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| Globe and Mail |
I think Pepe Escobar invented the word "petromonarchies." Anyway, he's the first I read of it. He also writes about NATOGCC, an alliance of the Transnational Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (TMICC) with despotic feudal states sitting on oil (Gulf Cooperation Council).
If there's one thing Baird has learned from his infatuation with Israel it's chutzpah. Having lectured the Palestinians about the dangers of applying for statehood at the UN, and then lecturing the UN about the dangers of admitting Palestine as a state, Baird and Canada crashed and burned in a comprehensive General Assembly Vote: 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions. Admittedly, this wasn't as comprehensive as the vote against Canada becoming a rotating member of the Security Council, which was on the third and final vote in October 2010: Portugal 150, Canada, 32, and 10 abstentions. Canada tried to pull out before the final and humiliating defeat, but of 192 member nations, 150 stayed around to cast their votes, just to make sure. It doesn't get clearer than that.
Then there was the whole UAE fiasco.
A normal person might think Baird would be embarrassed to show his face anywhere in the Middle East or South Asia that wasn't Israel. Apparently not.
And, brazenly, he poses for a photo op in Dubai, an international region of good coffee, toasting... somebody... with a double-double.
If there's one single ingredient missing from John Baird, Stephen Harper, and the entire "Conservative" government, it's any sense of the absurd, particularly about themselves. Canada is being set up to look extremely foolish, and almost nobody in Canada is noticing. I look forward to Baird's "unexpected" visit to Kabul, to encourage Canadian troops from within his armoured bubble, babbling that NATO's goals in Afghanistan are within reach.
