Opposition to War Preparations

Operation Nanuk

No to Militarization of the Arctic

With Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan winding down, the military is preparing a greater show of force in the High Arctic just as Russia is expanding its own presence in the region, Jeremy Torobin writes for the Globe and Mail (July 3, 2011).

While in Kandahar this weekend to mark the end of Canadian troops' military mission in Central Asia, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said this summer's instalment of an annual military exercise in the Arctic will be the largest such operation in recent history, Torobin reports.

"The month-long exercise, scheduled for August and dubbed Operation Nanook, will take place on Baffin Island and Ellesmere Island and the surrounding area and will involve more than 1,000 troops, Mr. MacKay told reporters. That's at least 100 more than participated in August, 2010, according to a Department of National Defence backgrounder on last year's exercise.

"All of this is very much about enlarging the footprint and the permanent and seasonal presence we have in the North,'' Mr. MacKay said. "It is something that we as a government intend to keep investing in."

"Mr. MacKay and Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk plan to visit the High Arctic area during this year's exercise, which will come just weeks after Russia's Defence Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, said his country will send two army brigades to help protect its interests in the contested, resource-rich region.

"Specifics like troop numbers, weapons or bases reportedly haven't been worked out, but a brigade typically includes a few thousand soldiers.

"It is not clear whether DND is making this year's operation bigger in response to the Russian move, but Russia has loomed large in shaping Prime Minister Stephen Harper's approach to the Arctic. Mr. Harper's government has often hinted at potential military encroachment by Russia and stressed the need for beefed-up military hardware to defend the Canadian Arctic, as Canada and other polar countries wait for the United Nations to settle legal claims for offshore turf that could contain as much as a quarter of the planet's undiscovered oil and gas deposits."

"Russia has staked a claim to a large part of the Arctic, contending that an underwater ridge running from northern Siberia leads directly to the North Pole.

"Last Thursday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said his country 'remains open for dialogue' with its Arctic neighbours such as Canada and Denmark, which have claims that overlap somewhat with Russia, but will 'strongly and persistently' defend its interests. According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Putin also told a party congress in the Ural Mountains that Russia plans to build a $33-billion year-round port in the Russian Arctic.

"Operation Nanook is expected to involve just about every aspect of Canada's efforts to use the military to assert its sovereignty in the disputed High Arctic region, including CF-18 fighter jets, surveillance and transport aircraft, a warship, infantry companies from Quebec and Alberta, and Inuit reservists from the Canadian Ranger Patrol Group.

"Last year's version -- which took place in Nunavut and was Canada's northernmost arctic-sovereignty exercise to date -- involved some 900 Canadian men and women in uniform, plus another 600 personnel from Denmark and the United States.

"Despite the military exercises, there are promising signs that the countries involved will be able to settle their disputes through legal, peaceful means."

In May, the Arctic Council, which includes Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland, signed its first legally binding treaty to divide responsibilities for search-and-rescue activities in the Arctic. Although that deal set aside the trickier questions of territorial claims, the Harper government views it as an opportunity to entrench functional co-operation in the region.

Also, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables suggest that Mr. Harper doesn't believe there's a real threat of military conflict in the Arctic.

One of the cables, released by WikiLeaks, described an account from a Canadian official of a meeting in early 2010 between Mr. Harper and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in which the Prime Minister said NATO has no role to play in the region.

"According to PM Harper, Canada has a good working relationship with Russia with respect to the Arctic, and a NATO presence could backfire by exacerbating tensions," the cable states.

TML is firmly opposed to the militarization of the Arctic and the threatening of military solutions to issues which concern territorial disputes. Such issues should be settled through peaceful means. It would seem that Canada's armed forces are getting ready for the scramble over resources on behalf of the mining monopolies and interests. This is part of inter-imperialist war preparations which pose a serious danger to peace and the Arctic environment itself. The Arctic should be declared a non-militarized area by all countries concerned.

U.S. Anti-Missile Outpost in UK
Angers Anti-War Britons

- Russia Today, July 5, 2011 -

The top secret US military base, Menwith Hill, is a little piece of America in the heart of the UK's Yorkshire Dales. For years it has been a protest hotspot for Britons who are demanding their country's independence from America.

"This base symbolizes what's wrong with the special relationship between the UK and the US. Here we have a base that's under US control, over which the British government and British people have no control. This base is not accountable to us, the British people. It's engaged in activities, and supporting wars, which most British people object to," human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said.

Menwith Hill is the largest intelligence gathering and surveillance base outside the US. There are 32 satellite dishes housed inside the huge golf-ball structures which can eavesdrop on telephone calls, faxes and emails from around the world. It has been operational since the 1960s, but now it is set to become part of the controversial missile defense shield designed to alert the US to the launch of ballistic missiles.

As in Poland and the Czech Republic, where the US also planned to site bases, locals are worried that having the facility here will put the area in danger, heightening the risk of an attack by anyone who wants to disable the shield. But unlike in Eastern Europe, the government here has put up no fight at all. In fact, it does not even know what goes on here.

"It might look innocuous from the outside, but it's what goes on behind there. And you know, there is not a single British official in parliament or in the intelligence services who could give you a full picture of what's happening in that base," journalist and campaigner Yvonne Ridley said.

It is the culmination of former US president Ronald Reagan's dream. As his statue is unveiled in London on Monday, Menwith Hill embodies what Reagan envisaged in the early-warning missile detection system that was dubbed the "Star Wars" program. It is secretive, based far away from US soil, and some say it is a step towards the US domination and militarization of space.

People demonstrate at Menwith Hill every July 4, campaigning for the closure of this base and the others like it around the country. They want to reclaim this land and bring it back under the control of the British government and its people.

It is not working, though. As Menwith Hill becomes part of the missile defense shield, it is building another golf-ball satellite structure, bringing the total to 33, despite local and national opposition. Growing, not reducing, the US's influence in Europe.

UN Arms Embargo Extends to Both
Sides of Libyan Conflict -- UN Expert

- Russia Today, July 5, 2011 -

Protest against NATO airstrikes outside UN offices in Tripoli, July 2, 2011.

Tripoli says its forces have intercepted two boats from Qatar carrying a cache of weapons for rebel forces. Libya is under a UN arms embargo, but France has admitted to supplying weapons to rebels.

The load reportedly intercepted on Monday is said to have included about a hundred Belgian-made assault rifles, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Arms-trafficking expert Brian Johnson-Thomas told Russia Today (RT) that the supply of weapons by France is more likely to lead to more human rights abuses than to help protect civilians.

"All guns start off being legal, but when they get diverted they go God knows where," Brian Johnson-Thomas explained. "And of course with a gun you are in a position to commit various human rights abuses."

The Security Council arms-trafficking expert pointed out that supplying weapons to either side in the Libyan conflict is a measure banned by the UN Security Council.

France has been among the main powers behind the NATO-led air campaign, which is officially aimed at protecting civilians from assaults by Gaddafi's forces. However, many view a change of regime in Libya as the main reason for the alliance's involvement there. France's latest move has invoked extensive criticism from Russia and the African Union, while China has indirectly objected to it.

Harper, Military Monopolies Sell
Arms and Innu Land in Paris

- Tony Seed -

While Canada keeps bombing Libya and killing civilians in the name of "humanitarianism" and the Harper Government has announced a $56 million budget cut to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, eliminating the Marine Rescue Centre in St. John's and putting the lives of civilians at sea in peril, it is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to send arms manufacturers to the International Paris Air Show.

The Paris show is held every two years and alternates with the Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom. The 49th edition was held at the Le Bourget airport in Paris' gritty northern industrial suburbs on June 20-26. The Bourget Salon is the sales convention for today's "Merchants of Death." The name comes from the stark title of a book of the same name, referring to those such as Vickers (now BAE Systems of the UK, the second-largest weapons manufacturer in the world), du Pont of the USA, Krupp of Germany, and Schneider-Creusot of France who sold munitions to both sides in the First World War and other wars, while securing a special place as the greatest patriots in the "national" economy. Some 2,000 exhibitors peddled the most recent lethal creations. It is the largest arms bazaar in the world, resulting in more than US$89 billion in contracts in 2008, more than double the 2006 sales. A Fox News report three years ago claimed that the booth for Israel, now the 5th largest weapons manufacturer in the world, boasted the most scantily-clad women carrying weaponry that Israeli arms companies and the Israeli government hoped to sell in the international market. The Canadian Pavilion, financed and staffed by the government, is a fixture.

A total of 15 firms, agencies and military associations from Atlantic Canada alone once again took part in the show, the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation says.

However, there is more to this than meets the eye. Participants included the NDP government of Nova Scotia's little-known Aerospace, Defence & Security section and the more well-known Nova Scotia Business Inc., the government's joint venture arm to pay the rich by providing subsidies and forgivable loans from the public treasury to private capital.

The retinue also included Dalhousie University's little-known Industry Liaison & Innovation centre (located at 1379 Seymour Street). The university is deeply implicated in providing arms monopolies such as Lockheed Martin and the Department of National Defence with research, training and development at little or no cost, one of the main sources of profits for capital at this time -- giving the meaning to Dalhousie's "inspiring minds" slogan and the mantra of the "knowledge economy."

"Freedom"?

By far the most perfidious aspect of the sales force is that it included DND International Training Programs (Goose Bay) (pictured), a euphemism to huckster the de facto NATO base in Labrador, which has been vehemently opposed by the Innu Nation of Labrador since the 1950s. The DND slogan is -- wait for it -- "Goose Bay: the freedom to fly." The venality goes well beyond hypocrisy: "freedom" for NATO war preparations and "freedom" to forcibly negate the freedom of the First Nations and their hereditary rights.

The Department of National Defence maintains an aerial testing area (and Arctic survival training) for such NATO Air Forces as Britain and Germany as well as the Italian army, and annually uses the Paris Air Show to shop it to other members of the NATO bloc at the expense of the First Nations. The hereditary territory of the Innu is used as a base for imperialist war preparations, which the whole world is witnessing now being executed against Libya -- just as the Israeli pilots who bomb Gaza to smithereens were trained in Alberta (Operation Maple Leaf, CFB Cold Lake). The land of the Innu is again being sold in the service of realizing what Defence Minister Peter MacKay brazenly calls Canada's "go to" role for the U.S and the NATO bloc.

In the mid 1980s, the Innu Nation of Labrador and Eastern Quebec (Nitassin) held a compelling series of protests (pictured), vigorously supported Canada-wide, against the military's plan to conduct low-level flight testing and laser-guided bombing in central and southern Labrador, which greatly increased in the number of flights in the early 1990s. The bombing caused havoc to the environment, scattering the reindeer herds to the four winds, and their way of life. After failing to secure their goals through environmental assessment reviews, political lobbying and the courts, the Innu took direct action. They physically occupied runways on military bases in Labrador to protest low-level flying, only to face mass arrests by the Canadian government.[1]

Yet despite the state's best efforts, including the persecution of the courageous Innu and the suppression of their heroic protests, it failed to secure its cherished designation of Goose Bay as the NATO flight training centre, which instead went to Italy. Instead of closing the facility, Harper shops it in the back alleys of NATO and the Paris air show like a discount car rental at the airport: three days, bargain rate, first 100 kilometres free, complete with insurance -- "freedom to fly" at the "go to" rate.

Note

1. "Stop NATO bombing over Labrador!," TML Daily, December 21, 2001

July 9, 2011 Bulletin • Return to Index • Write to: editor@cpcml.ca