Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
09 December 2011
War
After almost ten years of war and the spending
of untold blood and treasure, the level of violence in Afghanistan is the highest it’s ever been
Global spending on weapons and
military continues to rise
Are Former U.S. Leaders War Criminals?
The Geneva Conventions expressly forbid the
torturing of prisoners of war, so should
U.S. officials be brought to account over the issue?
Are Liberal Democracies Always Peaceful?
It is widely believed that liberal democracies are inherently peaceful; what is widely believed is not always true
Armenians Killed in Turkish Genocide
The House Foreign Affairs Committee of the
U.S. Congress narrowly voted to declare the deaths
of 1.5 million Armenians to be an act of genocide
Blood Diamonds and the Kimberley Process
A program that is supposed to stop the traffic
in precious stones to raise money for wars
is stumbling says one of its originators
Ottawa says it will spend $9 billion to buy 65 F-
Canada Extends Afghanistan Mission
Canadian soldiers were supposed to all come home
by the middle of 2011, now almost a thousand
will be staying on to train Afghan troops
According to the U.S. State Department’s 2008 International Narcotics Control Report, about 90 percent of the cocaine entering America travels through Mexico
Ethnic Nationalism Causes Conflict
Most of the armed conflicts that have
taken place during the last two decades
have been among ethnic groups; recent examples
being Sudan, the Balkans, and Tibet
First Genocide of the 20th Century
The Herero people were slaughtered in South West Africa
so Germany could access the area’s resources
First World War Soldier Dies on the Last Day
The armistice agreement that ended World War One
was about to be signed yet Canadian soldiers
were still needlessly ordered into battle
There have been many attempts
to destroy entire groups of people
German City Dresden Bombed into Rubble
Towards the end of World War II Dresden was
all but destroyed when 800 Allied aircraft
dropped bombs and incendiary devices on the city
Gold and Diamonds Fuel Conflict in Congo
The Congolese conflict, which has been called Africa’s
world war, is sustained by export earnings from
the natural resources that are plundered by rebels
India’s War against Maoist Guerrillas
Called Naxalites after a village in which their movement
was born, a group of Communist rebels is becoming
a major problem for the Indian government
Abducted, brutalized, and forced
into military service some children experience
horrors that most can’t even imagine
Canadian soldiers went into battle in World War I
armed with a weapon that had major defects
but whose maker was a friend of senior politicians
Somalia’s al-
The U.S. has charged 14 people with
“with terrorism violations for providing money,
personnel, and services” to an al-
Terrorist Training in Pakistan
While the push is on to defeat the Taliban
in Afghanistan the real hotbed for
Islamic extremism is next door in Pakistan
Shell shock is recognized as a mental illness not a character flaw that can be dealt with through punishment
According to Refugees International,
there are about 12 million people in the world
who do not have citizenship status in any country
War May sometimes be Necessary
U.S. President Barack Obama has called the hostilities in Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” not a “war of choice”
War Profiteering from World War I to Iraq
War is a great opportunity for profit; product has
to be created only to be destroyed and created
again and confusion leads to creative accounting
An attempt to inject a small amount of
Humanity into the inhumane business of warfare