Head in the Sand

I caught longtime activist Yves Engler at Queen's yesterday promoting his new publication, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. You can be sure I immediately snapped up a copy. As should be obvious if you've read any of my previous posts, I've been consistently critical of American foreign policy and imperialist wars in general. However, my knowledge of Canada's own international crimes has been sadly lacking. Aside from the most obvious cases, such as the war in Afghanistan, I have largely fallen into the same mindset as most Canadian establishment journalists - i.e., that we are a benevolent, peaceful nation, standing in stark contrast to the more aggressively capitalist and militarist United States.

Call it patriotism, nationalism, or ethnocentric chauvinism, but that is essentially what results when one uncritically supports whatever their country does. While I have been aware of the Harper government's shameful neglect of Canadian citizens imprisoned abroad, such as Omar Khadr and Abousfian Abdelrazik, and its professed support of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, I have still subconsciously clung to the notion of Canada as peacekeeper. What Engler reminds us is that no country is ever as good as its public statements would suggest. He highlights the important fact that we should always regard government words with skepticism, and that Canadians in particular have paid far too much attention to our government's words rather than its actions. If we examine the historical record, the evidence of Canadian compliance in or advocacy of imperialist crimes is damning indeed.

Engler makes a convincing case that throughout our history, Canada has always supported the actions of the preeminent imperial power of the day, be that Great Britain or the USA. Thus, even when it appears on the surface that we have taken a brave stand against American foreign policy, if one digs deeper we usually find either aquiescence to broader U.S. policy or the aiding and abetting of American aggression. Praise of Lester Pearson's famous 1965 speech at Temple University in which he called for a pause in American bombing of North Vietnam - which has been cited even by leftist journalists like Linda McQuaig as an example of Canada's peaceful nature - ignores the more salient truth that Canada largely supported American anti-communist policy in Southeast Asia and even allowed Agent Orange to be tested in New Brunswick, due to the similarity of the foliage to that of Vietnam.

Similarly, despite our much-ballyhooed opposition to the Iraq War in 2003, Canada provided implict support to U.S. forces by allowing the use of our air space, providing logistical support, sending naval vessels to patrol the Arabian Sea, providing equipment such as aircraft, and even sending a small number of soldiers to participate in the conflict, including General Walter Natynczyk, now Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces. Our role in Iraq is best summarized by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang in their book The Unexpected War:

In an almost schizophrenic way, the government bragged publicly about its decision to stand aside from the war in Iraq because it violated core principles of multilateralism and support for the United Nations. At the same time, senior Canadian officials, military officers and politicians were currying favour in Washington, privately telling anyone in the State Department of the Pentagon who would listen that, by some measures, Canada's indirect contribution to the American war effort in Iraq – three ships and 100 exchange officers – exceeded that of all but three other countries that were formally part of the coalition.

In the same vein, Canada's rejection of the American embargo on Cuba was not an act of benevolence and common sense, but was designed to serve American interests. In his book Three Nights in Havana, Robert Wright lays it out for us:

Recently declassified State Department documents have revealed that, far from encouraging Canada to support the embargo, the United States secretly urged Diefenbaker to maintain normal relations because it was thought that Canada would be well-positioned to gather intelligence on the island.

Upon closer reflection, none of this should surprise us. Canada is no better or worse than any other country in that its foreign policy is largely dictated by the concerns of an elite establishment. Imperialism, whether British or American, serves the needs of Canadian business interests, who therefore have no trouble supporting neo-colonial adventures in the Middle East or Africa. Aside from acting as a junior partner to larger imperial powers, we have also engaged in the neoliberal exploitation of developing nations, ensuring that Canadian corporations have free rein to extract resources from those impoverished countries. It's really no surprise that our foreign policy elite acts in this way, since it's the same in any country: you only have to follow the money to know why nations often engage in such behaviour without broad popular support.

Canada's exploitive urges are limited only by the size of our population and our resources, not by any claim to moral superiority. To ignore this fact is to fall into the same trap as chest-thumping nationalists south of the border, who I have so often criticized because, let's face it, it's easier to criticize others than to take an honest look in the mirror. Writers such as Glenn Greenwald have noted American hypocrisy in decrying human rights abuses by official enemies such as Iran while ignoring America's own record of torture, international aggression and flouting of the rule of law. For me to continue to criticize those abuses while downplaying my own country's crimes would be utterly hypocritical. In that sense, Engler's book was more than worth the $15.