Harper's War and the War He Won't Fight

Well now we really are at war. Canadian warplanes have dropped their first bombs on Iraq.

And in his command bunker or closet, Stephen Harper has been tweeting or retweeting up a storm.





And so have his excited followers.



Even though even the "good guys" in the region think it's a waste of time. 

A senior member of the opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime says Canada’s time, effort and money would be better spent training ground forces to retake territory from the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, rather than on a bombing campaign.

But nowhere on any Con site today, was their any mention of a far more important war. The war to save the planet. 

Because that is a war Harper and his Con climate change deniers will not fight. Even though that report underestimates the severity of the situation. 



As the Washington Post pointed out this week, past reports have always tried to err on the side of understatement; it’s a particular problem with sea level rise, since the current IPCC document does not even include the finding in May that the great Antarctic ice sheets have begun to melt. (The studies were published after the IPCC’s cutoff date.)

And even though there are ways the fight can be won:

The price of a solar panel has dropped by more than 90% over the last 25 years, and continues to plummet. In the few places they have actually been deployed at scale, the results are astonishing: there were days this summer when Germany generated 75% of its power from the wind and the sun.

In the war for human survival we're The Enemy,

A new report this week shows that by delaying the Keystone pipeline in North America protesters have prevented at least $17bn (£10.6bn) in new investments in the tar sands of Canada – investments that would have produced carbon equivalent to 735 coal-fired power plants.

The people who must be stopped from torching the planet.

But then as Dan Leger points out Harper has bet the farm on Alberta's tarry oil, and even though oil prices are plummeting. 



On the economy, Harper’s campaigners must wilt a little bit every time they hear how oil prices are capsizing. Their whole re-election plan depends on jobs, a balanced budget and handing out cash to potential voters via targeted tax breaks.

Still thinks he can get away with it:

The saving grace for the Harper government is that the full impact of lower oil prices might not be felt until after the next election, expected in less than a year. So it can table a balanced budget next spring, dole out $7.1 billion in voter-friendly tax cuts and pretend that is all well.

And he'd rather pose as a Great Warrior Leader, from the safety of his closet bunker...



Add in Harper’s bellicose statements on the ISIS war in Iraq and his decision to send fighter jets to join the fray and you have what a friend with long, sad experience in conflict zones called: “Harper’s greatest wish, to be a prime minister in wartime.” 

Is that what Harper seeks, to be a latter-day Canadian Churchill, waving a pudgy fist at the forces of darkness? Or will he look like “George W. Bush light,” as the New York Times described him last week?

And all I can say is that what Canadians really want? To be known as warmongers and planet burners? 

And if not, when will the progressive parties finally declare war on the Con regime and their depraved leader?

Before they shame us further.

Before he destroys our future...



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