A rchive Date
[ 19-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/dfisher.html
Brothers in arms no more
By DOUGLAS FISHER - Sun Ottawa Bureau
March 19, 2003
OTTAWA - Two age-old questions have been in my head and conscience since Jean Chretien decided Canada would not stand beside American and British forces against the regime in Iraq.
Who are our friends? What are friends for?
For me as an individual, and as a citizen, the British and the Americans have been friends for a long time. The former since a childhood as a proud integer in the British Empire and Commonwealth; the latter for sure since mid-winter 1945.
That was when our armoured squadron first worked at linking the boundary in battle between a British brigade and an American infantry regiment as they slugged north in Holland towards the Lower Rhine. The weather was foul, the terrain open, the Germans both clever and deadly in grudging retreat. We were tired and jumpy. We knew the Brits well; the Yanks were a new experience for us, and they brightened grim days.
They were friendly and generous, even as they made us shiver over the high risks in casualties which they accepted and suffered. Anything they had was ours - food, drink, clothes, ammo, information, and, above all, an interested companionship during the pauses and the waiting.
A TRAIL OF BODIES
So I recall the GIs of the 104th division readily, in particular our last contact before we were sent elsewhere. It was near the southern end of a bridge over the Neder Rhine. We took a cautious look over the winter dike. A few hours before, an aggressive American officer had led his infantry company over the dike towards the bridge ramp. It became a killing ground for machine-gun fire from over the river. We could see a trail of bodies, and just before we pulled out, we learned several of the chaps we'd fed with were lying over the dike in the open, done for.
This happening looms large in my bias that Americans are my friends. Our friends. Yes, there is far more than that to friendship - like the many interests, values, and common causes we share. It is easy to admire the vigour of their political democracy and both the models and the goofs they have provided, surely more to us than anyone else.
To me, George W. Bush has been the least impressive president. I think it's because both his world view and his values seem over-simple. Nonetheless, he continues to hold a strong political following at home, and his intentions vis-a-vis Iraq, the Middle East, and countering terrorism have been clearly put, again and again, over many months.
It was obvious several months ago, well before Chretien announced Canada would not stand against Iraq with the Americans, British and Australians, that this was a fast-hardening choice of a majority of Canadians.
In one way this was somewhat surprising, given by and large a common vernacular and the intertwining of our economy, entertainments, and recreations with the U.S. and Americans. Yet Canadian righteousness also made sense, because we have built up a quite global myth of Canada as a "rainbow" example of ethnicities and as a recognized "soft power," ever ready with our obvious objectivity and superbly-done peacekeeping to contrast Canada to those with "hard" powers.
In matters of defence, even before the Cold War closed, Canada was coasting on the cheap, protected by a military umbrella manned and paid for by Americans. Both the Liberal government in Ottawa and a growing body of Canadian opinion have been turning with confidence towards our prime international role as doing good peaceably through global institutions rather than through alliances.
SCATHING CRITIQUES
As our enlightenment has distinguished us more and more from the U.S. and its global exercise of military and economic power, the Canadian critiques of American aims and diplomacy became scathing and often quite patronizing.
A vein of anti-Americanism runs back to Canada's origins. Though it has been relatively dormant since the free trade debate in the 1980s, it has come back through the Chretien years.
So many Liberals have taken positions critical of the U.S. once put strenuously in federal politics by New Democrats, ideologically moved by American capitalism. Some have even rued the manifold benefits in close and friendly relations with American society and its economy.
The warmth and trust of friendship between Americans and Canadians, Ottawa and Washington, which waxed strongly in and after WWII, counts less with the present PM, his party, and most Canadians, than the grander international touchstone, the Security Council of the United Nations.
My lament is self-centered - a preference for friendship with American and Americans, even one occasionally bruising or ignored or taken too casually.
Now my hope is that they may prove better friends to us than is suggested by our rejection of them over Iraq.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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