Having attended the original press conference in person, Mark Collins reviews media coverage of the Senlis Council report that received widespread attention this week.
He notes these quotes in a CP report;
"Despite my concerns about our development aid and counter-narcotics policy, I firmly believe Canada should not leave and we should not fix a date on when we should go," said MacDonald, who echoed a line Harper often uses: "We must stay until we complete the job we started."What happens in Afghanistan in the next months will have an impact on the security of Canadians for generations to come, she said.
"What need [sic] is not a fixed date to leave. What we need is a fixed list of what we have to achieve before we leave."
One would think this would have been a primary message for media to note and convey, in light of the political debate raging. The Canadian Press chose to bury this at the bottom of their report - but, at least the statements were recorded.
No such nuance at the CBC, CTV, London Free Press, Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette (and who knows how many others). MacDonald's emphasis on the importance of completing the mission goes simply unmentioned.
(* remainder of supporting links at the Torch)
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=20f80d2e-5ac9-452f-8bf9-54a9322b96d0
I know this is slightly OT, but still has to do with Canadian soldiers, and lack of Government support after they're dead.
Canada has a long and inglorious history of ignoring our returning soldiers, and the surviving families of veterans. And the political stripe of the Government doesn't seem to matter, Liberal or Conservative,after the fighting's over, they're forgotten.
Harper has addressed this particular case, true, but it should never have had to come to Prime Ministerial intervention, to see that the right thing is done.
Obviously, some changes have to be made in the bureaucracies that deal with soldiers, and clear policies have to be stated by the Minister in charge.
The Royal Canadian Legion was founded because of governmental neglect of returning veterans, and now that organization has grown old, it's time for US, to come to the fore, and write our MP's about treatment of soldiers and their families. As I am doing right now.
If we don't rest assured, we'll return to the bad old days, where veterans got little, if any help.
The single largest threat to the well being of our children and our Nation is the sad manipulation of information by our media.
The distortion of news regarding our soldiers
one day to this mornings slick reporting of the ipperwash report. ( Note. Federal gvt not federal Liberal Gvt.) are all little benchmarks on the way to a failed Nation.
How very sad.
mel
lies by omission are trademarks of CBCpravda and CTV(Tass)
on another note , Pravda failed to show Dion being booed.
CBCpravda "All liberal , All the time"
The Toronto Star's Jim Travers, an adamant critic of Harper, mentions the Senlis Report in his column today - claiming that it states that Afghanistan development is too slow, and recommending that CIDA be stripped of its mandate.
Travers does point out that both Senlis and Harper reject withdrawal. Travers still manages to get in his usual 'Bash Bush and Bash Harper' comments, but places himself firmly in the middle of nowhere. He can't fully reject the Senlis Report, but since it advocates some of what Harper is advocating,then, he can't fully accept it. So- he is 'nowhere'. On a scale of 1 to 5, he is '3'. Neither yes nor no.
Our MSM has set itself up as firmly Liberal and anti-Harper; this makes it difficult for it to support an objective research that supports Harper. So, as Travers does, when that happens, the MSM moves itself into 'nowhere' - that point defined as 'no choice' in the middle of the scale. Ahh - that way they can remain against Harper, and just wait out the 'positive reports' by 'no comment'..until they find something to attack Harper about.
Time we came to grips with the fact that due to the absolute leadership vacuum on the left and in opposition, the partisan left of the Canadian 4th estate have assumed defacto duties as leader of the opposition...they set the agenda for the lame left to run with.
As a defacto political entity in opposition to the government, the media should be afforded the same validity we afford partian politicos.
Virtually everything I hear/se/read in the Canadian partisan MSM I take as being either a crafted fabrication or a half truth due to omission.
Once we come to this realization we will stop eating our own guts out over their obvious bias....let's just drop the pretense of them being a unbiased news source and call them what they are...unelected members of the opposition.
I work in an Ottawa restaurant. Reporters always get a little bit extra for their Liberal leanings.
This media bias really took hold, IMHO, right after Mulroney won 84 election. Before that, we had Trudeau administration and his disdain for journalists, treating them as second class schmucks (which they were are are).
Secondly, because Harper's majority was so massive, press assumed they were the opposition. Of course, they're biased, they certainly didn't consider themselves the opposition during the Chretien years.
They have re-assumed mantle of opposition because Dion so ineffective. Even though press stated there was no effective opposition in Reform and Alliance years, they didn't feel need to assume that role.
Media, especially MSM Ottawa types are Liberal oriented, because of their personal bias, lack of professionalism and relationship with party that has ruled Canada, with brief intervals, for last hundred years.
Further to what WLMR says, it seems to me that one of the (many) reasons the media takes on the role of official opposition is that they prefer a close race (between the CPC and the LPC). Thus they will be able to sell more papers, as there will be more interest in how each party is doing.
Hence Harper is correct to also do battle with the media. For example, he is taking a "divide and conquer" approach with the Parliamentary Press Gallery. And setting up his own television studio in the war room. And airing tv ads attacking Dion. And depriving the media of opportunities to make him look bad (eg no press conference with Arnold S.).
Mr. Collins' work illustrates for the umpteenth time why Canadians cannot trust the major media in the country to objectively deliver the straight goods on any topic of portent, whether it be local, provincial, national or international. News is ostensibly partisan and political this day in age.
Read Kinsella's column today in the nat post, where he comes right out and admits the press is against Harper, and will push back on everything he says or does.
Shamrock said: "Media, especially MSM Ottawa types are Liberal oriented, because of their personal bias, lack of professionalism and relationship with party that has ruled Canada, with brief intervals, for last hundred years."
I would limit that to the last 50 years and specifically the Trudeau years onward...the old Canadian establishement had distinct factions...the western populists representing blue collar interests versus the Ottawa establishment which was always the Tories representing old money and landed gentry ( Canadian aristocracy) and the grits representing new money and the aspiring mecantile/industrial middle class.
After King The Liberals became a corporate-political-media syndicate of combined interests who proposed and established a "brokerage" party where political favor was dealt to patrons in return for support...the corporate media is deeply entrenched in this patronage "brokerage" system and the fact that media ownership has shrunk to an alarming small number of men ( who's corporate media enterprise is reliant on government licence, censorship, sponsorship and market protection) shows the incestuous relation corporate media has with the ruling class political elite ( mostly Liberal)
Harper is a break in that chain (unconnected to any establishment interests)...far from being a Conservative or a populist Harper has walked the center line since day one....the way the media treats his policies as being hard right is very telling as to where their political patrons are oriented....they certainly are no longer "liberal" ( as in traditional Grit) but elitist leftwing statists with dangerous agendas and a control agenda.
Part of that control agenda (call it deconstrutionist or utopian social engineering if you want) is the employment of the patronage-bound media in spreading the messaging they need to justify increasingly intolerant, anti-civil statist left policy.
The media at the journaistic and editorial level have been willingly compliant in constantly deluging the public with daily waves of utopian engineering messaging/conditioning...softening us up of utopian satist legislating.
The true anonym is the CBC which are perhaps the worst offender for partisan untopian messaging which defies logic as they are a government organ essentially operating as a defacto elitist ruling class policy propagation.
I believe if George Orwell were alive today and commentating/writing, Canada would be the object model for his novel of dystopian tyranny...we have a collusion between corporate insiders, government and media in this nation unseen in the free world and quite similar in structure to the dystopian old east block nations of the soviet era.
It is interesting that Trudeau idolized these dystopic nations and thei despotic leaders.
wlmr- excellent comments.
WLMR, hence the urgent need to dismantle the CBC propaganda machine, and to drive the population to the blogs as much as possible.
Isn't it interesting how the elitists avoid having to live in the very dystopia they create?
Basketball courts to avoid gunplay. Come now, how absurd. Why basketball? Why not watercolor painting? Or harpsichord lessons?
"I work in an Ottawa restaurant. Reporters always get a little bit extra for their Liberal leanings.
Posted by: gork at May 31, 2007 11:23 AM "
Spit or snot ???
dmorris
My father fought in WW2 and was denied his vet pension for half a century( because he had according to Ottawa too much income through other pensions(1800 a month) until last year with no prompting on his part and much to his delight he began receiving his pension.
So who is in power really does matter where the military is involved.
Liberals hate all masculine men.
D.Saar
How about this gem: "Bush calls for climate change talks, new target by 2008"
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/05/31/bush-climate.html
"The U.S. last year experienced a drop in emissions of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas most blamed for global warming. The 1.3 per cent decline from 2005, the first drop in 11 years, was due to a mild winter followed by a cool summer."
Boy, those Americans have a wild climate. Did I get that right, a mild winter followed by a cool summer? That's unprecedented! Are you sure it wasn't because of the record hurricanes that didn't happen?
Too bad. Before that inane point, it wasn't a half bad article. Though it is funny to read how some refer to the earth's climate as some kind of thermostat we can turn up and down, by adjusting the CO2. Is that a credibly scientific thing to say?
The goal or *win* in Afghanistan:
To install tough and dedicated leadership that are equipped to keep the Taliban drug trader faction from re-taking the country.
It is a tall order, yet, if the Canadian military can spot and support natural leaders, it is doable. These are a tough people well hardened to the use of force.
With the moral advantage of saving the country, the people and children from enslavement and for free job and school attendance, tough and well organized leadership can hold off the Taliban bandits.
It will take plenty of support from us and a recognition of the people that civilized freedom is worth avoiding the Drug Crooks. = TG
As for Jim Travesty's equally evil twin at the Star, Thomas Walkom:
"Peace for our time"
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/05/peace-for-our-time.html
Mark
Ottawa
Senlis, which is very big in Europe and has long had at least 4 offices in the Provinces of Afgan land is concerned mainly with restricting the flow of drugs.Now that the Europeans are leaving it is natural Senlis would look around for who is left to sell its line, a proposal to buy the poppy crop and use it for medical needs. And here is SDA eager to support any press-release-as-policy produced by Harper and co. But hold on, isn't that the same Harper who blanches at the thought of free needle exchanges, he will support buying the stuff? And what about the chums he seeks to snuggle up to, the Americans whose lofty scheme is to destroy the crop and lecture the farmers. That is why Canada is in the country, to help produce drugs as requested by a European social engineer outfit? Did anyone ask the warlords? Good on you SDA, another own goal. Keep them coming.
Garhane, not sure if you are serious or what you point actually is. Senlis has some credibility on drugs issue but none on reconstruction. If only it were as simple as buying opium crop from farmers for legal market. I don't think the warlords will go along with this one, though (was that your point?).
US position is really dumb, sounds like jargon from the "Just Say No" crowd. If we want to buy the crop legally, then we are going to need way more resources, ie - boots on ground. The same goes for boosting reconstruction, winning hearts and minds, and controlling the Pakistani border.
I doubt very much Senlis, Layton or Dion would agree with committing more troops. But that precisely what is needed here. It's time for the European NATO to step up and pony up. If they won't, then we will be forced to reassess both our position and participation re Afghanistan, once our current commitment is completed.
garhane and other leftoids only see what they think they want to see. how does a proposal to buy poppies for medicinal drugs (i.e. legal) equate to not supporting needle exchanges that are used by people using drugs(i.e. the illegal kind)? There is no conflict of interest here. There is a real legitimate market for opiates.
A lot of SDA commentors here also think that farmers have to have a viable alternative to growing poppies for the drug lords. Just burning the crops and saying NO doesn't put food on the table.
The media bias is real and as of late is rather hard to ignore. Leaving out an important point of the report is the same as trying to point out all the Bs and Cs you got in your report card and forgetting to mention that F. The MSM should know better.
Whatever one may opine, or knee-jerk react about the Senslis Council, Ms. MacDonald said this (I was there) about NATO:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/05/senlis-council-canada-in-afghanistan.html
"All members should be contributing to combat operations [not a precise quote but the meaning is exact]."
Has the Canadian government said that as straightforwardly? As opposed to: "Gee whiz, it would be nice if other members sort of, like, reduced some of their caveats?"
http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2007/april/apr122007.html#8
Mark
Ottawa
The way some are yapping one would think the Afghanistan mission was Canada's alone. Dammit we're there as part of NATO Forces and committed by Chretien without debate in HOC.The Liberals have no come-back but they're dumb enough to keep yapping about the end date for the Canadian involvement.
Who ever thought of leaving a war before the battle was won, fought to the finish? LOSERS!
Stupid asses like Layton would be one example. Go to battle and tell your enemy you're going to leave by a certain date or pushing for immediate withdrawal and they know they've won the war.
All the soldiers lives lost, all the money spent would be for naught.
Canada has a proud history of defending what she stands for, cutting and running was never an option. Shudder to think what we'd be today with such attitudes or people in charge like some of the Bozos sitting in our seats of Parliament on the LEFT.
The way some are yapping one would think the Afghanistan mission was Canada's alone. Dammit we're there as part of NATO Forces and committed by Chretien without debate in HOC.The Liberals have no come-back but they're dumb enough to keep yapping about the end date for the Canadian involvement.
Who ever thought of leaving a war before the battle was won, fought to the finish? LOSERS!
Stupid asses like Layton would be one example. Go to battle and tell your enemy you're going to leave by a certain date or pushing for immediate withdrawal and they know they've won the war.
All the soldiers lives lost, all the money spent would be for naught.
Canada has a proud history of defending what she stands for, cutting and running was never an option. Shudder to think what we'd be today with such attitudes or people in charge like some of the Bozos sitting in our seats of Parliament on the LEFT.