Terry Glavin

Political protest enters its newest phase.

What is Legitimate Protest?

March 27th, 2013

Terry Glavin effectively counters Chris Hedges in an engaging conversation about how political protest has evolved (or devolved?).More >>

Nation of the Month: France

January 30th, 2013

As the intrepid Terry Glavin notes,

It seems to take quite a lot for a spectacular state-failure catastrophe to attract the attention of the civilized world these days, what with U.S. President Barack Obama’s persistent and absurd reiterations of his administration’s fantasy that “the tide of war is receding” and everything.

But France is paying attention. Besides stepping up to the Islamist assault on Mali,

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls has said that a handful of radical imams will be expelled from the country in the coming days as part of ongoing efforts to deport foreign-born preachers who "refer to the need to fight against France".

Liberty, equality, fraternity. France: the country that keeps on giving.

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NDP Purports to Give a Crap About Afghans

April 10th, 2012

In it's continuing effort to make itself in any way relevant to the actual lived struggles of real democrats in faraway places, the NDP says they're concerned that Canada has made no commitment to Afghanistan after 2014, in a PostMedia article from March:

NDP foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere said the government doesn't seem to have a "game plan" for post-2014.

That's odd, since the NDP made Canada Out of Afghanistan their cause célèbre over the past decade, cashing in on a public maligned to the mission (but wrong in their misgivings). Shouldn't the NDP be pleased there is no plan, and no will left in the Harper Government to do anything, past 2014? Didn't the NDP only wish the abandonment of Afghanistan, and a perverse "peace with the Taliban", had come sooner?

As Terry Glavin has repeatedly pointed out, the NDP wanted Canada to be "neutral" towards Afghanistan. But this is not what Afghans wanted.

That Jack Layton’s trippy prescriptions for the ills that ail Afghanistan are less a persistence of noble left-wing internationalist traditions and more along the lines of black-leotard interpretive dance from a post-modern alternative universe will not be a surprise to
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The Citizen Imperialism of the West

March 29th, 2012

Last month, I sailed across the Straight of Georgia to Saltspring Island, during their "Words Without Borders" writers' festival. Included in the program was a panel on Afghanistan featuring writers with recent books out focused on this country. Panelists Terry Glavin and Murray Brewster brought a good dose of honesty and even some optimism to the cynical and simplistic narratives the third panelist, Ann Jones, propagated (= war and militaries are inherently bad / peace is good, even peace with tyranny). After the panelists spoke, a mostly reasonable and civil audience interaction ensued. At the very end, an older woman stood up and said something more or less like this,

We have so many problems here in Canada that need to be dealt with, it seems to me we should be dealing with our own challenges first rather than going into other countries telling them how to solve their problems. I'd prefer if we dedicated our country's resources to tackling our own problems.

Many nodding heads approved, there was even some light cheering.

I've heard one version or another of this statement quite consistently ever since I myself started meddling in other countries. I call it...More >>

The Rot at the UN and the Silence of the Left. UN Removes Rights of Gays Not to be Executed

November 30th, 2010

The United Nations, the body founded in the wake of the Holocaust and the horrific consequences of unchecked fascism, has once again signalled just how far off its foundation it's slid over the last 60 years. In a resolution on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions, a specific reference to sexual orientation has been dropped from the list of unjustified reasons for executions, after several Arab and African countries banded together in a bid to have the reference removed.

In effect, the United Nations, the world body mandated to uphold the universalism of human rights, will not be defending the rights of human beings not to be murdered by their governments on account of their sexual preferences-- not even on paper this time.

The amendment to remove "sexual orientation" was put forward by Mali and Morocco and hailed by African and Islamic member states, changing the wording of the 2008 resolution which explicitly mentioned sexual orientation. Thus, in 2010, we have a resolution that is weaker than its predecessor: it's regress instead of progress in the develoment of international...More >>

The Iranian Regime Calls Them Terrorists. We Call Them The Democratic Opposition

July 7th, 2010

Iran's ruling mullahs say it's a cult of assassins. The U.S. State Department says it's a front for a shadowy Iranian terrorist group. But the National Council of the Resistance in Iran can count hawks from the George W. Bush era and European socialists among its strongest supporters, and the star attractions a boisterous NCRI rally here in Paris on June 28 included several Canadian MPs.

The NCRI gathering, which drew about 30,000 Iranian exiles from around the world, was more like an outdoor rock concert than a political rally. Jean Bouin Stadium in Taverny, a Paris suburb, was transformed into a sea of mauve hats and mauve sun umbrellas. Against a big-screen backdrop, the warm-up acts included speeches from former Algerian prime minister Ahmed Ghozali and former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar.

It was as surreal as it was spectacular. MP Rob Oliphant (Don Valley West), a soft-spoken United Church minister, chatted amiably offstage with John Bolton, the famously combative Iraq war enthusiast and former U.S. representative to the United Nations. NCRI president Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI's enigmatic president (some say her husband Masoud, the NCRI's official leader, may be dead), hovered overheard in a helicopter while European...More >>