Michael Ignatieff: Opportunist? Reactionary? U.S. Lackey? Liberal Leadership Hop

Ignatieff has just made it, moreover, as nominated Liberal candidate for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Toronto) where he gained his nomination victory to loud cries of “sleaze” from all sides. The other two candidate hopefuls, it is said, were given almost no time at all to gather the required nomination signatures. When they did so, in a hurry, they found the necessary office doors locked before the deadline hour, while office staff inside pretended no one was seeking entry and refused to answer knocks on the door or telephone calls. “But such things,” you say, “only happen in Banana Republics.” Exactly. Reactionary Kenneth Whyte’s Maclean’s doesn’t tell you those things. In fact, the story by John Geddes goes lite on everything concerning Michael Ignatieff. That is because, you might say, one reactionary has to stick up for another, eh. And so Ignatieff is allowed to defend himself as “a loyal Canadian.” “Let’s clear up a few things,” he says in the story. “I have never held another citizenship. I have never given up my Canadian citizenship….Cheap anti-Americanism is a menace in our politics.” (p. 24) You can see why Kenneth Whyte likes him, except …. Except in the May 14 New York Times, on the war against Iraq which – like Stephen Harper, he supports, Michael Ignatieff wrote: “Now that we are there….” And “We promise….” But “we Canadians” are not there, and Canadians celebrate the fact Canadians are not in Iraq. So how could Ignatieff write that? Because he was identifying himself as a U.S. American among U.S. Americans. That was in May. Now in December he makes claims to pure Canadianism. If pointing out that piece of slick opportunism on Ignatieff’s part is “cheap anti-Americanism,” well, tough luck. It gets worse. John Geddes touches litely on Ignatieff’s astounding comments about the permissibility of torture – a dangerously growing claim by the Bush circle. John Geddes handles Ignatieff’s position by writing: “He has written that ‘legitimate interrogation’ can involve ‘isolation and some non-physical stress.’”(p. 24) That’s not all, John. In May, 2004, Ignatieff wrote: “Permissable duress might include forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental health and physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress.” Ignatieff doesn’t say who – after those forms of torture – can say no harm has been done to mental or physical health. A detail. No sane person seeking public office in Canada should have advocacy of torture on his or her record. Indeed, Conor Gearty, professor of human rights law at the London School of Economics, has declared that Ignatieff and like thinkers have created an atmosphere in which torture, undertaken at U.S. government instancing, can be seen as acceptable. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ignatieff) Let us not dismiss the claim litely. Ignatieff’s position probably arises because he’s a consistent supporter of U.S. imperialism. Someone who supports U.S. imperialism will very likely come round to supporting U.S. tactics. If torture is necessary to support U.S. power, well … torture it must be – but nice torture of course. Indeed, Ignatieff writes that U.S. “imperialism doesn’t stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect.” (Empire Lite, p. 106) What then is Michael Ignatieff doing getting on the Liberal slate? He belongs, it would seem, much more with Stephen Harper, Peter MacKay, and, say, David Frum. Is there a reason for him going with the Liberals? Look at things simply. You’re at Harvard, say. You want to lead a Canadian political party, become prime minister, and take Canada into closer ties with the U.S.A. Michael Ignatieff thinks U.S. imperialism is necessary; the U.S. is a better imperial power than others; it should involve Canada in its star wars program; Canada should have been at its side in the Iraq War, and the U.S. has to overthrow annoying democracies like the one Chile had - to be replaced by a seventeen-year despotism there engaged in the slaughter of people disagreeing with U.S. policy. Such a person obviously belongs with the Right party. Except…when Stephen Harper stops being leader of the Right, the-natural-waiting-heir is young Peter MacKay. Michael Ignatieff would have to nudge over an unsuccessful Stephen Harper and then slip a stiletto between the ribs of Peter MacKay. Difficult. And so …. Even if Paul Martin wins the January 2006 election, he’s showing his age, and there’s no natural-waiting-heir. You’re at Harvard, say. You’re an opportunist, say. A reactionary. You want to lead a Canadian political party, become prime minister, and take Canada into closer ties with the U.S.A., a country you like so much you use the word “we” when talking about the people who make U.S. policy. So you gain Liberal Party candidacy in a thoroughly sleazy move, and talk about your pure Canadianism. When I picked up a Michael Ignatieff book a few years ago, it was to read that the fall of the Russian empire left the world without an imperial power. Not many would swallow that hopelessly unrealistic claim. After a little, Ignatieff went on to do what he could to support and legitimize U.S. power in the world. He had shifted. The world needs the U.S. empire he now claims, which is the best imperial power money can buy. That, apparently, is his present position, unless, for opportunistic reasons, he has decided to change it. A look at his 2003 book, Empire Lite, reveals every reason why Michael Ignatieff would be dangerous as a representative of Canadians. He is either monstrously self-deluded or he is a charlatan. U.S. imperialism in the world today, he writes, “is an attempted solution to the crisis of state order that has followed two botched decolonizations: the soviet exit from Europe, and the European exit from Africa” (p. 123) Of Africa, moreover, he remarks that the U.S. was “not directly involved.” But any reasonable history records the effort the U.S. undertook to botch both decolonizations in order (1) to build its own power (b) to funnel wealth into its own pockets, and (c) to cripple all moves to self-determination that were not subservient to U.S. power. In the process, the U.S. did much, first, to protract and complicate the Cold War, necessary to the destruction of the Soviet Union. And in relation to the decolonizations, secondly, the U.S. did not “follow” but was an organic part of the mess that was made, certainly on the ground floor of the restructuring of Russia as a gangster state. The U.S. population involved itself almost totally in the Cold War. In his self-delusion, Ignatieff says the U.S. population “lent reluctant support to the imperial project of the Cold War….” He utters highly questionable statements of that kind all through the book because he is driven to create a U.S.A. that has never existed. Having done that, he can champion the mythical place as a force for peace, harmony, self-determination, and humanitarianism. One of the disconcerting things about his style, moreover, is that it mirrors a very able mind, but one that with intentional or compulsive glibness and self-confidence makes statements that are highly questionable or outright false. He mouths the old, dubious claim that the U.S. was born in anti-imperialism. And he depicts the Vietnam War as having had “moral appeal” to the young. The U.S., in addition, had “liberal good intentions there.” It was defeated – not by a determined Vietnamese population but by “a Communist elite fighting in the name of the Vietnamese nation.” (p. 117) That, of course, is transparent nonsense. It is not a statement of historical fact but a reactionary evaluation defying fact and history. Ignatieff doesn’t tell us how any elite could have maintained the miles of tunnels, the endless supply lines, the indestructible Vietcong guerilla warfare, and the years of battering by the U.S. without the solidarity of a huge population. All that, for him, was the work of “a Communist elite.” Finally, he attempts to present a global political condition that requires U.S. imperialism, stating as an indisputable fact the falsehood “that imperialism has become a precondition for democracy.” (p. 24) Like his argument for nice torture, that is a perverse falsehood presented in a slick piece of verbal manipulation. If the reader accepts the statement that the U.S. (repeated destroyer and underminer of democratic and otherwise viable governments which it dislikes) has the correct design for the world and must be followed, then anything but support for the U.S. is work against the possibility of democracy for countries suffering repression – even by the United States. The world, it seems, doesn’t accept that fabricated argument. On November 8, 2005, in a vote of 182 to 4, the General Assembly of the United Nations once more condemned the U.S. embargo of Cuba. Does Michael Ignatieff really believe the world has been wrong about U.S. designs on Cuba for 50 years? Let’s pretend Empire Lite is a mere glitch, an accident among Ignatieff’s published works. Look, then, at his 2004 book, The Lesser Evil, Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. That book has more substance, attempting to see into and explain the psychology and motivation of what are commonly called terrorists and the steps necessary to limit terrorist activity. As with Empire Lite, however, The Lesser Evil is, in fact, a plea for U.S. imperial freedom of action. Yes (we agree), terrorism threatens innocent people. Yes, steps must be taken to contain it. Yes, in emergencies strong action must be taken – sometimes limiting human rights. But Ignatieff insists the U.S. is simply another liberal democracy, which it isn’t. He refuses to consider the degree to which it has really built grounds for terrorist action. He points out that the U.S. refuses to accept the Optional Protocol of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions which recognizes that armed struggle is legitimate against “colonial domination and alien occupation” as well as “racist regimes.”(p. 93) The U.S. also refuses to accept the legitimacy of the International Court. That, of course, can’t but make the Hague trial of Slobadan Milosevic, for instance, a show trial, a game. For in matters of justice people know quickly that if sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, then the task of selecting who will go to trial is a mug’s game. If it is true as well that a U.S. Foundation is carrying much of the expense of the Milosevic trial, nothing more need be said. Finally, then, The Lesser Evil is an offensive book, disturbing because it fails to ground some manifestations of terrorism in real cause and effect. It advances, therefore - however unintentionally – the “Mad Muslim” stereotype, for instance. And it gently suggests the U.S. has learned its lesson about funding illegal and violently destructive groups, when it has not. The book’s failure springs from the same base as the failure of Empire Lite. It is based on a dangerously uncritical faith that U.S. “imperialism is a precondition of democracy.” In a world in which there is ample evidence the U.S. has repeatedly destroyed democracies in order to set up friendly despots, Ignatieff’s claim is empty. Michael Ignatieff’s sudden appearance on the Canadian political scene has something of the déjà vu about it. What could it be? Of course, it’s an attempted re-run of the Pierre Trudeau appearance in Canadian politics. Remember? Trudeau was an intellectual around 50 years old, a globetrotter who was controversial and attractive. He was a man picked “out of nowhere,” hustled into cabinet, and before you could say “election,” he was leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He won, and he held office for something like 15 years. The slick, shiny suit’ers of the Liberal Party are doubtless saying: “Just watch us do a Pierre Trudeau over again.” Except…. Except – just to begin – if the slick, shiny suit’ers had told Trudeau they would fake his way into a Liberal nomination, Trudeau would have walked away out of contempt for them. Trudeau, moreover, left Montreal to enter politics. He didn’t leave the gilded intellectual centre of support for U.S. policy in the world, Harvard University. It is not said for nothing that when a Canadian is dead, he or she goes to Harvard. Trudeau was ambiguous about his relation to the U.S., but he was not a U.S. toady. He became, in fact, so uneasy with U.S. power that many in the U.S. named him, ridiculously, “the Castro of the North.” Michael Ignatieff is a sick sign of our reactionary times. What better way to integrate Canada fully into the U.S.A? Find a reactionary glamour boy who poses as a Liberal. Give him the Pierre Trudeau treatment. Move him into leadership of the Canadian Liberal Party. Make him Prime Minister, and then – a convinced supporter of U.S. imperial policy – he will do the rest. But Michael Ignatieff is no Pierre Trudeau – nor anything approaching him. He has proved that already by accepting a sleazy, manipulated nomination process. He has proved that, too, by taking position as a U.S. lackey of a kind that would have turned Trudeau’s stomach. We an only hope it will also turn the stomach of the majority of Canadians. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on December 11, 2005]

Note: http://en.wikipedia.org...