Well as you know, no world leader has screamed as loudly about the crisis in Ukraine as has Stephen Harper.
If words were weapons the Russians would have surrendered by now.
But now NATO is demanding that he put his money where his mouth or his snout is.
And the chicken hawk has been plucked.
Canada's modest military might has always made it hard for its prime ministers to strut convincingly on the world stage. Stephen Harper is only the latest to offer stirring rhetorical contributions to the Western alliance, without having much firepower to back them up.
Faced with a pressing need to offer more than ringing denunciations of Russian aggression, NATO's 28 members are being challenged to increase their defence budgets. Harper intends to do no such thing. As long as that's true, Harper will be speaking loudly, but carrying a small stick.
Because when it comes to choosing between defending Ukraine, and defending the deficit so he can bribe Canadians with tax cuts in the next election campaign.
He'd rather bomb our defence budget.
Stephen Harper has been one of the toughest-talking leaders throughout the Ukraine crisis, yet newly released figures show National Defence is expected to face an even deeper budget hole in the coming year than previously anticipated.
Annual spending on the military, when compared with 2011, is slated to shrink by a total of $2.7-billion in 2015, according to a briefing note prepared for the deputy defence minister.
Dave Perry, an analyst with the Conference of Defence Associations, said, in order to meet the NATO goal, Ottawa would have to double the military’s budget to about $38-billion per year.
And here's the best part eh?
So what does Great Chicken Hawk Leader believe his most outstanding contribution to NATO should be?
More HOT AIR.
According to the account of the Prime Minister's Office, Harper's goal at the NATO summit is to emphasize what Canada has already done, especially with its fine rhetoric: "Canada's main objectives for the Summit include highlighting its contributions to the Alliance, notably the role it has played since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine crisis by stressing the need for a strong international response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine..."
So: our "main objective" is to "highlight" our role in "stressing the need" for a "strong response."
Brag about the Con regime's deranged attempts to escalate the crisis for crass political purposes.
And portray Harper as a Great Strong Leader.
You know HIM...
Because that should teach Putin a lesson he'll NEVER forget...
Can you believe it? The Cons are trying to scam NATO with the same bullshit words they use like weapons against us.
They really do think they can fool EVERYONE.
And he really is CRAZY.
Playing cheap politics in the middle of a crisis that could lead to a superpower confrontation.
Oh boy. You know if I was a Ukrainian-Canadian I'd be looking for another champion.
If I was the Con clown Stephen Harper.
I'd be looking for another job...
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Harper and his party are arrogant, duplicitous, and rancorous, but not stupid. I doubt that they really believe they are fooling anyone on the world stage, let alone the average informed Canadian. I do think they know that they can fool their hardcore base of true believers with a few well-placed talking points, which is the point of this farce. it is only going to get more silly as we approach their day of reckoning in 2015.
ReplyDeleteMr. Harper, in the words of the immortal Foghorn Leghorn, "you're nothing but a loud-mouthed schnook".