FROLITICKS

Satirical commentary on Canadian and American current political issues

Nov 11

When Will We Stop Young Men From Going To War?

by bcurry

Years ago, I read somewhere that old men begin wars and send young men to fight them.  This was certainly true of the multitude of wars fought during the Twentieth Century.  Today, it would appear that nothing has really changed.  Look around the world, and you cannot help to witness the continuing atrocities caused by wars and the loss of not only young soldiers, but also, and most importantly, the loss of civilian lives.  There is no need to once again recount the statistical losses of war, for what matters most is the real human suffering that one sees among the individuals and families affected by war.

I had family members who fought in both World Wars, and gratefully had survived to return.  Born shortly after WWII, I lived through the Cold War period and the West’s battles with the then Soviet Union.  I lived through the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent struggles of East European countries for independence.  I lived through the Vietnam conflict, which one must remember like the earlier Korean conflict, was never officially declared a war by Congress. Then came the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 toppling the long time dictator Saddam Hussein and leading to the subsequent decade occupation of Iraq.  Fortunately, the then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien refused to send Canadian troops to fight in Iraq.  However, Canada did join the NATO mission in Afghanistan where in over ten years of fighting, Canadian combatants loss their lives and several were seriously injured.  With the war in Afghanistan going poorly and in light of the gains being made by the Taliban, the U.S. couldn’t wait to get out of that country, much in the same way the Vietnam conflict ended.  And for what?

Now, we have the Ukrainian-Russian war being initiated by 73 year old Vladimir Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years and de facto dictator of Russia since 2000.  To date, while supplying Ukraine with weapons and financial support, no NATO country has boots on the ground in Ukraine.  However, there is little doubt that NATO’s European countries are deeply concerned about Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and potential future threat.  The result is that they have begun to build up their military forces and to expend a larger proportion of their budgets on defence.  Canada, as a NATO member, has also agreed to significantly increase its military spending to meet its continuing commitments to the alliance.

In the Middle East, Israel’s conflicts with Hamas in Gaza, its attacks on Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, and its most recent attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar, represents a long period of wars and deaths and destruction on both sides.  Indeed, there have been multiple wars with Israel, including those in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2021 and an ongoing one since 2023, which began with the infamous October 7 attacks.  According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University, the U.S. spent almost $18 billion on military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024.  While the U.S. continues to provide this massive support, do date President Trump has not indicated that American troops could become directly involved in Gaza.  Time will tell!

People in the Trump administration like to describe the president as a president for peace — this despite the recent change whereby his Secretary of Defense is now the Secretary of War.  In addition, the Trump administration is building up its military presence in the Caribbean, especially off the coast of Venezuela.  Drone attacks have been carried out on boats in international waters, with the administration declaring that these are drug smugglers originating out of Venezuela and supported by the country’s president Nicolás Maduro.  However, some current and former U.S. officials contend that the unspoken goal is the goal is to force Maduro from power.  In other words, regime change.  As of November 6th, the U.S. Senate has twice failed to pass resolutions that would limit Trump’s authority to continue military action against Venezuela or airstrikes against alleged drug vessels.  After long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the combination of the words America and regime change raises alarm bells, both inside and outside the U.S.  Let’s hope that this aging American president isn’t once again ready to sacrifice American young lives in another worthless war.

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May 22

The Hypocrisy of Trump’s Foreign Policy Stance

by bcurry

This week, President Trump sat in a press conference and berated President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, a democratic state, with false claims about a genocide being committed against white Afrikaner farmers.  On the other hand, just a week ago President Trump had traveled to three Middle East countries ruled by repressive and non-democratic regimes and told them he would not lecture them about how they treat their own people.  The above meeting was subsequent to the administration’s fast tracking of the refugee status of dozens of white Afrikaans to the U.S. from South Africa, claiming that they were being persecuted by the government of that country and their lives and livelihood had been threatened.  No proof of the accusations was provided.

In contrast, one of Trump’s first actions on taking office in January 2025 was to issue an executive order suspending the Afghan resettlement program and leaving those eligible in legal limbo.  Approximately 180,000 Afghans had been admitted to the United States after August 2021.  Some were given special immigration visas (SIVs) that provided a path to permanent residency, while others were given humanitarian parole and granted temporary protected status (TPS) that allowed them to stay and to work in the U.S.  On April 11th, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced its decision to end TPS for more than 9,000 Afghans because Afghanistan “no longer continues to meet the statutory requirement for TPS.” Those targeted were given the option to self-deport before May 20, 2025.  Some of these Afghans had served with the American forces as interpreters and in other capacities, and any return to Afghanistan would most likely prove to be fatal to them and their families.

The encounter with President Ramaphosa in some ways echoed the previous February visit to the Oval Office by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.  Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelensky in front of TV cameras, cutting short a visit meant to coordinate a plan for peace.  At one point, Trump even suggested that the Ukraine was responsible for starting the war with Russia which is completely false.  Since then, Trump has subsequently met with Zelensky and had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin in seeking to begin discussions for a permanent cease fire and resolution of the dispute.  However, most experts believe that Putin is simply stringing Trump along and has no intention of committing to fair and equitable negotiations with Zelensky.  Having failed to get both parties to the table, Trump now appears to have decided to concentrate only on economic talks with Ukraine, including those over that country’s rare minerals, and to forgo his intermediary status in the talks.

On May 6th, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Trump met at the White House and held a brief news event that focused on tariffs, trade and Trump’s repeated assertion that Canada should be the 51st state — a notion that Carney again clearly rejected.  While this meeting was somewhat more cordial in tone, the primary discussion of the existing Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) didn’t really get addressed.  Instead, Trump simply restated that there wasn’t anything Carney could say to convince him to lift the existing tariffs.  However, Carney has called the CUSMA as “the basis for a broader negotiation.”  Remember, that it was under the previous Trump administration that the current trade agreement was signed, which has now been violated with Trump’s recent tariffs on both Canadian and Mexican imports to the U.S.

What we have to date is a weird collage of approaches to foreign policies under the Trump administration.  Where Trump believes there are positive economic returns to the U.S., such as in the Middle East, he is quite willing to enter into bilateral trade arrangements, despite having to deal with non-democratic and repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.  His administration has even alluded to possibly reducing or eliminating existing economic sanctions on Russia imposed after Putin’s past invasion of Crimea and the current armed invasion of Eastern Ukraine.  All of this contributes to the evident hypocrisy of Trump’s foreign policy stance.

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Feb 17

Trump’s Trade Policy Appears to be Directed at Securing Critical Mineral Rights

by bcurry

After three years of war that forged a new unity within NATO, the Trump administration has made clear it is planning to focus its attention elsewhere: in Asia, Latin America, the Arctic and anywhere President Trump believes the U.S. can obtain critical mineral rights.  Moreover, this is why Trump to a large extent has his eye on annexing Canada and Greenland, both of which have an abundance of critical minerals such as uranium, graphite and lithium.  Critical minerals are currently used in over 230 sectors of the U.S. economy, from energy infrastructure to advanced technology manufacturing, and from aerospace engineering, including satellites, to medical equipment.  Critical minerals are the building blocks for the green and digital economy and demand for them will only grow throughout the global energy transition. Disruption potential is related to how much of a commodity’s global production is concentrated in countries that are relatively unwilling or unable (due to political or economic instability, workforce or infrastructure inadequacies, regulations, etc…) to supply the U.S. with critical minerals.  Some critical minerals are produced primarily in countries that are economically or politically unstable, or do not have a reliable trade relationship with the U.S. —  thereby representing a higher supply risk.  This however does not apply to Canada which is a stable supplier of minerals in general, including copper, zinc, phosphorus, silicon metal, cobalt, high-purity iron ore, and rare earth elements.

The lack of stability in Ukraine is a major reason why Trump apparently ha turned down Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s extraordinary offer that the U.S. be granted a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine’s critical mineral resources as compensation for past and future support of the war with Russia. 

However, Canada recognizes that critical minerals are the foundation on which modern technology is built upon.  They’re used in a wide range of essential products, from mobile phones and solar panels to electric vehicle batteries and medical applications. By building critical minerals value chains, Canada can become a major global supplier of choice for critical minerals and the clean energy and technology sources they enable.  For this reason, Canada is not willing to simply give away control of these precious minerals to the U.S. or any other nation for that matter.  They are also essential to Canada’s economic or national security.

Canada has already partnered with the U.S. when it comes to discovering and mining critical minerals.  In January 2020, the Canada-U.S. Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals was announced to advance bilateral interest in securing supply chains for the critical minerals needed in strategic manufacturing sectors.  Canada has also worked with other countries such as Japan to encourage cooperation on international standard-setting for critical minerals, as well as several multilateral organizations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the World Bank, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF).  The U.S. is also an active member of these multilateral organizations.

For these reasons, it is difficult to understand why Trump continues to be so aggressive when it comes to the U.S.-Canada trading relationship.  Canada is an exporting nation, which includes most of our natural resources which make up the bulk of exports.  Canada is very interested in exporting critical minerals to its allies through various trade agreements, and is investing more in the extraction of these minerals.  Canada already provides a stable and growing market when it comes to critical minerals.  If Trump wants to ignore the existing cooperation between the two countries, he does so at his own peril and that of those American businesses which rely on a steady and reliable supply chain.

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Mar 25

Electorate in Both U.S. and Canada Appears to be Very Disgruntled. I Wonder Why?

by bcurry

George H. W. Bush Senior, going into his bid for a second term, was frequently told that it’s all about the economy stupid!  The U.S. economy went into a recession in 1990; the unemployment rate rose from 5.9% in 1989 to a high of 7.8% in mid-1991; and the debt percentage of total gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 39.4% in 1989 to almost 46.8% in 1992.  By the presidential election in1992, many conservative Republicans’ support of Bush had waned for a variety of reasons, including raising taxes and cutting defense spending.  Americans were less concerned with his foreign policy successes (e.g. Persian Gulf War victory over Iraq) than with the nation’s deteriorating economic situation.  Thus, despite having once been a relatively popular president, he lost to Bill Clinton.

Today, the primary issue among voters continues to be the economy, and especially the high rate of inflation and high interest rates affecting people’s mortgages and the cost of loans in general.  Yes, there is low unemployment and more people are employed today than anytime since the pandemic.  However, unfortunately for Joe Biden, the average American is struggling on a daily basis to make ends meet, especially since average wages have not kept up with increasing inflation over the last few years.  Many people and businesses are still recovering from the pandemic, which has created a real sense of insecurity and a general malaise within the population.

Taking all of this into account, and that people are not happen with another Trump vs. Biden election, there is a general mistrust with governance.  The same can be said for in Canada where you have a Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and a party that has been in power for over nine years.  The opposition is continuously harpooning about the high cost of inflation and high interest rates that average Canadians are facing.  There is also a good amount of discord over the government’s intention to raise the national carbon tax this coming April, despite it being only one element of several policies aimed at tackling climate change.  However, right now, climate change has taken a back seat to the economy.  A federal election will very likely be called next year in Canada, and all the government can hope for is that the economy will improve and inflation will come down.

Overall, these are tough times for governing parties.  There appear to be no win-win situations.  Government deficits have been climbing steadily, partly in earlier response to the pandemic, with no end in sight.  Wars overseas in the Ukraine and Middle East are not helping.  Funds are being allocated to support the Ukraine against Russia, Israel’s military and the plight of Palestinian refugees in Gaza.  The situation has placed both the U.S. and Canada in a difficult situation given the evolving humanitarian crisis in both conflicts.  In terms of foreign policy, domestically it is a no-win and highly emotive situation for both governments in terms of supporting one side or the other particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In addition, stability in the energy markets is constantly under threat as a result of the sanctions against Russian oil and natural gas exports and the general unstable situation in the Middle East.  As a result, there has been a measurable direct or indirect impact in the form of rising costs for gas and heating fuel in North America.

There is little doubt that we live uncertain times.  There is also little doubt that voters are concerned with the cost of living and continuing hard economic times.  This bleak outlook does not bode well for President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau.  The question then becomes whether their political opponents can take advantage of the situation?  I guess time will tell.

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Oct 22

The Power of the American Military Industrial Complex Continues to Grow

by bcurry

Lester B. Pearson, a former Canadian Prime Minister, was quoted in 1955: “The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.”  As you may know or not know, as a diplomat Pearson was largely responsible for encouraging the formation of the League of Nations after World War II, which in turn became the United Nations.

Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in 1953: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”  As a former general during World War II, Eisenhower clearly understood the power of the military industrial complex in the States, a power that has continued to grow from this day forward.

The U.S. is the world’s biggest arms exporter.  As of last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. controlled an estimated 45 percent of the world’s weapons exports.  This is nearly five times more than any other nation and its highest level since the years immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  That is up from 30 percent a decade ago.

The current conflict between Israel and Hamas is just the latest impetus behind a boom in international arms sales that is bolstering profits and weapons-making capacity among American suppliers, especially with respect to Israel’s military.  The U.S. already provides Israel with more than $3 billion in military assistance every year, and Congress is now apparently being asked to increase funding to Israel to the tune of $10 billion in emergency aid due to the conflict.

Even before Israel responded to the deadly Hamas attack, the combination of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the perception of a rising threat from China was spurring a global rush to purchase fighter planes, missiles, tanks, artillery, munitions and other lethal equipment.  Other countries such as Turkey and South Korea are also increasing their military equipment exports, giving purchasers more options at a time when production shortfalls in the U.S. mean it can take years for orders to be filled.  During the Biden administration countries such as Poland, Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Japan have signed military equipment deals with the U.S.  Even some small Pacific island nations have done the same. Taiwan alone has a backlog of American weapons orders worth as much as $19 billion.  Canada recently signed an agreement with Lockheed, the world’s largest military contractor, to purchase F-35 fighter jets worth billions of dollars.

Economically, there is little doubt that foreign-based wars can stimulate certain sectors of a country’s economy.  One only has to recall the impact of the Vietnam and Iraq wars to witness the role of American military hardware providers who benefited from the billions of dollars spent in support of American actions in both countries.  Unfortunately, thousands of American lives were loss and thousands more were injured in these two nebulous conflicts.  Military equipment is being sold to all sorts of regimes, several non-democratic, simply to garner support for American foreign policy initiatives in their respective region.

Sadly, there are those who note that the Pentagon and the State Department are continuing to work to find ways to accelerate approval of foreign military sales to keep up with the rising global demand.  The industry has declared that the main bottleneck remains manufacturing capacity, requiring an industrial base capable of meeting these requirements.  Yes, there will always be those that argue if the U.S. industry doesn’t fulfill such perceived needs, then other countries will simply step in to do so.  Regrettably, this appears to be a winnable argument in Congress, with the military industrial complex taking full advantage at the expense of American taxpayers since it is often combined with foreign aid and foreign policy.

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Apr 4

Much Like Americans and Vietnam, There Is Dissent Among Russians Over The War In Ukraine

by bcurry

It’s interesting to compare the nature of dissent among Americans during the military action in Vietnam years ago, and Putin’s current so-called “special military action” in the Ukraine by Russian forces.  Having lived during the years of the America’s military action in Vietnam, I can recognize the growing dissent among Russians over the Ukrainian invasion.  One has to remember that the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was never officially declared a war by Congress, but was instead acted upon by presidential executive statements.  America paid a terrible price for its involvement in Vietnam — nearly 60,000 killed in action, over 150,000 wounded, and some 1,600 missing.  Then there was the draft, whereby a good number of young draft-aged Americans were forced into the military and ended up fighting in the jungles of Vietnam against determined and aggressive fighters.  The U.S. military bombed the hell out of North and South Vietnam, apparently with little impact.  The administration’s policy excuse was to prevent some form of domino effect in Southeast Asia should the Communists take over all of Vietnam.  Unfortunately for the much better equipped U.S. military, the national desire of the Vietnamese to unite their country and expel all foreign intruders proved to be too much.  After killing thousands of Vietnamese and destroying much of Vietnam’s infrastructure, the Americans were forced to leave the country with the fall of the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon in April 1975.  Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from U.S. bombing range from 30,000 to 65,000.

As the Vietnamese conflict lagged on, more and more Americans began to question the U.S. involvement and related human and financial costs.  Some dissent took the form of draft-aged Americans fleeing the country, many to Canada which had an open policy for draftees.  Within the U.S., dissent grew among college students and even among many Vietnam vets.  President Nixon took much of the brunt of such anti-Vietnam protests.  Sometimes, protests became violent resulting in hundreds of arrests by the authorities.  Increasingly, the American press began to question the optimistic briefings provided by the military brass, often highlighting the alleged effectiveness of strategic bombings and gains made by ground forces.  However for the first time in history, video of the conflict provided by front-line war correspondents was seen by American television viewers on a nightly basis.  The influence of the American media was especially important at the time and helped to sway opinion against the conflict.

The biggest difference in the case of dissent against Russia’s incursion into the Ukraine is the complete control by Putin’s regime over state media outlets.  In addition, the punishment against Russians openly protesting the war has resulted in immediate imprisonment and the potential for up to 15 years in prison.  However, dissent has been particularly strong among younger and better educated Russians, as demonstrated by the thousands who have already fled Russia to Eastern and Western European countries.  There has even been dissent expressed among some oligarchs who normally are strongly aligned with Putin’s interests.  The Russian military is even more dependent upon conscription to complement its professional army, to the point that Moscow has indicated that it will conscript around 130,000 more military-aged Russians this year.  However, there have been indications that dissent has emerged among those conscripts currently serving in the Ukraine, including the abandonment of positions and deliberate disabling of equipment.  Faced with a committed and fierce Ukrainian opposition and inept military command, the Russian assault on Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv has been stalled. 

As the Russian economy falters and the war goes on and Russian casualties mount, there is little doubt that ordinary Russians will begin to question what the Putin regime is claiming.  A major difference with Vietnam is the fact that today social media is readily available, no matter how much the government attempts to control it.  Scenes of Russian military actions upon civilians, including the elderly and children, are extremely disturbing.  Increasingly, such actions are being depicted as “war crimes” in the eyes of the world.  As was the case in Vietnam, it will be interesting to see if Russian dissent will grow with the increasing scenes of body bags being returned to the homeland?  Such scenes at U.S. military bases greatly influenced the growth of American dissent as time moved on, especially when there was little indication as to an end to the Vietnam conflict.

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Mar 17

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Has Forced American and Canadian Political Parties to Unite on Several Issues

by bcurry

In both the U.S. Congress and Canada’s Parliament, the Russia invasion of the Ukraine has brought governing and opposition parties together in their support for the Ukraine.  When Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed these governing bodies this week, he received a standing and emotive ovation from both sides of the aisle.  Parties on the left and on the right have suddenly been galvanized in support of their mutual and strong opposition to Vladimir Putin’s war on the Ukrainian people.  One has not seen this kind of unified alliance in many years.  While there may be minor differences in the nature of support for the Ukraine, the general approach has been to provide more military and humanitarian aid to that country and to punish Russia with more and more economic sanctions.

In addition, both the U.S. and Canada have moved to strengthen their support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in its resolve to support the Ukraine in this horrendous war.  In addition, the Russian threat has led to leaders in both countries and in Europe to revisit their defence spending.  As Jonathan Weisman in the New York Times notes: “On the left, Democrats are acquiescing to higher military spending and dropping a bid to pull back rapidly from fossil fuels.  On the right, Trump-era isolationism and attacks on the trans-Atlantic alliance are being relegated to the fringe in Congress.”  The current Canadian government has also indicated that it will be moving to increase defence expenditures particularly in light of the Russian threat to Canada’s Artic region.  Canada has been reluctant to increase these expenditures in the past, but both liberals and conservatives now see such an increase as necessary due to the recent events and the need to better support NATO.

Also, both the U.S. and Canada now support an increase in a joint North American energy approach, including an increase in the production and transport of fossil fuels.  Both countries still believe that a reduced reliance on non-renewable energy sources is necessary to combat the impact of climate change, but are more willing to use fossil fuels as a bridge to the increased use of renewal energy sources and green technologies.  This may encourage the Democrats to revisit their anti-pipeline policies in order to facilitate the flow of Canadian crude oil to the U.S., something the Republicans have supported in the past.  Both administrations firmly believe that Europe will need to reduce its dependence on Russia for fossil fuels.  However, this approach will take years to implement and will require the continuing support of future American and Canadian governments.

Canada has one of the largest populations of Ukrainians in the world outside of the Ukraine, forcing governments to support the Ukraine militarily and through sanctions on Russia.  Politically, no government can ignore the impact of the Russian invasion on these Canadians.  One should expect that all political parties will continue to support foreign policies in opposition to Vladimir Putin.  One can also expect that support for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), implemented by a pact made in 1957 at the height of the Cold War, will increase.  NORAD has been placed under the joint command the air forces of Canada and the U.S., and is the key means for both countries to reinforce our mutual defence of North America.

All in all, we should look forward to greater unity of both left and right leaning political parties when it comes to foreign policy, defence policy and energy policy.  This may be one of the few benefits derived from our reaction of the unfortunate and tragic situation in the Ukraine.  Time will tell!

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