State funerals to promote the military

Oppose all-sided militarization of life and war preparations

Homemade signs of solidarity and affection are taped to a metal fence across from the Northwood Manor on Gottingen Street in Halifax’s North End | Ron Short, CBC

By Tony Seed

On May 24, 2020, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) held a high-profile public funeral in Halifax for its public relations officer, Capt. Jennifer Casey, a member of the RCAF’s Snowbirds aerobatic team. She was killed on May 17 when her plane crashed in a residential neighbourhood in Kamloops, BC, during it’s cross-Canada military public relations and recruitment tour codenamed Operation Inspiration. Fortunately, there was no additional loss of life. Casey was a former radio journalist and previously with NORAD.[1] 

Major NATO military provocation in Halifax on Labour Day: No Harbour for War!

No US or NATO warships in Canadian waters!

(Revised & updated September 7) – While the media presented the Canadian International Air Show in Toronto on September 4-5 sponsored by Lockheed Martin as a one-off, local and unique spectacle of “family entertainment”, the Trudeau government is simultaneously staging a major NATO naval exercise in Nova Scotia, Cutlass Fury 2021. On September 6, Labour Day, 14 NATO warships and aircraft were to perform a high profile, wartime Halifax Harbour Sail + Fly Past.  The sail / fly pass was then postponed until Tuesday, September 7 at 4:30pm and then again postponed another hour. The U.S. warships left early and the French brought up the rear of the bedraggled formation much later. As always, the U.S. makes the rules, decides what is to be done, and who is to be left behind! In turn this is the latest of a seres of such events that represent a warmongering outlook and program unacceptable to the majority of Canadians who want Canada to be a force for peace in the world. More and more not a single U.S., NATO or foreign warship can dock in a Canadian port without being met by demonstrators.

Research notes: The militarized Atlantic – From Norfolk and Halifax to the Irish and Baltic seas

Work in progress by Tony Seed

A report conducted by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) – published in July – found that the two vessels came within 50-100 metres of each other during the horrific incident on November 6, 2018. The investigation revealed that it was the third time in four years that a submerged Royal Navy submarine had narrowly missed a calamitous collision with another vessel.

Hiroshima and Halifax

Painting of the Halifax Explosion

By Tony Seed

The 75th Anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on the Sixth of August 1945 is a historic universal event with profound immediate significance to present international relations, the danger of war and even nuclear war. For Haligonians, the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has a special meaning ,which is even more poignant in the wake of the hugely destructive explosion in  Beirut, Lebanon on August 4.

Deadly Canadian helicopter crash during NATO exercise

On April 29, a Royal Canadian Air Force Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone helicopter on a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military mission, with six Canadians on board,  crashed violently in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Greece. It had flown from the Canadian naval frigate HMCS Fredericton, whose home port is Halifax, which was deployed in the Greater Mediterranean and the Black Sea as part of Operation REASSURANCE.

Canada’s relations with Caricom: Self-serving definition of what it means to be a ‘vital partner’

Heads of Government reaffirm solidarity with Cuba at the 31st CARICOM Inter-Sessional Summit held from February 18 -19 in St Michael, Barbados.

By TONY SEED (February 23) – The meeting of the regime change Lima Group hosted by Canada on February 20 in Ottawa comes right on the heels of Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s meeting on February 18-19 with leaders of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Bridgetown, Barbados. He was sent as a substitute for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The 15-member organization[1] has served as an effective block to attempts by the U.S. and its allies to use the discredited Organization of American States (OAS) as a political weapon against Venezuela. It has  denied them the number of votes needed to take action against Venezuela in the name of the OAS. This led the U.S. and Canada to set up the illegitimate Lima Group outside the OAS for the purpose of advancing their illegal regime change project.

No to Cutlass Fury 2019! No US or other foreign warships in Canadian waters!

No Harbour for War! Make Canada a Zone for Peace!

– No Harbour for War –

Sunday, September 8 – 1:00-3:00 pm
Victoria Park, Spring Garden Rd. at South Park St.
Facebook

Halifax will soon be the launching pad for one of the largest naval exercises in Canadian history. Twenty-two NATO-aligned warships will be involved in Cutlass Fury 2019. The exercise runs September 9-20 with the area of operation being approximately 50-100 nautical miles southeast of Halifax Harbour.

Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany are expected to take part. These warships will begin arriving the first week of September.

Warship watch: Canada’s naval role in US-led aggression against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

The role of Canada’s military in enforcing unjust and deadly sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is of great concern. These activities come at a time the peoples of the world are opposing foreign intervention in all its forms and are calling for peaceful, diplomatic means to resolve issues within and between countries. The high-handed U.S.-led sanctions against the DPRK undermine the achievement of conditions conducive to inter-Korean relations and peace negotiations between the U.S. and DPRK, and are blocking them from going further.

Warship Watch. ‘Fun in the sun’? Snowbirds? Venezuela? HMCS Charlottetown sails to Florida

 

By TONY SEED

(February 11, updated February 13) – About a week ago, the Canadian frigate HMCS Charlottetown departed from Halifax with none of the fanfare accorded two other warships, the HMCS Kingston and HMCS Shawnigan, which were ceremoniously deployed from Halifax to the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa on January 22nd.

Warship Watch. Canada deploys two warships to West Africa

By TONY SEED

Canada has deployed two warships, HMCS Kingston and HMCS Shawinigan, to West Africa  – “to work with partners & allies to enhance maritime security + stability” in the Gulf of Guinea,” in the words of Vice Admiral Ron Lloyd. Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT) stated the aim of “#OpPROJECTION West Africa today, is to work with African nations to build partner capacity, promote maritime security, and foster relationships in the region.” None of this has to do with the defence of Canada.

Warship Watch. Canada joins largest-ever US-Japanese war exercise

Japanese people protest against US base in Naha, Okinawa in 2015 | AFP

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan led Japanese destroyers and two Canadian warships in a combat readiness war game that began on October 29 and ended on November 8.

Japan and the United States reportedly mobilized some 57,000 sailors, marines and members of their air forces for “Keen Sword” – the biggest joint war game in Japanese history. Japan’s contingent in the Keen Sword exercise represented a fifth of the nation’s armed forces. In the 2016 simulated air combat and amphibious landings exercise, the joint military personnel was estimated to be some 11,000 less, Reuters reported.

Warship Watch. No to foreign warships in Halifax Harbour!

Haligonians have a long history of protesting visits by warships. Photo of May 29, 2012 action.

(October 13) – On October 5, the French Rubis-class nuclear-powered submarine L’Améthyste arrived at Canadian Forces Base Shearwater in Halifax, the first such visit in two years. Speaking on behalf of the organization No Harbour for War, Allan Bezanson unequivocally rejected the presence of the submarine. “We want Halifax to be a factor of peace in the world and a zone for peace,” he told the Chronicle Herald. He pointed out that the comings and goings of these warships is usually tied in with war exercises.

Warship Watch. RIMPAC war games heighten tensions in Asia Pacific

Three articles on the world’s largest naval war exercise and Canada’s participation, the opposition by the people of Hawai’i and the geopolitical context.

By YI NICHOLLS

The U.S.-led naval war games, Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), are underway from June 27 to August 2 around the Hawaiian Islands and southern California. The last RIMPAC exercise was held in 2016. A May 30 U.S. Navy press release informs, “Twenty-six nations, 47 surface ships, five submarines, 18 national land forces, and more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel will participate in the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise […]”[1] Canada is one of the participating nations.

Warship Watch: US Navy reactivates Second Fleet to control the North Atlantic

Protest against warships in Halifax harbour and expansion of the Canadian navy, CFB Stadacona, May 29, 2012.

By TONY SEED

The U.S. Navy is reestablishing its Second Fleet to control the North Atlantic, navy sources report.[1] It will be operational by July 1 and headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia.

Warship Watch. HMCS Chicoutimi offshore People’s Republic of Korea

Weapon of U.S. bullying and threats against DPRK

(February 10) – The Winter Olympics shows that Korea is striving for reunification, peace and to block regime change but the U.S. calculates that sanctions will ensure that Korea cannot last. The U.S. thinks that starving the people and creating ever more difficult conditions will bring the government down. The calculations of the U.S. and countries such as Canada are based on their psychology of bullying people. But their arrogance makes them blind to a quality of the people that they cannot fathom, which is their profound motivation to reunify their country. Just as U.S. policy toward Cuba, and Vietnam before that, failed to predict the readiness of the people to persist in their national and social liberation struggles, so too in Korea, the U.S. and its allies’ attempts to blackmail the Koreans do not reap the results they desire.

No US or other foreign warships in Canadian waters!

United States Ship (USS) Gonzalez prepares to berth alongside USS Bulkeley at Canadian Forces Base Halifax on September 8, 2016 to participate in Exericse CUTLASS FURY | Corporal J.W.S. Houck, Formation Imaging Services, CFB Halifax

Statement by No Harbour for War, Halifax, Nova Scotia

A large NATO naval fleet is in port to further embroil Canada in the war preparations of U.S. imperialism.

Seven NATO warships arrived on Wednesday and Thursday to take part in Cutlass Fury 2016, a NATO exercise to be held next week off the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Murky affair of accused British Royal Navy sailors gets murkier

Aberration of due process in Nova Scotia

By TONY SEED

Four British naval personnel accused of a heinous crime have been moved from CFB Stadacona in Halifax to British base in Alberta. The Harper government, its Department of National Defence and Maritime Command are making special private arrangements for the British soldiers, and the courts and the crown in Halifax are letting them get away with it.

News agencies report that on May 1st the head of Maritime Command of the Canadian Forces ordered four British Royal Navy sailors – accused of sexual assault at a military barracks at CFB 12 Wing Shearwater – to leave the CFB Stadacona military base in Halifax, where they had resided since April 21, by the end of the day. With the sanction of the crown prosecutor’s office and a Nova Scotian provincial court, they were transferred to the British Army Training Unit in Suffield, Alberta (BATUS), which is leased from the Canadian Department of National Defence. [1] How the soldiers were transferred from one end of the country virtually to the other has not been revealed.

Workers’ Forum – Seafarers boldly declare: No quarter for neo-liberal free traders!

Annul the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement!

Annul the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement!
• Seafarers Boldly Declare: No Quarter for Neo-Liberal Free Traders!
• What the Workers Had to Say
• CETA Opens the Door to Dismantling the Marine Transport Sector – Interview, Patrice Caron, Executive Vice-President, Seafarers’ International Union of Canada
• European Seafarers’ Solidarity Statement
• U.S. Seagoing Unions’ Solidarity Statement

For Your Information
• CETA Breakdown – Seafarers’ International Union of Canada

For your information: About the Halifax International Security Forum

Haligonians rally against threats of war against Syria, September 7, 2013

THE Halifax War Conference, aka the Halifax International Security Forum, held its first meeting in November 2009. The conference was part and parcel of the NATO aggressive military alliance to reconfigure itself with a “new security doctrine” to replace that of “humanitarian intervention” introduced during the 1999 aggression against Yugoslavia and the first absorption into NATO of states of the former Soviet bloc.

In a statement issued to oppose the first conference in 2009, CPC(M-L) pointed out:

“The demand for this ‘new doctrine’ is impelled by the crisis of NATO itself. After eight years of occupation of Afghanistan under the pretext of opposing terrorism, NATO has been unable to quell the important resistance of the Afghan people. The people of Afghanistan refuse to accept NATO’s ‘international security assistance’ and the peoples of NATO’s member countries have not been convinced of the nobility of the war or NATO’s present course and its raison d’être.”

The current website of the Halifax War Conference describes its history as follows:

Op Caribbe: Canada’s stealth warship and aircraft

Op Caribb: “Building maritime domain awareness” – euphemism for Canadian military-naval intervention in the Caribbean

By TONY SEED

Second in a series of seven articles on the occasion of Harper’s visit to Latin America and the Caribbean

HALIFAX (13 August 2007) – IN THE FIRST WEEK of April, anti-war activists in Halifax and Victoria combined to carry out an inventory of the whereabouts of Canadian warships out of concern that the Canadian government might have surreptitiously joined the American strike force in the Persian Gulf at the time, aimed at Iran.

‘Partnership of the Americas’: Ceaseless exercises of the US navy and NATO fleets, ceaseless preparations for intervention

During the first day of PANAMAX 2005, a U.S.-led formation of ships heads to sea. PANAMAX is an exercise organized under the pretext of the “war on terrorism” to “develop a multinational response to threats against the Panama Canal.” The 2005 exercise involved 15 countries, including naval forces from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Panama, Peru and the U.S., along with observers from Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Mexico and Uruguay. The exercise was conducted Aug. 4-17, 2005 and consisted of scenario-driven surface, air, mine counter-measures and special operations events involving detection, monitoring and interdiction of vessels. U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO

By TONY SEED

Fifth in a series of seven articles on the occasion of Harper’s visit to Latin America and the Caribbean

HALIFAX (13 August 2007) – FOR THE IMPERIAL POWERS, warships are but floating bases to deliver the marines and firepower on board, secure the sources of raw materials and natural riches, dominate the oceans and sealanes of the world, and through the old gunboat policy put down the struggles of the peoples for independence and change.

‘Liberty visits’ (II): Who will pay the bill?

The “visiting” warships of the US Navy need not be armed with strategic nuclear warheads, be firing their weapons or be waging war in a country to kill, maim or hurt a country’s population or otherwise negatively impact the civil, political, social, economic and cultural lives of the peoples. Commentary by TONY SEED

God damn them all!

I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold

We’d fire no guns – shed no tears

Now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier

The last of Barrett’s Privateers.

Stan Rogers

HALIFAX (22 June 2007) – ONE of the biggest hurdles for the world’s lone superpower, amid its debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, is overcoming distrust of the Bush administration. Militarily, the United States must forge “partnerships” and work with smaller navies such as Canada’s without raising protests about aggression or subverting national sovereignty. Amid the protests over Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans and the willing and eager Canadian media are learning subtlety in providing aid.

‘Liberty visits’ (I): Return of the ‘Dial-a-sailor’ program?

 ‘It is a deplorable situation indeed when the Canadian government and major media make themselves immoral instruments of prostituting Canadian women and girls, repeating outright lies as if they were facts. The message is unmistakable. Canadian women and girls: head for the bars on the weekend to look for well-heeled American sailors.’

Warship Watch: Canadian navy deploys to threaten Iran

Three U.S. naval strike groups off the Iranian coastline are deployed, includes HMCS Ottawa under U.S. command

By TONY SEED

HALIFAX (29 October 2006) – “THERE is a massive concentration of U.S. naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Three U.S. naval strike groups off the Iranian coastline are deployed: USS Enterprise, USS Eisenhower and USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group,” writes Michel Chossudovsky, in an article for GlobalResearch.ca.*

System would give Yanks ‘control of Canadian missiles’

“Co-operative engagement capability”; Praising the Lord and passing the ammunition

EDITOR’S NOTE:  THE Halifax Daily News has published an article by its military reporter that provides information on one of the mechanisms for seamlessly integrating the Canadian Forces into the U.S. Armed Forces under the pretext of “inter-operability” and “co-operative engagement capability.” Military analysts acknowledge that the Canadian Navy is, in fact, the branch of the Canadian Forces with the highest degree of military and operational integration.

The article prettifies the annexation of the armed forces by promoting that this is all a matter of superior technology, not politics, and solely “defensive” in nature. The fact that the Canadian warships operate under U.S. and NATO strategic command once they leave port and the imperialistic aim of the missions in which these warships and billion-dollar missile systems are deployed is carefully left in the shade.