Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler October 18, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 18, 2023

Not content with just aiding and abetting the ruination of countries on the other side of the World, Canada has announced its intention of doing likewise in the western hemisphere’s most benighted nation, Haiti. In many ways, it’s really just more of the same for the Great White North, which has meddled in and actively undermined any and every prospect for independence and prosperity there.

The latest iteration of Canada’s determination to help Haiti was delivered by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Joly, who on top of sanctions already in place, and allocations of millions of dollars to the Haitian National Police, voiced her support for the United Nations decision to again intervene militarily in Haiti saying, “Canada has always been involved in issues related to Haiti. We will continue to be… We want to do more.”

What “more” means may be revealed during this week’s Canada-CARICOM Summit, started in Ottawa this morning.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist, activist, and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. Yves hosts the Canadian Foreign Policy Hour online every Monday at 6pm eastern time.

Yves Engler and are Canada’s Haiti aid policies paved with good intent?

Song: As the Bombs Rain Down

Artist: David Rovics

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler February 11th, 2023

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 11th, 2023.

This past week, Canadian Forces redeployed a CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane from its dedicated mission assisting U.S.-led drugs smuggling interdiction efforts in the Caribbean to spend two days flying reconnaissance over Haiti. Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly characterized the escalation of Canada’s military involvement in the country as a “demonstration of Canada’s commitment to Haiti”. Last month, Canada demonstrated that commitment in the form of an unspecified number and type of armored vehicles being sold to a government that has already called for foreign military intervention to quell wide-spread public discontent with its corrupt and entirely unelected leadership.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Ottawa’s support for repressive Haitian police grows as democracy fades’ appears at his website, YvesEngler.com, and puts to the lie – again – Canada’s “concern for the people” of that benighted island.

Today Yves Engler and Canada’s caring military gestures to Haiti.

 

Song: Watch the Buildings Crumble

Album: May Day

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Alfred de Zayas, Yves Engler November 19, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 19th, 2022.

Last week a missile landed on a farm in the Polish countryside. Two people were reportedly killed, and the rocket that killed them was reported to be Russian. Immediately the media machine in the West began to churn, and perhaps without meaning to brought the World a step closer to the next and last World War. That the story was wrong – false at first, and faked after the fact – made little difference to its dangerous amplification.

Alfred de Zayas is a law professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy whose lengthy career in the service of human rights law includes twenty five years at the United Nations as a staff member, special rapporteur, and after “retirement” a six year stint as Independent Expert on International Order to the UN.

De Zayas is too the author of twelve books, including “Nemesis at Potsdam” with a preface by the late Ambassador Robert Murphy, Eisenhower’s political advisor, “The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau”, with a preface by the foremost US expert on Prisoner of Wars, the late Professor Howard Levie.

His recent “human rights trilogy”: ‘Building a Just World Order,’ ‘Countering Mainstream Narratives: Fake News, Fake Law, Fake Freedom,’ and the forthcoming, ‘The Human Rights Industry’ are published by Clarity Press.

Alfred’s many essays appear online at Truthout and CounterPunch, where I found his recent article, ‘Peace as a Human Right‘ on the topic of “25 Principles of International Order to Ensure Sustainable Peace”.

And; this past week, Justin Trudeau broadcast on social media a conciliatory call he and British counterpart, prime minister Rishi Sunak made to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding that infamous missile strike in Poland.

The call, made public in the most recklessly manner, proves again the current leadership in the West care little for either the sober conduct of governance or subtly international diplomacy demands.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist and author who has published 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military‘. Yves is coming our way; November 26th in Nanaimo, the 28th in Victoria, and November 29th in Duncan. He’ll also be on the mainland November 30th in Powell River, and December 1st in Vancouver.

Yves Engler and handsome prime minister Justin’s ugly Canadian foreign policy in the second half.

But first, Alfred de Zayas and building another Order for the World.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Song: Fighting Injustice

Artists: The Four Fathers

 

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Roger D. Harris September 18, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded September 17th and 18th, 2022.

This week past, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency officially demanded Russia relinquish control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, or (ZNPP), and “all nuclear facilities within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders” into the hands of “competent Ukraine authorities“. The Russian-held nuclear plant has been repeatedly shelled and was too the target of a Kiev commando-raid. The IAEA’s investigation on the status of the plant, and now this report, are precedent-setting for the agency, but not a departure from the recent trend toward politicizing international agencies to serve the interests of America and NATO.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, and principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears. He’s a past professor of political science, sociology, and journalism and has served as advisor to governments at the highest level. Helmer has spent decades living in and reporting from Russia, and among his many book titles are: ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17,’ ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ and his latest, ‘The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt’.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; even as the UN’s IAEA and OPCW are co-opted against their mandates into the service of the war-state, so too countries big and small are strong-armed to bend their laws to suit the aims of the United States. Witness Great Britain’s abandonment of the Magna Carta in the Assange case, or Canada’s deplorable political arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and two-plus year torturing of logic and jurisprudence required to keep her imprisoned. What chance then do smaller countries like Sweden, or Iceland, or Cabo Verde have when their leadership receives a call from Uncle Sam?

In the latter’s case, that phone rang when Venezuelan diplomat and businessman, Alex Saab’s plane landed for refueling in the tiny African nation, en route to Iran. Today, Saab languishes in an American prison cell for the crime of challenging imperial power.

Roger D. Harris’ long civil rights activism career encompasses the teaching political science at a Historical Black College in Mississippi in the 1960’s and community organizing in East Harlem, New York City.

Today, Roger’s a Wildlife Biologist and conducts eco-tours with the Oceanic Society, but he still has an oar or two in the activist waters; sitting on the board of the human rights organization, Task Force on the Americas, and serving on the executive committee of the US Peace Council, among others. His political essays feature online at CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Mint Press News, Popular Resistance, and at the Task Force on the Americas site, where I found his recent article, ‘Possible Prisoner Exchange in US Hybrid War Against Venezuela‘.

Roger Harris and freeing Alex Saab in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and the IAEA’s use as an instrument of one party in conflict.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1999; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Yves Smith July 16th, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 13th and 16th, 2022.

The late, and truly great, British playwright, Harold Pinter summed up the age in his 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech. Delivered dramatically via video stream – something not so common then – and at the height of America’s military demolition of Iraq . The terminally ill Pinter spent most of his thirty two and a half minute address addressing the profoundly ignorant state in which We the people exist, and how we blithely allow the horrors of our times be committed in our name. Who hearing that speech could forget his hoarsely stentorian remonstration of the Bush claque and its cowardly coalition’s willful crimes? “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter.”

Seventeen years later, and millions killed, maimed, dispossessed and made desperate the lying and killing continues apace. Pinter would be unsurprised, because as he said then, for the powerful, “… it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives.” And so it is in Canada today, as we march towards another global war, standing on guard in ignorance.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, and author of 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest, ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military’. He’s also a prolific essayist whose many articles appear at numerous sites online, including at his website, YvesEngler.com, where his recent article, ‘Is It Time for Canada to Apologize to Libya?‘ appears.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; what’s old is news again: Inflation, the economy’s nemesis so long thought slain has resurfaced, its dragon’s teeth popping up in balance sheets and union negotiation positions, and most scarily, ravishing family budgets the World over.

Yves Smith is a Harvard Business School grad, blogger, and author whose investment banking and management career has intersected all the biggest names on Wall Street. In late 2006, seeing the financial ice bergs on the horizon and frustrated by the “obvious under-reporting…of the risk in all credit instruments” she started Naked Capitalism in an effort to “promote critical thinking through the medium of a finance and economics blog.”

Her 2010 book, ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalismfollowed, dissecting the “obvious” and inevitable 2008 financial disaster and the dismal Obama administration reaction to it. Yves’ has also written articles for many major publications, appeared on US network television and alternative online news programs like The Real News, Democracy Now, and the now-banned RT.

Her recent article at Naked Capitalism, The G-7 is Still Pushing Its Nutty Russia Oil Price Cap Ideareveals how at sea the West is in what is rapidly emerging as a truly New (economic) World Order.

Yves Smith and the stark state of a capitalist system in crisis in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and “the considerable bearing of the truth on where the World stands now“.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1998; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, John Helmer May 9, 2022

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded May 7th and 8th, 2022.

Though most Canadians don’t know it they and their country are at war. And, it’s not merely a war against “Putin’s Russia” (started in response to the invasion of Ukraine). While it’s true, Canada has been actively engaged in undermining Russia, it has not been doing so exclusively – at the same time it has in turn tried to undermine China, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, Syria, and a host of other nations, (all conveniently catalogued for it by our friends and neighbours south). Only difference is, now the military aspect of Ottawa’s international campaign of belligerence is glaringly apparent.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, and author of 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest, ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military’. He’s also a prolific essayist whose many articles appear at numerous sites online, including at his website, YvesEngler.com, where his recent articles have focused on Canada’s growing involvement in the crisis in Ukraine, including ‘Harper pushed conflict with Russia long before invasion.’

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; while investigations by Canada’s Department of National Defense exonerate itself of allegedly training Nazi’s to kill Russians in Ukraine, (and presumably elsewhere) none are disputing the fact Canada’s government is not only training, but also supplying the successors of Kiev’s coupsters with the materiel vital to accomplishing that. And they’re not alone. But, what remains the burning question of the moment is, “Where’s the voice of global peace in this: Where’s the United Nations?”

Last week, UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres made his organization’s position clear – sort of – by not only refusing to censure Ukraine’s military for intentionally hiding its forces behind human shields in Mariupol, but possibly too, as my second guest reports, committing a war crime by taking part in a scheme to use those civilians as cover in an attempt to extricate combatants from the besieged Azovstal steel plant.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, and principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears. He’s a past scholar, and advisor to government at the highest level, and spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. His many book titles include: ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17, ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ and his latest, ‘The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt‘ is newly out. His recent article, ‘Did UN Secretary-General Guterres Commit a War Crime at Azovstal?”

John Helmer and crimes of commission and omission in Ukraine in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Canada’s long subterranean warmaking breaking cover.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio broadcast on CFUV.ca. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/