Intent For A Nation: What is Canada For. Michael Byers
reported that “Canada decided to send its troops into a combat mission under U.S. control in Afghanistan rather than participate in the British-led multinational force because it is ‘tired’ of acting as mere peacekeepers, according to a senior British defence official.”
Since when have the generations of Canadian soldiers who risked their lives patrolling the world’s conflict zones become “mere” peacekeepers? Yes, peacekeeping requires diplomacy and restraint, but it also takes considerable courage. Colonel Pierre Leblanc, the retired commander of Canadian Forces Northern Area, has told me how, when he was a young peacekeeper, there were nights when Canadian soldiers in Cyprus took fire from—and shot back at—both the Greek and Turkish sides of the Green Line.
The myth that “peacekeeping is for wimps” originates in the United States, and it found its ultimate expression in U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s October 2000 comment, “We don’t need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten.” Every time I read about the death and destruction in Iraq, I think of this comment and wish the world had more properly trained and experienced peacekeepers.
When Canada, as a sovereign country, develops and deploys its military, it should seek to do more than simply duplicate the military capabilities of the United States. If we want to make a real and positive difference, adding a few thousand soldiers to the hundreds of thousands already engaged in aggressive U.S.-led missions is hardly the best strategy. Instead, we should build and use our military for missions—and they will often be peacekeeping missions— that the U.S. military is unable or unwilling to fulfill. Canada’s distinct history, our international reputation for independence and objectivity, our highly trained, experienced, diplomatically skilled peacekeepers—all these attributes enable us to punch above our weight, provided that we are not punching in the same place, time and manner as the United States.
Today, there is no shortage of peacekeeping missions where Canadian soldiers could make a valuable contribution. The UN is busier than ever, with more than 65,000 blue-helmeted soldiers from more than one hundred countries deployed in sixteen separate peacekeeping operations: in Congo, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia and elsewhere. At the same time, the Canadian contribution has dropped precipitously, to the point where, as Steve Staples of the Rideau Institute has graphically explained, all of Canada’s current UN peacekeepers could fit into a single school bus.
To make matters worse, our declining participation has occurred just as peacekeeping is evolving to suit the strengths of the Canadian Forces even better than before. According to the UN, peacekeeping has become “multidimensional,” in that it increasingly takes place within the context of intrastate conflicts and “involves non-military elements to ensure stability.” In other words, modern peacekeeping is exactly what Bill Graham and the other members of Paul Martin’s government committed the Canadian Forces to do in 2005 with their “3-D Approach” integrating defence, diplomacy and development assistance. More broadly, our ongoing disengagement from peacekeeping stands in stark contrast to the development of the concepts of “common security” and, more recently, “human security” as leitmotifs of Canadian foreign policy.
Fourth, and wrapped up in the distinction between peacekeeping and counter-insurgency, is the question of our reputation—most notably the cost to Canada’s international reputation for independence and objectivity, and thus our ability to lead and persuade on a wide range of issues. Where would we gain the most: continuing with a failing counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan or leading a humanitarian intervention to stop the genocide in Darfur?
Fifth, there may even be a security cost to the counter-insurgency mission. Foiled terrorist plots in Toronto and London were reportedly motivated, at least in part, by anger at the presence of Western troops in Afghanistan. Canada’s chief of the defence staff, Rick Hillier, has hardly helped matters by publicly characterizing our opponents as “detestable murderers and scumbags.” One wonders how Muslims around the world feel when they hear language like this being used on Canada’s behalf.
Sixth, General Hillier’s language points to another problem. The current mission in Afghanistan could, over time, lead to the development of a Canadian Forces that is focussed almost entirely—in its training, ethos and equipment—on aggressive missions conducted in concert with the United States. The long-term consequences of this would be significant, especially for Canadian foreign policy, since it would diminish our ability to conduct other kinds of missions, especially those not involving the United States.
And let us be clear: our current policy orientation is leading inexorably to a much longer engagement. In August 2005, Canadian major general Andrew Leslie said that helping Afghanistan break out of “a cycle of warlords and tribalism” was a “20-year venture.” In March 2006, Rick Hillier said: “From NATO’s perspective, they look at this as a 10-year mission, right? Minimum. There’s going to be a huge demand for Canada to contribute over the longer period of time.”
Seventh, it is possible that Canada’s involvement in the counterinsurgency mission is contributing to a decline in this country’s commitment to strong rules of international humanitarian law. In the previous chapter, I explained how this is happening, by our soldiers’ reliance on landmines laid by other armies and by our transfer of prisoners—directly or via the Afghans—to U.S. custody, where they may well be tortured
Eighth, such bellicose missions challenge the way Canadians think of themselves. We like to imagine that we are “global citizens” uniquely placed to promote a more peaceful, just, inclusive and law-abiding world, but how can participating in search-and-destroy operations in concert with the United States foster this self-identity? Surely stopping genocide would be more consistent with how Canadians have, traditionally, preferred their country to behave?
Stephen Harper sought to cut off these sorts of considerations when, in May 2006, he abruptly called a vote in the House of Commons to extend Canada’s participation in the counter-insurgency mission by two more years, from February 2007 to February 2009. The vote also had an obvious political purpose, in that it divided the Opposition Liberal caucus. Twenty-nine members of Parliament from that party voted for the extension, sixty-two voted against and another eleven were conspicuously absent. In the end, the motion passed by the narrow vote of 149–145, with all twenty-nine NDP and most of the Bloc Québécois members voting against. With a smile on his face, the prime minister made a point of shaking hands with Bill Graham, the interim Liberal leader, as well as with Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff, at the time vying to lead the party. The two men, by speaking in support and voting for the extension of the mission, had provided the Conservatives with political cover on the Afghanistan issue for months if not years to come. The new Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, who voted against the extension, now faces the difficult task of repairing a public split within his own party on one of the most important issues facing Canada.
The vote took place just hours after Captain Nichola Goddard had become the first female Canadian soldier ever to die in combat; she was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade during an offensive operation near Kandahar. Yet the flag on the Peace Tower above the House of Commons was not lowered in her honour. As part of its effort to draw attention away from the mounting casualties in Afghanistan, the Harper government had ordered an end to that practice just a few weeks earlier. It also imitated the Bush administration by banning the media from the airport “ramp ceremonies” at which soldiers’ bodies are welcomed home. The moves caused a storm of protest, including from some of the dead soldiers’ families. One angry father showed an amateur videotape of returning caskets at his son’s funeral, which he had pointedly invited the media to attend.
Canada is in a hole in southern Afghanistan, and it is time to stop digging. Our troops should be withdrawn from the current mission as soon as is reasonably possible. They belong elsewhere, redeployed to other parts of Afghanistan or to places such as Lebanon and Darfur, where they could make a more positive contribution. There is no question that our soldiers want to succeed, and we are proud of them for trying. But it is up to us—and the politicians we elect—to choose missions where success is possible and to change direction when our choices go seriously wrong.
LEBANON: HARPER’S UNMEASURED SUPP ORT FOR ISRAEL