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Canada, NATO, and Nuclear Terror
by Jim Miles
Each year I take several sabbatical retreats into wilderness country, to find the calmness and serenity that the thin veneer of civilized life cannot provide.
The wilderness may be wild and completely without Disneyesque happy endings, but it is not so savage as the atrocities that humanity visits upon itself in the name of various fine sounding philosophies and moralities.
Foolishly - after having spent a week without electronic input of any kind, a series of days of myself playing within the natural background that should be everyone’s heritage - I return to this civilization expecting it to somehow miraculously be better than when I turned away from it.
My most recent return encountered Canada’s self-appointed guru of
militarism, General Rick Hillier, pretty much demanding of Canada’s
government that a doubling of forces would be necessary to hold even in
Kandahar.
Canada itself does not have the additional forces available
(unless, I think sarcastically, the MPs themselves sign up with their
sons and daughters for this noble mission that burdens the white men)
and the European NATO members are playing cute with Canada, suggesting
that Canada “be patient” while they pretend to fight within the safe
zones of Kabul.
On top of that, recent Angus Reid polls indicate that
“Canadians are increasingly identifying the country’s military presence
in Afghanistan as a war mission rather than a peace-building effort,”
with an increase of ten per cent in this position within one month. As
of February 11, 2008, sixty three per cent believe that Canada should
not extend the mission beyond 2009 (its current mandate) and only
sixteen per cent support extending the mission.
The minister
of National Defence, Peter MacKay, says;
- "Simply put, reality seems to
have escaped these two parties [NDP and Bloc Quebecois – the two who
actually see the reality]. We believe we should stay and finish the
job. We do not want to abandon the Afghan people or turn our back on
the international community. Staying in Afghanistan is not the easy
thing to do, but staying there is the right thing to do."
This
reflects Prime Minister Harper’s view that they will not follow polls,
but will “do what is right.” What is “right” has two parameters – the
lack of democracy at home to reflect the wishes of the people, and the
ongoing support of the NATO/American imperial drive to contain and
control the Middle East. I am certain that if the international
community truly had a democratic vote on Afghanistan, the majority of
the world would tell NATO to get out of Afghanistan.
MacKay’s
international community consists of corporations and other power
politicians, not the democratic people of the world. All the fine
rhetoric about democracy and freedom, the civilizing effect of our
white men’s burden, has obviously not been accepted by the people of
Canada.
If Canada were as strong on democracy as it believes
it is, it would follow democracy at home as well, and with the will of
the people as a majority, would exit Afghanistan. Harper’s comment
about not listening to the polls but “doing what is right” demonstrates
only the arrogance of power and not the benefits of democracy. Any
countries elected representatives need to remember that they are just
that, representatives first, and within that representation there is a
leader, but one who should represent his constituents, not ignore their
opinions. This applies globally as well as here in Canada.
Nuclear NATO
That
global perspective arrives with a second idea that brought me back to
the reality of human civilization after my wilderness sojourn, that of
the NATO ministers agreeing with the American imperial idea that NATO
should use nuclear weapons pre-emptively in order to prevent the use of
nuclear weapons.
How stupid can you get? I dislike using the word
stupid, because the clear majority of people are not – ignorant
perhaps, uneducated perhaps, or simply unaware, but seldom stupid once
properly informed – however there seems to be a negative synergy within
politics and the military to seek the most obvious incongruencies and
advertise them as a significant policy to proceed with.
The
nuclear “terror” that I have lived with has mainly been American.
Certainly the Russians tried to maintain a nuclear equilibrium, but
with American aggressive actions around the globe, their idiocy in
trying to defeat communism vis a vis the domino effect in Vietnam,
their many Latin American incursions, the Reaganesque delusions of
“Star Wars”, the “Peacemaker” ICBM, the labelling of the Soviets as an
“evil” empire, and the beginnings of the idea of winning a nuclear war,
my main source of “terror” focussed on the Americans and their nuclear
arsenal.
Throughout my life, the main correlation I have had with
American foreign policy is that wherever it leads, death and
destruction seem to follow. There is nothing in today’s current
events to change that idea.
It continues today, with
the American mercenary arm, NATO, now advocating the same position. I
wonder how many Europeans think of themselves as mercenaries of the
U.S. empire? Like it or not, that is the way Europe has acted and is
acting (just as Canada has fully accepted that role within the
political/business realm in Ottawa), regardless of how the majority of
citizens might feel.
NATO now inhabits Afghanistan, areas of the
former Yugoslavia, is encroaching into Pakistan, and, in another
ludicrous turn that fully supports the idea of their role as American
mercenaries, has been suggested as replacement for the IDF in Palestine.
Enter Palestine
The
idea of NATO in Palestine is being “explored” by the Israelis and the
Americans. As NATO is headed by two American four-star generals, I
suppose there is little need to ask the European countries if they want
to embroil themselves within Israeli politics as the Palestinian prison
guards.
I may be wrong, but I do not think that the Palestinians would
accept surrogate IDF forces, particularly ones linked so strongly to
American designs on the Middle East, to be their new gate-keepers.
Being of the military mind, NATO troops could carry as much racism and
hostility towards the Palestinians as the IDF, seeing them as
terrorists (which seems to be the whole Palestinian population for many
western media outlets).
Perhaps NATO should just ask
Israel to become a part of it, and then it would be firmly established
in the Middle East with a ready made and reliable military and nuclear
arsenal ready to serve in Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or Iran, wherever
NATO might be next on America’s quest for global supremacy.
War on Terror
The
war on terror will not be won by attacking countries who “harbour”
terrorists, by supporting non-democratic governments that support
torture, or by destroying democratic governments duly elected by the
people because they do no agree with U.S. objectives.
It
can be won on a different level than the simplistic, arrogant, and
ignorant black and white “for us or against us,” good and evil
duality. First when the major originators of terror, those with the
most nuclear weapons, those with their own troops and their mercenary
compadres, withdraw from occupied territories, then the supply of
terrorists will decrease significantly.
Secondly, for the already
alienated and fully militant remaining terrorists, effective police
actions, acceptance of international standards of law and justice,
rejection of torture and internationally illegal modes of containment,
will reduce their numbers significantly and demonstrate that the
rhetoric of democracy and justice matches reality.
Thirdly,
yes other countries may want our assistance, yet on the other hand they
may not want it. We should ask first, providing we are not asking a
puppet government run by American sycophants, but asking a truly
democratically elected government. Further, different forms of
democracy, of governments willingly chosen by their people, should not
be denied existence, as the Americans and British tend to do with any
government that denies the “rights” of corporate exploitation (at the
same time supporting non-democratic governments that allow the same
exploitation).
Unfortunately, the “war on terror” when
deconstructed to its root causes is more about the acquisition of
power, wealth, and control by a few countries who have for centuries
practiced the art of conquest, coercion, and intimidation to harvest
the world’s wealth. That the indigenous peoples of the world reject
that is not surprising, and when they actually rebel against the wishes
of the dominant group, they are no longer labelled “insurgents” or
“freedom fighters” but “terrorists”, and become the “other”, become
“evil” and are then open targets for further military incursions.
Therefore,
the idealistic solution presented above runs into the attempts to hide
and dissimulate the imperial imperative of America under the guise of a
war on terror. Until it is recognized more appropriately at the level
of national governments that continue to play mercenary sycophants to
the American imperial drive, no lasting benefit of trying to assist
other governments will truly take place.
Canada will
only leave behind a bitter legacy of unfulfilled expectations and
promises if it remains allied to the American war on terror, a legacy
that will linger both at home as Canada becomes more and more a
militarized state, and abroad as its “reputation” becomes more and more
identified with the American mindset.
Jim
Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of
opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. His
interest in this topic stems originally from an environmental
perspective, which encompasses the militarization and economic
subjugation of the global community and its commodification by
corporate governance and by the American government. Miles’ work is
also presented globally through other alternative websites and news
publications.
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