Posted on 04/21/2003 9:42:36 AM PDT by new cruelty
Although Canada never looms large on the U.S. radar screen, President Bush lately seems to be waking up each morning and asking himself a question: What can I do today to screw over Jean Chretien?
The U.S. president has never warmed to a Canadian prime minister who: a) made clear his preference for Al Gore in the 2000 election; b) golfs regularly with Bill Clinton; and c) refused to make his country part of the "coalition" fighting Gulf War II.
In the past few weeks, the Bush administration has seemingly worked overtime in the kitchen to dish up revenge in four courses.
The speech: U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci went before a business group in Ottawa to voice the administration's "disappointment" at Canada's non-participation in the invasion of Iraq.
He didn't stop there, but took to task criticism of Bush by Canada's Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal, and wondered aloud why members of the prime minister's Liberal Party were not punished for anti-American statements.
The visit: Bush's May 5 state visit to Ottawa was abruptly canceled, supposedly because of time demands of an already-concluded war.
The news was initially leaked to the National Post, a newspaper that (along with the Winnipeg-based media conglomerate that owns it) has condemned Canada for not joining the "coalition."
The Aussie: The Bush administration then announced that the president will play host to Australia's Prime Minister John Howard at his Crawford, Texas, ranch for a tete-a-tete May 2 and 3.
Chretien has yet to cop an invitation to visit Bush's spread in the wonderlands outside Waco.
Visit redux: The White House subsequently nixed three fall dates suggested by Canada as a makeup time for the state visit.
The turndown came after Chretien, on a visit to the Dominican Republic, tried to salvage his position by saying: "Both of our administrations had agreed to postpone the (May 5) visit. Both sides are going to be working together to set a new date."
The public spanking of Chretien has even figured in the Bush administration's internal power struggles.
As usual, Secretary of State Colin Powell has tried to be the conciliator. "Canada and the United States are, frankly, inseparable," Powell told a news conference last week.
Canada is a sovereign country, even living next door to an empire. Its system of government is different from ours. In foreign policy, the Canadians have stressed acting in the framework of the United Nations.
As well, the Great White North makes a big deal out of international agreements -- such as the Kyoto Protocols on global warming -- that the Bush administration has delighted in repudiating.
Did the United States really need its next-door neighbors, Canada and Mexico, as part of the "coalition?" Only as window dressing.
As Bush put down Chretien last week, the Canadian destroyer HMCS Iroquois was on anti-terrorism patrol: It accidentally fired off an unarmed anti-submarine homing torpedo, which didn't hit anything but fell to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman. The gremlin-plagued warship was previously delayed getting to its station because of a helicopter mishap.
The Iroquois was not really needed to subdue Saddam Hussein. The Gulf of Oman is probably a safer place now that its torpedo tubes have been disarmed.
In a lot of ways, however, the United States really, really needs the Canadians.
They are accomplished peacekeepers. Quietly, on Thursday, the Bush administration formally asked Canada for help in the "relief, reconstruction and stabilization of Iraq."
Canada is an absolutely essential partner in the securing of a 4,000-mile-long border. People smugglers, a major drug pipeline and the occasional dangerous terrorist make cross-boundary cooperation an essential part of "Homeland Security" in this neck of the woods.
Presidents and prime ministers don't always get along. During a 1961 visit to Ottawa, President Kennedy hurt his back planting a tree, and later called John Diefenbaker an "SOB" in a note retrieved by aides to the Canadian prime minister.
"You (bleeped) in my garden," Lyndon Johnson bellowed at Lester Pearson after the Canadian prime minister gave a Temple University commencement speech suggesting a halt to U.S. bombing of North Vietnam. In a visit to the LBJ Ranch, Pearson found himself repeatedly referred to as "Mr. Wilson."
After recent putdowns from Washington, D.C., certain pro-U.S. interests in Canada have responded in a fashion conducive to one-word description: grovel.
When Cellucci took a shot at Dhaliwal, a Vancouver member of Parliament, the Vancouver Board of Trade delivered a letter personally to the ambassador. It made apologies for "ill-conceived and inappropriate things said" by elected officials, adding, "These comments have served only to harm relations between members of our family."
Is such fawning really necessary? Not really. After all, Canada has a commodity coveted by the Bush administration.
According to U.S.-prepared figures, the province of Alberta currently has 180 billion barrels of commercially available oil reserves, compared with only 112 billion barrels for Iraq. Canadian gas supplies 15 percent of the U.S. market.
No wonder, in a recent Globe and Mail interview, Powell said of the United States' northern neighbor: "I know that the resources are vast. And part of what the president's national energy program is about is the complete integration of the North American energy market."
Come to think of it, the unilateralist warrior ideologues of the Pentagon and White House might listen to the uncommon sense coming out of Foggy Bottom.
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com
And why the hell should he?
Oh, I am sure that according to some Canadians, Bush is WAY TOO MUCH A MORON to be able to do THAT!
And the hated "Bastards" around must be, also.
What a pant load!!! Headline SHOULD read "Bush might not give a s*it, but canada desperately needs the USA!!!
This clown appear in the Seattle P-U. 'nuff said.
The FIRST part of this paragraph SHOULD say "The U.S. Public" rather than "The U.S. President"!!
As to the rest of it.. I had previously thought Chretien's stand was because he was sleeping with the French PM. After reading the above,.. I guess he's sleeping with Clinton and Gore too!! What a HOE!!
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