Thursday, February 28, 2008

In Canada, A Parliamentary Jihad Against Corruption

The bogus rhetoric of the bogus War on bogus Terror has reached stunning new lows in Canada, where an investigation by a parliamentary ethics committee looking into corruption allegations against former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has been described as a "jihad".

CBC reports:
Mulroney spent four hours before the committee on Dec. 13 and admitted to taking $225,000 in cash from [German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz] Schreiber after his time in office for lobbying efforts abroad in the late 1990s.

The former prime minister has apologized for that lapse of judgment [sic], said Mulroney's spokesman, Robin] Sears, but adds that the business arrangement wasn't illegal or unethical.

Schreiber, however, maintains that he paid Mulroney $300,000 to lobby the Canadian government for a light-armoured vehicle plant known as the Bear Head project. He also says that the two reached their working arrangement on June 23, 1993, two days before Mulroney stepped down as prime minister.
The line in question came about because Mulroney -- who apparently lied to the committee in December -- has refused to appear for a second round of questioning. It's more dangerous now that the committee has heard other witnesses and his deception has been exposed. So instead of allowing the long-overdue pursuit of justice to proceed, Mulroney has set his spokesman on the attack, like so:
"This has been like a 15-year jihad against Mulroney and his family by his enemies — led by Mr. Schreiber and enabled by some in the media," Sears told CBC News earlier in the day.
So there you have it; it's a holy war, waged by international enemies.
Committee vice-chair, NDP MP Pat Martin, was swift to condemn the spokesman's choice of words, saying the comment was "shameful," "goofy" and trivializes the "international crisis of jihad."
Au contraire, Mr. Martin. It trivializes the international crisis of political corruption. And if this is what the global jihadis are out to expose, then they just got my vote!