For a short while, at least as announced by the mainstream media, Canada found itself described as a “peacemaker” among the countries of the world. This was an image promoted abroad and valued domestically as Canadian troops, war materials, and military equipment worked around the world to maintain peace. This necessity for peace, when reviewed critically, came from the reality of the Canadian military forces as an extension of the colonial settler mindset of Great Britain, later adopted to US military supremacy, with a few homegrown initiatives of its own.
Canada is essentially a primary part of the US military empire and operates subordinate to – in most cases – and alongside US military operations in all spheres: actual war fighting, security, interrogation, materials, equipment, research, institutional influences (universities, think tanks – corporate, financial, and political boards of governance) and on. At the same time the mainstream media reports in accordance with US military doctrine to the degree that US operations are presented as a positive force for good in the world – a position Canada always says it aspires to but in actuality never practices.
In his series of many books on Canada’s malfeasance domestically and around the world, Yves Engler has covered all these topics, sometimes focusing on relationships with one country (Israel – “Canada and Israel Building Apartheid, 2010), with a region (Africa – “Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation”, 2015) or focusing on a variety of mostly domestic political topics, although this latter always spills over into British born, US dominated foreign policy.
His most recent work “Stand on Guard for Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military.” (Black Rose Books, Montreal, 2021) brings together all the military elements of Canada’s foreign and domestic policies and actions. (more...)
Canada – The Not So Peaceable Kingdom
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