Missile Counter-Attack: Axworthy [fmr. Canadian Foreign Minister] fires back at U.S.

Axworthy fires back at U.S. -- and Canadian -- critics of our BMD decision in An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

I'm glad you've decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It's a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.

I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.

But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can't quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.

As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we've had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we're going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.

Sure, that doesn't match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a "liberation war" in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children. Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government's role should be when there isn't a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.

Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.

You might also notice that it's a system in which the governing party's caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.

Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.

Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.

If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don't embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond. Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the "northern territories," Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn't really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.

Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of 'experts' from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).

I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti-Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.

These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.

To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.

To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court -- which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.

And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed -- beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.

On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the 'Responsibility to Protect' while you're in Ottawa. It's a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.

This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means. There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world's largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.

Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree -- and agree to respect each other's views when we disagree.

Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.

Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister.

Your post reflects, for me, the all too familiar hubris of the Canadian government and the anti-American sentiment up north. Canada has once again chosen to stab us in the back after telling President Bush that they would be on board...we here on Free Republic express our displeasure with the treatment we have received and you have the balls to come here onto an American site to lecture us about how we feel.

I'm sure this will go right over your head, but you confirm alot of people's veiws of what Canada is really all about.

"So you don't need anything from Canada eh?"

Now that SCTV's no more, wellll, hmmm...

Canada eh? It was a joke. So were the Mackenzie brothers. You see Canadians can laugh at themselves.

Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis realized that when they wrote the skit and it made them internationally famous.

In truth ending a sentence with eh? is a form of slang only a small number of Canadians use. Primarily military and northerners.

Also SCTV ceased production because the entire cast was getting US movie offers hand over fist. It's twenty years old and is still in rerun on cable and DVD sales are solid.

It was not canceled if I understand the implication of hmmmmm.....

Sorry, don't mean to brag but there isn't a lot that goes over my head.

The knife is in our back not yours. The US has been poking it's thumb in Canada's eye for fifteen years on trade and you want us to sign on to MD.

None of my criticisms is base on emotion. What I have said is based on facts that are on the public record for all to see.

I'm not lecturing anyone on their feelings. Feelings are quite irrelevant. I've given my view on why Martin can't support MD because of fifteen years of unresolved trade issues.

Give us something to run with and we can do something on MD.

As it stands the US has lost it's appeal six times since 1991 on softwood at the WTO, GATT and the NAFTA resolution panel and each time the US has chosen to go back to court.

So who has the reputation for not cooperating and consistently saying no?

Soros, Moore and Kennedy, nicely bundled and spewed forth as liberal hurl.

As Napoleon Dynamite would say....."what a frigging idiot!". As a "real" Canadian I would like nothing
better than to deport Axworthy to some third world country
and let him eat leaves and dirt all day.
He is a total disgrace and humiliation to the majority
of hard working Canadians.
Axworthy is of the socialist, left-wing chicken hawk
garden variety pheasant mentality.
Anybody that takes Axworthy seriously needs some
counselling.

I guess I am not surprised that you don't own up to your lecturing here. It's clear that's what you are doing here.

The truth is I am not invested in whether things "work out" between Canada and America so you are wasting your time giving me advice on how "we" can please "you".

What is true is that Canada has betrayed us twice now since 9/11 and that matters to me. Martin told President Bush that he was onboard for MD. Lying is not ok. And betraying us is not ok.

But as I say, you reflect what many here see as Canadian arrogance - coming here to lecture us about how we feel...and yes, how we "feel" matters.

Trade disputes are the norm for any two countries, each protecting what the people want protected.

These are time honored traditions, and it rarely affects joint defense and matters of international importance, unless of course, one party is acting out like a juvenile.

We have seen this, not just with Canada, but with the rest of "Old Europe".

In this case, the wrong side was picked. We now know something we did not know before, and that is that Canada can no longer be depended upon as a friend, and trust is waining fast.

As far as trade is concerned. Who cares! Get it from the French.

you know, when I hear how everyone says the missle defence system doesn't work, so why bother,

I think, hmmm, how many people thought the Wright Brothers were crazy, how many people thought John F Kennedy was crazy when he said America would put a man on the moon within a decade of his making that statement, etc etc....

and while it may seem a little silly, is Gene Rodenberry a visionary or what, how many crazy props in Star Trek are now reality, like wireless communications, ah hello, don't modern cell phones, esp the flip phones look a whole lot like the "communciators" on Star Trek etc.....so why are forceshields and intercepting missiles so out of the realm of possibility????

as you can see Lloyd Axworthy, like most Canadian politicians & bureaucrats, who've never taken real risks, except to steal taxpayer's money, has no vision.....

he who laughs last

Betrayed twice? What only twice?

1) JTF 2 in Tora Bora.

2) Extra Canadian troops stationed in Afghanistan during the first year of the Iraq to allow US troops to be shipped to Iraq.

3) ALL foreign flights diverted to Gander during 911 because US airspace was closed.

4) All foreign missions of Canadian fighter aircraft (F114a's) canceled so that those aircraft could be put on alert at the US Canada border.

5) DEW line radar data made available to all US force commanders outside of NORAD command.

This is a short list of the ways that Canada has 'betrayed' the US before and during this conflict.

I'm not lecturing. I'm just stating the facts. These facts come up again and again on these threads and a number of posters have have the good graces to acknowledge that Canada is a strong ally of the US and always has been.

Unfortunately there is a minority of Canada bashers who hijack these threads in order to vent their spleen and the facts get buried every time the topic is bumped and the usual suspects start bashing all over again.

Like I said in my first post on this thread, it's tiresome and counter productive.

Canada and the US are joined at the navel. That is the simple truth.

Oh come on we signed a treaty with you called NAFTA that explicitly ruled out protectionist barriers such as tariffs and non tariff barriers to trade.

To say that protectionist legislation is a time honored tradition when we signed a treaty that specifically bans it is a bizarre thing to say.

I still don't buy your theory, but it doesn't really matter what Martin's motivation(s) for sinking MD were. My basic point is that it was incredibly stupid and outside the interests of Canadian security for him to do this. Canada has a 1000 different ways to exert pressure on the U.S. to resolve trade disputes, not the least of which are treaty organizations built to resolve such disputes. Shooting himself and his country in the proverbial foot over an issues of national (nay, continental!) security just to make a point about "unfair trade practices" would be senseless, in any event.

Also, it is hardly the Bush adminstration's fault for not giving Martin something to work with. Martin, and Martin alone, is responsible for this grievous lapse. He is the one who is acting against the interests of the Canadian people. He is the person charged with protecting the country, and he has failed in that respect.

Since Liberal notions of the "Responsibility to Protect" apparently don't include a responsibility to protect the Canadian people, then I would suggest Canada has far bigger problems than trade disputes.

As I said, this issue of defense transcends trade.

These wood disputes have been going on for 200 years.

Now you can add cattle because of reasons that frankly I could care less about.

France, Germany, Russia and some others also put trade ahead of security and international matters. Selling to Saddam was more important, and now it is Iran.

We are getting quite used to it. We have our own trees, beef and the like.

Sell your wares someplace else. We will not be forced to buy them for the privilege of defending ourselves. That would be nuts!

It seems you don't see it that way, and that is just fine. But all these whiny complaints are not germane to the issues at hand.

OK, now you MUST be pulling my chain. But your post indicates you are not, so I will type reallly sloooowly just for you.

"If we really are such militaristic fascists who don't care about the rest of the planet"

This is the part where I am being facetious, (Sorry, small words. Try 'joking'). I am trying to indicate we are the opposite. It kind of sets up the rest of the post. Miss this part and the rest sounds like I advocate taking over a country of decayed liberals. Nothing can be further from the truth.

"...Why don't we just take Canada over? What is to stop us other than our good nature."

This refers to the fact that liberal Canada has practically disarmed after its zenith of WWII. Militarily we could take the country with little effort. We just don't work that way. And, while denigrating the expenditures of the US on the military Canada has, in fact, defaulted on the world stage. Deal with North Korea? How could Canada? Iran? Iraq? Syria? It is all very well for twits North of the border to look down on the people actually doing the work of making the world safe. I just think they should shut up and not write silly letters to the paper.
That's it. No invasion, no assimilation of a nation of dilettantes, no anything other than the original post. Try reading it again one more time. If you still have problems, print off a copy and ask for help from a friend or neighbor.

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