Monday, August 3, 2009

Those are outdated concepts. . .

More fascism from Canada's Konservative party:

From Embassy Magazine:
Leaked DFAIT Memo Documents Struggle between Conservative Political Staff and Foreign Service

"Furthermore, the word 'humanitarian' is excised from every reference to 'international humanitarian law.' References to gender-based violence are removed. And in every phrase 'child soldiers' is replaced by 'children in armed conflict.'"

. . .

Given this ambassadorial "gagging," the source said, it's no surprise Conservative political agents are delving deeper into the fundamental language of Canadian foreign policy.

"It's more than just a close-hold by the PMO....in this case there's actually a determined effort to re-orient Canadian foreign policy, and so the standing speaking lines don't work and need to be checked.

(Hat-tip to Atlas Hugged).

In principle, it is the job of the civil service to inform and to execute the decision made at a political level. In practice, though, the implications of this are frightening. Either the political agents don't know what they're doing, in which case somebody in the bureaucracy has to do a better job of informing them, or even more frighteningly, the political decisions are being made deliberately - that is to say, with deliberate disregard for any common Canadian sense of ethics or decency.

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