The Mound of Sound

The Vancouver Sun has published excerpts from Question Period today when the allegations of bribery of Chuck Cadman were raised by the opposition:

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=2a01a5bb-1b7a-4474-86b2-074ef191ef21

The government line is plainly “there were no offers.” Nothing to see here, move along. Peters Politics has a post from May, 2005 that includes the following quote from the Guelph Mercury of May 4, 2005:

“The tense atmosphere was underscored when the Conservatives made a public overture Tuesday to Independent MP Chuck Cadman.

The onetime B.C. Conservative is being guaranteed a nomination in the next election if he rejoins his former party now, said Tory election co-chair John Reynolds.

Cadman has not yet responded to the offer. His vote could be decisive in toppling the Liberal-NDP alliance.”

I guess John Reynolds, according to Harper’s pathetic denials today, was also a bald faced liar. There was at least some sort of offer. The only question now is what was the full deal offered? Does anyone really believe this gang wouldn’t up the ante to toss in a million-dollar insurance policy if that would make the difference to toppling the Martin government?

So, let’s get this straight. According to Reynolds himself, the Tories were already making offers to Cadman by May 4th. That was two weeks prior to the critical vote of May 19th during which Chuck Cadman showed all the integrity his former colleagues lacked. Two weeks. But we’re supposed to believe there were no further offers? Yeah, right.

Then there’s Reynold’s bizarre account of offering Cadman a guaranteed nomination if he played ball. The guy was two months away from his death. An offer could not have been more pointless. C’mon Reynolds, get real, what did you really offer Chuck Cadman? Reynolds, as you may recall, was instrumental in getting Emerson to defect from the Libs before he was even able to take his seat in parliament. Neat trick. No offer there either. Of course not.

Why would Dona Cadman make this allegation if it was groundless? After all, she’s supposedly intending to run as a Conservative candidate. It makes absolutely no sense that she would lie to bring this down on her head for absolutely no good end. There are plenty of people with plenty of reasons to lie about this but that doesn’t include Dona Cadman. I believe her – absolutely. You should too.

Every time the United States doesn’t get its way with NATO some American leaps to his feet and warns that NATO is just a breath away from breaking up.

The latest boy to cry “wolf” is Lt. Gen. Henry Obering. He warned that European failure to adopt Washington’s missile defence system could spell the end of NATO. From The Guardian:

“…Obering, director of the US Missile Defence Agency, painted almost apocalyptic scenarios at a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London today. He said that Iran could simultaneously block the Straits of Hormuz and provoke terrorist attacks in Europe, and that al-Qaida could acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran would be able to launch ballistic missiles which could hit most capitals of Europe in “the next two or three years”, he said.

He described a hypothesis in which in 2015 Iran announces it has long-range missiles with a nuclear capability and Europe does not have a missile defence system. Iran blocks the Straits of Homuz and provokes terrorist attacks in Europe. There are riots in Europe and only Athens and Rome are protected from Iranian missile attack.

“We would start to see fractures in the alliance,” he said. In another 2015 scenario, he said al-Qaida would capture ships and nuclear-armed missiles.

If a missile defence system was in place, he argued, “we can defeat the missiles and dissuade Iran”, while European leaders would be able to “bide time” before they made crucial decisions.”

Treasury Board chairman Vic Toews has dismissed claims that MP Chuck Cadman was offered bribes to vote to bring down the Martin government as “bullshit.”

Vic “Taser” Toews, the former Justice Minister who saw a fledgling serial killer lurking within every 12-year old young offender and whose fondest dream was to introduce the rack, the waterboard and the guillotine as instruments of criminal rehabilitation, dismissed the widow Cadman’s claims as old nonsense.

So, Vic, you’re saying that Chuck was a liar and his widow is too. Pretty nice, Vic. You’re all class.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=53ee2a9c-266c-4cd7-b30f-231a9f03bd79&k=8779

I’ve decided on using this forum of “updates” because whether the subject state is China, India, Russia, the Koreas, Japan, Brazil or the United States, usually two or more of them are involved in any development. After a while it becomes almost impossible to address these stories on a neat, country by country basis. Ultimately this is one huge arms race that’s going on in a bunch of different places simultaneously.

A couple of days ago it was the story of India’s new, submarine-launched nuclear missile and the even bigger news of India’s plans to design, build and deploy its very own nuclear missile subs.

Today it’s the visit of US defense secretary Robert Gates to India to seek an elusive alliance aimed at isolating China. To do this the US is dangling the prospect of letting India buy modern US military hardware. The crown jewel in the deal is the long-awaited, Lockheed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The F-35 incorporates a lot of state-of-the art technology, next generation stuff, and it’s hard to imagine the US going along with that degree of sensitive technology transfer to a country that continues to maintain its strong ties to Russia and is expanding its ties to China.

Western journalists depict India as technology-starved and in pressing need for our stuff to replace their old “Soviet era” hardware. What a crock! The era of the British Raj is over and we have to stop seeing these people as mahouts and rickshaw drivers.

It was only last October that India inked a deal with Russia to develop, “a fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft (FGFA), with a deadly mix of super-manoeuvrability and supersonic cruising ability, long-range strike and high-endurance air defence capabilities.” (Times of India) China, meanwhile, is already deploying its own, new generation fighter.

China is graduating more than 10-engineers for every one coming out of American universities and they’re good, very good. India is opening 27-new universities this year alone, heavily focused on technology and science.

The American gambit smacks of desperation. India knows it’s being courted by Washington and it’s acting accordingly. Among other things, it’s insisting on wholesale technology transfers with new American weapons purchases – something that would have been unthinkable in the past. It’s also holding out for its nuclear deal to clear the US Senate.

Trying to play wedge politics in Asia may well backfire on Washington. India and China are both pursuing their economic ascendancy and, in the long run, the best that America can offer will be overshadowed by what they stand to gain from each other. The worst part – for the West – is that they know it.

What is America achieving by this gambit? The biggest effect has to be stoking up anxiety in China, fueling the continuation of this arms race madness.

According to US Director of National Intelligence, Hamid Karzai controls about 30% of Afghanistan, the Taliban another 10% and the rest is under the control of warlords. These questionable number were what Mitch McConnell produced when he appeared before the Senate armed services committee yesterday.

McConnell, of course, happily carries water for the Bush White House. That’s why those numbers, grim as they may sound, are unquestionably inflated. What does McConnell mean by “controlling” territory? A lot of southern Afghanistan isn’t “controlled” at all but is in a disputed state of insurgency. He obviously lumps that in to Karzai’s 30%. As for the Taliban then controlling, undisputed, 10% of the country, that’s a far cry from the estimates of knowledgeable independents such as Sarah Chayes.

He obviously maintains that Karzai “controls” the cities, Kandahar and Kabul for example. That’s becoming increasingly unclear. As Chayes notes, the drug barons openly build mansions in Kabul. And then there’s the warlords.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a showdown in Kabul between the Afghan police and infamous warlord/thug Dostum. A disaffected Dostum aide had split from his master. Dostum and about 50-60 militiamen stormed the aide’s house, killed two of his bodyguards and kidnapped the guy. The Afghan police managed to rescue the badly injured aide and then surrounded Dostum’s compound, a hundred of them. Dostum went to the rooftop and hurled taunts and insults at them, daring them to attack. The police simply went away. Now is that how Karzai “controls” his capital?

When Dostum is behind bars for murder and kidnapping, when Karzai arrests the drug barons who sport their wealth freely in Kabul, then you can tell me that Karzai controls the city. Reigning as mayor at the suffrance of warlords and criminals isn’t controlling anything.

It was an appallingly craven act – trying to bribe a legislator dying of cancer with a million-dollar life insurance policy to coerce his vote to bring down a government. Chuck Cadman, showing enormous courage and integrity, somehow refused.

Who were the Tory representatives who worked this vile coercion on a dying man, once one of their own? Let’s assume they were prominent Alliance Conservatives from Cadman’s home province of British Columbia. If that’s right, the next question would be which BC Conservatives were established and powerful enough that they could float a million dollar life insurance policy for a terminal cancer victim?

I’m pretty sure I know who it must have been. There weren’t many within that pack of rabble with the clout, immorality and deviousness to arrange something like that. But there was at least one, a genuinely greasy fixer, and he stands out like a sore thumb.

It could all be over next Tuesday. Slate.com reports that a number of surveys show Obama tied or slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton in Texas a state she needs to win decisively to remain in contention for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Some polls show Clinton still leading in Ohio but just barely.

A British expert on robotic weaponry warns that they could soon become an affordable weapon of choice for terrorists and insurgents. From Reuters:

Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield said he believed falling costs would soon make robots a realistic option for extremist groups.
Several countries and companies are developing the technology for robot weapons, with the U.S. Department of Defense leading the way. More than 4,000 robots are deployed in Iraq.

“The trouble is that we can’t really put the genie back in the bottle. Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy,” Sharkey will tell a one-day conference organised by the Royal United Services Institute on Wednesday.

“How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act? With the current prices of robot construction falling dramatically and the availability of ready-made components for the amateur market, it wouldn’t require a lot of skill to make autonomous robot weapons.”

Sharkey says a GPS guided drone could be produced for about $500.

William F. Buckley Jr., conservative icon and founder of the uber-right National Review is dead at 82.