[quidnunc]

M. Dodge Thomas wrote: We may find it highly annoying that the rest of the world does not agree with us on these questions - but it’s the position we choose to take, it should not surprise us if others hold different options, and it serves our interests poorly to suppose that we are a position to vote off the island everyone who does not agree with us in detail.

By the same token if Canada is going to engage in a foreign policy hostile to American interests then Canadians have no cause for complaint when we reciprocate in kind.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

By the same token if Canada is going to engage in a foreign policy hostile to American interests then Canadians have no cause for complaint when we reciprocate in kind.

"Reciprocating in kind" would consist of informing the Canadians that we intend to keep producing land mines and ignoring the ICC.

There are countries that have foreign policies “hostile” to the US (Iran’s sponsorship of state terrorism would probably put it at the top of the list) and countries that allow their citizens to engage in such activities on a individual and NGO basis (Saudi Arabia is right up there) but Canada is not one of them – for example, Canada contributed a significant number of combat troops to the effort in Afghanistan.

Canada’s dislike of our policies on land mines and International Criminal Courts is a nearly universal international opinion; it in no way restrains our behavior (we continue to employ land mines and refuse to recognize such jurisdiction) and were Canada to side with us on these matters this would still be the case. We would be silly to make an issue of it – Canada’s presence on the ground early in the fight in Afghanistan was of far more practical importance to us than attempting to enforce 100% subservience to our desires on matters where we have already decided we must defy world opinion.

[drtom]

"if Canada is going to engage in a foreign policy hostile to American interests [quidnunc]"

Or are they? Do we classify anything opposed to our view of the world as hostile, or have we retained as a nation enough grandeur to allow diverging opinions? Is Canadian foreign policy openly delineated as antagonistic to the US, or are we hypersensitized to the point where we categorically approach any difference in opinion as open hostility? Considering that 19 out of 20 inhabitants of this planet are non-US it seems to me that the so-called "Canadian Anti-Americanism" is more a minor dichotomy in approach than a philosophical chasm. Paraphrasing M Dodge Thomas, is blind subservience what we insist on, or are we willing to concede Canada as a buffer between North American neoliberalism and European attempts to deflate the hydrocephalus?

Caring for our people on 9/11, donating blood second only to the US itself, Gulf, Afghanistan - it seems to me that the prevalent social imaginary in Canada is still rather sympathetic when it counts. When it doesn't I see no harm in sitting back and open-mindedly admitting different judgements.