7 January, 2009
[Editor's note: this report and analysis is brought by the Mohawk Nation News of Canada.]
***
It looks like the psychotics from the U.S. have hijacked Canadian policy, taking Canada back to medieval blood lust. A 250-page field manual on counter-insurgency is being put out by Canada's Department of National Defense (DND) for its soldiers and officers. On 25 March 2007, writing about these new methods of fighting “insurgents,” Jon Elmer of Global Research said that the DND manual is for groups like the Taliban, Chechnyans, and the “Mohawk Warrior Society.” We are being called “terrorists.” We see a lot of people being killed in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Are they planning to bring this kind of violence here?
Let’s not kid ourselves. The main purpose of any military is to kill people, maim and injure them and break stuff. Does Canada’s Parliament or do the Canadian people know about this new DND genocidal action plan and training that is being done in their name? Since when is it legal to make plans to attack the indigenous peoples of Canada?
If the DND sees us as foreign insurgents, then they recognize our independent nationality. So when did they attempt to negotiate with us on a nation-to-nation basis? Under international accords that Canada has signed, all countries must resolve differences by diplomatic means. Under Canadian and international law, aggressive war, planning to make war, and the use of weapons to dominate or oppress other peoples are illegal.
Who is Preparing for War and Why?
Why are weapons being pointed at us? Why is the Canadian military planning an invasion? We are defenseless. Why are we, the Mohawk nation, being compared with the Taliban? The Taliban, funded and created by the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), have rockets, artillery and modern weapons which can blow up U.S., Canadian and British tanks. The Taliban have automatic rifles and are at war with the newest U.S. installed regime.
Current infiltrators and hijackers of Canadian institutions are attempting to break age old treaties of peace between us and the people of Canada. Our historic alliances are well documented. Should we be shocked to learn that certain individuals, acting on behalf of the multinational corporations and banks, want to send in the military to kill us and complete the theft of our land? Our land is worth billions in real estate development and filled with valuable natural resources. They think every person who is different is an enemy that they can spy on, create problems and eliminate. But the people of Canada and the world need to know – our people and our resources are not the property of multinational corporations and banks.
Public Security Minister Stockwell Day and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have to be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be prosecuted for planning aggressive war against us, a war crime under the Geneva Convention. We also want to take our complaints to the Mohawk Nation, to the Confederacy, to the Canadian people, and the United Nations.
We are not terrorist or a threat to peace. We have always been ready to talk with the colonial governments, even when they put a gun to our heads. For 500 years we have extended our hand of friendship to them. We believe that people should live in peace and to each other as equals. A majority of Canadians want to learn about peace from us and to understand democracy better. These misguided belligerents in the DND are not following the legal agenda set by the Canadian people who want peace between our peoples. Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean, where are you? How can you allow people under your control to undermine your solemn duties to us? We are trying to stop the subversion of law and order, to get Canada to obey its own laws, agreements, promises, treaties, laws of nations and the Charter of the United Nations. We have a legitimate government. We are not a line of ducks to be shot at in the amusement park.
The Reality of Counterinsurgency and Dirty Wars
The manual says, “Insurgent wars are characterized by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, successes are few and far between.”
We can only conclude that U.S. and Canadian armies are in rural parts of Afghanistan practicing for the day when they bring the same blood bath here. They want more chances to reach for their guns and riot gear? Does nothing embarrass them?
They have already started to use us as targets in their counterinsurgency war-games. A few months ago Tyendinaga was suddenly swarmed by a long line of army trucks filled with troops. The Canadian military forces, equipped with global positioning technology claimed to be lost!
In 1939 Europe saw the result of excessive militarism. It caused a war in which over 60 million were killed. Now these kinds of men want to “goose step” into our communities. They are mesmerized by the movies glamorizing mercenary killings and the “History Channel’s” portrayal of Hitler, the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe and the U.S.
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus has signed off on this manual being used to divert the Canadian military from its protective role. Patraeus, who lead invasions and counter-insurgency attacks in Karbala, Hilla and Najaf, took command of the entire U.S. forces in Iraq in February 2007. Do his methods work? They do not bring peace, but they do spur bloodshed.
Most Americans have had enough. They do not support the occupation. But this Svengali war-monger has seduced the gullible minds at DND who are willing to apply failed schemes (first developed by the Nazis) in Canada and elsewhere.
Canadian Forces and Instruments of Imperialism and Death
Maj. D.J. Lambert, the lead author of the DND version of the counterinsurgency manual, points out that “Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan, in Haiti and with domestic indigenous organizations in Canada, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society.” Consider, Canadian policies have pushed our people into poverty, starvation and death in the streets of Winnipeg and other Canadian cities. Why are Canadian soldiers training their guns on the weak?
Canada calls us their “citizens,” but treats us like foreign insurgents – when this is our land! The government and the military are working against the edicts of the Supreme Court of Canada which has told them time and time again they must treat Indigenous People with respect. DND covert actions are undermining this relationship by treating us as enemies.
The manual states, “Indigenous resistance in Canada are insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- through the threat of, or use of, violence."
This definition of insurgency is so broad that any democratic action qualifies as terrorist and belligerent. We have made no threat of violence against the Canadian state. Though we acknowledge that the government of Ottawa is a colonial one, we want to maintain a relationship of friendship with them – yet we will continue to demand equality and justice, though they respond to us with violence and excessive force.
Recent History of Aggression
Canadian Forces were used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors in standoffs against the Mohawks of Kanehsatake in 1990 and the Ojibway at Ipperwash in 1995. According to the DND, the military were at Ipperwash. This means the sniper who killed Dudley George might have been a soldier, not an Ontario Provincial Policeman. Is this why Corporal Deane and two other OPP key witnesses died in mysterious car crashes when they were just about to appear as witnesses at the Ipperwash Inquiry?
In our peaceful demonstrations at Kanehsatake, Gustafsen, Ipperwash, Six Nations, Grassy Narrows, and other places our legal rights were violated. Some lost their lives. The formal government inquiries proved that. We know that certain members of Canadian society and corporate interests want to provoke a confrontation to justify killing us. We won’t give them that.
On January 12, 2004, in a covert operation at Kanehsatake, the government sent in heavily armed mercenaries to knock out the citizens’ police commission. The disinformation campaign made it appear that that Mohawk had an arsenal when in fact, all the weapons belonged to the federal government.
An Atrocious Bunch, Destined to Kill
Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the Canadian military as merely a neutral middle-power and blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers. This is what the Canadian public wants! But instead of following democratic dictates, the Canadian army is preparing to become the aggressors, delivering death sentences to defenseless civilians, including infants and children, without so much as a charge or trial. These overgrown school yard bullies are still trying to play “paint ball” using real bullets, and killing real people.
We are told that Canadian Forces will leave Afghanistan in February 2009. In response, General Leslie said, "Let's not kid ourselves." What are we to make of that? The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada's armed forces from a defense and peacekeeping organization to one that invades, attacks and carries out a guerrilla war against unarmed civilians is not for Afghanistan alone. It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere, fairly similar to Afghanistan, and do much the same sort of activity.
Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Security, is a Pentecostal minister. Perhaps he is better seen as a Pharisee, one who poses as a minister. His proposal to kill off Indians on this continent is contrary to those very Christian beliefs that he claims to espouse. He studies the Bible just like George Bush and Condoleezza Rice … psychopaths, liars and killers. They have no human feelings. As soon as their prayers are over, they have no qualms about ordering their military machines to go and destroy more – bombing hospitals, weddings, raping young girls, executing babies and old men.
If leaders in Canada and their minions of obedient soldiers kill us, we want the whole world to know that they carried out premeditated murder of innocent people. The war games have to stop. Daily we look out for soldiers in our backyards or overhead. They have been caught sniffing around our communities. It must end now.
We ask all peace loving people worldwide to send your protests about this war mongering and targeting of Indigenous people to the Canadian government [harper.s@parl.ca], the Governor General [gg@gc.ca], the Queen [press@royalcollection.org.uk] and the Canadian military [www.forces.gc.ca], and any other body. Help us make peace – help us prevent more needless violence.
***
Courtesy of MNN (Mohawk Nation News). You may reach author Kahentinetha Horn or the staff of MNN at Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com and katenies20@yahoo.com. For updates, workshops, speakers, to sign up, go to www.mohawknationnews.com
Kahentinetha Horn(Top)
(Top)
COMMENTS
COMMENT
FEEDBACK
In the interest of intelligent debate and diversity of perspective, Virtual Citizens will publish well reasoned letters of agreement or dissent.If you would not like to see your email published here or want any information excluded (name or email), please specifically state so in your message.