Anticipating the Afghan War debate in 2010

When, in the fall of 2010 and the debate about Canada’s military mission to Afghanistan is again dominating Parliamentary debate, will anyone remember that the only reason the mission was extended from 2009 to 2011 was because neither the Liberal nor the Conservative leader felt confident about their prospects in a general election?

The recent deal worked out between Stephane Dion and Stephen Harper to extend Canada’s military deployment to Afghanistan has little to do with what’s good for Afghanistan or for Canada. The situation in Afghanistan will not be substantially different from what it is today, which is a classic dug-in indigenous insurgency that cannot be ended militarily. And the rationale for Canada’s deployment there will also remain as it is today, a shifting, poorly-founded grab-bag of high fallutin’ concepts built around empty feel-good platitudes like women’s rights, children’s futures and local democracy.

The real cause being served by Canada’s fighting legions is stated openly often enough, it’s just never acknowledged directly that our fighters are killing and being killed to elevate Canada’s foreign policy profile and thereby improve our trade relations in order to keep our crucial export-oriented industries supplied with smooth access to foreign markets.

Canada’s national myth, which holds that it became a nation among the family of nations by shipping cadres of uneducated farm-bound teenagers to join in a European civil war blood-bath, lies at the root of Canadians’ ambiguity toward another killing field we only sustain and grow by our participation in it. Just like the nation-building exercise in Europe a hundred years ago, it’s certainly convenient that the wars by which Canadians with starry eyes exercise and give shape to their ethereal national myths destroy buildings, farms and families a suitably large number of kilometers away from our own buildings, farms and families. If World War I took place on Canadian soil, the myth of national maturity achieved through war would have a whole different interpretation today, and we’d likely have a far different attitude toward improved diplomatic and trade relations through war-making in Afghanistan today too.

True Conservatives

Introducing US Republican presidential candidate John McCain at a speech and rally in Cincinnati, conservative radio talk show host Bill Cunningham said he had had a dream about Democratic presidential candidate “Barack Hussein Obama.” In it, he reported, “all’s going to be right with the world when the great prophet from Chicago takes the stand, and the world leaders who want to kill us will simply be singing Kumbaya together around the table with Barack Obama.” Also in the dream, he said, Obama was meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korean President Kim Jong Il, and would “saddle up” to Hezbollah.

McCain said he did not endorse these views and promised repeatedly “it will not happen again.”

But what exactly was he promising won’t happen again? Conservative media figures since George Bush Sr campaigned in 1988 made the word “liberal” a more serious pejorative than “thief” and have repeatedly stated that liberals seek the destruction of the West and are a fifth column for the gathered enemies of civilization itself. None of Lorne Gunter, Jonathan Kay, George Jonas and David Frum—conservative extremists all ensconced in Leonard and David Asper’s smudgy National Post—would react with anything more than a knowing nod and a smirk were they in Cunningham’s audience. Were the comments not issued during a presidential campaign with the front-runner a few feet away, it would have been only more background Conservative noise of the kind that’s been filling the airwaves for years.

Cunningham is an ordinary American Conservative and he reflects the way of thinking of millions of ordinary Americans. They do think that the normal and necessary confrontation of policy views should be interpreted instead as the pre-Millennial forces of good combating the forces of evil.

The polarizing hyperbole of Conservative language and thought in the US is driving a rush to extremism among Canadian Conservatives. No one at The National Post minded when Harper refused to meet with or hear from the nation’s leading scientists. No one had a comment when it was revealed that Harper quietly agreed to allow US military forces to invade Canadian soil unimpeded in the case of an “emergency.” Lorne Gunter continues day by day to question the reality of industrial-activity induced global climate change.

It is instructive to note that The National Post and its cabal of insidious commentators have only now launched a full-court press against Canada’s hate speech laws when its two of their fellow travelers, former Post writer the rabid Mark Steyn, and defunct Alberta Reports publisher the jihadist Ezra Lavant, have been caught up in complaints against their own hateful blood-thirsty screeds.

McCain may well deliver on his promise that Conservative radio talk show hosts will never again speak their honest mind at any venue where he is present, but he can’t do anything about the swelling ranks of the feverishly uneducated and incurious Conservatives flooding his country and spilling over into ours. The mark of a Conservative is that they don’t change, never see a reason to change, and are proud of their rigid resistance to change. That’s what “conservative” means, doesn’t it?

Could tar sands policy be an emergency?

News that months ago Canada and the US jointly signed an agreement whereby each nation may deploy troops across the border without delay in the case of an emergency, was met with silence. That’s mostly because the Civil Assistance Plan was not widely reported in the news, and the document, though referred to by authorities on both sides of the border, has not been published. Its details are a secret.

“This document,” explained General Gene Renuart, the US Air Force General who signed it February 14 on behalf of his country, “is a unique bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nation’s requests for military support of civil authorities.” Marc Dumais, a Canadian Air Force Lieutenant General, and commander of the Canada Command half of Norad, signed the document on behalf of Canada.

The only known print media coverage of the story is a verbatim and complete reprint of the US Department of Defense press release about it. Even though the Civil Assistance Plan is reportedly to be invoked under the authority of the Canadian Public Safety Ministry and the US Homeland Security Authority, neither have mentioned the existence of the plan two weeks after its signing. Nor does the Canadian Defence ministry or the US Pentagon websites contain any reference to it. In fact, the term “Civil Assistance Plan” does not occur anywhere in the entire government of Canada website.

The only known official mention of it is in a press release issued by The United States Northern Command (the “northern” refers to the north half of the Western Hemisphere, not just northern US and Canada, as many suppose), which sports the chilling tag “Protecting our Homelands.”

The document itself is not available and we aren’t told who can declare an emergency or who is allowed to determine that the deployment of troops across the border unopposed is called for. Canada’s military is about 2% the size of America’s.

Bidness is bidness

A recent issue of the Georgia Straight contained an article on addiction, another on federal by-election candidates’ green commitments, a cover feature on the risks of corporate food industry practices, and a cartoon about car pollution hypocrites. It also contained three new full-page ads selling cigarettes, three other full-page ads selling cars and one full-page ad selling air travel.

If you agree to print an ad, it can only be because you want the advertiser to be successful with it. Ads are content too, aren’t they? Or does one hope readers don’t see certain ads?

Go Alberta!

Ed Stalmach, campaigning for re-election as Conservative Premier of Alberta, stated that “the environment takes precedence over the economy.” He was answering questions about Alberta’s tar sands development policies. Whatever he meant by it and however committed he shows himself to be to the principle in practice, he ought to be applauded. It’s a sea change for any Canadian Premier and a different planet for an Albertan Premier. It could, on the other hand, constitute an emergency in the eyes of the Pentagon.