Two historical pieces of paper can be profitably reviewed in the light of the Liberals current deliberations on Canada’s future foreign policy. The first was a diplomatic entente and the second a personal letter. The image of Neville Chamberlain arriving back from Germany foolishly waving a non-aggression pact signed with Hitler is not easy to forget. It is exhibit A in the case against appeasement. Chamberlain was tricked by an aggressive enemy intent on world domination. The other piece of paper was a letter sent to president John F. Kennedy by Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban nuclear missile crisis. The public position of the Politburo, the governing body of communist Russia, was ominous and unyielding, but Khrushchev’s letter suggested a more moderate and conciliatory approach to the crisis. There was a battle between the hardliners and the moderates in the Soviet regime which resulted in widely conflicting messages. Wisely, JFK decided to respond to the moderate message and ignore the other.
Parallels between historical and current events are, under the best of circumstances, tenuous, but which of these two pieces of paper is instructive in the present situation? Potentially both are.
Chamberlain failed to recognize his enemy as we should not fail to recognize the blood-lusting extremism in Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Kennedy astutely supported the message of moderation and politically undermined the posturing of the war-mongering faction in the communist government. Today, in the Middle East and Afganistan we also face the threat of violence from those who want war. But there are also moderates in these regions as there are moderates in every country. This is a dependable feature of human nature.
Our role should be to support the moderates with money, media attention, and military backing if necessary at every opportunity and to humiliate and sideline those who commit violence. The moderate voices in these countries understand the particularities of their own political situation and general culture far better than we can. If we listen, they will tell us what they need and when. Yet this support should never become merely a dogmatic and simple minded picking of sides. Moral clarity will not be achieved by designating one religion or ethnic group as angels and another as devils. For example, the spasm of Israeli rage in the past few weeks is understandable, but I fear that the excessive reaction, bombing Lebanese infrastructure and the indiscriminate terrorization of the general population, is a grave tactical error since they are also embarrassing the promising newly elected government of Lebanon which is pro-Western. Israel is unwittingly entrenching the ascendancy of the terrorist Hezbollah over a legitimate democratic movement.
Some home-grown observers are claiming that Canada is too small to make a difference in the world. We are a bit-player, a natural follower, insignificant. The partisanship of this feigned weakness is patent. I suspect that these same commentators will also loudly applaud Stephen Harper’s every burp and sneeze on the international stage as a sign of Canada’s strength and new found power since the Conservatives have taken charge. The shame is on you for sneering at our country for political expediency. We are not a superpower, but as a member of G8, NATO, a leader in the english Commonwealth and the french Francophonie, plus a frequent seat at the U.N. security council we are far from impotent.
So where do we exert our influence such as it is? This week, I was planning a long post on specific conditions that the Liberal party could insist upon with regard to further support of the mission in Afganistan. But this was largely done (and written better) by two editorials that appeared in the Toronto Star this week.
editorial 1 editorial 2
I also recommend reading recent articles by CBC columnist Jim Reed. At the moment I will only emphasize the observation that the solution to the violent conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East is principally political, not military. George War Bush and Stephen Harper have adopted the nihilistic position that a new world order can be imposed by a bloody purge of opposition. Other grander historical failures may suggest otherwise (Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Vietnam).
My next post will be in September.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Sunday, July 23, 2006
What Canada learned in Rwanda
Talking to a friend a couple weeks ago about André Boisclair, I admitted that both the PQ and Quebeckers in general were better off with Bernard Landry. Although I firmly disagreed with the former premier on a number of issues and in particular on Quebec separation, my impression of him was reinforced when, this morning, I read an editorial he had penned for Le Devoir.
(my translation; read the original) “Rather than devote enormous resources to maintain a military force –I don’t see what it is supposed to defend us from or who we can use it to attack– should not Canada set an international example with regard to the evacuation of those in distress, chez nous and elsewhere, and become a leading power in humanitarian relief.” Not to burden this statement with meanings he did not intend, Landry expresses a typically Quebecois attitude toward Canada. Many Quebeckers identify as Canadian when looking at our country from the outside in, taking the perspective of how foreigners view us. During the 1995 referendum, the sovereignty campaign promised Quebeckers they would be able to keep their Canadian passports if they voted yes. I am not sure how that would have worked in practice, but in terms of building national unity, this is a part of the Quebecois psyche which federalists should recognize for what it is, a sign of goodwill toward our country even from those now attracted by the separatist option. We are not going to change the minds of committed individuals like Bernard Landry, but the Liberals, who need to rebuild bridges with moderate francophones, would do well to hear this and develop a humane and effective foreign policy that could sustain a lasting coalition with centrist anglophones. Not many Quebeckers would be interested in a reconstituted British empire euphemistically called by neo-conservatives, the military Anglosphere: England, the U.S. Australia and Canada, led by George War Bush.
If we want to rebuild national consensus, a good place to start is with our respected tradition of peacekeeping. The most important challenge to the traditional Canadian role comes from the experiences of our troops in Rwanda. In 1994, extreme members of the Hutu majority committed genocide against the Tutsi minority. Limited by the number of soldiers and a U.N. mandate that did not permit engagement, the peacekeepers were left to observe helplessly the brutal massacre of approximately 800,000 people. Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, who headed the peace keeping mission in Rwanda at the time, has argued credibly that efforts like jamming the radio stations by which the genocide was largely organized and increasing the size and ability to respond of the peace keeping mission would have averted or at least greatly diminished the disaster. Despite Dallaire’s warnings, the international community allowed the genocide to proceed. Dallaire, now a Liberal senator, has worked to raise consciousness of what occurred and how peacekeeping as it initially evolved to deal with the Suez crisis in the 1950’s failed in Rwanda. The mandate of the intervention needs to suit the context of the mission. Or as Bill Graham stated while he was responsible for the mission as Minister of Defense, “to be effective and successful, today’s peacekeepers often need more flexible, robust mandates and rules of engagement and the capabilities to enforce them”
The situation in Afghanistan is certainly not the same context as Rwanda. If the Taliban were prone to commit genocide they would have done so already when they were the government. No one, I think, is seriously proposing that Afghanistan will repeat Rwanda in that respect. We are in Afghanistan because a significant proportion of the population is convinced that if the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, it would be a threat to us in the West. It would be disingenuous to suggest that the level of international interest presently solicited by the Afghanistan situation is not primarily selfish.
I have written a series of posts on Afghanistan which I will conclude this week with a reasonable position suitable to the context of Afghanistan that the party could defend. These are discussion points. I am eager to hear moderate alternatives.
The most important and probably most controversial condition I will suggest is to create a mandate that permits our troops to respond to violence, but does not endorse the aggressive hunting of Taliban. The dubious neo-conservative manufacture of threat must end.
(my translation; read the original) “Rather than devote enormous resources to maintain a military force –I don’t see what it is supposed to defend us from or who we can use it to attack– should not Canada set an international example with regard to the evacuation of those in distress, chez nous and elsewhere, and become a leading power in humanitarian relief.” Not to burden this statement with meanings he did not intend, Landry expresses a typically Quebecois attitude toward Canada. Many Quebeckers identify as Canadian when looking at our country from the outside in, taking the perspective of how foreigners view us. During the 1995 referendum, the sovereignty campaign promised Quebeckers they would be able to keep their Canadian passports if they voted yes. I am not sure how that would have worked in practice, but in terms of building national unity, this is a part of the Quebecois psyche which federalists should recognize for what it is, a sign of goodwill toward our country even from those now attracted by the separatist option. We are not going to change the minds of committed individuals like Bernard Landry, but the Liberals, who need to rebuild bridges with moderate francophones, would do well to hear this and develop a humane and effective foreign policy that could sustain a lasting coalition with centrist anglophones. Not many Quebeckers would be interested in a reconstituted British empire euphemistically called by neo-conservatives, the military Anglosphere: England, the U.S. Australia and Canada, led by George War Bush.
If we want to rebuild national consensus, a good place to start is with our respected tradition of peacekeeping. The most important challenge to the traditional Canadian role comes from the experiences of our troops in Rwanda. In 1994, extreme members of the Hutu majority committed genocide against the Tutsi minority. Limited by the number of soldiers and a U.N. mandate that did not permit engagement, the peacekeepers were left to observe helplessly the brutal massacre of approximately 800,000 people. Canadian Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, who headed the peace keeping mission in Rwanda at the time, has argued credibly that efforts like jamming the radio stations by which the genocide was largely organized and increasing the size and ability to respond of the peace keeping mission would have averted or at least greatly diminished the disaster. Despite Dallaire’s warnings, the international community allowed the genocide to proceed. Dallaire, now a Liberal senator, has worked to raise consciousness of what occurred and how peacekeeping as it initially evolved to deal with the Suez crisis in the 1950’s failed in Rwanda. The mandate of the intervention needs to suit the context of the mission. Or as Bill Graham stated while he was responsible for the mission as Minister of Defense, “to be effective and successful, today’s peacekeepers often need more flexible, robust mandates and rules of engagement and the capabilities to enforce them”
The situation in Afghanistan is certainly not the same context as Rwanda. If the Taliban were prone to commit genocide they would have done so already when they were the government. No one, I think, is seriously proposing that Afghanistan will repeat Rwanda in that respect. We are in Afghanistan because a significant proportion of the population is convinced that if the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, it would be a threat to us in the West. It would be disingenuous to suggest that the level of international interest presently solicited by the Afghanistan situation is not primarily selfish.
I have written a series of posts on Afghanistan which I will conclude this week with a reasonable position suitable to the context of Afghanistan that the party could defend. These are discussion points. I am eager to hear moderate alternatives.
The most important and probably most controversial condition I will suggest is to create a mandate that permits our troops to respond to violence, but does not endorse the aggressive hunting of Taliban. The dubious neo-conservative manufacture of threat must end.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Who exactly are the enemies of freedom? part III
This is the third and final section of a longer post which began with the ancient advice: Make a habit of two things –to help, or at least to do no harm.
In the first section, I linked to an article that appeared in La Presse. Here is my own translation of an excerpt of that article for those who cannot read french:
…soldiers enter a house after kicking down the front door. Some women and an old man come out. The man who has a long white beard is insulted. A soldier undertakes to make the man understand the way he sees things.
“It’s too bad for you if you don’t want to tell us where the Taliban are hiding” he says looking into the old man’s eyes. “We are going to kill them. We are going to blow things up and shoot everything. Is that what you want? So just go on saying nothing.”
I am white and Christian, but I can’t help wondering how my own grandfather would have reacted to a gang of nervous young soldiers with machine guns breaking into his house and threatening him in this way. My grandfather is remembered as a somewhat cranky old grit farmer and was fond of the saying: Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.
Can we rely on the quality of the information that we are getting out of Afganistan. We are guaranteed to hear about the Canadian casualties. And we should hear about these brave men and women who are prepared to risk so much for their country. Their families in Canada will ensure that they receive the respectful coverage that they deserve. But otherwise we, and the journalists who inform us, are separated from Afganistan by a chasm of culture, geography, and language. Western journalists that are presently in this extremely dangerous country are not likely to stray too far from the protection of our troops, a factor that will be reflected in what they report and what they are allowed to see.
The effort to disarm the citizens of this deadly country makes me think again about Charleton Heston’s passionate defense of the NRA and his now famous challenge that, if “they” wanted his gun, “they” would have to wrest it “…out of (his) cold, dead hands.” And yet there is considerable vested political interest on the part of the Bush administration and now Stephen Harper as well that news reports out of Afganistan be favourable to the current aggressive counterinsurgency tactics. The embattled government of Afganistan also has an interest not to alienate the military and financial support coming from the West upon which it depends for survival. Because of this confluence of interests, we might be concerned that any Afgan who is killed, regardless of the reason, will be called a Taliban terrorist. They probably don’t carry a membership card in their wallet and Western journalists just don’t have the resources in this foreign country to know the truth.
The propaganda surrounding the Iraq invasion is telling. Like a lot of people, I am pissed off about being lied to by George War Bush. I am so pissed off words almost fail. Lies, lies, lies… There were no weapons of mass destruction! No Al Qaeda in Iraq before the invasion! The intelligence was constructed to mislead the public. Steve Harper's new friend, George War Bush, knows how to look at someone straight in the eye and lie. Is he really interested in keeping an open border with Canada? The paranoia pervading the United States that would require passports at the border is drawn from the same well of largely irrational fear that reelected George War Bush. George Bush has intentionally fed these fears to further his right wing agenda. And this is an election year in the United States. It appears that Steve Harper has similar designs. But by playing along with American hysteria, it is difficult to argue against the passport requirements. It would be best for Steve if the public accepted it as just another sacrifice in the war on fear. Unfortunately for him, the provincial premiers just won’t let it go as they continue in their efforts to make republican legislators from states bordering on Canada to see past the fear to the economic bottom line.
Irrational fear is also an enemy of freedom.
If you have been reading my posts, it should not surprise you that I am in favour of the deployment of troops in Afganistan provided certain conditions are met, a topic I will take up in my next week’s post, “What Canada learned in Rwanda.”
In the first section, I linked to an article that appeared in La Presse. Here is my own translation of an excerpt of that article for those who cannot read french:
…soldiers enter a house after kicking down the front door. Some women and an old man come out. The man who has a long white beard is insulted. A soldier undertakes to make the man understand the way he sees things.
“It’s too bad for you if you don’t want to tell us where the Taliban are hiding” he says looking into the old man’s eyes. “We are going to kill them. We are going to blow things up and shoot everything. Is that what you want? So just go on saying nothing.”
I am white and Christian, but I can’t help wondering how my own grandfather would have reacted to a gang of nervous young soldiers with machine guns breaking into his house and threatening him in this way. My grandfather is remembered as a somewhat cranky old grit farmer and was fond of the saying: Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see.
Can we rely on the quality of the information that we are getting out of Afganistan. We are guaranteed to hear about the Canadian casualties. And we should hear about these brave men and women who are prepared to risk so much for their country. Their families in Canada will ensure that they receive the respectful coverage that they deserve. But otherwise we, and the journalists who inform us, are separated from Afganistan by a chasm of culture, geography, and language. Western journalists that are presently in this extremely dangerous country are not likely to stray too far from the protection of our troops, a factor that will be reflected in what they report and what they are allowed to see.
The effort to disarm the citizens of this deadly country makes me think again about Charleton Heston’s passionate defense of the NRA and his now famous challenge that, if “they” wanted his gun, “they” would have to wrest it “…out of (his) cold, dead hands.” And yet there is considerable vested political interest on the part of the Bush administration and now Stephen Harper as well that news reports out of Afganistan be favourable to the current aggressive counterinsurgency tactics. The embattled government of Afganistan also has an interest not to alienate the military and financial support coming from the West upon which it depends for survival. Because of this confluence of interests, we might be concerned that any Afgan who is killed, regardless of the reason, will be called a Taliban terrorist. They probably don’t carry a membership card in their wallet and Western journalists just don’t have the resources in this foreign country to know the truth.
The propaganda surrounding the Iraq invasion is telling. Like a lot of people, I am pissed off about being lied to by George War Bush. I am so pissed off words almost fail. Lies, lies, lies… There were no weapons of mass destruction! No Al Qaeda in Iraq before the invasion! The intelligence was constructed to mislead the public. Steve Harper's new friend, George War Bush, knows how to look at someone straight in the eye and lie. Is he really interested in keeping an open border with Canada? The paranoia pervading the United States that would require passports at the border is drawn from the same well of largely irrational fear that reelected George War Bush. George Bush has intentionally fed these fears to further his right wing agenda. And this is an election year in the United States. It appears that Steve Harper has similar designs. But by playing along with American hysteria, it is difficult to argue against the passport requirements. It would be best for Steve if the public accepted it as just another sacrifice in the war on fear. Unfortunately for him, the provincial premiers just won’t let it go as they continue in their efforts to make republican legislators from states bordering on Canada to see past the fear to the economic bottom line.
Irrational fear is also an enemy of freedom.
If you have been reading my posts, it should not surprise you that I am in favour of the deployment of troops in Afganistan provided certain conditions are met, a topic I will take up in my next week’s post, “What Canada learned in Rwanda.”
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Who exactly are the enemies of freedom? part II
This is the second part of three in a post which began with the ancient advice: Make a habit of two things –to help, or at least to do no harm.
Voters have given the Liberal party a timeout, an opportunity to do a little soul-searching and to come up with some good policy. Currently, the party has no executive control over the Afganistan mission and Stephen Harper has announced that he does not feel bound by the will of the House of Commons. So whatever anyone else may be saying, there is no urgency for Liberals to rush into a decision that may be regretted later. The party needs to take the long view and come up with the ideas that everyone can agree upon in a future election and potentially as a government that does control the Afgan mission.
My gut feeling is that, unless the Afganistan mission takes a dramatic turn, it will not play that much of a role in the next election and will be largely overshadowed by other issues like global warming, illegal party fundraising and the fiscal imbalance. If I am right, this will not be a vote getter for anyone, but it is worthwhile coming up with a long-term national policy that our troops can rely upon when they are sent abroad or planning new missions.
Canadians have come to expect that our government should play a leadership role internationally when it comes to peacekeeping. There is an argument going around that because our allies, and in particular our military allies in NATO, are involved in a mission, Canada needs to “step up” as well. Probably moderate parliamentarians in our ally nations are persuaded in part by the same logic: if all my friends are doing it, I should probably be doing it too. At a certain point though the “our allies need us” gambit starts sounding a lot like a game of chicken among a group of otherwise individually responsible teenagers. Its o.k. to question the wisdom of excessive violence even if it has international momentum and no head. In this case, the aggressiveness of the tactics used in Afganistan may undermine the potential benefits of intervention and all our good intentions.
The Toronto Star published an editorial last week that uses some of these questionable arguments.
“The Liberals will not advance Canada's interests, or their own, by giving the impression that they waver when bullets start flying and the going gets tough. Canada must stay the course. Our values are on the line. Our allies are counting on us. So are the Afghan people.”
Toronto Star editorial
It’s a nice bit of rhetoric, but I am not convinced that hitching a ride on George Bush’s increasingly lame-duck presidency is good foreign policy.
As close neighbours and friends, Canadians know and admire the essential American message of democracy and freedom. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and JFK among other great names are heroes for us as well. Something we are well situated to do as friends and allies is to moderate this message to the world when at times it becomes distorted by the vagaries of their own internal politics. George Bush will not last forever. It’s not a role we can play because of our big army. We are able to effect the direction of the mission because, like those overseas American tourists who pose as Canadians by pinning or sewing our flag to their clothing and belongings, the U.S. government wants to trade on our excellent international reputation to legitimize the mission. But a good name is not something to be bought or sold.
I have always felt that the strength of the Liberal party is in building consensus of the kind that lasts for decades and eventually takes root in all parties. Grand ideological speeches sound hollow to us. And generally Liberals have proceeded by listening to all sides and making decisions as the context suggests, recognizing that there is a fine line between leadership and obstructing democracy. So it is important to note that there is widespread concern, in Quebec especially, about the excessive use of force against the Afgan people. Is it not counter-productive?
The anonymous Star editorial suggests that anyone who disagrees with Stephen Harper’s war is a coward – or can be perceived as a coward. It’s another way of telling people to shut-up and just do exactly what George Bush wants us to do. If this is at all representative of local attitudes, then some Toronto Liberals are wasting a lot of effort trying to shut down discussion at a moment in the history of the party when they should rather be listening.
***
The third section of this post which will appear soon will ask about the quality of information we are getting out of Afganistan.
Voters have given the Liberal party a timeout, an opportunity to do a little soul-searching and to come up with some good policy. Currently, the party has no executive control over the Afganistan mission and Stephen Harper has announced that he does not feel bound by the will of the House of Commons. So whatever anyone else may be saying, there is no urgency for Liberals to rush into a decision that may be regretted later. The party needs to take the long view and come up with the ideas that everyone can agree upon in a future election and potentially as a government that does control the Afgan mission.
My gut feeling is that, unless the Afganistan mission takes a dramatic turn, it will not play that much of a role in the next election and will be largely overshadowed by other issues like global warming, illegal party fundraising and the fiscal imbalance. If I am right, this will not be a vote getter for anyone, but it is worthwhile coming up with a long-term national policy that our troops can rely upon when they are sent abroad or planning new missions.
Canadians have come to expect that our government should play a leadership role internationally when it comes to peacekeeping. There is an argument going around that because our allies, and in particular our military allies in NATO, are involved in a mission, Canada needs to “step up” as well. Probably moderate parliamentarians in our ally nations are persuaded in part by the same logic: if all my friends are doing it, I should probably be doing it too. At a certain point though the “our allies need us” gambit starts sounding a lot like a game of chicken among a group of otherwise individually responsible teenagers. Its o.k. to question the wisdom of excessive violence even if it has international momentum and no head. In this case, the aggressiveness of the tactics used in Afganistan may undermine the potential benefits of intervention and all our good intentions.
The Toronto Star published an editorial last week that uses some of these questionable arguments.
“The Liberals will not advance Canada's interests, or their own, by giving the impression that they waver when bullets start flying and the going gets tough. Canada must stay the course. Our values are on the line. Our allies are counting on us. So are the Afghan people.”
Toronto Star editorial
It’s a nice bit of rhetoric, but I am not convinced that hitching a ride on George Bush’s increasingly lame-duck presidency is good foreign policy.
As close neighbours and friends, Canadians know and admire the essential American message of democracy and freedom. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and JFK among other great names are heroes for us as well. Something we are well situated to do as friends and allies is to moderate this message to the world when at times it becomes distorted by the vagaries of their own internal politics. George Bush will not last forever. It’s not a role we can play because of our big army. We are able to effect the direction of the mission because, like those overseas American tourists who pose as Canadians by pinning or sewing our flag to their clothing and belongings, the U.S. government wants to trade on our excellent international reputation to legitimize the mission. But a good name is not something to be bought or sold.
I have always felt that the strength of the Liberal party is in building consensus of the kind that lasts for decades and eventually takes root in all parties. Grand ideological speeches sound hollow to us. And generally Liberals have proceeded by listening to all sides and making decisions as the context suggests, recognizing that there is a fine line between leadership and obstructing democracy. So it is important to note that there is widespread concern, in Quebec especially, about the excessive use of force against the Afgan people. Is it not counter-productive?
The anonymous Star editorial suggests that anyone who disagrees with Stephen Harper’s war is a coward – or can be perceived as a coward. It’s another way of telling people to shut-up and just do exactly what George Bush wants us to do. If this is at all representative of local attitudes, then some Toronto Liberals are wasting a lot of effort trying to shut down discussion at a moment in the history of the party when they should rather be listening.
***
The third section of this post which will appear soon will ask about the quality of information we are getting out of Afganistan.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Who exactly are the enemies of freedom?
Make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm.
La Presse article 1
I include a comment from LeDevoir. You may not agree with all of it, I don’t, but it’s a rather Quebecois piece of analysis.
Le Devoir article
Since it was the Liberal prime ministers, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, who initially committed our troops to Afganistan, Liberals should have no fear asking about the progress of the mission. Is it meeting its objectives? Do the objectives need to change since the Liberals first sent the troops? Are we helping or doing harm?
Who are the enemies of freedom?
Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center which ostensibly triggered the invasions of Afganistan and Iraq. As it turns out, the American intelligence reports were wrong and there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the Bush led invasion. No one would deny that Al Qaeda is in Iraq today. Al Qaeda were definitely in Afganistan where the Taliban, a distinctively Afgan phenomenon, permitted Al Qaeda to operate within its borders with impunity. The original American mission as it was popularly presented was to capture members of Al Qaeda and in particular their leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban were an obstacle to that goal and if they had turned over bin Laden, the invasion would never have occurred. Over time, though, the emphasis in the war has slowly but clearly shifted to a new goal: destroy the Taliban.
I first heard about the Taliban in a New Yorker article that appeared, I believe, in the summer leading up to the September 11th attacks. I was struck by the story of how a Taliban mob had beat a well known Afgan poetess nearly to death in the local market for the crime of lifting the hood of her obligatory bhurka to look briefly in her money purse. Although the harshness of the Taliban repression was shocking to Western readers of the New Yorker, there were no plans to occupy the country at that time. Depending on whether you ask a woman, a homosexual, or a person of colour we don’t have to look too far back into the bigoted past of North America to find examples of when the violation of certain social taboos particular to our culture was met with equally grotesque acts of repression. We manage to muddle through on our own. It is doubtful that a violent foreign military occupation would help that process.
Google search: taliban
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/144382.stm
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9610/05/taleban/
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,175372,00.html
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html
Most accounts report that the Taliban were tolerated by their countrymen because they brought peace to a war torn nation. It may be hard for us in the West to understand, but then again most of us have not lived through twenty years of war between competing local clans, vicious opium smuggling gangs and several foreign interests, including the Russians and the Americans. The Americans equipped the Taliban among other groups of “freedom fighters” to push back the communists. After the communist retreat, factional war intensified until the Taliban restored order. Interestingly, during their tenure as the government of Afganistan, besides bringing peace, the Taliban to their credit significantly reduced the volume of the opium trade. The American invasion of Afganistan however reversed this trend and opium production is running again at an all time high, bringing an influx of hard cash to a region with extreme and violent politics.
When I read about Afganistan and the Taliban, I have to be honest, I feel completely out of my depth. I wish more Canadians, especially our politicians and media editorialists, would admit publicly to the same.
Someone who can rightly claim to have a reliable working knowledge of the complexities of the situation is the democratically elected president of Afganistan. He believes that the excesses of the Western crusade “Operation Enduring Freedom” waged against the Taliban are not helping. Violence is on the increase. And the aggressive tactics of the American lead war is trampling on the sovereignty of the legitimate government. The result is a potential backlash with people who look, at least to their fellow countrymen, a lot more like patriots than terrorists fighting to liberate their country from foreign domination.
La Presse article 2
Who are the enemies of freedom in the West? They are the train bombers in Madrid and London. And, if the allegations are true, then the frustrated Toronto bombers as well. Yet no evidence appears to link directly the Toronto conspiracy with the Taliban in Afganistan. And then there is the group of black men arrested in the U.S. last week who had no bomb material or money or plans. They were not short on talk, though, it seems. Besides being a sign of desperation from a tired Bush administration scared by their prospects in the upcoming midterm congressional elections, I suspect that the motivations of these “terrorists” have almost nothing to do with Afganistan and almost everything to do with the idiosyncracies of American race politics. It is not clear to me that lumping all these groups into a single loose category, call it enemies of freedom, the war on terror or whatever you like, will help us to increase public security and promote democracy. Blowing up things and people in the third world may not make it any safer to ride the train in Toronto.
***
This is the first section of a longer blog which will appear online in parts over the next couple of days.
La Presse article 1
I include a comment from LeDevoir. You may not agree with all of it, I don’t, but it’s a rather Quebecois piece of analysis.
Le Devoir article
Since it was the Liberal prime ministers, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, who initially committed our troops to Afganistan, Liberals should have no fear asking about the progress of the mission. Is it meeting its objectives? Do the objectives need to change since the Liberals first sent the troops? Are we helping or doing harm?
Who are the enemies of freedom?
Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center which ostensibly triggered the invasions of Afganistan and Iraq. As it turns out, the American intelligence reports were wrong and there were no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the Bush led invasion. No one would deny that Al Qaeda is in Iraq today. Al Qaeda were definitely in Afganistan where the Taliban, a distinctively Afgan phenomenon, permitted Al Qaeda to operate within its borders with impunity. The original American mission as it was popularly presented was to capture members of Al Qaeda and in particular their leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban were an obstacle to that goal and if they had turned over bin Laden, the invasion would never have occurred. Over time, though, the emphasis in the war has slowly but clearly shifted to a new goal: destroy the Taliban.
I first heard about the Taliban in a New Yorker article that appeared, I believe, in the summer leading up to the September 11th attacks. I was struck by the story of how a Taliban mob had beat a well known Afgan poetess nearly to death in the local market for the crime of lifting the hood of her obligatory bhurka to look briefly in her money purse. Although the harshness of the Taliban repression was shocking to Western readers of the New Yorker, there were no plans to occupy the country at that time. Depending on whether you ask a woman, a homosexual, or a person of colour we don’t have to look too far back into the bigoted past of North America to find examples of when the violation of certain social taboos particular to our culture was met with equally grotesque acts of repression. We manage to muddle through on our own. It is doubtful that a violent foreign military occupation would help that process.
Google search: taliban
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/144382.stm
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9610/05/taleban/
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,175372,00.html
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html
Most accounts report that the Taliban were tolerated by their countrymen because they brought peace to a war torn nation. It may be hard for us in the West to understand, but then again most of us have not lived through twenty years of war between competing local clans, vicious opium smuggling gangs and several foreign interests, including the Russians and the Americans. The Americans equipped the Taliban among other groups of “freedom fighters” to push back the communists. After the communist retreat, factional war intensified until the Taliban restored order. Interestingly, during their tenure as the government of Afganistan, besides bringing peace, the Taliban to their credit significantly reduced the volume of the opium trade. The American invasion of Afganistan however reversed this trend and opium production is running again at an all time high, bringing an influx of hard cash to a region with extreme and violent politics.
When I read about Afganistan and the Taliban, I have to be honest, I feel completely out of my depth. I wish more Canadians, especially our politicians and media editorialists, would admit publicly to the same.
Someone who can rightly claim to have a reliable working knowledge of the complexities of the situation is the democratically elected president of Afganistan. He believes that the excesses of the Western crusade “Operation Enduring Freedom” waged against the Taliban are not helping. Violence is on the increase. And the aggressive tactics of the American lead war is trampling on the sovereignty of the legitimate government. The result is a potential backlash with people who look, at least to their fellow countrymen, a lot more like patriots than terrorists fighting to liberate their country from foreign domination.
La Presse article 2
Who are the enemies of freedom in the West? They are the train bombers in Madrid and London. And, if the allegations are true, then the frustrated Toronto bombers as well. Yet no evidence appears to link directly the Toronto conspiracy with the Taliban in Afganistan. And then there is the group of black men arrested in the U.S. last week who had no bomb material or money or plans. They were not short on talk, though, it seems. Besides being a sign of desperation from a tired Bush administration scared by their prospects in the upcoming midterm congressional elections, I suspect that the motivations of these “terrorists” have almost nothing to do with Afganistan and almost everything to do with the idiosyncracies of American race politics. It is not clear to me that lumping all these groups into a single loose category, call it enemies of freedom, the war on terror or whatever you like, will help us to increase public security and promote democracy. Blowing up things and people in the third world may not make it any safer to ride the train in Toronto.
***
This is the first section of a longer blog which will appear online in parts over the next couple of days.
Monday, June 19, 2006
A reasonable criterion for military engagement
149 yeas, 145 nays. There is not a lot of room for expression in a yes or no vote. And there are many politicians poised to exploit that fact for political gain. In effect they hope to make the public debate about the Afganistan mission just a little bit more stupid. They will pretend that the only serious options are yes or no to Stephen Harper’s war.
It’s surprising how rapidly Stephen Harper has abandoned the political centre on the issue of the military: the “tough” Bush inspired slogans, the emphasis on counter-terrorism, the secrecy, the obstruction of parliamentary debate leading ultimately to a rushed and acrimonious vote in the Commons, a disastrous public relations policy that attempted to hide the returning coffins of soldiers from the media, and now huge spending increases to the military budget including billion dollar items that the military –read Rick Hillier—does not consider necessary. These are all hallmarks of the authoritarian right wing, something that generally has not been popular in Canada in the recent past. As a result of his over eagerness to claim the issue, Stephen Harper may have difficulty dispelling a growing perception of being a little bit trigger happy.
It is to Harper’s advantage then to have everyone believe that the only other option is to oppose the mission. Indeed, as various politicians on the left calculate the potential votes, discussion is set to divide between these two stale ideological poses, leaving I suspect the majority of Canadians uneasily in the middle, feeling they should pick a side or maybe wavering noncomittally back and forth from month to month depending on the most recent news out of Afganistan. As the debate is currently framed, seizing the political centre would not be without peril. It would demand the skills of a seasoned politician, someone who could effectively resist the simplistic yea/nay mentality while communicating more reasonable options in a vivid way that regular people can understand.
It is important to note that before Harper came along, there was all party support for the Afgan mission. It is possible to have national consensus and it should be a criterion for future military engagements. Initial support for the Afganistan mission however was largely based on the assumption that it would follow in the highly respected Canadian peacekeeping tradition, the old consensus. This is not the case. The traditional peacekeeping role was challenged by the experiences of our troops in Rwanda which suggested that certain changes had to be considered. For instance, allowing soldiers to fire their weapons to protect civilians. The Liberals are to blame for perhaps moving too fast and committing the country to new, more violent, tactics before cultivating public opinion. That was a mistake. It could be argued that the aggressiveness of the new military strategy goes far beyond what would be required to avoid a repeat of the failures in Rwanda. Whether one initially agrees with this or not, it is an important topic that Canadians need to be made aware of before we make any further military engagements. We would be supporting the troops by finding a consistent policy that all Canadians could get behind regardless of which party is in power.
That does not change the fact that Canadian troops are currently in Afganistan as part of a commitment until 2008, a topic I will take up in a post in two weeks time. But first I want to look at “Who exactly are the enemies of freedom?”
It’s surprising how rapidly Stephen Harper has abandoned the political centre on the issue of the military: the “tough” Bush inspired slogans, the emphasis on counter-terrorism, the secrecy, the obstruction of parliamentary debate leading ultimately to a rushed and acrimonious vote in the Commons, a disastrous public relations policy that attempted to hide the returning coffins of soldiers from the media, and now huge spending increases to the military budget including billion dollar items that the military –read Rick Hillier—does not consider necessary. These are all hallmarks of the authoritarian right wing, something that generally has not been popular in Canada in the recent past. As a result of his over eagerness to claim the issue, Stephen Harper may have difficulty dispelling a growing perception of being a little bit trigger happy.
It is to Harper’s advantage then to have everyone believe that the only other option is to oppose the mission. Indeed, as various politicians on the left calculate the potential votes, discussion is set to divide between these two stale ideological poses, leaving I suspect the majority of Canadians uneasily in the middle, feeling they should pick a side or maybe wavering noncomittally back and forth from month to month depending on the most recent news out of Afganistan. As the debate is currently framed, seizing the political centre would not be without peril. It would demand the skills of a seasoned politician, someone who could effectively resist the simplistic yea/nay mentality while communicating more reasonable options in a vivid way that regular people can understand.
It is important to note that before Harper came along, there was all party support for the Afgan mission. It is possible to have national consensus and it should be a criterion for future military engagements. Initial support for the Afganistan mission however was largely based on the assumption that it would follow in the highly respected Canadian peacekeeping tradition, the old consensus. This is not the case. The traditional peacekeeping role was challenged by the experiences of our troops in Rwanda which suggested that certain changes had to be considered. For instance, allowing soldiers to fire their weapons to protect civilians. The Liberals are to blame for perhaps moving too fast and committing the country to new, more violent, tactics before cultivating public opinion. That was a mistake. It could be argued that the aggressiveness of the new military strategy goes far beyond what would be required to avoid a repeat of the failures in Rwanda. Whether one initially agrees with this or not, it is an important topic that Canadians need to be made aware of before we make any further military engagements. We would be supporting the troops by finding a consistent policy that all Canadians could get behind regardless of which party is in power.
That does not change the fact that Canadian troops are currently in Afganistan as part of a commitment until 2008, a topic I will take up in a post in two weeks time. But first I want to look at “Who exactly are the enemies of freedom?”
Monday, June 12, 2006
A Rude Awakening
Soldiers are sexy; war is not. There is something undeniably hot about healthy young men and women in uniform. The clean cut discipline, the determination, the muscles, the risks…
This attractiveness only heightens the tragedy of seeing coffins arrive back in Canada. In a letter mailed by Nichola Goddard shortly before her death in Afganistan, she wrote: “I have been thinking a lot about fate lately. It seems to me that we have such a responsibility to make the world a better place for those who were born into far worse circumstances. It is more than donating money to charities. It is taking action and trying to make things better.” http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=4eb68ec8-238d-49c1-ba9b-aaf8bc126221&k=1795
This unselfish commitment to improving the lives of others is deeply compelling.
The conflict in Afganistan was given a lot of publicity during Stephen Harper’s media tour of the war zone several months ago. My rude awakening came the next morning laying in bed listening to Montreal’s Mix96 on the radio. For those of you who have never heard one of the brief news reports offered by Mix 96, the announcer has a comically authoritative voice -- imagine the Bald Eagle reading the news on the Muppet Show. He broke into an unusually sustained editorial tirade about Stephen Harper and the troops, about Stephen Harper’s COURAGE and how here was finally a LEADER who wasn’t afraid to STAND UP and be counted with our boys over there, a man ready to TAKE ON the terrorists… and on an on in a what seemed like a endless stream of juvenile jingoistic platitudes. I turned down the volume, pulled a pillow over my head and rolled over thinking what a political error it would be if Stephen Harper took that tone on the war. The subtext clearly was: if you support the troops, you need to vote Conservative. And it is a subtext that Stephen Harper has in fact been promoting by imitating blatantly the schoolyard bully, “don’t cut and run,” type comments of George Bush. In a cynical manipulation of the public discourse, the troops become a political prop in a play for power. It’s an odd time though to imitate George Bush when public opinion, even in the U.S., is turning decisively on his mismanagement of the war in Iraq and turning against the deception and terms of emotional blackmail that initially mislead the Americans into war.
The uneasiness I have felt about Stephen Harper’s rhetoric and its resemblance to Bush’s failed war has distracted me – as I suspect it has for a lot of Liberals – from the issue of whether or not I believe the Afganistan mission will in Nichola Goddard’s words, “make the world a better place”. Liberals have appeared divided as a result of what some commentators view as savvy political manoeuvring on Stephen Harper’s part. But I suspect the division is more media driven than real. Since Lester Pearson and until Afganistan, there existed a strong consensus among Canadians about our place militarily in the world. I think it is time to rebuild that level of consensus while recognizing the flaws of previous missions, a topic I will take up in my next week’s post “A reasonable criterion for military engagement.”
This attractiveness only heightens the tragedy of seeing coffins arrive back in Canada. In a letter mailed by Nichola Goddard shortly before her death in Afganistan, she wrote: “I have been thinking a lot about fate lately. It seems to me that we have such a responsibility to make the world a better place for those who were born into far worse circumstances. It is more than donating money to charities. It is taking action and trying to make things better.” http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=4eb68ec8-238d-49c1-ba9b-aaf8bc126221&k=1795
This unselfish commitment to improving the lives of others is deeply compelling.
The conflict in Afganistan was given a lot of publicity during Stephen Harper’s media tour of the war zone several months ago. My rude awakening came the next morning laying in bed listening to Montreal’s Mix96 on the radio. For those of you who have never heard one of the brief news reports offered by Mix 96, the announcer has a comically authoritative voice -- imagine the Bald Eagle reading the news on the Muppet Show. He broke into an unusually sustained editorial tirade about Stephen Harper and the troops, about Stephen Harper’s COURAGE and how here was finally a LEADER who wasn’t afraid to STAND UP and be counted with our boys over there, a man ready to TAKE ON the terrorists… and on an on in a what seemed like a endless stream of juvenile jingoistic platitudes. I turned down the volume, pulled a pillow over my head and rolled over thinking what a political error it would be if Stephen Harper took that tone on the war. The subtext clearly was: if you support the troops, you need to vote Conservative. And it is a subtext that Stephen Harper has in fact been promoting by imitating blatantly the schoolyard bully, “don’t cut and run,” type comments of George Bush. In a cynical manipulation of the public discourse, the troops become a political prop in a play for power. It’s an odd time though to imitate George Bush when public opinion, even in the U.S., is turning decisively on his mismanagement of the war in Iraq and turning against the deception and terms of emotional blackmail that initially mislead the Americans into war.
The uneasiness I have felt about Stephen Harper’s rhetoric and its resemblance to Bush’s failed war has distracted me – as I suspect it has for a lot of Liberals – from the issue of whether or not I believe the Afganistan mission will in Nichola Goddard’s words, “make the world a better place”. Liberals have appeared divided as a result of what some commentators view as savvy political manoeuvring on Stephen Harper’s part. But I suspect the division is more media driven than real. Since Lester Pearson and until Afganistan, there existed a strong consensus among Canadians about our place militarily in the world. I think it is time to rebuild that level of consensus while recognizing the flaws of previous missions, a topic I will take up in my next week’s post “A reasonable criterion for military engagement.”
Sunday, June 04, 2006
The Coming Storm
The climate prediction center of the national weather service is expecting a larger than average number of hurricanes this year.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.shtml
A sense of how much hurricanes cost economically is provided by payouts made by the insurance industry. During last year’s season, which also occasioned a larger than average number of hurricanes, american insurance companies paid claims totalling 22.9 billion dollars for four Florida hurricanes. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/a/2005_hurricane.htm
The environmental movement was the butt of jokes for many years. Gloomy forecasts of environmental disaster (much like my last week’s post) are off-putting to say the least and almost beg to made fun of, especially because global warming has been so easily confused with an odd assortment of other issues that motivate the caricatural treehugger: like veganism, political correctness and an obscure fascination with the seal hunt. A recent South Park episode “Smug Alert” did an excellent job of lambasting the perceived smugness of the environmental movement. The smell of self-righteousness kept me personally from examining the issue of global warming carefully until only a few years ago. However, available data on global warming has grown substantially and now presents an impressive body of scientific evidence. Perhaps, one day we will look back on resistance to these facts as a quaint expression of the times, much as we now look at cigarette ads from the 1950’s. Perhaps, we will be able to forgive our collective ignorance magnanimously.
At the present moment, though, there is a serious need for public education, not likely to be undertaken by the current Conservative government. And yet another destructive hurricane season has the potential to focus the public mind as no paid publicity ever could. The voters will ask not only about the efficiency of immediate responses to the disaster, but will also want to know about what is being done to address the chronic problem of global warming. Canadians will demand leadership from their political parties -- all of them.
In the fall Stephen Harper’s government will introduce a Clean Air Act. I suspect that the packaging of the bill will be very deceptive, a topic I intend to post about later in the summer. But next week’s post, “A Rude Awakening” will be about a different topic, the military engagement in Afganistan.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.shtml
A sense of how much hurricanes cost economically is provided by payouts made by the insurance industry. During last year’s season, which also occasioned a larger than average number of hurricanes, american insurance companies paid claims totalling 22.9 billion dollars for four Florida hurricanes. http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/a/2005_hurricane.htm
The environmental movement was the butt of jokes for many years. Gloomy forecasts of environmental disaster (much like my last week’s post) are off-putting to say the least and almost beg to made fun of, especially because global warming has been so easily confused with an odd assortment of other issues that motivate the caricatural treehugger: like veganism, political correctness and an obscure fascination with the seal hunt. A recent South Park episode “Smug Alert” did an excellent job of lambasting the perceived smugness of the environmental movement. The smell of self-righteousness kept me personally from examining the issue of global warming carefully until only a few years ago. However, available data on global warming has grown substantially and now presents an impressive body of scientific evidence. Perhaps, one day we will look back on resistance to these facts as a quaint expression of the times, much as we now look at cigarette ads from the 1950’s. Perhaps, we will be able to forgive our collective ignorance magnanimously.
At the present moment, though, there is a serious need for public education, not likely to be undertaken by the current Conservative government. And yet another destructive hurricane season has the potential to focus the public mind as no paid publicity ever could. The voters will ask not only about the efficiency of immediate responses to the disaster, but will also want to know about what is being done to address the chronic problem of global warming. Canadians will demand leadership from their political parties -- all of them.
In the fall Stephen Harper’s government will introduce a Clean Air Act. I suspect that the packaging of the bill will be very deceptive, a topic I intend to post about later in the summer. But next week’s post, “A Rude Awakening” will be about a different topic, the military engagement in Afganistan.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Leadership on Global Warming
There is something disturbingly irrational about Stephen Harper’s reaction to the threat of global warming. The facts though are fairly clear.
See the EPA website which is authoritative as well as friendly to the non-expert: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html
Massive human pollution in the form of carbon dioxide and several other gases collectively known as the greenhouse gases are altering the temperature of the planet by trapping heat from the sun within the Earth’s atmosphere. The oceans are warming which in turn melts the polar ice which in turn raises sea levels. The higher sea levels threaten to swamp low lying coastal areas including large regions that are now densely populated by human communities. The warmer oceans also radicalize summer storms which, with increasing frequency as we have witnessed in North America, are hitting land as murderous hurricanes. The indications of the effects of changes in seasonal temperatures on numerous ecological systems have been recorded. The precise implications for us, humans, and our economy which depends upon stable ecological conditions may be difficult to predict, but it is nonetheless clear that the changes in our way of living will be deep and far-ranging if the threat of global warming is not addressed by our generation. These are the facts and they simply will not go away.
Emotional reactions to these facts may vary… and perhaps understandably. It is a threat to our traditional way of life that can cause a lot of anxiety. The temptation toward denial is very strong, leading to a polarization of public opinion between those willing to face the danger and those who would deny its existence. The issue has definitely divided along partisan lines both in the United States and recently here in Canada as well. Within the last few months, Stephen Harper has cut funding for research, energy conservation as well as the transfer of around a billion dollars to the provinces targeted at upgrades to non-polluting sources of energy. Yet, the effects of global warming will be felt by everyone, regardless of who they voted for. We need leadership on this and a number of issues facing the country. Leadership will be the ongoing theme of my blog. More on this in my next week’s post “The Coming Storm”
See the EPA website which is authoritative as well as friendly to the non-expert: http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html
Massive human pollution in the form of carbon dioxide and several other gases collectively known as the greenhouse gases are altering the temperature of the planet by trapping heat from the sun within the Earth’s atmosphere. The oceans are warming which in turn melts the polar ice which in turn raises sea levels. The higher sea levels threaten to swamp low lying coastal areas including large regions that are now densely populated by human communities. The warmer oceans also radicalize summer storms which, with increasing frequency as we have witnessed in North America, are hitting land as murderous hurricanes. The indications of the effects of changes in seasonal temperatures on numerous ecological systems have been recorded. The precise implications for us, humans, and our economy which depends upon stable ecological conditions may be difficult to predict, but it is nonetheless clear that the changes in our way of living will be deep and far-ranging if the threat of global warming is not addressed by our generation. These are the facts and they simply will not go away.
Emotional reactions to these facts may vary… and perhaps understandably. It is a threat to our traditional way of life that can cause a lot of anxiety. The temptation toward denial is very strong, leading to a polarization of public opinion between those willing to face the danger and those who would deny its existence. The issue has definitely divided along partisan lines both in the United States and recently here in Canada as well. Within the last few months, Stephen Harper has cut funding for research, energy conservation as well as the transfer of around a billion dollars to the provinces targeted at upgrades to non-polluting sources of energy. Yet, the effects of global warming will be felt by everyone, regardless of who they voted for. We need leadership on this and a number of issues facing the country. Leadership will be the ongoing theme of my blog. More on this in my next week’s post “The Coming Storm”
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