- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
The following is taken as an excerpt from the CBC Newsworld Documentary "Canada and the New American Empire", Pretty typical of the CBC's left-leaning anti-American standpoint, especially the following passage:
"The obvious alternative is for Canada to spend its relatively small military resources not as a supplement, symbolically supporting the space arm of the New American Empire but as a complement to the U.S. military machine in the form of highly trained and well equipped peacekeepers and peace makers who could work in the post-hostilities disaster areas which the United States so often leaves behind it. Investing their defence dollars in constructive, multilateral action could make Canadians feel they were playing a more legitimate role in trying to achieve peace in and increasingly troubled world"
http://www.cbc.ca/empire/security.html
Security
Documentary special on CBC Newsworld (ET):
Monday, December 6 at 8 p.m. & 11 p.m.
(Note: The following is an edited synthesis of a number of source documents, below, whose authors retain the copyrights to their original text.)
CANADA AND THE POST-9/11 SECURITY STATE
When considering closer security relations with a superpower neighbour, maintaining control over Canadian policy levers is certainly a legitimate area of concern. But would alternatives better protect Canada's ability to set policies in its own interests? Foregoing deeper bilateral security relations may actually weaken Canada's ability to maintain its independence. Without a more proactive bilateral approach, Ottawa may have little or no influence over U.S. policies that greatly affect Canadian prosperity, jobs, investment and the incomes from which to finance high quality social goods, such as health care and education. Indeed, greater border uncertainty caused by U.S. security decisions could undercut domestic priorities. Yet, at the same time, even Americans now refer to the U.S. as an Empire.
Recognizing the excesses of empires throughout history, we must place those insights into the contemporary setting of a fragile planet at the limits of its capacity to cope. As we face global warming, overpopulation, resource depletion, pollution, and the effects of HIV/AIDS, we should experience deep anxiety about what possibilities actually exist for Canada to continue to hold a worldview that is markedly different from that of the U.S. Is it our role to be like the Quakers, speaking truth to power? Or is it our role to join the most powerful nation in world history and wilfully ignore the likely effects of militarism and domination carried to their global extreme?
Canada's Prime Ministers have always faced the difficult task of balancing two competing approaches to Canada-U.S. integration â “ proximity vs. distance. The challenge today is to find the right balance in the context of constantly changing domestic and external circumstances. But in a security-deficient environment plagued by mutually reinforcing addictions to public safety and homeland defence, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Ottawa to manoeuvre between the two options. The search for an ideal equilibrium is more complicated today because the political and economic risks of moving towards either option are increasing simultaneously. Proximity is risky because America's addiction to security has forced Washington to select strategies that are unappealing to a majority of Canadians who remain committed to the promise of multilateral security. Distance is risky, because anything less than a crystal clear commitment to American security will affect Washington's enthusiasm for protecting Canadian economic interests.
The Canadian political elite, although aware of the necessity of keeping the border open to legitimate traffic, is concerned that closer collaboration with the U.S. on security matters will reduce Canadian sovereignty. Many feel that any association with the U.S. results in a lessening of Canada's ability to define and execute its own policies. In fact, it is arguable that it is more Canadian identity than sovereignty that is threatened. Those who favour greater integration with the United States tend to consider only the economic and security aspects of the question, neglecting the role played by identity in Canadian policy. Any policy of rapprochement with the United States must bear an unmistakable Canadian imprimatur in order to be acceptable to Canadian leaders and the population at large:
It must respond to Canadian interests (and not a desire expressed by Washington)
It must be consistent with the values of Canadian society, and above all, it must contain mechanisms to regulate crises and unforeseen situations.
In other words, an agreement with the United States must not be perceived as a Trojan horse.
In a sense, then, the choice for Canada seems stark: either increase military expenditures and strength, improving control over its territory or de facto see this pass to the US. This problem, however, is complicated by the fact that many Canadian nationalists see any cooperation with the United States as threatening Canadian sovereignty. Many also view increases to defence spending as stealing funds from urgent domestic priorities and making the Pentagon's future calls for Canadian troops for overseas adventures more certain. Yet most fail to recognize that cutting Canada adrift from the USâ â€if such were possible, which it manifestly is notâ â€would oblige Canada to spend far more to ensure its defences and, if it failed to do so, guarantee that the U.S. will be forced to act to protect itself.
Canada faces a dilemma. To endorse security initiatives like National Missile Defence is to break with its long-standing opposition to the weaponization of space and to accept a military doctrine in which few place much credit. But to reject participation in this new American high-tech Maginot Line would entail losing its chair at the NORAD table and so what little access it has to the Pentagon's planning processes.
As a Canadian military command, NORAD activities have to be seen as reflecting Canadian foreign policy. NORAD, however, is also one of a system of interdependent U.S. commands designed to support American foreign policy, including its present policy of pre-emptive war. By its very nature, then, NORAD institutionalizes Canadian support for U.S. military initiatives and related U.S. foreign policy. Under these conditions, we have to ask what it means when, for instance, the Canadian government decides not to condone the U.S. war in Iraq but Canadian military personnel through NORAD are performing key support functions for that war. There is a serious disconnect here between Canadian foreign policy and Canadian military activity and it is quite possible that our sovereignty depends on less institutionalized participation, not more.
The obvious alternative is for Canada to spend its relatively small military resources not as a supplement, symbolically supporting the space arm of the New American Empire but as a complement to the U.S. military machine in the form of highly trained and well equipped peacekeepers and peace makers who could work in the post-hostilities disaster areas which the United States so often leaves behind it. Investing their defence dollars in constructive, multilateral action could make Canadians feel they were playing a more legitimate role in trying to achieve peace in and increasingly troubled world.
"The obvious alternative is for Canada to spend its relatively small military resources not as a supplement, symbolically supporting the space arm of the New American Empire but as a complement to the U.S. military machine in the form of highly trained and well equipped peacekeepers and peace makers who could work in the post-hostilities disaster areas which the United States so often leaves behind it. Investing their defence dollars in constructive, multilateral action could make Canadians feel they were playing a more legitimate role in trying to achieve peace in and increasingly troubled world"
http://www.cbc.ca/empire/security.html
Security
Documentary special on CBC Newsworld (ET):
Monday, December 6 at 8 p.m. & 11 p.m.
(Note: The following is an edited synthesis of a number of source documents, below, whose authors retain the copyrights to their original text.)
CANADA AND THE POST-9/11 SECURITY STATE
When considering closer security relations with a superpower neighbour, maintaining control over Canadian policy levers is certainly a legitimate area of concern. But would alternatives better protect Canada's ability to set policies in its own interests? Foregoing deeper bilateral security relations may actually weaken Canada's ability to maintain its independence. Without a more proactive bilateral approach, Ottawa may have little or no influence over U.S. policies that greatly affect Canadian prosperity, jobs, investment and the incomes from which to finance high quality social goods, such as health care and education. Indeed, greater border uncertainty caused by U.S. security decisions could undercut domestic priorities. Yet, at the same time, even Americans now refer to the U.S. as an Empire.
Recognizing the excesses of empires throughout history, we must place those insights into the contemporary setting of a fragile planet at the limits of its capacity to cope. As we face global warming, overpopulation, resource depletion, pollution, and the effects of HIV/AIDS, we should experience deep anxiety about what possibilities actually exist for Canada to continue to hold a worldview that is markedly different from that of the U.S. Is it our role to be like the Quakers, speaking truth to power? Or is it our role to join the most powerful nation in world history and wilfully ignore the likely effects of militarism and domination carried to their global extreme?
Canada's Prime Ministers have always faced the difficult task of balancing two competing approaches to Canada-U.S. integration â “ proximity vs. distance. The challenge today is to find the right balance in the context of constantly changing domestic and external circumstances. But in a security-deficient environment plagued by mutually reinforcing addictions to public safety and homeland defence, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Ottawa to manoeuvre between the two options. The search for an ideal equilibrium is more complicated today because the political and economic risks of moving towards either option are increasing simultaneously. Proximity is risky because America's addiction to security has forced Washington to select strategies that are unappealing to a majority of Canadians who remain committed to the promise of multilateral security. Distance is risky, because anything less than a crystal clear commitment to American security will affect Washington's enthusiasm for protecting Canadian economic interests.
The Canadian political elite, although aware of the necessity of keeping the border open to legitimate traffic, is concerned that closer collaboration with the U.S. on security matters will reduce Canadian sovereignty. Many feel that any association with the U.S. results in a lessening of Canada's ability to define and execute its own policies. In fact, it is arguable that it is more Canadian identity than sovereignty that is threatened. Those who favour greater integration with the United States tend to consider only the economic and security aspects of the question, neglecting the role played by identity in Canadian policy. Any policy of rapprochement with the United States must bear an unmistakable Canadian imprimatur in order to be acceptable to Canadian leaders and the population at large:
It must respond to Canadian interests (and not a desire expressed by Washington)
It must be consistent with the values of Canadian society, and above all, it must contain mechanisms to regulate crises and unforeseen situations.
In other words, an agreement with the United States must not be perceived as a Trojan horse.
In a sense, then, the choice for Canada seems stark: either increase military expenditures and strength, improving control over its territory or de facto see this pass to the US. This problem, however, is complicated by the fact that many Canadian nationalists see any cooperation with the United States as threatening Canadian sovereignty. Many also view increases to defence spending as stealing funds from urgent domestic priorities and making the Pentagon's future calls for Canadian troops for overseas adventures more certain. Yet most fail to recognize that cutting Canada adrift from the USâ â€if such were possible, which it manifestly is notâ â€would oblige Canada to spend far more to ensure its defences and, if it failed to do so, guarantee that the U.S. will be forced to act to protect itself.
Canada faces a dilemma. To endorse security initiatives like National Missile Defence is to break with its long-standing opposition to the weaponization of space and to accept a military doctrine in which few place much credit. But to reject participation in this new American high-tech Maginot Line would entail losing its chair at the NORAD table and so what little access it has to the Pentagon's planning processes.
As a Canadian military command, NORAD activities have to be seen as reflecting Canadian foreign policy. NORAD, however, is also one of a system of interdependent U.S. commands designed to support American foreign policy, including its present policy of pre-emptive war. By its very nature, then, NORAD institutionalizes Canadian support for U.S. military initiatives and related U.S. foreign policy. Under these conditions, we have to ask what it means when, for instance, the Canadian government decides not to condone the U.S. war in Iraq but Canadian military personnel through NORAD are performing key support functions for that war. There is a serious disconnect here between Canadian foreign policy and Canadian military activity and it is quite possible that our sovereignty depends on less institutionalized participation, not more.
The obvious alternative is for Canada to spend its relatively small military resources not as a supplement, symbolically supporting the space arm of the New American Empire but as a complement to the U.S. military machine in the form of highly trained and well equipped peacekeepers and peace makers who could work in the post-hostilities disaster areas which the United States so often leaves behind it. Investing their defence dollars in constructive, multilateral action could make Canadians feel they were playing a more legitimate role in trying to achieve peace in and increasingly troubled world.
