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Currently viewing articles tagged with Foreign Policy.
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Canada’s Contribution to “Democracy Promotion”
Since it signed NAFTA (1994) and joined the Organization of American States, the Canadian government has aligned its foreign policy with that of the United States more closely than at any point in recent history. At the same time, the Canadian government has taken an increasing interest in the affairs of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Some attention has been paid to things like joint military exercises in the Caribbean with the U.S. and other allies, support for the damaging practices of Canadian mining companies and the expanding presence of Canadian financial interests in the global South, but a newer area of Canada’s foreign-policy posture warrants scrutiny: Canada’s deepening involvement in the controversial field of international “democracy promotion” activities.
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Organizing the Canada-Israel Alliance
Under Paul Martin’s Liberals and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the Cana-dian government has rapidly shed any pretense at having an independent foreign policy. In Haiti, Canadian forces joined their U.S. and French counterparts in carrying out the coup d’ tat of 2004, overthrowing the elected Lavalas government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and instituting a foreign occupation of the country. In Afghanistan, similarly, thousands of Canadian troops are engaged in combat operations to defend the U.S.-led occupation and allow the U.S. military to focus its resources on Iraq. For years, escalating Canadian support for Israel has been part of this trend. In recent months, it has become more unabashed than ever.
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Empire’s Ally
There has been much gnashing of teeth over Canada’s foreign-policy stance since the day Stephen Harper and his Conservative government was elected to office.
Canada’s relations with the U.S. on a phalanx of fronts have been at the centre of controversy.
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Imperial Agenda
Back in January, when the Harper Tories eked out their election squeaker, Canadian foreign policy wasn’t even on the radar screen, despite valiant efforts by the anti-war movement to challenge Canada’s role in the occupations of Haiti and Afghanistan. Things will be different next time. As Canadian troops die in sizeable numbers for the first time since the Korean War, foreign policy could become a key factor in blocking a Harper majority.
It’s true that the military brass, key business organizations like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the political right are pulling out all the stops, and this may have some impact. The “red rallies” to “support our troops” are a well-orchestrated campaign to whip up patriotic fervour, and every time a bomb kills civilians in Kabul, the corporate media sings the “save the Afghan civilians” tune.
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Turning on Canada’s Tap
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down with President George W. Bush in their first White House meeting on July 6, one of the “unmentionable” items on their agenda may well have been the question of bulk water exports from Canada. After all, Bush himself raised the issue back in July, 2001, when he talked “off the cuff” to reporters about growing water shortages in his home state of Texas and elsewhere in the country, saying he would like to begin negotiations with Ottawa on water exports from Canada. In Texas, he said, “water is more valuable than oil.” “A lot of people don’t need it, but when you head south and west, we need it,” Bush declared, adding that he “looked forward” to discussing the matter with then-prime minister Jean Chretien.
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The International Community Must Act to Stop Israel
In the avowed aim of fighting terrorism, Israel has unleashed a reign of terror on innocent Lebanese nationals in flagrant violation of international law—for the second time in 25 years. An old hand at visiting collective punishment upon civilian populations, Israel is crucifying the sovereign state of Lebanon, bombing relentlessly, displacing more than half a million people, and wreaking death and devastation, ostensibly in retaliation for the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah*. And this time around, inordinate Israeli aggression has cost the lives of nine Canadian citizens, four of them children and one a UN peacekeeper.
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Canada And The Big Business Of War
Millions of working Canadians are being fiscally conscripted into the shameful business of war. We are forced into this unwitting participation in the arms trade and imperialist American wars, thanks to the Liberal government’s legislation governing the Canada Pension Plan. Through our mandatory CPP contributions, we are entrapped in complicity with many of the world’s most notorious warmongers.
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Bush’s State of the Empire Speech
Bush’s “State of the Union” speech was not in praise of “America” as he claimed—it was about fascism at home and imperialism abroad. It was a surreal vision that placed the U.S. in the center of a divine universe, in which the Chosen People would exterminate its enemies and forcibly enlighten its reluctant allies.
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