Tuesday, August 14, 2018

The Tyee Nails It. The Tories Choose Sides.


The headline pretty much says it all:

"The Conservatives Pick a Side — And It’s Saudi Arabia
Party allies with a government that beheads criminals and oppresses women and Shia Muslims."
Stress, it’s said, reveals true character. If so, the stress of the Saudis’ quarrel with Canada has revealed the Conservative Party of Canada as a gang of sellouts, coming out solidly in support of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in the Saudis’ idle quarrel with Canada.

As the uproar began last week, Tory MP Michelle Rempel, shadow minister for citizenship and immigration, tweeted a thread paying lip service to human rights issues like the imprisonment and flogging of Raif Badawai and jailing of his sister Samar and blasting the Liberals’ “inconsistent” approach to human rights advocacy. 
At the same time, shadow foreign affairs minister Erin O’Toole was tweeting: “My view is that a disconnect between our countries arose because of the use of Twitter as a substitute for proper diplomacy by the Trudeau government. Serious diplomacy requires effort. The Prime Minister and Minister should advocate face to face on issues and not by hashtag.” 
That was just the warmup. The Guardian ran a piece on Saturday with a photo of a solemn Justin Trudeau and a mournful headline: “We don’t have a single friend.” Those weren’t Trudeau’s words; they were a quote from Rachel Curran, who used to be Stephen Harper’s policy director. She went on to say: “…in the whole wide world.”

And to cap it all off, the Tories' former foreign minister, John Baird, demanded that Trudeau fly to Riyadh to get down on bended knee and beg the crown prince's forgiveness.
The Conservatives, if they were consistent, would have held a quiet face-to-face meeting with Trudeau and his cabinet to chew them out in private and then work out a united-front response to the Saudis. Instead, they’ve sided with the kind of government that beheads and crucifies criminals, and oppresses women and Shia Muslims.

As for meddling in other countries’ internal affairs, the Saudis are past masters. As The Economist recently observed, “Since 2011 they have helped quash a [pro-democracy] uprising in Bahrain, backed a coup in Egypt and detained Lebanon’s prime minister.” Not to mention blockading Qatar and turning Yemen’s civil war into a humanitarian catastrophe: over a million cholera cases, a shattered health care system, the risk of famine for millions, and just recently an air strike on a school bus that killed at least 40.
And let's not forget the Saudi and Gulf State proteges - the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Harem - and all the madrasas the Saudis fund throughout the Arab world that preach its own murderous theocracy - Wahhabism.

We know from then secretary of state Hillary Clinton's hacked diplomatic note that the Americans know the Saudis and their Gulf State princes, sheikhs and emirs shuffled the essential money needed to raise, equip and train ISIS.  If you want more, Google Bandar bin Sultan and Sir Richard Dearlove. Read more here, and here, and here.

Let's be clear on one thing. The Tories are using this manufactured crisis to attack Justin Trudeau but it's really Canada that's getting thrown under their bus and they're just fine with that.

I'm no fan of Trudeau or his government, anything but, and yet I know there is a line that no Canadian should cross as Tories past and present have done so freely. They have allied themselves foresquare with the Saudis and that means against Canada. The Conservatives are a goddamned disgrace.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

As always, follow the money. Who are Harper and his cabin boy Ray Novak advising these days?

Cap

Jay Farquharson said...

Remember Harper's speech to the American Business Council, what was it, over 40 years ago?

How he laid out everything great about Canada and how he hated all of it?

That's who ReformiCons are. They hate everything about Canada from Beavers to Zamboni's.

Lulymay said...

Harper also publicly advocated that South Africa should execute Nelson Mandela. I wasn't a huge fan of Brian Mulroney, but I admired his personal work on behalf of Mandela. It seems that the original Progressive Conservative political party holds significantly different views that the Reform Party currently masquerading as being "Conservative". Creeps! all of them. On only has to pay attention to how they treat the current Mayor of City of Calgary.

Jay Farquharson said...

The Old Conservative Party, consisted of Red Tories, fiscally conservative, socially liberal, and White Tories, fiscally nutz and socially conservative.

The murder of Joe Clark and the Reformacon Coup, left the new party firmly in the hands of the White Tories and Christofacists.

The Red Tories fled to the Libs and Dippers.

Anonymous said...

Conservatives choose crude over Canada?

S H O C K E D am I !

Owen Gray said...

A disgrace indeed, Mound.

Anonymous said...

The Conservatives don't seem to realize that they are no longer the ruling party in Canada. First Harper in the US, now Baird in Saudi Arabia. What is wrong with them....

The Mound of Sound said...


Anon 10:19, you ask "What's wrong with them." I think they've been energized by what they've witnessed in Trump since his inauguration. We are, after all, the land where garnering almost 40% of the vote is ample to ensure a solid majority government. And this is an age where a troubling percentage of the population is willing to believe what they hear no matter how ludicrous.

Anonymous said...

This whole fiasco began with the Conservative Government before 2015. He ought to keep his mouth closed. Anyong