Stephen Harper and the Great War Election

Well at least now we know what will be Stephen Harper's main weapon in the next election campaign.

Until about a week ago it was going to be all about the economy.

But now he will mount his armoured closet.

And it will be all about WAR. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is skipping a major Asia-Pacific summit in China this November because of the killings of two Canadian soldiers on home soil last week. Instead, Mr. Harper will remain in Canada for Remembrance Day, Nov. 11, when the victims of the attacks will be commemorated.

So he will not be visiting China, even though the reason he rushed through that sellout trade deal with that country was to make sure that nothing would ruin that glorious photo-op.

Canada finally enacted a long-delayed foreign-investor protection agreement with China in September, a move Beijing watchers interpret as an effort to ease strained relations ahead of Mr. Harper’s visit to the APEC summit.

Even if he had to surrender our sovereignty for at least 31 years.

By signing a deal that has been described as worse than the one Neville Chamberlain signed with Hitler... 



But then who can blame him eh?

His relationship with his Chinese overlords is a bumpy one.

The decision means the Prime Minister will also be able to sidestep questions on relations with China, which have been strained recently by allegations of hacking and spying.

One moment he's at their feet, the next moment they're at his throat.

And as Lawrence Martin points out he is determined to take maximum advantage of the hand of fate.

A political leader’s success or failure comes down to three main variables: what the politician does, what the politician’s opponents do, and what the gods do. The lesson from last week is to never overlook the third variable. Sometimes, fate is the major player.

So he will exploit human tragedy, and patriotic fervour, to portray himself as a Great Strong Leader...



There’s no certainty that the attack on Parliament Hill, while no 9/11, will engender a big popularity bounce for the Prime Minister. It may be short in duration, but patriotism is overflowing in this land right now. In times like these, people want a strongman. Security becomes a top-drawer issue. It all plays perfectly to the politics of Mr. Harper, who is being lauded for his handling of the crisis.

And while once he tried to play down the deaths of our soldiers in Afghanistan.

In contrast with the honouring of Corporal Nathan Cirillo, flags weren’t flown at half-mast for fallen soldiers returning from Afghanistan – Mr. Harper’s government imposed a media ban on repatriation ceremonies.

You know, the ones who died fighting the terrorist enemy in a brutal ground war...



Now he will extract maximum political advantage out of the deaths of two soldiers who were mown down by two mental patients.

But then as Martin also points out, the fickle hand of fate has worked for him before.

In 2006, he was trailing when out of the blue came the news that the RCMP had launched a criminal investigation of the Liberals on income trusts. It turned the tide.

And the RCMP is clearly still on his side.

The RCMP says Parliament Hill gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau armed himself with a knife and a gun and prepared a video recording prior to his deadly assault on the National War Memorial, indicating it had indeed been a terrorist attack.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson released a statement Sunday evening revealing new details of about the suspected motivations of Zehaf-Bibeau, saying the young man, who was himself shot dead by Commons security, had recorded a video of himself just prior to carrying out his attack” — a tape, Paulson said, that amounts to “persuasive evidence” that his attack had been “driven by ideological and political motives.”

Still grimly determined to make us believe that the Ottawa gunman was a real ISIS terrorist. 

Because he stole a knife from his aunt, and even though he lived in a homeless shelter he apparently wasn't broke...



Paulson said the RCMP believes Zehaf-Bibeau, contrary to the picture of a destitute loner, had access to money for his “pre-attack activities” because he had worked in Alberta’s oilpatch and had “saved his money.”

The revelation is surprising, given Zihaf-Bibeau had stayed at an emergency shelter in Ottawa and had bargained hard last Tuesday with someone selling the car on Kijiji that he used in Wednesday’s attack.

And because he made a video that they won't show us, so we can't judge his state of mind.

So you can see where this one is going eh?

And the good news? I still don't think any of this is going to work. I think that the swelling chorus of patriotic fever, which is being whipped up by the obviously still traumatized and shaking Ottawa media, will soon fade as it always does.

As I said the other day, I don't think Harper will escape the fickle or bony hand of his ghastly record...



Because as the first person to comment on the Globe story points out, Canadians aren't THAT stupid.

I think that Mr. Martin may be overestimating the lemming-like attributes of Canadians...The real question is how much tolerance do Canadians have for this flagrant abuse of power?

And my guess is they have STILL had more than enough of Harper and his ghastly Con regime. A record like that one is not so easily forgotten.

So Great Strong Leader can go to war, in his armoured closet.

Or on a horse...



But it will not save him.

And it will STILL end badly...

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