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US Envoy Doesn't Get It: This Country Will Not Be Bullied or Bribed Into Doing Something That is Morally Offensive
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US Envoy Doesn't Get It: This Country Will Not Be Bullied or Bribed Into Doing Something That is Morally Offensive
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by James Travers
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A long block east of Parliament Hill, concrete barriers surround the U.S. embassy, scarring city streets and snarling traffic. They appeared after Sept. 11 and are still tolerated as an unfortunate necessity in a suddenly more violent world. It is a small thing Canada is doing for Washington. Having accepted assurances that security rules could be bent to squeeze the embassy onto a prized site, the federal and municipal governments are covering a U.S. mistake and keeping Americans safe.It is also a symbolic thing that should be noticed now that war is exposing the abrasive side of a relationship that is never entirely smooth. Friends help friends; countries pursue their interests.That is what the U.S. is doing when it makes war in Iraq and when it criticizes Canada for making a principled decision on peace. Washington hopes that a mix of diplomatic rhetoric and domestic economic fears will so confuse the issue that it becomes impossible to distinguish between a nice thing and the right thing.There is no question it would have been nice and easy for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to send troops to Iraq. That was Canada's response when help was needed first to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and then the Taliban out of Afghanistan.
To borrow ambassador Paul Cellucci's phrase, Canada was there for the U.S. But it was there for more compelling reasons than currying favor or greasing access to vital markets.
In Kuwait the cause was just; in Afghanistan the threat was clear. Neither standard applies in Iraq. There, the U.S. is toppling a regime on the pretext of neutralizing a threat that hasn't been proven and destroying doomsday weapons that haven't been found.
It is instructive that the U.S. is now abandoning that tortured logic in favor of emotion and threats. In his breakfast speech this week, Cellucci slid easily over rationale to talk about disappointment, repercussions and lost rewards.
Making a case coincidentally close to that of the Canadian Alliance and the business lobby, Cellucci suggests that Chrétien should have obediently parked all disbelief to join an ally's suspect military adventure. More darkly, the national capital's most powerful unelected official is fixing a price tag to what Washington sees as northern wilfulness.Underlying that argument is a cynical analysis widely accepted in Canadian trade circles. Even though Ottawa's decision to keep warships in the Gulf area makes a significant, if indirect, contribution to the war effort, Canadian business won't reap the benefits expected to flow to less generous members of the coalition of the willing. Worse still, the overall Canada-U.S. relationship could be strained. Along with blending economics and morality, that analysis is as wrong as the threat is inappropriate. History and experience sever any link between Canadian compliance and U.S. generosity. Who in the U.S. now remembers Ken Taylor's heroics rescuing Americans from Iran and the Ayatollah? Rich contracts didn't flow from the broad effort to free Kuwait.
Bush hardly noticed when Canadians opened their homes to marooned travelers and their hearts to the U.S. after New York and Washington were attacked. And Canada's considerable effort in Afghanistan, efforts that cost four friendly-fire deaths, didn't change punitive U.S. policy on softwood lumber imports.
Relationships between countries don't — and shouldn't — work that way. Chrétien knows that and Cellucci is being disingenuous, as well as an impolite guest, when he suggests otherwise.There is no question Washington would defend this country from any immediate danger just as this country is committed by treaty, practice and inclination to secure America's back door. Again to borrow Cellucci's words, that happens without debate or hesitation because it is in everyone's interest.No similar confluence exists on Iraq. Where Bush is settling old family scores and redefining rules that discipline the affairs of states, Chrétien is measuring the tension that comes from sharing a continental economy and forging contentious polices.Washington's interests, and Bush's reckless leadership, have taken the U.S. to war and are putting enormous stress on the international institutions that somehow sustained the world through the Cold War. Canada's interests, and the surprisingly independent leadership of a retiring prime minister, are forcing this country to reconsider the price of sovereignty.It couldn't be clearer that this essential relationship requires urgent work. It's equally obvious — and much more reassuring — that this federal government won't be bullied or bribed into making decisions that are morally offensive.The message Cellucci missed is that the federal government will happily put security barriers around U.S. interests; it will not accept U.S. barriers around Canada's free will.
James Traversis a national affairs writer. His column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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