the government has switched their stance on this issue numerous times. They began by saying that there were no allegations of torture and, at least at first, lambasted Colvin as a rogue bureaucrat who could not be trusted. This wouldn’t have sat well with the always micromanaging Stephen Harper, whom I’m sure doesn’t want the opposition to get a foothold on anything, and the frame quickly changed from criticizing Colvin, to criticizing the credibility of the reports and not the person. This shifted again when Harper came back to referring to Colvin’s reports for a period of eighteen months as mere “evaluations.” In my honest opinion, this constant reframing of the governments narrative calls into question the complicity of senior PMO officials, ministers and even the Prime Minister. There are simply too many questions left unanswered here. We know that the Liberal Government signed a transfer agreement some weeks before losing the election in 2006/2007, but what about before then? What kind of agreement was in place before the Conservatives took power? I think a full scale inquiry dating back to the beginning of the war and our operations in Afghanistan is necessary so we can have a proper examination of the level of accountability that existed in regards to the transfer of detainees.
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In response to North Korea’s recent rocket launch, Barack Obama spoke in Prague and gave those in attendance a dandy piece of fiction: a world without nuclear arms. Imagine that. I can’t conceive how the United States, the most powerful country with nuclear arms, even attempts to spearhead a project of this magnitude. I find it ironic that the most nuclear dependant country in the world is championing an anti-nuclear arms cause. This is full of contradictions. The Americans didn’t win the Cold War because they flipped better burgers.

Barack even conceded that a nuclear free world will probably not even occur in our life time. Why champion this cause? More brownie points I suppose. It’s what they want to hear, and not what we need to happen. There are more important problems to solve such as Iraq, the economy and even the Russian territorial claims. Our world is too dependant on nuclear arms as a deterrent than ever before. At least it was simple before. In the Cold War, it was us or them. Now, there is a baker’s dozen worth of nations competing for nuclear supremacy. North Korea has nuclear technologies! Doesn’t this frighten anyone? If this really worried anyone, they should have done something about it when they had the chance. If we want to decrease the amount of nuclear arms, why don’t we make an effort to stop these rogue nations?

Why hasn’t Barack Obama learned to love the bomb yet? We need it on our side. You’d think all those years of Cold War indoctrination would have gotten to him. Apparently not. Perhaps the American government has moved onto death-ray technologies? I hope so.

As the Canadian death toll in Afghanistan increases and days tick off the calendar, the more that the parallels between the conflict in Afghanistan and the Vietnam War are apparent.

The most notable parallel comes in Canada’s role as a preventative body against the proliferation of terrorist organizations across the Middle East and into the Western World. Canada’s emphasis on preventative action clearly parallels Eisenhower’s Domino Theory, the basis of preventative action in relation to the spread of Communism, as it applies to the War on Terror.
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The militarization of the drug war (and other issues) has been a grave mistake and has caused the deaths of millions of innocent men, women and children throughout the world.

This reality serves only a small group of men and women whose job it is to manufacture weapons of war–at the expense of the other 95 percent of the world’s population.

If the pen is mightier than the sword (and corrupt politicians) then I suggest the United Nations use their collective pen to create a Pathway to Peace, namely:

1. Eliminate the prohibition of drugs
2. Legislate a prohibition on weapons of war

What would that look like…
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