The Games Harper Plays

It was also an affront to democratic principles. Harper essentially put a motion in front of the House of Commons, then promised not to abide by the results of a democratic vote should it not go his way. While arguing that we must participate unquestioningly in Operation Enduring Freedom to bring democracy to Afghanistan at gun point, our Prime Minister clearly signalled that democracy in Canada is secondary to his own partisan wishes.

Harper’s defence of his undemocratic posturing is that the Liberals didn’t have a vote on Afghanistan at all. Apparently he aspires to be just as bad as the Liberals. He’s accomplished that, at least.

Immediately after an embarrassing and jingoistic speech that covered a lack of substance with a thick layer of recycled Republican rhetoric, Harper exited the room, leaving his assorted flunkies to refuse to answer questions and hurl insults and cat-calls like recalcitrant school children.

Harper’s party launched into what Jack Layton termed, “borrowed sloganeering.” An apt description of both the Conservative Party’s love of attempting to claim that anybody who dares to question Conservative political positions about our military is not supporting our troops, and the vague, emotional terms the Conservatives use to avoid answering when asked straight questions.

The continued assertion that a lack of support for Conservative political manoeuvrings somehow translates into a lack of support for our troops or somehow makes anyone questioning the Conservatives less patriotic or less Canadian is positively Bushian. The constant flow of Republican advisors and spin-masters into the backrooms in Ottawa and Calgary is apparent in the rhetoric and dangerous partisan games that the Harper regime insists on playing in its quest for a majority government. Mr. Harper and his cohorts would do well, the next time they look south for instructions, to have a look at the popularity ratings of the man they so often emulate.

Part of those dangerous partisan games is to make every issue into a zero-sum, win-lose proposition. All issues are framed by the Conservatives in this way. There can be no compromise. That was again apparent in this travesty.

The Conservative motion that was introduced was not amendable. It was either write Mr. Harper a blank cheque to do as he pleases until February 2009, or say no and have him do as pleases only until 2008 and put up with a full year of full-blown electioneering.

There was no room given for a redefinition of the mission. No room for pulling out of the war-making of Operation Enduring Freedom and moving to a more traditional peacekeeping role. No room for increased training and equipment for the Afghan military combined with a reduction in Canadian troops. No room for study by parliamentary committees. No room to hear expert testimony. No room to consider what happens to the prisoners we take. No room to consider the implications of allying ourselves with a nation that has broken, and continues to break, international law as a matter of course. No room for anything but complete agreement with Stephen Harper. I believe another neo-conservative leader with fantasies of adequacy defined that as, “With us or with the terrorists.”

That other neo-conservative leader is in charge of Operation Enduring Freedom, although he rarely mentions it because he failed to achieve his goal of capturing Osama bin Laden before moving on to his disastrous campaign in Iraq.

The Republicanesque rhetoric is thick and heavy when the Conservative party faithful talk about Afghanistan. Peter MacKay even compared the NDP to Neville Chamberlain. Such false accusations bring to mind the screams of “appeaser” that were so much part of the Bush regime’s run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq. Perhaps somebody should remind Mr. MacKay that Chamberlain’s appeasement was at least partially based on trying to please a militaristic super-power for reasons of trade and economic advancement.

Our continued ties to Operation Enduring Freedom and the Bush White House are troubling. We are continually told that Canada is partaking in a NATO-lead mission under the auspices of the United Nations. The problem is that isn’t exactly true.

Enduring Freedom is a US operation. NATO was supposed to take over in February, but the Dutch and British slated for that takeover were reluctant to do so, partly because of the continued US search and destroy missions that Canadian troops are now taking part in. There is debate, in places where true debate is allowed, as to whether mixing a war-making mission with peacekeeping and humanitarian missions is a good idea. Many experts feel that such a blurring of lines between missions hampers all aspects of the mission and unduly endangers members of the military, aid workers, and civilians in the area.

Harper and his Conservatives never mention that though. They speak of our current mission as being a NATO led mission and are now volunteering to take on a follow-up mission for that NATO-led mission. The NATO-lead mission has not yet begun, has been delayed until “June or July” according to Defence Minister O’Connor, and may never actually get off the ground. Of course a few minutes after O’Connor admitted, under questioning, that there is not yet a NATO mission, the Conservative Party was back to referring to the US-lead Operation Enduring Freedom as a NATO mission.

That we are so easily misled is not surprising. After all, the non-policies of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien got us into Afghanistan. If they had developed coherent strategies for playing our part on the world stage, Harper couldn’t get away with spewing a nonsensical platitude like “Canada first” when asked to define our foreign policy and our role in the war in Afghanistan.

What does Canada first mean? It might have something to do with Canadians being in the World Trade Center when it was attacked by terrorists. It might have something to do with fighting terrorists in Afghanistan so we don’t have to fight them here at home. It might have something to do with some other bit of recycled obfuscation from George Bush’s speech writers. It might, but it doesn’t.

The truth is that it doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s a nonsense phrase, a cheap throw-away that means nothing but can be used to describe anything. It’s a phrase so ill-defined and meaningless that even seasoned advertising executives would hesitate to use it. Such phrases are the stock-in-trade of unaccountable, opaque, secretive politicians.

Canadians, members of our military and every other citizen of Canada, deserve a real debate on Afghanistan. That debate should begin by defining how the Canadian people, not Stephen Harper or George Bush, want our military represent us. It should end with a comprehensive statement of what our foreign policy is and how the military will support that policy. The debate should include experts, politicians, and average Canadians. It should be non-partisan and it should take months. It should happen without the heckling and jeering that the Conservatives use to try to shout down anybody that dares to voice an opinion different than theirs.

That debate should not and cannot be allowed to centre on trade initiatives with the militaristic super-power on our southern border and it cannot be tainted by the partisan political wet dreams of Stephen Harper.