Plight of the Lebanese Canadians

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by wblakey

I am still amazed that none of you seem to be able to see the human tragedy in all of this.
SO strange how you try and put forth things that I never said .
Where did I say that I was not concerned about the human tragedy...

As for Steve, I was taught that respect has to be earned. When he has earned my respect I'll give it to him. Until then it is Steve and his buddy Dubya with their other buddy Bliar.

.I must be missing something where does the elected leader's of our countries have appease you to gain their respect .
Respect was what MY PARENTS taught me from when I was a baby.
You continue to show disrespect for the leaders of our countries .
I am sorry for you it is too bad you lack the ability show respect for those who have earned it .
This attitude only furthers many of todays difficulties through out the world.
You should be glad you are in a country where you at least are able to show your true feelings.

Roy Cooke Sr.

[wblakey]

OK let me get this straight... I should respect people whose answer to conflict is to kill people... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by wblakey

OK let me get this straight... I should respect people whose answer to conflict is to kill people... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

No I think you lack the ability to show respect to any one .
Life is so short it is too bad that you seem to be so full of disrespect .
No where have I said I agree or disagree with the decisions being made by our leaders.
They most certainly have more knowledge and staff to help them make difficult decisions.
Many decisions they have to make are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.
Some good some not so good.
I do not know many things they do, and I try not to make difficult decisions till I can get more of the story.
Life treats me well and I enjoy every minute of every day and know when I leave I will not have pleased every one but I will also have had a great time while I was here with very few regrets.

. 56 EH! " Originally Posted by wblakey
At 56 I am not that much different in age than our fearless leader, " Like me you are able now to get the seniors discount and are on the down hill run of life , Hope you too can enjoy it ,I do. Roy Cooke Sr

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

: OH! THE INDIGNITY OF IT ALL

A little gratitude would be nice

HMMM? some food for thought.

Whiners: Find your own way out ofBeirut:
After being rescued from war zone,a little gratitude would be nice
The Edmonton Journal
Fri 21 Jul 2006

Aw, the boat ride was too long, was it? And you say it was too hot?
There was no doctor on board, either? And the departure was delayed. And the port was chaotic.
And too little food and water had been laid in.
And some of you had to sleep on the floor!?

Oh, the indignity of it.

To listen to the whining and carping of many of the 261 Canadians rescued
from Beirut on the first day of the evacuation from Lebanon, you would think
they had just been returned to port from an ocean cruise that went terribly
wrong, instead of being saved from a war zone.

Tuesday, the Crown Princess, a Princess Cruises ship, suddenly listed to
port in heavy seas off the coast of Florida. The promenade deck almost
submerged. Stairwells "became waterfalls." The casino and gift shop below
decks were flooded. The main dining room had to be turned into a triage ward as more than 200 of the 3,100 passengers on board were injured by the sudden tilt; 94 had to be taken off for hospitals on shore.

By contrast, no passengers on the first Canadian rescue ship were injured.
The worst that happened was a few threw up.

And, yet, the grousing and moaning on the Crown Princess did not equal that
of the evacuees from Lebanon when they reached Cyprus early Thursday
morning. Some even cursed at the Canadian diplomats who greeted them.
One woman from Montreal described the trip as "hell;" not the war, but
rather her tax-paid voyage to freedom. After all, it had taken 15 hours
instead of seven. Twice their ship, the Blue Dawn, had been stopped by the
Israeli navy to ensure it was not hostile.
Imagine that. Stopping a ship in a war zone to see whether it is friend or
foe. How rude!
And the griping doesn't end with those Ottawa has already plucked from the
suddenly very hot zone in south Lebanon. Others still awaiting evacuation
complain that our embassy in Beirut has not dealt with them fast enough.
Their e-mails have gone unanswered, their phone calls meet with a busy
signal. If they present themselves in person, there are long lines in the
hot sun to meet a Foreign Affairs official face-to-face.

There aren't hotel rooms for them all. The waiting rooms are inadequate for
the numbers wanting to leave. Embassy staff will not give precise departure
times.
No kidding.
We're not talking about the returns desk at Wal-Mart the day
after Christmas.

A staff of two dozen, who normally deal with a few thousand inquiries a year
are suddenly swamped with 2,000 or 3,000 people demanding to be saved - Now!
In a city that no longer has a functioning airport.
Where fighter-bombers frequently scream overhead. Air raids do tend to disrupt the flow of things.
It's a wonder our government managed, at all, to find seven underused cruise ships it could lease on such short notice.

On the first day that any country was able to get its citizens out by boat,
we managed to rescue 261.
The British got out just 170 of their people.
TheFrench, who have a fleet of warships patrolling the Mediterranean, could
manage just 180.

Thursday, we rescued another 1,375.
And thereafter, we should be able to extract 700 to 1,000 swearing, muttering ingrates each day, either to Cyprus or Turkey.
But just wait until they get to safe ports and find out they have
several-day waits ahead of them until they can be airlifted - again at
taxpayers' expense - to Canada.

When told she might have to sit put in Cyprus for a few days until a jet
ride could be arranged, and that while she waited she would have to find and pay for her own hotel and meals, one of the first evacuees complained that the government had not already taken care of such things.
Whatever happened to personal responsibility? To simple gratefulness?
I don't expect the rescued Canadians to bow down and kiss the feet of our
diplomats when they arrive on safe soil. But why is it too much to expect
they might be thankful simply for being extracted from a danger zone,
regardless of how uncomfortably?

They remind me of the Canadian and British antiwar activists extracted by
commandos earlier this year from months of captivity in Iraq, who rather
than saying thank you criticized the rescuers for using force to free them.

Wouldn't you be grateful to be rescued from Lebanon right now even if you
and your family had to ride out in the fish hold of a trawler for a few days?

And yes it does matter that many of those complaining are Canadians of
convenience. They hold Canadian passports, but have dual citizenship in
Lebanon and have not been much interested in Canada for years until their
real home country started getting dangerous.

There is a simple solution to this carping. The boats have to go back to
Beirut for more evacuees. Anyone who profanes a Canadian worker or whines
about conditions on the free boat gets put back on board and returned to
Lebanon where they can find their own way out.
____________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist/Editorial Writer,
National Post
Columnist, Edmonton Journal

[wblakey]

OK I agree, we should have left the whole lot of those ungrateful bastards on the beach, in fact probably would have been better to shell them ourselves. In fact probably would have been better to load them onto the boats and then throw them overboard once we got out to sea, and then go back for another load.

Yep, they're definitely not real Canadians cuz if they were they would have been grateful to stand in line while Hezbulla and the Zionists shot it out around them. Oh, excuse me, am I in your way... please shoot through me I don't mind...

[wblakey]

Standing up for Canada? The Harper government's refusal to demand an end to the bombings of Lebanon

By David Orchard

For two weeks, tiny Lebanon has been pounded by bombs, shells and high
tech missiles from land, sea and air. Its coast is blockaded, its
airport smashed. Sixty plus bridges have been destroyed; roads, schools,
ports, churches, mosques, grain depots, radio, television and telephone
towers, ambulances, power stations, fuel depots, a hospital, milk
factory, pharmaceutical plant and entire residential city blocks
pulverized. Frantic relatives with bare hands try to free those buried
alive.

Officially 384 Lebanese civilians are dead, one third of them children,
thousands wounded, some 800,000 rendered homeless. The numbers are
rising daily.

A million tourists, expats and "snowbirds," including roughly 50,000
Canadians, were trapped in the country. Twenty fleeing civilians were
burned alive by Israeli missiles after being ordered from their homes.

The Israeli government stated that the bombardment of its neighbour is a
reaction to the capture of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas
operating from Lebanon, and that its operations will continue
indefinitely. Seventeen Israeli civilians have been killed by shells
fired from Lebanon after Israel began bombing.

The Lebanese prime minister begs for international intervention and a
cessation of hostilities saying his country has suffered "unimaginable
losses" and is being "ripped to shreds." Jan Egeland, UN Emergency
Relief Coordinator, called the bombing "horrific" and "a violation of
humanitarian law." The secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi
Annan, demands an immediate ceasefire: "The excessive use of force is to
be condemned. Israel's disproportionate use of force and collective
punishment of the Lebanese people must stop."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, issued a
warning concerning war crimes. "International law demands
accountability. The scale of killings in the region, and their
predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of
those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control."

Canada is a charter member of the United Nations with a long, active
history in international affairs, peacekeeping and mediation. The
current Canadian government was recently elected promising to "stand up
for Canada."

With 50,000 Canadians in harm's way what has been our government's
response? Canada's new UN ambassador, John McNee, told the Security
Council that Israel's action in Lebanon "was an exercise in its right to
self-defence." The minister of foreign affairs, Peter MacKay, refused
point blank to endorse the secretary general's call for a ceasefire.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated: "Israel's response, under the
circumstances, has been measured." He announced that it was "too early"
to call for a ceasefire. These words, in essence, signalled a green
light from Canada for the bombing to continue.

Eight visiting Canadians, including four children, were killed by
Israeli bombs. The Canadian government made no protest. Is this Mr.
Harper's idea of "standing up for Canada?"

Anyone can understand the difficulty of putting together a mass
evacuation under bombardment; what cannot be understood, or forgiven, is
the refusal of our government to demand an end to the hostilities
creating the chaos and suffering.

The Harper government's abject response to the murder of Canadians and
its refusal to demand an end to the bombing constitutes an abandonment
of its duty to protect Canadians and to defend the rule of law on behalf
of all humanity.

If one ignores that 400,000 Palestinians driven from their land have
existed for decades in refugee camps in Lebanon; that Israel routinely
crosses borders, captures and assassinates Palestinians, including
elected leaders; that it has over 9,000 in its jails, including some
Lebanese; and if one accepts Mr. Harper's thesis that Hezbollah is a
terrorist organization, then a comparison could be made with Britain
responding to the capture of two of its soldiers by the IRA in Northern
Ireland by reducing Dublin's airport and the rest of Ireland's
infrastructure to rubble. Who could defend that as a "measured" response?

Gideon Levy, writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said, "In Gaza, a
soldier is abducted from the army of a state that frequently abducts
civilians from their homes and locks them up for years without a trial ?
but only we're allowed to do that. And only we're allowed to bomb
civilian population centres."

Our government in Ottawa has, whether for reasons of religion or
ideology, sided uncritically with a foreign government, in this case
Israel's, at the expense of our own national interests as Canadians and
law abiding members of the world community.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Orchard is the author of The Fight for Canada ? Four Centuries of
Resistance to American Expansionism. He farms in Borden, SK and ran
twice for the leadership of the former Progressive Conservative Party of
Canada. He can be reached at davidorchard@sasktel.net
<mailto:davidorchard@sasktel.net>, tel 306-652-7095

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by wblakey

OK I agree, we should have left the whole lot of those ungrateful bastards on the beach, in fact probably would have been better to shell them ourselves. In fact probably would have been better to load them onto the boats and then throw them overboard once we got out to sea, and then go back for another load.." Now you are being factious . you have tunnel vision and trying to turn my words around again .I think you are starting to loose logic. Roy C."..

Yep, they're definitely not real Canadians cuz if they were they would have been grateful to stand in line while Hezbulla and the Zionists shot it out around them. Oh, excuse me, am I in your way... please shoot through me I don't mind...

You hate the leaders from Canada ,Great Britain,and the USA .....
You again show how biased you are and how you have tunnel vision,
, You seem to ignore many other atrocities in the world,in Africa alone, there are many wars going on
and many times 10,000 people are dying,http://www.africasunnews.com/wars.html ,
.
You are not satisfied that Canada did go to Lebanon and help all those who wished to get off .
You are not satisfied Our Prime minister stayed in Europe and brought back many on his own plane.
You do not seem to be concerned in many of the other problems in the treatment of unfortunate people in the world.
I love Canada ( Why do you hate it so )
..I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
Roy Cooke Sr .
A lover of the free world and so glad our countries try to help all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen Countries
There are currently fifteen African countries involved in war, or are experiencing post-war conflict and tension. In West Africa, the countries include Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo. In East Africa, the countries include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda. In Central Africa, the countries include Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda. In North Africa, the country is Algeria and in South Africa, the countries include Angola and Zimbabwe.
The Base of the Wars
At the base of these wars is the rich natural resources each of these poor countries hold of timber, oil or diamonds, compounded in many cases by the foreign extractive industries presence, their opaque, unreported payments to the governments and the governments' opaque, unreported use of the money to create and fund wars. The wars serve the purpose of creating a distraction, as the countries and their fleeing, displaced citizens are robbed of their countries' natural resources, easily converted to cash, for the personal use and fortunes of ruling parties. Tribal conflict is deliberately antagonized, so it can be blamed for the conflict. See Countries in Conflict News for up to the half hour country-specific news.
A necessary first step in the prevention of future atrocities, human rights abuses and mass waves of human displacement in Africa, it is imperative for multinational extractive industries to make public the net taxes, fees, royalties and other payments they make to the governments of the countries in which they have operations. Below are organizations working toward this end.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roy Cooke Sr.

[rwand1]

I want to know why a bunch of protesters were marching in Toronto supporting Hezzbolah a known terrorist group. I can see people protesting the war but a known terrorist group being supported by Canadians?

Welcome to Canada where if you are a terrorist, a radical, an extremist religious fanatic, a group planning to blow up selected sights, or are one of the Kahdr family, there is a place for you!

[George A. H. Luck]

Paul, sorry to gang up on you. You are entitled to your beliefs whether or not I ( we) agree with them.

However, your complete lack of any compassion for the Isralis who were kidnapped to begin this whole mess and for the Israli civilians who are being killed by terrorist bombs and rockets is quite shocking. Where is your concern for all humanity? Why do you only see the loss on the terrortist's side?

I know you don't believe in war as a means and an end but sometimes, as is the case here and in Iraq and in Afghanistan that is the only answer left. Isreal has been trading off land for peace for decades and all they get in return is further terrorist outrages. Until the people of Lebanon throw the terrorists out of their country and stop allowing the use of the southern parts of Lebanon as a staging area for attacks on Israel, they are complicite in the crimes being committed by the terrorists.

"He who sews the skys will reep the whirlwind."

[lewens]

Originally Posted by wblakey

OK let me get this straight... I should respect people whose answer to conflict is to kill people... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I would suggest you have a good look at the second world war. If we, and I do mean Canadians, had not helped out when we did the Bavarian Corporal may have gotten his way in Europe and where would your self righteous indignation be now? You sound like the only government that is any good is the one you put into power, or, you didn't bother to vote due to lack of interest. If you didn't vote you didn't fullfill your mandate as a Canadian and have no right to ***** about the government. You seem to think that Mr Harper is root of evil in this country. Lets get to the issue here. When Mr. Trudeau came to power the debt, per person in Canada, was right around $2000.00 when he left power it was quickly approaching $20,000.00, and this from what may have been the greatest Statesman this country has seen. If you stand by what you say that all the politicians are the same then who would you suggest we vote into power?
I am glad to see Johnny the Cretin go, along with all the Liberal cronies that hung with him. I was hoping and honestly thought that his successor would do the right thing and I was let down big time. I cannot see the NDP run this country as then we would have Jack Leyton at the helm, God forbid. Ask anyone who was in Ontario during Bob Ray's reign and you will find most people think he ruined the economy, I agree. So, Mr. Blakey, who do we put into power? Certainly you are not suggesting the Green Party, or maybe a rerun of Preston Manning disguised as a Liberal?
Wake up.
Larry

[wblakey]

Martin Luther King once said:

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

[rwand1]

I don't disagree with his philosphy, but I don't think the enemy wants to play by the same philosophical rules. Sometimes we all seem to think the worlds woes can be settled peacefully. Unfortunately its wishful thinking. Do the Lebonese have a right to live free of external influence from Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran? Why is Lebanon hosting a terrorist group? What could Lebanon gain by allowing such activities, surely its citizens would not want a terrorist group causing their destruction of their country? The sooner Hezbolla is out of Lebanon the better off we all would be. Where is the outcry from the Lebanese?

[George A. H. Luck]

I agree with Paul; this whole mess is a catastrophe. That little children and innocents are being butchered on either side is a tragedy too horrid to imagine.
However, we are being manipulated by the press to beilieve that this event is the fault of Israel and her protector the United States ( Geroge Bush) We are being inundated with breathless video reports from the front; of Lebonese women and children being blown to bits; of huge populations of Lebonese fleeing the fighting and of all manner of suffering of the local populations of southern Lebanon. At no time are the questions asked; "Why did the terrorists force these people to stay until too late?" " Why is it that western reporters are granted access to the very worst atrocities and are often guided and protected by terrorist forces?" " Why do we see so few pictures of suffering on the Israeli side of the fighting?" It is the usual, left wing press bias against America and by default George Bush.

I have heard it said recently that you either manipulate the press or you are manupulated by it. Hamas is expert at the former. Truth is the victim of the latter.

There is a growing voice calling for the intervention of the U.N. The only thing the U.N. has proven really good at is doing nothing. I am sorry. I am mistaken. The U.N. has proven itself really good at stealing oil money from Sadam at the expense of Iraqi lives. Other than that, the U.N. is a complete waist of time, money and energy. If America had waited for the U.N. to act in Iraq, Sadam would have killed millions more of his people. The same inability to act will doom the middle east to endless wars.

What a sad world. I want to get off!

[wblakey]

Imperial Rulers And The Deadly Games They Play

Lamentations For The Sacrificial Pawns

By Jason Miller

As Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz recently boasted of "changing
the reality on the northern border," the citizens of Israel became the
subjects of a serious reality change.

Appearing in a video-taped monologue aired on Al-Jazeera, Al Qaeda's
deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called for a Muslim holy war against
Israel and its Neocon enablers cowering behind their ramparts on Turtle
Island:

"The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon
are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of
the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will
pay the price."

Make-shift morgues are amassing corpses of the civilian victims of the
American Empire, its combative proxy in the Middle East, and Great
Britain. Aside from these direct victims (the anonymous Islamic denizens
of the Middle East slaughtered by the United States and British
militaries and the IDF), there is another group of human beings who have
died as a result of the predatory and rapacious actions of the "leaders
of the free world". While the unjust, grossly disproportionate, and
murderous acts committed by the West in Iraq, Gaza, the West Bank, and
Lebanon have resulted in unspeakable horrors which sometimes draw an
overwhelming pathos from people with a social conscience, the innocent
Israeli, British, Spanish, American and other Western non-combatant
victims of this miserable conflict are equally worthy of our grief.

Annihilated, maimed, or psychologically devastated because of the
actions of their own governments, Western casualties of the "War on
Terror" suffer insult upon death or injury as their mainstream media
exploit their misfortune to motivate their fellow citizens to demand
vengeance. Those whose blood lubricates the ruthless machinery of
capitalist imperialism are indeed deserving of our deep sympathy.

Western governments and their compliant corporate media entities would
have us believe that we are warring against barbaric savages whose goal
is to rape, pillage, plunder, and enslave. However, the reality is that
our militaries are committing blatant war crimes in Iraq, Gaza and
Palestine against the propagandistically dehumanized Muslim, Persian and
Arab populations to advance the cause of United States global hegemony
(as outlined in the PNAC), to crush opposition to Palestinian genocide,
and to advance US and Israeli geopolitical interests in the oil-rich
Middle East.

According to pathologically twisted policy makers and pundits like
Daniel Pipes, Charles Krauthammer, and Dick Cheney, Israel is entitled
to help itself to as much Palestinian land and water as it wishes and to
inflict as much collective punishment on the Palestinians as tickles its
fancy. Their rhetoric and policies also support the utterly irrational
belief that the United States has the unconditional right to brutally
impose its will upon nations throughout the Middle East to achieve its
goals of protecting Israel and sustaining the flow of precious oil.

If humanity is to experience a semblance of peace in the Middle East,
the United States needs to withdraw its troops from Iraq and
Afghanistan, close its permanent military bases in the region, pay
reparations to Iraq and Afghanistan (with no strings attached), and end
its support of autocratic states like Egypt.

Israel needs to pay war reparations to Lebanon and the Palestinians and
allow the creation of a fully sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza and
the West Bank.

The United States needs to end Israel's parasitism by eliminating the $3
billion per year in military and foreign aid payments to this relatively
wealthy and extremely well-armed nation, eliminate Israel's undue
influence on American foreign policy, and severely curtail its own
obscene devotion of resources to military pursuits.

Middle Eastern nations need to follow the lead of Latin American nations
like Venezuela and implement political and social structures that
benefit a broad spectrum of the population rather than a corrupt few in
the oligarchy at the top. Secular governments need to replace those
guided by radical Islamic principles. A significant reduction or end to
Western intervention would facilitate this evolution by pulling the rug
out from under the oligarchs and diminishing the opportunity for
reactionary forces to seize power.

Western and Middle Eastern parties to the conflict need to surrender
their war criminals to the International Criminal Court for prosecution
and life imprisonment.

[George A. H. Luck]

Paul, was that posted as a humour bit? If so well done! It is a good thing to take time to laugh at the implausible and this piece of hyperbole at a time of crisis is welcomed indeed.
Thanks Paul. We needed that!