Over here, "Right of Center Ice" refers to a rather weird propaganda campaign in Washington, DC aimed at convincing Americans that Canada is firmly behind them in the Global War on Terror™ (GWOT).
(Totally gratuitous side note to the ROCI folks: White letters ... black background ... no. Just no. Bad web designer. No biscuit.)
The site is canadianally.com, and it is one mysterious web page. That main page screams "Government of Canada" but, as you can see, it's not under the "gc.ca" domain, which is where you'd expect it. So who's in charge of this domain?
Running a simple "whois" on my Linux system produces the following:
Registrant:
Canadian Embassy
501 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20001
United States
Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: CANADIANALLY.COM
Created on: 27-Feb-04
Expires on: 27-Feb-09
Last Updated on: 03-Feb-06
Administrative Contact:
Robertson, Lt-Col Jamie jamie.robertson@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
Canadian Embassy
501 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20001
United States
(202) 448-6324 Fax -- (202) 682-7791
Technical Contact:
Robertson, Lt-Col Jamie jamie.robertson@dfait-maeci.gc.ca
Canadian Embassy
501 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, District of Columbia 20001
United States
(202) 448-6324 Fax -- (202) 682-7791
Now, that looks just a bit weird. The registrant is the Canadian Embassy and the same person is both the administrative and the technical contact, which is a bit unusual. So what's going on here? Is this or is this not an official Government of Canada website? And if it is, why isn't it under "gc.ca?"
Thoughts?
AFTERTHOUGHTS: The more I look at the Canadian Ally web site, the more weirded out I get. For instance, here's their "About" page:
CanadianAlly.com is an electronic newsletter maintained by the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, designed specifically for an American audience. The goal of this e-publication is to bring together pertinent defence and security information from a variety of government departments, agencies, military commands and bi-national organizations. The intent is to give American citizens a better sense of the scope of Canada's role in North American and Global Security and the War on Terror.
In the first place, why is someone being paid to maintain a Canadian web presence "designed specifically for an American audience?" As opposed to ... who else? Does this mean we're presenting a slightly different view of the world to Americans than we are to everyone else?
Then there's that really grating "War on Terror" phrase which, being capitalized the way it is, is so clearly Bush administration. When did the global "War on Terror" become a trademark, and who decided that the Canadian government was going to start using it? And it just gets weirder.
Check out the "Useful Links" page, which strangely has a link to a page for the "GOVERNMENT (UNITED STATES)". I'm sorry -- when exactly did the Canadian government get into the business of setting up web pages to provide links to U.S. government departments?
And just look at some of the news article headlines on the home page. "Former CFL receiver serves Canada in Afghanistan: And this provides useful information about Canada's participation in the GWOT ... how?
Then there's the mind-numbing headline: "'Mission accomplished' in Golan Heights as troops ready for higher-threat duty":
CAMP ZIOUANI, Golan Heights - With pressing combat commitments in Afghanistan, the era of Canadian soldiers wearing blue berets drew to a close at this remote UN outpost in disputed territory between Israel and Syria yesterday.
Canada's logistics battalion stood down in the Golan, ending a 32-year presence that began soon after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. During that time, more than 12,000 Canadian troops honoured Lester Pearson's peacekeeping dream by wearing UN blue while on duty in this no man's land.
"Mission accomplished," said Maj.-Gen. Michel Gauthier of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, who came from Ottawa to take the final salute from 187 departing Canadians and to witness a rousing, sometimes tearful, goodbye as the Maple Leaf was lowered for the last time.
Now, maybe it's just me but I think that any member of the Canadian military that uses the phrase "Mission Accomplished" in any context related to the GWOT should be court-martialed, then promptly executed. Not necessarily in that order. How unspeakably stupid can one human being be?
And as one digs into that web site further, one just gets more and more appalled at the pure propaganda oozing out of it. Where did this site come from? And when did the Canadian government get into the business of rah-rah flag waving for the U.S.?
EVIL AFTERTHOUGHTS: Once upon a time, the GOP down south caused a bit of a stir when it began to register partisan, GOP-affiliated web sites under the ".gov" domain, like this one. While that site, at first glance, appears to be a generic, informative Social Security site, it is in fact pure GOP propaganda, cleverly disguised by being placed in the allegedly non-partisan ".gov" domain, which violates the rules regarding ".gov" domain registration. I mention this since I'm getting an ugly suspicion that this sort of explains the Canadian Ally site.
I'm just guessing that there are some very strict rules regarding what is allowed to exist under the ".gc.ca" domain and the contents of that page weren't even remotely going to pass the smell test, which is why it ended up with a more generic and innocuous ".com" name. In that case, though, it seems just a bit awkward for the Canadian Ally home page to then have the "Government of Canada" logo at the top, making it appear that it's officially affiliated with the Canadian government. I'm not sure what the rules are here but I can't help but think that this arrangement is at least slightly unethical, if not worse.
In any event, if the rules really are being bent here, this opens up the very real possibility that anyone has the right to use official GC logos on their web page. If the Canadian government is not going to enforce proper usage of those logos, then who's to say I can't add some neato GC-themed stuff to my web page?
If that's the game we're playing here, hey, no problem. I've been thinking of redesigning my web page for a while. I think a nice Canadian, red and white theme would look just fine. If you catch my drift.
7 comments:
You disappoint me, CC.
How long did you think it would be before the Conservatives would reach the crisis point where their heads would literally explode if they tried to surpress the sycophancy gene for just one second longer?
What this website is about is some serious ass kissing to make up for all the unbearable slights our American betters had to endure at the hands of those uppity Liberals.
Failing to be the first to sign up for the Coalition of the Willing, for example. For that matter failing to sign up at all.
Either that, or it's a very smooth attempt to embarass Harper, but I'll give you odds that it's exactly what it appears to be.
Let me just take this opportunity to thank the 36% of voters who elected these spineless cretins for proving that a Conservative government would really be as craven, sleazy and loutish as the rest of us have always suspected.
So what's your excuse going to be next time?
And btw I hope the Conservatives' desperate attempt to bootlick their way into the good graces of our southern neighbors -and more specfically of their ideological allies on the American right- by sacrificing our collective dignity and self respect gets the wide attention it deserves.
If there is any justice in this world then the next time voters exercise their democratic perogative nothing will have been forgiven or forgotten.
Careful, lexington. Note the original registration date for that domain -- Feb 27, 2004 -- when the Liberals were still running things.
However, regardless of when it was registered, one can certainly hold the CPC responsible for its current contents.
Curious.
ROCI reports on Canadianally posters in the D.C. subway. There's money behind this.
A Yahoo search of the email address leads to the Department of False Advertising and International Trade.gc.ca.
Might be fun to point some of the MSM at this.
Regards
If you go to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade site, Embassies and Consulates page, then follow the link to Washington DC, the resultant page has "Canadian Ally" on the right hand column … it's legit.
No, this still doesn't make any sense. If something is an official web site of the government of Canada, it makes sense that it would live under the "gc.ca" domain.
For example, go to that "Embassies and Consulates" page and select "Afghanistan." Even those pages are under "gc.ca". Pick several others -- same thing.
Now, as you suggest, go to the page for Washington DC and just check out various links all over that page. Most of them are specifically under the "www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca" domain, or the "gc.ca" domain in general.
Except for a couple links on the right-hand side, one of them being "Canadian Ally" in large, colourful type. What's so special about that link? And why is it not part of "gc.ca"? This is still a bit weird.
Just a point. The Golan mission was not part of the GWOT. It's a UN ch6 peacekeeping mission to keep the Israelis and the Syrians "honest". Essentially, it's an observer mission. How it gets "Mission Accomplished" tagged to it, however, is beyond me. Basically, Canada pulled its troops due to over-committment. Our army is now so small we can't do two things at once. But the UN mission on the Golan Heights didn't end.
Inasmuch as the date on the registration is Feb 2004, I would offer that there was a change of regime in Ottawa in Dec 2003 and a new defence minister. That may explain it. (or maybe not)
I agree with lexington. This is ass-kissing. Remember, if Harper had been Prime Minister in March 2003, we'd have troops we can ill-afford to lose in southern Iraq.
If Harper isn't responsible for this atrocity I will duly apologize.
However I don't attach too much importance to the website registration date or the fact is isn't under the gc.ca domain.
As for the former, there is no reason to believe that the registration was authorized at a high level. This might have been an action taken by a relatively junior bureaucrat -possibly even Lt-Col Jamie Robertson or one of his predecessors- in anticipation of a change in government policy toward more aggressive courting of certain constituencies in the US. The kind of change in policy that might accompany a change in government, for example... < nudge nudge wink wink>
As for the domain, this website is so transparently an exercise in what is euphimistically called "public diplomacy" that even if the Conservatives weren't sensitive to the risks of tying it too openly with "legitimate" government sites I'm sure plenty of civil servants were. Moreoever, this site is very obviously targeted at an American audience -unless the Conservatives really are completely tone deaf politically even they must have realized how many Canadians would react to their government shamelessly prostrating itself to curry favor with the Bush administration and their propagandists in the media.
One final observation: one of the things which initially inclined me to think this site is legitimate is that under the "What's New" heading at the bottom of the page most of the links have a little American flag beside them. There is a note indicating that the flag means the link is "Intended for U.S. audience; produced only in English" - in other words, no French translation is provided.
Would anyone other than a Canadian bureaucrat be so sensitive to the niceties of official language policy?
Like I said, if this really is a fake site the people who did it are good.
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