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Recent
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April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
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the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
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2, 2003
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Total War
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April
1, 2003
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Arrogant Propaganda
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March
29, 2003
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Dispatch from Baghdad: Nowhere
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Perle is Gone, But the Looting
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March 28,
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Riad
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Schlock and Awe
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March 27,
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Somebody Blew Up Baghdad
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The New Humanitarianism: Basra as
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Simon Jones
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Jason Leopold
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Cockburn
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March 26,
2003
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Watch
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Shock But Not Awe
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POWs,
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March 25,
2003
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Gary
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Iraq and the Death of the West
David
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We
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Memory Lane
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Could the US be at War for Years?
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Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
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The Grassroots Go Global
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Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
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Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
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Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
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April 5,
2003
Remember Thy Neighbor
Canada's Opposition to the Anglo-American
Invasion
by NORMAN MADARASZ
The federal government of Canada, led by Prime
Minister Jean Chretien, has officially refused to join the Anglo-American
invasion of Iraq. Canada's position in international matters
is generally to respect and comply with multilateral institutions.
It tries to live by the principle that unilateral aggression
only leads to more aggression.
In the current American assault on Iraq,
the federal government has argued that, instead of fighting terrorism,
the war only risks fostering more of the same. It threatens the
relative stability of the entire Middle East region and its effects
on the world economy are already dire. This is to say nothing
of the price it will cost the US taxpayer and in- or out-going
direct foreign investment for generations to come. As the US
is the main teller of the globalized world economy, economic
projections for the near future are bleak, indeed.
Despite the principled items the Canadian
government has introduced as reasons for its opposition, its
decision has been respected neither by the United States nor
by Canada's minority of archconservatives. While the Canadian
population as a whole, our 'silent majority', tipped their heads
in agreement with Ottawa's arguments, few imagined the nature
of the backlash to come. First Paul Cellucci, ambassador to Canada.
Now Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense
Board Policy, freshly resigned over allegations of conflict of
interest, and one of the war's draftsmen.
When push comes to shove, Canadians need
not look across the border for trouble--even were we to consider
the rather elastic conception of diplomacy as voiced by the US
ambassador, or Perle's mauvais gout. Crushing condemnation
of Ottawa's position has come from the most rightwing politician
voted into Canada's establishment: Mike Harris.
FROM WALKERTON TO
FRASER
The rightwing's stance--some would say
double-crossing--came in Mr. Harris' address to the Fraser Institute,
a conservative think tank based in British Columbia. "[Prime
Minister Jean] Chrétien's decision to keep Canada out
of the effort to disarm Iraq is a betrayal of Canadian values,
of our national interest and of our closest allies," declared
Harris on April 3. He was only reiterating what the opposition
Canadian Alliance party has uttered in Parliament, which is that
Canada should have joined the coalition out of duty.
Mike Harris is the former premier of
Canada's wealthiest province, Ontario. His two terms in office,
stretching from 1995 to 2002, were marked by a forceful imposition
of neoliberal economic principles--harsh even by Canadian standards.
Their effect was to polarize one of the country's most homogenous
provinces.
His legacy has been marked by a public
healthcare system on the verge of collapse, disemboweled public
education and unprecedented levels of unemployment and poverty.
In the wake of his policies, he oversaw the most violent state
repression in response to protest that Canada has seen in decades.
Canadians had to rub their eyes as a reality check when watching
the brutal mounted police offensive on activists of the Ontario
Coalition against Poverty in 2000. Blood splattered and bones
cracked as pepper spray percolated on the front lawn of the provincial
legislature at Queen's Park, Toronto.
Harris, who is a senior fellow at the
Fraser Institute, is most remembered outside of Ontario and Canada
for the 'Walkerton' scandal. Seven Ontarians died and hundreds
fell sick in the small rural town after its water supply had
been contaminated with E-coli in 2000. The ensuing inquiry revealed
that the provincial government had been imposing its pro-business
deregulation agenda at the cost of public welfare. You've no
doubt heard of the triumphalist and fateful proclamation of the
death of the Welfare State? Its 'natural' plight was felt in
Canada in measures such as slashing the provincial environment
department budget by two-thirds. Unskilled workers were then
hired to test water against contaminants, which was meant for
drinking.
Speculation has it that Harris plans
to unite the Canadian right and run for office at the federal
level. The Canadian media has given his Fraser Institute speech
the hallow of a campaign bid. In the speech, Harris asserted
that "instead of a genuine foreign policy, Ottawa has substituted
a misguided deference to multilateral institutions, especially
the United Nations." As is now typical among conservative,
he went on to impress how "the UN ... is badly in need of
repair. The UN could not deal with the threat to international
security posed by Iraq--just as it could not deal with Somalia,
Rwanda and Yugoslavia."
A conservative Anglo-Ontarian, nor did
he miss a chance at slamming Canada's bi-national politics on
the international scale. "There should never be a French
veto over Canada's values." And lest anyone be confused:
"Canada's foreign policy must stem from the very essence
of what we stand for. Advancing freedom and democracy is in our
national interest."
Harris' statement comes on the heels
of a speech made by US Ambassador to Canada, the Bush-appointed
Paul Cellucci. Speaking to the Economic Club of Toronto on March
25, 2003, Cellucci bemoaned the Chretien government's opposition
to the war on Iraq as "letting down an old friend".
Cellucci went on to reassure his audience
that "there is no security threat to Canada that the United
States would not be ready, willing and able to help with. There
would be no debate. There would be no hesitation. We would be
there for Canada, part of our family. That is why so many in
the United States are disappointed and upset that Canada is not
fully supporting us now."
A LONG OPEN BORDER
AND SHORT COMMON HISTORY
Through its own political will, Canada
may only rank 153rd worldwide in defense spending, but fate and
history have made the country neighbor to an empire. In the past
the countries clashed due to the US' expansionist dreams, though
peace has reigned since the 1812-1814 war. Due to their common
language and formative history, the two countries became the
strongest of allies. Both countries are lands of immigrants,
and they have filled each other's ranks with their own émigrés.
Nor are two nations more alike on the commercial front.
But Canadians don't like to be told what
to do by Americans. At 30 million they might be tiny in size,
but big in ego. That's exactly what happened on March 25 when
US Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci reminded Canadians of
what they owe the US for its unequivocal military support.
"We also are disappointed",
wrote Yves Boisvert a columnist in Quebec's largest French daily,
La Presse. In his view, Mr. Cellucci's annoyance is unprecedented.
"The very fact that even a member of the family such as
Canada is not part of the coalition is a major setback for American
diplomacy", hammered in Boisvert.
Most Canadians have taken these words
with a grain of salt, typical militarist talk of its beloved
ally. The historically conscious have no illusions. As part of
the Commonwealth, Canada fought hardily alongside England in
both world wars--from their very outset. It might be recalled
that it took the US military some time to join both wars, while
businessmen were making a bundle in two opposed markets. When
the US did join, Canada was pleased, even relieved, that it did
so on the side of its former enemies. The twentieth-century turned
into
the century of Anglo-American-Canadian friendship over the "longest
unprotected border" in the world. Two billion dollars (Canadian)
in goods and services crosses it daily.
Yet much more for Canada than its neighbour,
the US is also one of its daily matters. For most Canadians,
the border stands within a hundred kilometer's distance, when
it isn't found on Canadian territory itself, as at Montreal and
Toronto international airports. From various studies, Canadians
learn that many Americans, to not have to say most, know little
about their country. In the eyes of many of us, reception to
the US' offer for protection rings hollow with indifference as
in the reception reserved to services rendered without having
been requested.
OF UNLIKE MINDS
The Canadian mind is multiple. To get
a sense of it, one need only glance at the province of oil-rich
Alberta. Alberta is home to the rightwing Canadian Alliance party,
a recently formed federal organization with undeniable regionalist
leanings, now the official opposition to Chrétien's cabinet.
Alberta has also been host to pro-war demonstrations. On Monday,
March 31, The Globe and Mail reported Albertans as claiming
the archetypical reason for supporting the US was reparation
for always "wanting the shade from the tree [without being]
willing to do anything to keep that tree strong." When a
large mobile edifice blocks your view from light, some prefer
the sun.
No Canadian entrepreneur would deny that
the shade has brought much into the country. Many would retort
that it has brought a lot to the country. Canada
clearly benefited from the Internet boom of the nineties, and
under the North American Free-Trade Agreement, the Central Bank
managed to move the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar low
enough to transform it into a devastating competitor for their
southern partner. Last year, as the US confronted its double-dip
of a recession, the Chrétien government beamed loudly
at another year of 5 percent-plus GDP. Over the last fifteen
ensuing years, Canadians have seen the cost of traveling south
increase two to threefold due to their relatively worthless currency.
It's undeniable that Canadians like to
pride themselves with the ideas and culture they have exported
south. From Oscar Peterson to Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, they
stand as refined, and often gifted, contributions to the American
standard. On the flipside, Canada has been drowned in American
pop culture. Its bubbles weren't only bursting in your Coke.
Companies like Nortel could have taught Enron a few accounting
tricks prior to evaporating on the Toronto Stock Exchange meltdown
in the fall of 2000. Financial bubbles to the right of them,
acid rain to the left, most American imports tend to leave the
Canadian environment fizzing.
To counter that offensive, Mike Harris
spiced his speech with talk of culture and tradition. Canada,
proudly, sports a lot of it. In addition to its innumerable immigrant
populations, and dozens of indigenous nations, it is dominated
by two solid heritages: the English and the French. But the question
of independence from Canada is no longer on the agenda in French-Canada.
Neoliberalism made inroads to a 'province' that in the late seventies
had the most socialist government in the Americas after Cuba
and Nicaragua, but little of its soul has been rendered over
to the type of "laissez-faire" political economy advocated
by Harris and his drinking buddies from Alberta and BC, premiers
Ralph Klein and Gordon Campbell.
And how the "Anglos" did fight
to restrain Quebec from living out its destiny of independence
as a sovereign state. Never ones to hold back on raising the
specter of armed conflict to keep French-Canada within "confederation",
Harris, Klein and their mentor, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
barely blink an eye when compelling Canada to march in US steps.
Chrétien, as his name suggests,
is French-Canadian. And it can be argued that much of the social-democratic
element in Canadian politics is the legacy of Quebec. Characteristically,
Montreal has been host to the largest and greatest number of
demonstrations in North America against the war. Perhaps the
only place in the world where poverty has been drafted into law
as "illegal", the province has held demonstrations
in even the smallest towns.
The message is that new-market economic
principles and war are one of a kind. It's one that Jean Chretien
knows full well as being the driving spirit for the conservative
orphans of Mother England. Stripping away Canada's excellent
social services they promote tax cuts that, like in the US, benefit
only the richest in the end. And when the population claims to
have not known of the hidden agenda, -- how more of their collective
wealth keeps seeping through the loopholes of modern accounting
and taxation -- they'll be able to thank their loyal private
media. When they do, they can give special mention to the newspapers
owned by archconservative pro-Sharon tyrant, David "Dizzy"
Asper. Hovering over the country's free press, this prime controller
is known for first overruling, then firing, columnists who speak
out in favor of a Palestinian state.
REALISM: DOES IT EXIST?
Raise the military budget for what reason?
Isn't this the point that Richard Perle was asked to contemplate
just a few days before slamming Chretien as a "lame duck"
for his opposition to US foreign policy? And, getting back to
ambassador Cellucci: defend Canada from what invading nation?
Would any country be so stupid as to invade or attack Canada
while leaving the US alone, as if Canada were not part of NORAD,
a treaty allowing the US to retaliate to an attack against Canada
as if it were part of itself? Who are these politicians
trying to fool apart from themselves?
Harris himself is calling for a continental
security perimeter. Even without such slips to sovereignty, geography
overrules treaties here. During the cold war, Canadians could
often picture themselves during Armageddon as somehow saved by
the grace of the almighty--if only they would look at the globe
while tipping the Arctic from top to center. In the event of
a US-Soviet conflict, cruise missiles would have been flying
up above to and fro. Canadians would wind up with pinched neck
nerves and whiplash in their incessant scanning of missiles whisking
by overhead.
Back in 1983, when the US was testing
cruise missiles in northern Alberta, our neighbors made it sound
like it had something to do with similar landscape patterns to
the northern Soviet Union. It was quite obvious that tests were
conducted over the very territory the missiles would fly in the
event of war.
So why raise the military budget when
you're fated to stick in the middle? Obviously to deal with the
poor and disgruntled, whose ranks are ever-growing in a country
having convinced its population that the "welfare state"
is passé, and that now it's the time to dip back into
the jungle where there's a rule for everyone and him/herself.
In that jungle, even Canadians ministers
lose their legendary diplomatic cool and call Americans 'bastards'.
So the memo reads that Bush is irate at Canada. The content is
that Canada's bid to dialogue is worth nothing faced with the
Empire's might. More than a forest in which felled trees fall
silent, this is a world in which dialogue is pulverized into
communication: a world in which Kant is mercilessly crushed by
Hobbes.
Norman Madarasz,
originally from Montreal, teaches and writes on philosophy and
international relations in Rio de Janeiro. He welcomes comments
at nmphdiol@yahoo.ca.
Today's
Features
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
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