but to say or even suggest that Canada and its people " hate " America or Americans is beyond ludicrous .In fact, it is downright shameful
I am so happy to hear you say that because it is exactly how I feel. However, please have the courage to recognize our shortcomings - as a Canadian I have no problem recognizing them - I do not suffer from the Canadian inferiority factor.
Anyway, I thought you would enjoy reading this article from the - oh, very Canadian (Torontonian?) - newspaper:
<<Steering our own course
Despite the dominance of the U.S. in world affairs, we must not shrink from our ideals, even if it conflicts with America's
By Richard Gwyn
A COMMENTARY that's become popular these days — expressed most recently by former ambassador to Washington Allan Gotlieb in a National Post article — is that Canada is "fading" in the world.
Our military strength is now negligible. Our traditional foreign policy — stuff like "soft power," pursuing "human security" and peacekeeping and trying to be a "helpful fixer" — is obsolete.
There is something to this. Not the hand-wringing about the size of our defence budget. Our soldiers may be brave and skilled, but it's been decades since there have been enough of them to make a detectable difference. The technology gap (also the gap in defence budgets) is now so wide that only Britain, and even it only just now, still matters to the U.S. militarily.
In foreign policy, though, it truly is a whole new world order. In today's unipolar world, everyone else, China in the end little differently from Canada, revolves around the American sun like minor, and fading, planets.
The similarity of U.S. dominance compared to Rome's has been developing for some time. Radically new is the readiness in Washington to act like Rome, unapologetically and ruthlessly.
Hence doctrines like "pre-emptive defence" which is a fancy way of saying the U.S. will do what it pleases whenever it pleases.But for a few lingering diplomatic niceties, this is the essence of the new National Security Strategy released in Washington this week.
The most honest Washington commentary I know of about this phenomenon was by John Bolton, the Number 3 at the State Department. "There is no such thing as the United Nations," Bolton has said. "There is an international community than can be led by the only real power — the U.S. — when it suits our interests."
Which leaves Canada between a rock and a hard place. Gotlieb, for instance, has made the shrewd point that there are now "no, or few, middle powers left to collaborate with." The kind of liberal, multilateralist policies we once could promote with the likes of Sweden, Holland, Australia, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Egypt, may now be beyond us.
One way for us to get out from the rock and hard place is to become invisible. This is Gotlieb's solution. No more "hectoring and lecturing." No criticizing the U.S. for rejecting the International Criminal Court. Just "ready, aye, ready," with, occasionally, some helpful backstage advice (or, more accurately, a periodic claim to Canadians to have given such advice and to have been listened to respectfully).
The other way is to continue to speak out with a Canadian voice. Not to be provocative or self-indulgent. [NDRL: Now THAT is Canadian] Not to claim any moral superiority (mostly we possess superior circumstances, from affluence to that of having our national security guaranteed by the U.S.).
But because we have something to say that is worth saying to the world, to Americans, to ourselves.
Soft power, human security, peacekeeping [NDLR: How the hell can we do that without an army - read: we are trying to fool the world that we can pull our own weight], helpful fixing, haven't lost their value because the world is unipolar and because the war on terrorism dominates today's headlines.
They are indeed integral parts of any effective war on terrorism. [NDLR: see previous posts on our PM meeting with terrorists]Peace isn't made by making a desert, though that — the use of raw military power, that's to say — is often a necessary first step.
Afterwards has to come nation building, the development of a civic society, economic progress, democracy, the rule of law. Otherwise more terrorists will spring up like dragon's teeth to replace today's dead, or jailed, ones. [NDLR: yaeh, why not leave the living ones alone as they will be replaced if killed. Why bother]
This is what we're good at. It's our international niche.[NDLR: please no jokes on Canadians guys] Indeed, this, rather than a few hundred soldiers or an extra destroyer, is what we can do for the U.S that will make a detectable difference.
This — I believe — is what Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has been trying to say by his talk about how poverty, Western greed and the humiliations we have inflicted on others, are part of the reason for the terrorism.,[NDLR: NO, he said that the US were partly to blame for 9/11 because of their wealth and arrogance] His phraseology was clumsy. His timing was terrible. [NDLR: good try]
But his courage was considerable. He was telling Americans what they need to know, which is that President George W. Bush's declaration that "evil" explains everything, is incomplete. (Actually, it's thoroughly silly).
Nor are we alone. Britain's Tony Blair has said — earlier — the same thing. So have many Americans, such as former President Jimmy Carter.[NDLR: Ouch, bad choice, he is an embarrassment ot his country too] Around the world many others know it full well but just lack, for the moment, the guts to say it.
But, say the nervous Nellies, if we speak out we'll get stomped on. Lester Pearson didn't for speaking out about the Vietnam war. Pierre Trudeau didn't for his 1984-85 peace initiative that Washington detested.
What we need is the same courage to pursue our ideals as all those neo-cons in Washington have shown in pursuing — if wrong-headedly — their ideal of a Pax Americana.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Gwyn's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. He can be reached at gwynR@sympatico.ca
Additional articles by Richard Gwyn>> |
