Canada Joins Sanctions Against Russia
Reject Canada's Warmongering

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101

 The U.S., European Union, Norway, Australia, Japan and Canada have announced sanctions against Russian companies, economic sectors and individuals. The sanctions against leading Russian government and economic personalities inhibit their ability to travel. The economic sanctions against Russian corporations and sectors will limit their capacity to raise capital in U.S. and European markets, to import and export certain commodities, and generally to engage in business with the sanctioning countries. The financial sanctions in particular can have repercussions beyond bilateral relations with the sanctioning countries, as U.S. dollar hegemony can exercise its power and influence almost everywhere in the world.

The reasons given for the anti-Russian sanctions vary with each country. The Harper dictatorship has been the most vociferous and warmongering in its statements, accusing the Russian Federation of aggression in Ukraine and personally slandering President Putin. Harper has been leading the Canadian mass media to generate a sense of hysteria amongst the people that war with Russia may be necessary to protect conservative fundamentalist values and Canada's national interests. To this end, Harper has loudly taken sides in the political disputes shaking the Ukrainian Federation, sending money and military equipment to the faction that recently seized power in a coup d'état in the capital Kiev.

The Kiev coup violently ousted the elected President and is now waging war against eastern Ukraine, where many demand a renewed federal structure with increased regional autonomy. The coup regime's war against Ukrainians in the east has killed almost a thousand people, caused the downing of a foreign civilian aircraft, destroyed much of the area's infrastructure and forced 800,000 refugees fleeing the military onslaught of Kiev's bombs and artillery shells to seek shelter in neighbouring Russia.

In retaliation for the sanctions, the Russian Federation has announced a one-year ban of agricultural products coming from the sanctioning countries, except Japan. This ban will significantly hurt Canada's pork industry, whose growing sales to Russia have made it the third largest foreign pork market.

Sanctions are a political weapon in the hands of the most powerful countries. U.S. imperialism has used sanctions extensively since the beginning of the twentieth century to extend its Empire, smash the resistance of nations struggling to escape its economic and political grip, and to isolate and strangle the Soviet Union. Sanctions are of little use for smaller countries as their trading capacity is limited unless they are used in cooperation with many others, such as what occurred to help bring down the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

Powerful countries often expand sanctions into a blockade such as the infamous decades-long U.S. blockade of Cuba, the U.S.-led blockade of Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of children and weakened the country to the point of collapse, and the U.S. genocidal blockade of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in collaboration with the Zionist colonial entity and Egyptian military.

The political weapons of sanctions and blockades are often a prelude for war, occupation and annexation, as happened in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Libya. Those countries were small and not capable of defending themselves against the military might of U.S. imperialism and its empire-building collaborators. Attacking Russia with sanctions and talking in warlike terms to extend the politics of sanctions to a blockade and war, as the Harper dictatorship is doing, present the people with a different and very dangerous situation. Russia is not Iraq, Yugoslavia or Libya. Russia is a large country with a vast territory, resources and powerful military armed with nuclear weapons and the means to delivery those bombs anywhere in the world including Canada.

What does the Harper dictatorship hope to achieve with its warmongering agenda against Russia? Does it want war? Canadians should think about the situation carefully and discuss the politics surrounding Harper's warmongering. The people know about the contradictions and fighting in Ukraine mostly from what Harper and the mass media have been saying. Their depiction of the situation paints Russia as an aggressor bent on seizing control of the entire Ukraine, and those who won victory in the coup d'état in Kiev as virtuous saints defending democracy and similar fundamentalist values as Harper. The people's own experience teaches us that politics both here and abroad is never so simple.

In Canada, Harper tends to present every issue as the virtuous against the sinners. The virtuous are invariably those who hold positions of political and economic authority and privilege, while the sinners are those defending their rights, in particular the working class, the Quebec nation, First Nations and the most vulnerable. The Harper dictatorship is waging a non-stop battle to change Canada into a country where people defending their rights or even standing up for Mother Earth are criminalized.

If nothing else, Harper is very rigid in his thinking and actions. Knowing this and having experience with Harper inside Canada, would it not be a good thing to be very careful in accepting his arguments for sanctions and war against others?

The turmoil in the Ukraine is being played out more or less in all the former republics of the Soviet Union, as they find their way within the new conditions and as they struggle with the overbearing interference from agents of U.S. imperialism. Canadians may soon hear of struggles in Moldova and Armenia, which mirror those in Ukraine. In Ukraine, not only the eastern regions reject the coup regime in Kiev, even those in the west, such as many in Transcarpathia are questioning the direction being imposed on them. Ukraine is experiencing class struggle, imperialist interference and a fight over a new direction for the country. Certain elements in Ukraine have accepted the politics of annexation into the U.S. Empire and NATO, while others reject this line and want to build something else of their own doing independent of the big powers. Who are we to judge and interfere?

At any rate, it should come as no surprise that those in power in Ottawa, who have all but in name annexed Canada to U.S. imperialism, would be ranting about the glory and righteousness of bringing everyone all over the world into the U.S. Empire including Ukrainians and Russians.

Canadians are resisting the attacks on their rights and the anti-social offensive here in Canada and are striving for a pro-social direction for the country in opposition to and free from the influence of the U.S. Empire and the Harper fundamentalists. The people should reject Harper's warmongering politics abroad just as strenuously as they reject his anti-social and sellout politics in Canada.

Peace-loving Canadians of all lifestyles, occupations and backgrounds should unite in opposition to Harper's politics of war, and organize to build momentum towards a pro-social anti-war government.

(TML Weekly No. 27 August 9, 2014)