Exercise Charge A Hippie

This is from a site known as "Stop The Bison"

Resist Operation Charging Bison!
From April 30th to May 6th, 2006, more than 500 Canadian troops, backed by helicopters, armored vehicles, and artillery, (yay!) intend to transform downtown Winnipeg, Canada into an urban-warfare training playground (I like with swing set) in the largest training exercise of its kind ever held in Canada. Operation Charging Bison is intended to simulate situations Canadian soldiers "would encounter in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq."

What are we calling for?
We are calling for a broad range of actions to counter this training, from high-school walk-outs, to street theatre, to teach-ins, to direct action, to a national convergence, to solidarity actions. We encourage people to take the initiative to plan their own autonomous actions, but we're also eager to see co-operation between organizing groups.
We are planning a major day of action on May 1st, International Workers' Day.

Why are we opposing this? Or, "But Canadian missions are only for peacekeeping. What's the problem?"

The problem is that Canada's peacekeeping reputation is already in tatters around the world. We don't need to look that hard to see why. Here are the kinds of operations the military is training for.

In Haiti, Canadian soldiers and RCMP are currently giving logistical assistance to the brutal Haitian National Police and participating in MINUSTAH, an international force which has been carrying out massacres in urban slums. All this to "stabilize" a government Canada helped put into place.
Two years ago, Canadian troops helped carry out a coup of Haiti's elected leader and oversee the installation of a government of business elites and sweatshop owners. The year before that, at the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti, Pierre Pettigrew and other members of the Canadian government decided alongside France, the U.S., and Latin American countries that the Haitian government must be overthrown.

In Quebec City in 2001, 1000 soldiers were deployed against protestors of the Summit of the Americas, to stifle dissent against the governments' push for corporate control of the hemisphere. (Oh yeah? I thought the military deployment was just to push hippies away from our governments so they could continue conducting important business that sort of keep this country from becoming wartorn and right fucked up)

In Ts'peten, also known as Gustafsen Lake, British Columbia, in 1995, native demonstrators trying to protect their land from further encroachment were met with armored personnel carriers, .50 caliber machine guns, and land mines. (Land mines eh? Considering Anti-Personnel Mines are illegal in warfare according to the Geneva Convention which Canada did happen to sign. And the fact that the Canadian government would never use such weapons against Canadian Citizens) The federal and provincial governments rejected any involvement by an impartial, independent, international adjudication process to settle the conflict, and even the presence of neutral peacekeepers, with the famous declaration "There shall be no alien intervention into the affairs of this state."

In Afghanistan, top Canadian soldier Rick Hillier (w00t!!!) clarified the Canadian military's role, "We're not the public service of Canada. We're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces and our job is to be able to kill people." (Well yeah)
Canadian forces joined the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The military occupation continues today.

In Kanehsatake in 1990, Canadian forces attempted to put down Mohawk resistance to the town of Oka's attempted expansion of a golf course on to territory including a Mohawk burial ground.

In Iraq, we find Canadian troops again, despite the government's official position that they're staying out of the invasion. One Canadian Major General has thousands of U.S. troops under his command.

This is not a history of peacekeeping and good will, and the training operations in
Winnipeg are an attempt to hone the Canadian military's tactics of repression.

Come to Winnipeg!
We are calling on people from across Canada to come oppose this operation and its consequences for people around the country and around the world. Come put on workshops, plan actions, act as medics, observers, anything your heart desires. We will do our best to find couches to sleep on and to put together bicycles to be lent out. More info about that as it develops.There are already folks tentatively coming from Toronto and Ottawa.

You know, I usually allow people to express their own opinion but fucking seriously now. I'm sorry if the Canadian Military wants to, you know, train it's troops better so that most of them will accually make it home alive. I donno, apparently these hippies have something about us trying to liberate little old Afghanistan from Terrorists in order to help prevent more mass terrorist attacks towards allied countries such as Canada.

I donno about you guys, but I don't really want to have to pick up the strewn body parts of Canadian citizens in bombed out places such as a Canadian subway station or major international airport. That's not my idea of a good day.

We pull out of Afghanistan now, terrorists move back in, and we'll soon have another major attack on our hands with another few thousand innocent dead. This time, Canadians may be the victims. As long as I'm alive, I'll do whatever is needed of me to help stop this threat.

To sum it up, if any hippie protester trys touching me or my weapon, I hope they enjoy the taste of my boot.