> What I said was the present Canadian government could not locate Libya on a
> map before the onset of the civil war. That a handful of Canadian business
> people who could may or may not donate to the Conservative party of Canada
> is a moot point. To the extent that this government has any foreign
> policy
> with respect to North Africa in general and Libya is a function of its
> default stance. Pro-resource extraction, pro-US foreign policy, pro Nato
> and pro-military spending. None of which have anything to do with the
> value
> of civilian lives.
>
True. Canada supports Canada's corporate interests - which are usually the same as the US, though not always. No disagreement. I do believe though that regardless of the ignorance of Canada's government, they will get a call from corporate capital telling them precisely what position to take. That's their job, after all.
> The point was not that the Canadian or any western government does not have
> specific interests motivating violence in foreign countries the point is
> that they almost *always* do and we do not need to waste time debating if
> Suncor or Bechtel or ACME universal minor mega Corp is behind it or not.
> Nor do we need to waste time taking very serious positions on whether it is
> the oil they want or a price move on oil, access to cheap labour or the
> cheapening of domestic labour supplies blah blah blah.
>
It doesn't seem true that they almost *always* do have motivation for violence. They certainly didn't in Libya from 2003 through 2010 - they invested heavily there. Now they're upside down on their earlier policy. Why? Russia, China and Turkey are not. There's not such a pat answer - since we all know Canada couldn't care less about 'freedom', etc.
> As an example, Suncor does 330,000 bpd from the Alberta oil sands alone.
> Total oil sands production is over 1.2 million bpd. So a 5% increase in
> prices from global supply shortages is better than 50,000bpd and it gets
> approval from the whole sector not just one company. Foreign policy is
> about heads we win tails you loose.
>
Excellent point. And it seems you just reinforced that 'wasting time learning the alleged facts' of Canadian capital is important, rather than the reverse. In light of the huge fireworks over Libyan policy going on between US vs. UK vs. France vs. Germany vs. Russia/China/Turkey, I would guess that it is not at all a simple black and white decision by each country - they must weigh exactly which parts of their ruling class wins and which loses. Once again, the facts actually matter.
> I am not going to spend much time chasing down the pissy little facts of
> why
> this or that foreign adventure is equally as cynical as the last. The
> point
> is they are cynical. We know this and we know that the global capitalist
> state system is structurally configured as such. Now if a need yet another
> example to make the argument that the state system is cynical then the
> details of Libya become relevant just as rising to the sun confirms today
> is
> pretty much like yesterday. But in general I do not wake up to confirm
> this
> less than novel fact.
>
Each day the same as the last? I don't believe we have a new war every day, do we? On what day then should we find it necessary to 'waste' our time to 'learn the alleged facts', if not today upon the launch of a new war? I can't think of a better day to spend our time on learning.
-PF
-- Peter Fay http://theclearview.wordpress.com