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.
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