New Media » 2010

We Own the Podium

jnarvey — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:46:24 +0000

No matter what happens at the Canada-USA hockey game, there’s no question that Canada has owned the podium this Olympics.

Gold medals at the Winter Olympics in Calgary? Zero.

Montreal? Zero.

Vancouver? Thirteen.

Which goes to show that $100 million buys a lot of gold. Kudos to our athletes for showing an incredible return on investment for Canadian taxpayer dollars.

(What was the final tally on that gun registry program, anyway?)

The Winner Is

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Body Counts and Desperation Tactics

jnarvey — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 02:26:31 +0000

During the Vietnam war, American forces were obsessed with body counts. In a jungle war where the South Vietnamese and US forces were theoretically in control of all territory, while actual military control extended only to the nearest treeline, counting enemy deaths served as some kind of grotesque marker for military success. In the end, these metrics were utterly beside the point. The Americans bugged out under the cover of a peace deal that was promptly torn up as communist tanks crashed through the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon.

Americans and NATO forces like our own don’t publicize body counts anymore. It’s not just because Vietnam tainted the practice. Partly, this is because they work for politicians elected by populations that have only rarely been comfortable with the scale of carnage made possible by industrial methods. Body counts may have helped certain soldiers win promotions, but this sort of information doesn’t do much to win the hearts and minds of the home front. Instead, we focus today on the more traditional metrics of success on the battlefield — territory and the support of the people who dwell within it.

These days, it is the Taliban who are obsessed with body counts — as usual, without distinguishing combatants and civilians. In the heart of Kabul, seventeen Afghans and foreigners were murdered this morning by suicide attackers. The enemy boasts of their “glorious” victory over medical doctors, a documentary film-maker, government officials and three Afghan policemen. It was a brutal act, only slightly dulled in its effect by the parade of Taliban atrocities that have come before it.

While the Taliban are focused on the body counts of doctors, film makers, aid workers and ordinary Afghan civilians, ISAF and the Afghan National Army are concentrating on the end-game. It’s not about counting corpses — it’s about boots on the ground and ordinary Afghans having a chance to get on with their lives without worrying about getting their throats slit by barbarians.

We’re still early into this surge, as our own soldiers and our allies have finally been given the resources they need to do the job. But the early signs are promising. Finally, we can start looking at what comes after the thugs have been routed. By 2011, we may already be a good ways along this road.

Further Reading
On This Day, The Birthday Of The Prophet: A Taliban Atrocity In The Streets of Kabul
Turning the Tide Against the Taliban

What’s in store for Canada in Afghanistan post-2011?

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee (CASC) will unveil its Vision for Canada’s Role in Afghanistan Post-2011 on March 9 at the National Archives Hall in Ottawa. The event, called “Canada and Afghanistan: Keeping Our Promises”, is hosted by the Free Thinking Film Society of Ottawa and is also a fundraiser for the Afghan School Project.

This Vision document will outline recommendations for how Canadians can best remain involved in Afghanistan, in terms of both civilian aid and the security that is essential for providing that aid. Abandoning Afghanistan is not an option:
“The threat of abandonment by Canada, the U.S., Britain, and other major NATO countries is not just causing fear and dismay among our Afghan friends,” says CASC senior adviser Lauryn Oates. “It is encouraging the Taliban, and it is encouraging the worst kind of corruption. It is making things worse for ordinary Afghans, whose rights our soldiers have been fighting and dying for.”

CASC’s Vision is based on unprecedented and far-ranging consultations carried out with participation from Canada’s Afghan immigrant community as well as a cross-section of the Afghanistan population. The consultation includes feedback from ordinary citizens as well as politicians, human rights workers, elders, community leaders and experienced analysts.
This event will raise funds for the Afghan School Project (ASP), a Canada-based grassroots initiative, established by the Canadian International Learning Foundation. The ASP provides financial and administrative support to an educational institution in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which provides more than 700 women and men with the opportunity to receive education, while providing members of the community with access to the Internet and online classes from Canadian and international institutions.

Speakers at this event include:

• Major-General (Ret’d) Lewis Mackenzie. Served in the Canadian Forces for 35 years, including a UN peacekeeping command in Yugoslavia in 1992. Awarded the Order of Canada in 2006
• Ehsanullah Ehsan, Director of the Afghan-Canadian Community Centre in Kandahar City
• Nasrine Gross, Afghan-American writer and human rights activist
• Dr. Nipa Banerjee, currently a professor of international development at the University of Ottawa, served as Canada’s head of aid in Kabul for three years.
• Dr. Douglas Bland, Chair of the Defence Management Studies Program at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University
• Lauryn Oates, Human rights and gender equity activist; CASC senior advisor
• Terry Glavin, Award-winning author and journalist. One of Canada’s leading voices in support of our Afghanistan campaign.

Event Details
March 9, 2010, 7:00 pm
National Archives/Library of Canada, 395 Wellington St., Ottawa

Tickets: $30 regular admission, $15 students
• Purchase tickets online:
Online at http://www.canilf.org/news/
• Purchase tickets in person:
Ottawa Folklore Centre (1111 Bank Street, Ottawa)
Compact Music (190 Bank; 7851 ½ Bank Street, Ottawa)

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Political Power Does Not Flow From the Trajectory of a Pie

jnarvey — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:58:26 +0000

When you consciously align your movement with anarchists, don’t be surprised when the result is anarchy. Years of planning by Vancouver anti-Olympics agitators seems to be up in smoke. Infighting has erupted between more conservative critics calling for non-violence and anarchists throwing out their Leninist vanguard model in favor of Three Stooges tactics.

The pie in lawyer-activist David Eby’s face may not rise to the level of violence in some people’s eyes (despite those inept blowhards who would categorize it as terrorism). Still, it’s hardly a substitute for constructive discourse for a movement that desperately requires a change in tactics if it doesn’t want to become entirely irrelevant over the next few days.

“You just watch seven years of organizing evaporate. It was as if I just watched two chairs through a store window destroy a lot of what lots of people have been trying to do for a long time. There still is that potential to build something bigger. We were on the cusp of grasping something different. We might still, but in my view it took a drubbing on Saturday and it took a worse drubbing on Wednesday. It set such a nasty tone for everything that followed.

“The left in Vancouver is famous for this and there was beginning to be change. That coalition was looking like it could be powerful and change Vancouver’s social justice scene. And then a day later, it faltered. Wednesday’s meeting was one of the nastiest things I’ve ever seen in Vancouver’s political scene.”

The radicals have the initiative. Fortunately for Eby, this time it was just a pie.
Shut Your Pie Hole, Traitor!

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So Much for the Olympic Truce

jnarvey — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:09:33 +0000

If we remain true to our tradition as Canadians and responsible members of the international community, we’re going to help finish the fight in Afghanistan — notwithstanding those commentators who seem to think that we ought to put down our weapons at the behest of the IOC or VANOC at the same time that Taliban snipers are shooting at ISAF soldiers from behind human shields.

The scary thing is that I can’t detect the slightest trace of satire in the Georgia Straight’s latest hit-and-run propaganda attack on Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. I think editor Charlie Smith might actually be serious:

I think it’s time for the IOC to include some penalties for those who violate the truce, including NATO leaders.

If Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Chief of the Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk, and U.S. vice president Joe Biden were refused entry into Vancouver Olympic venues for being warmongers during a truce period, perhaps this world would suddenly get a little more peaceful.

Smith seems to suggest that UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon actually wants Canadians to throw down their weapons and bug out of Afghanistan ASAP.

That’s a distortion of the truth. The UN bigwig couldn’t have been more clear about the importance of Canada’s boots on the ground. Remember this?

Once again, the opportunists are on the rise, seeking anew to make Afghanistan a lawless place — a locus of instability, terrorism and drug trafficking. Their means are desperate: suicide bombs, kidnappings, the killing of government officials and hijacking of aid convoys. Almost more dismaying is the response of some outside Afghanistan, who react by calling for a disengagement or the full withdrawal of international forces. This would be a misjudgment of historic proportions, the repetition of a mistake that has already had terrible consequences…

The United Nations, alongside national and international counterparts, non-governmental organizations and Afghan civil society, will continue to provide the Afghan government whatever assistance it needs to build on these achievements. Our collective success depends on the continuing presence of the International Security Assistance Force [emphasis added], commanded by NATO and helping local governments in nearly every province to maintain security and carry out reconstruction projects.

In any case, there can be no truce with these fanatics. Their idea of a ceasefire is an off-season to recruit child suicide bombers and make some point about the unifying spirit of religion by spraying acid in the faces of girls who want to learn to read.

Let’s be clear. The UN wants us in Afghanistan. Our NATO allies want us in Afghanistan. The long-suffering Afghan people want us in their country. The only true warmongers are those who would have us abandon the field to let the Taliban conquer an entire nation.

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The Stupid Side of Multiculturalism

jnarvey — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:19:18 +0000

Canada is a mosaic of cultures. We’ve got the three “founding peoples” including First Nations, French and British. Then you’ve got waves of immigration since even before Confederation which have resulted in third-generation Heinz-57 (though mostly Eastern European) ethnic hodge-podges like myself. My wife is Chinese (well, from Hong Kong, anyway. Apparently, there’s a difference). My last boss was Czech. My proud Irish-Canadian pal is matched with a charmingly-accented Australian of Korean descent. You get the picture.

Can’t we all just chill out about this ridiculous multicultural hissy-fit about the Olympic ceremonies? First it was the “lack of French” for a ceremony in which every line we heard was in French, then English. Now, we hear that representatives of Vancouver’s “multicultural groups” — whoever they are — have demanded a meeting with VANOC.

First of all, no magical combination of English, French, Cantonese and Skwxwu7mesh at these sorts of events is going to make everyone happy. No mix of folk-festival dance numbers will satisfy the cultural-victim political propagandists, politicians and bureaucrats who need to justify their own existence.

More to the point, what exactly do these critics expect? It’s too late to rejig the closing ceremonies. So what’s VANOC going to say?

Maybe something like this, if they’ve got the guts to level with these idiots: “Sorry we screwed up. I’m sure that when Vancouver gets the Olympic games again sometime in the next century, the artistic director will pay more attention to cultural sensitivities. In the meantime, suck it up, you whiny little bitches.”

We are all Canadians. Have some pride.

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Mayor to VANOC. Free the Flame

jnarvey — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:19:56 +0000

The people have spoken. VANOC, tear down this wall!

“I’ve seen crowds peering through the fence (at the flame),” Robertson said. “We want that flame to be more accessible.”

That’s an understatement. For me, it’s not even about access just to the flame. As alluded to previously, I think it’s an act of treachery to any tourism worker in BC’s Lower Mainland that the people are being kept back from the most beautiful spot of waterfront in all of Vancouver.

Let the Olympic flame burn true (North, strong) and free

Further Reading
Mayor Robertson, tear down those walls
A distant flame has Vancouver hot and bothered

UPDATE: Democracy works! Apparently, VANOC didn’t want to fully adopt my suggestion, but politics is the art of compromise.

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Security Cuts Off Olympic Flame From the People

jnarvey — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:12:00 +0000

Hoping to see the Olympic cauldron up close and take in the scenery of the most beautiful waterfront spot in all of Vancouver, I roamed alongside thousands of people with exactly the same idea. Thanks to an unhelpful security fence all along the waterfront, none of us quite made it to our objective.

VANOC says the fence is there to provide security for the convention center and the Games’ international broadcast centre. All they’re doing is needlessly irritating visitors and locals by keeping them back from what ought to be a major venue for celebrations and for enjoying this city’s spectacular scenery.

The tragedy is that this stupidity carried out in the name of security is entirely unnecessary. VANOC could easily provide security for the convention center while allowing public access to this area by simply placing the fence perpendicular to its current deployment, aligned against the western entrance to the building. Besides, the malcontents involved in anti-Olympics protests are clearly incapable of mounting any mischief more threatening than knocking over some newspaper boxes and smashing in a store window. For this, VANOC is pleased to frustrate the photo opportunities of tens of thousands of tourists and all of the proud locals?

So much for showcasing our Olympic city. Here’s a reminder of what the people are missing beyond the chain-link fence, from photos taken when this public space was first completed with hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars.

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Violence is the First Refuge of the Incompetent

jnarvey — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:26:49 +0000

I described the protest movement against the Vancouver 2010 Olympics earlier as unable to articulate a unified protest platform to bring in the masses — despite a fairly wide groundswell of anti-Olympics feeling among the general public. This speaks not only to a lack of organization skills (they did have four years to prepare for this, after all) but also very shallow sympathy for the myriad causes stuffed into this counter-culture sausage-fest.

Having failed to win grassroots support, the vanguard has inevitably decided to resort to violence to get the attention they need just to sustain momentum among their relatively sparse membership. This desperation move is just alienating the rest of us even further, at least according to snippets from the local Twitter crowd:

@stephenfung: Olympic protesters are breaking shit downtown and scaring tourists. What’s your cause again? That’s the one I won’t be supporting. K. Thx.

@canucksgirl44: #Vancouver protesters are just a bunch of wannabe hippies anyway. Welcome to the West Coast, lol #realhippieslivedinthe60s

@MitchGarvis: @DanaEpp Yeah but the funny thing is the protesters are all white kids, and the natives are all involved with the games

@steaks: Also protestors damage cause of people they say they are helping. How NGO’s going to raise funds and lobby well when associated to douches?

It’s getting a bit uglier than I expected, given yesterday’s lackluster showing by the perpetually disaffected. But it seems a severely downgraded and ineffective version of the Battle in Seattle is the worst the IOC and the City of Vancouver has to deal with. For now, the Games go on unimpeded.

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Protesters No Match for Olympic Spirit in Vancouver

jnarvey — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:15:45 +0000

I wandered among the costumed weirdos and black-masked anarchists at the protest. This was the big anti-Olympics event in Vancouver on the opening day of the Games. I soon came to the conclusion that the Olympics and our city’s politicians have nothing to worry about for the duration of the games and probably for some time to come.

Ask a protester what they were rebelling against that day and you’d almost have to expect Marlon Brando’s answer from the Wild One: “What have you got?” This wasn’t a protest against the Olympics. It was a protest against “the system.” But disaffected oddballs and shadowy loners does not a revolution make.

Accompanied by my friend and fellow National Post contributor Adrian MacNair, I first met a pleasant comrade from the Young Communist League who seemed positively cheerful about the new members his group had signed up. His organization was present to make the point that government ought to be spending more on the housing, students and day care rather than Olympics. Those are actually policies that I’d be happy to get on board with. Still, you don’t have to be a follower of an ideology legitimizing mass murder and gulags to get that done. He seemed awfully polite. I assume he’ll go mainstream at some point an inevitably join up with the NDP.

Then I met the man disguised by a mask imprinted with the words “free speech area”. When I asked him what he actually had to say about the Olympics — or anything, for that matter — he clammed up. Evidently, free speech is a right best reserved for times other than when pretty much everyone in the world wants to know what you have to say.

I met a young Cree woman who carried a sign that claimed “Canada is Illegal”. Her group, “No One is Illegal”, evidently believes that the Olympics organizers ought to have gotten the written consent of every living First Nations person in the country before proceeding with the event. The enthusiastic support of the Four Host First Nations that have actually resided here since before the arrival of the first Europeans evidently wasn’t good enough.

Next up was the lady in town from Sochi to protest having the next Olympics in a region steeped in the memory of the 100-year old genocide of 1.5 million Circassians by Czarist Russia. She seemed earnest enough. But I honestly don’t know if Russians, much less Canadians, will even see a real connection between this historical tragedy and the 2014 Winter Olympics. Besides, if the Russians can’t do anything official on a part of their territory that hasn’t already been steeped in blood or mired in historical injustice, well, the world’s biggest country is going to have an awful time finding anywhere they can hold any sort of international event.

Then there was the group shouting “Shut down the tar sands!” Protest signs indicated that the Olympics were somehow responsible for mass-murder as a result of our odd habit of digging up stuff out of our ground that people all over the world seem to need to run their factories and heat their homes. I have to confess, I never bothered to talk to anyone about this. I’d already gone down enough rabbit holes.

The point is that the protesters against the Olympics are guided by a hundred different agendas. None of them really has much to do with the Olympics. That’s why the event only pulled in a few hundred angry souls, surrounded by a larger number of curious spectators who were not necessarily in sympathy with any of their goals.

The time to disrupt the games was clearly on the first day. But the lunatic fringe seems only to have alienated a wider base by their odd rhetoric. They didn’t pull the numbers and by the time the Olympics opening ceremonies were set to begin, most of the protesters who came out were already sullenly on their way home to plot and plan… and probably do nothing else for the next few weeks. The reinforced lines of police, some on horseback, that came to greet the rally were not pressured as at the “Battle of Seattle” or similar venues. It seems that the Games can safely ignore the divided and not particularly successful protests from here on in.

I decided to find out for myself what these protests were all about

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Will Vancouver Security People Be More Proactive?

jnarvey — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:44:22 +0000

A video of security guards in Seattle standing still while a robbery victim suffers a savage beating has gone viral.

I’d like to be able to say that Vancouver’s transportation security had a better record. Sadly, the don’t. Remember this?

Ravinder Sidhu said he was beaten and robbed late on the night of July 15 in a well-lit area at Surrey Central Station. Sidhu said the attacker left him bruised after stealing his watch and gifts for his six-year-old son.

“I had to get up, call the security people from the red phone which is in the secured area, and then somebody came to my aid,” said Sidhu.

“What if I had been knocked unconscious or I got stabbed? I wouldn’t be able to pick up the red phone,” he said.

And don’t forget, tourists. Pay your fare for skytrain or get Tasered.

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