BEYOND CHUTZPAH
[Update: This item has been corrected. The original
referred to a Globe and Mail story that claimed Harper had
said his party could win "45 of 75 seats in
Quebec." That story vanished down the memory hole and
was replaced by this
one, which claims, "One Conservative
organizer said his party would be happy with 45 of the 75
seats up for grabs in Quebec." My apologies. KMG,
8.21 a.m., May 1.]
Stephen Harper's office has released a statement
lambasting the Liberals for indulging in partisan
politics south of the border.
The April 30 press release is entitled "Note to
Brison: People Visiting White Houses Shouldn't Throw
Stones":
OTTAWA
- Today in
Washington, the Liberals were
throwing stones from the
other side of the border, focusing on the Conservatives’
stance during the conflict against Saddam Hussein.
Strangely, though, it was Scott
Brison [failed Progressive Conservative
leadership candidate who defected to the Liberals last
year] who led the attack, an MP who supported Canada’s
involvement in the Iraq conflict...
It
is unfortunate that the Liberals would use an
international platform to attempt to smear the
Conservative Party during an election year. But then
again, the Liberals have never hesitated before sinking to
new hypocritical lows.
It is unfortunate Harper's office didn't bother to tell
us exactly what Brison said, but if we take it at its
word, Brison should be ashamed. But as for "sinking
to new hypocritical lows," has Harper forgotten practically
inviting American reprisals against Canada
on Fox News and in the pages of the Wall Street Journal?
If so, he could always read The Ambler, Canada's
one-stop source for anti-patriot intelligence.
Hypocritical? Harper's press release travels beyond the
realm of hypocrisy and into the realm of dementia.
In other bilateral news, George W. Bush was all
smiles with Paul Martin in Washington
today. The Globe and Mail reports,
At a joint press conference,
Mr. Bush brushed aside Canada's refusal to join his war in
Iraq and said that he would be happy to have Canadian
assistance in any form.
“The Prime Minister shares
my deep desire for there to be peace in the world. And to
the extent that the country feels comfortable in helping
that, we're grateful,” he said at the White House Rose
Garden, Mr. Martin at his side.
“Canada is an independent
nation,” he said. “Canada makes decisions based upon
her own judgment"...
Although eager to bolster the
coalition fighting in Iraq, Mr. Bush did not appear
concerned about whether Canada might yet join his
administration's effort in Iraq. Instead, he praised
Canada's contributions to peacekeeping in other global hot
spots.
“Canada's doing a lot in
Afghanistan, Canada's doing a lot in Haiti, Canada is a
contributor to reconstruction in Iraq,” he said.
“We've got no better partner in understanding the power
of free society."
So America isn't going to wreak a terrible
revenge upon Canada for our "craven appeasement"
on Iraq? Fancy that. And what's all this about Canada
being "an independent nation" making
"decisions based upon her own judgment"? From
your mouth to Stephen Harper's ear, Mr. President. Hail to
the Chief!
Kevin
Michael Grace, 3.07 p.m., April 30, 2004►
NO CONTROLLING AUTHORITY
U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. "Chip"
Frederick's incredible assertion
he wasn't aware Iraqi prisoners in his care were not to be
tortured is reminiscent of nothing so much as George
Costanza's defence
after he was caught shtupping a cleaning lady on
his desk:
Was that wrong? Should I have
not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this
thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all
when I first started here that that sort of thing was
frowned upon....
As Seinfeld aficionados will recall, Mr.
Lippman fired George on the spot. Let's see what happens
to "Chip" and his fellow merry-makers.
Sgt. Frederick: 'We had no training whatsoever'
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.53 p.m., April 30, 2004►
A PATRIOT MANIFESTO
An outstanding essay
by Frank Johnson in this week's Spectator explains
why Britain was mistaken in joining the "coalition of
the willing."
Iraq threatened no British
national interest. It was but one among many horrible
regimes. They cover the globe. We go to war against few of
the others. Only the Left ever suggests that we should.
Tories know that that would result in perpetual war. Their
ancestral wisdom tells them that we should go to war only
when a horrible regime threatens Britain—as Saddam’s,
with his lack of weapons of mass destruction, did not. He
was a threat to Iraq, not to Britain. We should weep for
the Iraqis. But as Bismarck said of the Ottoman Empire’s
treatment of dissident Christians, ‘I shall remember
them in my prayers but I shall not make them the object of
German policy.’ That is not cruel. It is far crueller
for a statesman to endanger the lives of his own soldiers
in a cause unrelated to the security of their homeland.
His own countrymen’s lives are the lives for which a
statesman is responsible, no other. Bismarck also said
that the Balkans were not worth the life of a single
Pomeranian grenadier. Iraq is not worth the life of a
single British private.
If you read Johnson's piece, simply change Britain to
Canada, Blair to Stephen Harper, and Tories to the
Canadian Alliance or "Conservatives," etc., and
you will have an excellent summation of the Canadian
patriot's position on Iraq.
Tony Blair is a wicked man and the worst prime minister
Britain has ever had. That Canadian and American
"conservatives" hail this monster even as he
trashes what liberty Britons still retain confirms, if
confirmation were needed, there is nothing
"conservative" about them. These
neoconservatives are indeed neo-Jacobins
and, has been pointed out time and again, Trotsky's
true heirs.
It is no accident Stephen Harper finds himself on the
same side as Christopher Hitchens. They are two peas in a
pod. Here is Harper's worldview, in his own words, as
contained in a speech
given to Montreal's Institute for Research on Public
Policy, May 21, 2003, and posted on his campaign website,
"One Conservative Voice":
Canada needs to develop,
instead, consistent criteria for joining coalitions of
purpose in order to respond in a timely way to fast-paced
and evolving threats to international security and human
rights.
We need more flexible and
aggressive methods to promote our underlying interests and
values in the world.
Generally speaking, those
values should be clear—democracy and the rule of law;
free markets, enterprise and trade; the alleviation of
poverty, pollution and disease; and individual freedom and
human rights, with a particular understanding of the
importance of the rights of women in healthy development
of all aspects of society.
The time has come to
recognize that the United States will continue to exercise
unprecedented power in a world where international rules
are unreliable and where the security and advancing of the
free, democratic order still depend significantly on the
possession and use of military might.
Ecce homo. Stephen Harper stands for perpetual
revolution and war without end: war for "globalism,"
the WTO and the IMF, war for "democracy,"
"freedom" and "human rights" and, best
of all, war for feminism. Stephen Harper would have Canada
bear any burden and pay any price in support of George W.
Bush's New World Order.
A spectre is haunting neoconservatism—the spectre of
patriotism. Patriots of all countries, unite! You have
nothing to lose but your quislings. You have a world to
win back!
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.01 p.m., April 30, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
All wars of any appreciable
length have a secularizing effect upon engaged societies,
a diminution of the authority of old religious and moral
values and a parallel elevation of new utilitarian,
hedonistic, or pragmatic values. Wars, to be successfully
fought, demand a reduction in the taboos regarding life,
dignity, property, family, and religion; there must be
nothing of merely moral nature standing between the
fighting forces and victory, not even or especially,
taboos on sexual encounters...Military, or at least
war-born, relationships among individuals tend to
supersede relationships of family, parish, and ordinary
walks of life. Ideas of chastity, modesty, decorum,
respectability change quickly in wartime.
—Robert Nisbet, The
Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.19 a.m., April 29, 2004►
LIE BACK AND THINK OF THE
EMPIRE
Listen here
News has reached this desk of an organization called
Operation Take One For The Country. This space has been
much concerned with patriotism of late, and what better
way for American women to demonstrate their love of
country than to make the ultimate love sacrifice?
According to its website,
OTOFTC
is a movement of like-minded
women (women predominantly as of right now [I should
bloody well think so! Ed.]) who have covertly
organized into groups to frequent eating and drinking
establishments near armed service bases where troops are
preparing to ship out overseas, and take one for the
country, so to speak.
Did someone say "date rape"? Not to worry:
OTOFTC advises its members to play freaky but play safe:
you CANNOT, and I mean CANNOT
go to a bar and get loaded and start chanting "TAKE
ONE FOR THE COUNTRY" like a zillion times.
Quite. As far as I have been able to ascertain, this is
not a parody. OTOFTC has been advertised on Wonkette
and featured in the venerable London Sun,
and if that doesn’t spell authoritative, I don’t know
what would.
OTOFTC is the inspiration of a fetching young thing
called Kelly. Not to be confused with fetching
young thing Kelly
Jane Torrance, although there is a
resemblance. Come to think of it, however, Ms. Torrance did
spend the greater part of a week recently at Fort Irwin,
California, for reasons that remain obscure.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.17 a.m., April 29, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Egypt
for the Egyptians. Pakistan for the Pakistani. India for
the Indians. England for the Egyptians,
Pakistani, Indians, etc.,
but of course not for the English, nor Sweden for the
Swedes. So it goes.
—Jerry
Pournelle
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.37 p.m., April 28, 2004►
WHAT I BELIEVE
Recent posts have expressed what I stand against but
not what I stand for. Yes, I believe there exists a "clash
of civilizations,"
that the Muslim world constitutes a grave
threat to the West in general and to Canada in
particular—and that strong, perhaps even Draconian,
measures are necessary to protect us from this threat. But
I also believe that informed self-interest, in
preference to mere jingoism and chauvinism, is necessary
if we are to prevail. Knowledge, not mere prejudice, is
essential to the restoration of civilization and to ensure
the West remains something worth fighting to preserve.
The preceding is an introduction to my review of Roger
Scruton’s book The
West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terror Threat,
which appeared originally in the September 23, 2002, issue
of The Report.
When George W. Bush was asked
to name the philosopher "who has most influenced his
life," he responded, "Christ, because he changed
my heart." This puzzling remark is even more so after
reading Roger Scruton. For it is exactly the type of
remark a Muslim would make—without any possible cynical
calculations.
Scruton is twice rare. First, because he is one of the
few philosophers anyone outside the academy is likely to
have heard of. Second, because he argues as if truth
exists. (He quotes Nietzsche, "There are no truths,
only interpretations," and comments, "Now,
either what Nietzsche said is true—in which case it is
not true, since there are no truths—or it is
false.")
The West and the Rest is a short book (just over
40,000 words) but an invaluable one. Scruton is surely
correct that a sane response to the events of September
11, 2001, is possible only if the West understands Islam
and how Islam understands the West. Indeed, possible only
if the West understands itself, not as it would like to be
seen but as it really is.
As Scruton demonstrates, the worldview of Muslims is
radically different from our own. If a Muslim were asked
which political philosophy most influenced him, he would
reply, "The Koran." Why? "Because there is
no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet," he
would explain. (When Bush was asked why, he responded,
"Well, if they don't know, it's going to be hard to
explain.") To Muslims, there are no independent
politics outside religion. Everything one needs to know
about governance (and everything else) is contained within
the Koran and its commentaries. To Muslims, religion is
the world—all of it.
The West separates Church and State, a decision Scruton
traces to the pronouncement of Jesus Christ, "Render
therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and
unto God the things that are God's." Later,
This Christian approach was
developed by St.
Augustine in The
City of God and endorsed by the
fifth-century Pastoral
Rule of St. Gregory, which imposed the duty
of civil obedience on the clergy. The fifth-century Pope
Gelasius I made the separation of church
and state into doctrinal orthodoxy, arguing that God
granted "two swords" for earthly government:
that of the Church for the government of men's souls, and
that of the imperial power for the regulation of temporal
affairs.
Politics, and its modern concomitant, the nation-state,
are almost wholly illegitimate in the Muslim world. The
only Muslim polity that has managed to create a
nation-state (the polity Scruton views as the best
guarantor of order, liberty and toleration, both domestic
and foreign) is Turkey, and Turkey's secularism is
purchased at the cost of continual, ruthless suppression
and "sever[ance] from its past and its classical
culture by social and linguistic reforms that have made
the traditional literature of the country unreadable to
all except the specialist scholar."
Perhaps worse still,
In the ensuing search for a
modern identity, [Turkey's] young people are repeatedly
attracted to radical and destabilizing ideologies, both
Islamist and utopian.
The conditions for democracy simply do not exist in the
Muslim world.. Scruton would doubtless agree with Henry
Kissinger that President Bush and his neoconservative
allies had better think long and hard about the long-term
consequences of "regime change" in Iraq, Saudi
Arabia and elsewhere. And while Scruton has great sympathy
for the plight of the Palestinians, he is honest enough to
admit that a Palestinian state would be a contradiction in
terms and that Yasser Arafat, even as president (dictator,
of course) of such a state, could not be expected to stop
terrorist attacks on Israel, even if he wanted to.
Brutal politics are just one of the aspects of the
Muslim world that we in the West find repellent, but
Scruton points out that there are many aspects to be
commended. Many aspects of the same stone, one might say. Lex
orandi, lex credendi—how we pray is
what we believe—and the world of Islam is a world of
believers bound by frequent prayer. This submission to the
will of God imparts to Muslims a confidence and a sense of
community that have almost disappeared in the West.
Western society, Scruton contends, has become bleakly
contractual. The ideals of the Enlightenment have been
perverted, resulting in a destruction of community and a
"culture of negation." Westerners pray not to
God but worship instead the Moloch of consumerism. The
West's loyalty to the nation-state is attenuated by
immigration, multiculturalism and by globalism, which, in
turn, breed vipers in its own bosom and foists on Islam
what it so scathingly derides as the "Great
Satan."
In this month of September 2002, one year after the
conflagrations that announced The Return of History, we in
the West will drown in a sea of pious pronouncements about
"what we are fighting for" in this "war
against terrorism."
"Politicians," Scruton reminds us, "will
always say freedom." He issues a stern warning.
Taken by itself, freedom
means the emancipation from constraints, including those
constraints that might be needed if a civilization is to
endure. If all that Western civilization offers is
freedom, then it is a civilization bent on its own
destruction. Moreover, freedom flaunted in the face of
religious prohibitions is an act of aggression, inviting
retribution from those whose piety it offends.
The West and the Rest is an essential book.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.25 p.m., April 27, 2004►
FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!
Kathy
Shaidle has now twice responded to my "Washington
Station" piece. She first posted
to Jay Currie’s website:
Oh dear. I suspect KMG longs
for the good old days, when Lingberg [sic] could
fill Madison Square Gardens [sic] with those
opposed to that nasty little "foreign
entanglement," WW2. Isolationism is a pretty, perfect
dream, and who supports it on the right? Pat Buchanan. Ick.
It is all very well to be an ideological pure crank in
peace time, but there's a war on!
Funny: when I look at that
list of journalists KMG described, I detect something else
we all have in common: jobs. Just a thought.
Oh dear, indeed. I suspect Shaidle means Charles
Lindbergh, but I suspect too that she does not realize
that she has proved my point. I accused her and her fellow
Canadian America Firsters of "see[ing] the world and
this country through American eyes." On May 23, 1941,
the day Lindbergh addressed Madison Square Garden, my
country had been at war with Germany for 20 months. When
Kathy Shaidle looks to the future, she sees only America.
When she looks to the present, she sees only America. And
even when she looks to the past, she sees only…America.
Kathy Shaidle is a notional Canadian. So it is too much to
expect her to understand that the national interests of
Canada and the United States were and are not identical.
Kathy Shaidle is a controversialist only pro forma:
Pat Buchanan. Ick.
Well, that certainly settles his hash, doesn’t
it? I am not going to hide my admiration of Pat Buchanan.
He is a patriot. Just as Charles Lindbergh was.
Even after the calumny he suffered at the hands of FDR’s
goons, despite being barred from the Army Air Force,
Lindbergh—as a civilian—flew 50
bombing missions against Japan. That’s
called patriotism, Shaidle, but I don’t expect you to
understand what loyalty to one’s country means. Pat
Buchanan believes in America First. He is an American. I
believe in Canada First. I am a Canadian.
So "there’s a war on." There’s always a
war on somewhere. Which war do you mean, Shaidle? The war
in Iraq? Canada isn’t involved in that, thank God. The
war in Afghanistan? Canadians have fought in that war to
good account. Do you mean the war on "terrorism"
or "terror"? Only a fantasist believes in waging
war against a technique. As Peter Simple has written,
A war against terrorism is as
futile and fatuous as those other fashionable wars,
"the war against drugs" and "the war
against racism." You might as well declare war
against old age or death.
Do you perhaps mean the war against "evil,"
as declared by Richard
Perle, David Frum and Sean
Hannity? If that’s the case, I would
advise you to swot up on "original
sin."
And as for everyone attacked by me having a job, this
is hard cheese on poor Jay
Currie. In the event, I have never argued
from the particular to the general, and I do not propose
to start now, despite your provocations. Do you really
want to play "the Dozens" with me, Shaidle?
Apparently so. Here is Shaidle’s second response, as posted
on her own website:
"What is your damage, Heather?"
Guess Kevin Michael Grace is
still unemployed. Every other night, it seems, he huddles
over his computer til 2 or 3 a.m., banging out sarcastic,
embittered screeds attacking...writers with actual jobs!
His latest target is
Elizabeth Nickson. No, wait: he's also posted an anti-Mark
Steyn thing, complete with screen shots from Animal
House. Yeah, that'll get him good!
KMG's developed a particular
fixation on Jay Currie, David Warren and I. That's the
thanks I get for sending him a few bucks when he was down
on his luck...
Kevin: getting fired from a
job you always hated anyway is a GOOD thing, see? You're
too talented to waste your life sticking pins in voodoo
dolls. Grow up or !%$# off.
"Heather" is, presumably, a reference to
columnist Heather
Mallick of the Globe and Mail.
That’s Heather "Get
Laid Or Go Home" Mallick to you,
Shaidle. "Sarcastic, embittered screeds"? That
Kathy "News
Flash: Arabs Are Violent Retards!"
Shaidle could accuse anyone of intemperate speech
is richly amusing. Sorry, I meant Kathy "Grow up or
!%$# off" Shaidle.
Yes, I was grateful for the money you sent, Kathy, but
it will take more than US$100 to buy me off. Face it, we
both practise the vituperative arts. Trouble is, you
aren’t any good at them. Instead of a scalpel, you wield
a shit-smeared shovel.
I accused you and others of anti-patriotism. You
didn’t dispute my accusation. (Schoolyard taunts don’t
count.) Do you know why you didn’t, Shaidle? Because you
can’t. You are incapable of disputation. (Circle-jerk
"fisking" parties don’t count.)
You are an anti-patriot, Shaidle. When I wake up
tomorrow, I’ll still be unemployed. But you’ll still
be a self-hating Canadian.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.57 p.m., April 27, 2004►
FUN WITH DVD CAPTURE: MARK
STEYN'S CAREER, A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS
Act I, 2002-2003
"Why don't you jump on the team
and come on in for the big win? Son, all I’ve
ever asked of my readers is for them to treat Bush’s
ramblings as if they were
the word of God."
Act II, Spring 2004
"Remain calm! All is well!"
Act III, Summer 2004...and beyond the infinite
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.44 p.m., April 26, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Jake was close to tears. In
that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place
where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of
significance done: no art worth a second look, no
philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but
served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how
it had been and what had happened. And no love, only
egotism, infatuation and lust.
—Kingsley Amis, Jake's
Thing
Kevin
Michael Grace, 11.14 a.m., April 26, 2004►
CHACUN À SA BÊTISE
As the National Post now charges a fee for its
Web pages, I’ve taken to buying it again. No, not for
its best
columnist, who is usually available free
for some reason, but rather for its worst. I refer, of
course, to Elizabeth
"Barking" Nickson.
Over the years I have become a connoisseur of bad
columnists. Most are merely inelegant, inaccurate, boring,
clichéd or long winded. Nickson, however, is invariably
(and gloriously) unhinged. And that’s why I love her.
Roll up for the mystery tour! The magical mystery tour
is waiting to take you away! Saturday’s begins in Paris,
where la femme Lisette has, by her own
account, cut quite a swath. There she has lived high and
low; she has had her "heart broken in Paris and
broken hearts right back in Paris." But would she
ever return? Mais non! Pourquoi? Cheese-eating
surrender monkeys, bien sûr!
But wait! Who is Liz to point fingers?
Then I realized that Canada
was just as bad! Worse! I am a cheese-eating
surrender monkey.
But to whom or what has Liz surrendered? Apart from
romantically, I mean. We all remember her mash notes to
Donald Rumsfeld. I tease. She means that Canada is guilty
of appeasement because it didn’t appease America over
Iraq.
Hang on tight, folks, the Nickson metaphor blender has
been set to purée!
We are free-riding [free-range,
surely?], infantile Chicken Littles, bound for the
slagheap of history, our destiny to be passed over,
ignored then forgotten. The big fight, the moral
imperative of our time, is upon us and we’re sitting it
out, sucking our thumbs [chickens got thumbs?] and whining
about softwood lumber, and like, steel. And other stuff, [sic]
we feel really resentful about.
Sacrebleu!
Next we’re off to Washington, DC, where Prime
Minister Martin will soon meet President Bush. Canada has
no army to speak of (true), a condition Nickson blames on
Paul Martin. One recalls that a certain Brian Mulroney was
prime minister from 1984 to 1993 and played a not
insignificant role in the devolution
of the Canadian Forces, but never mind. Let's mix those
metaphors once more!
I know there’s been
$500-million [sic—what is it with Liz and
punctuation, anyway?] promised to beef up security, and an
astonishing $4-billion [sic, again] to the army,
but there are no seasoned civilian observers who believe
that four-billion [yep] will actually turn up.
Seasoned? Yum, yum!
OK, now back to Canada.
There are probably thousands
of al-Qaeda sleeping away in places like Barrie, Ont., and
Nelson, B.C.
Actually, those men with the bad beards sporting the
funny headgear in Nelson are hippies, but no time for
that; we're off to Rwanda, Juno Beach, the North
Pole—yes, Virginia, there is an Elizabeth Nickson—and
the Mediterranean (with a layover in Windsor).
Our support of the Yanks in
Cyprus, by protecting the southern flank of NATO during
the Cold War, led LBJ into saying to Pearson, "What
can I do for you?" thus creating the Autopact [sic],
upon which the modern economy of Ontario was founded.
Whew! Slow down, Liz. Got any Gravol? Cyprus, the
southern flank of the Cold War? Aren’t Turkey and Greece
both NATO members, and wasn’t the Cyprus peacekeeping
operation under the aegis of the (dread words!) United
Nations?
Pack your bags; we’re off again, into the mists of
Canadian history.
Our country was founded upon
the principles of liberty, equality before the law, and
one person, one vote.
Gosh, Liz, ever heard of the Famous
Five?
And in every generation, we
have moved to expand that circle of hope in the world,
thus ensuring our own position within that circle.
Paging Professor Silenus! Will Professor Silenus please
go to the blue courtesy phone?
Only two more stops. First, the Canadian War Museum’s
exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
These young men, and they
were chiefly men [what happened to equality before the law
and one person, one rifle?], gave their lives so that we
do not have to muster a Nazi salute every time we see an
official, and so that every Jew and homosexual and
political dissident on the planet wasn’t incinerated 40
years ago.
Forty years ago? Does she mean 60 years ago, or was
there some secret Holocaust in 1964 known only to Liz
Nickson? And maybe next time Liz finds herself inside a
Canadian Legion hall, she could inform the veterans that
their comrades left behind in foreign graves died so that
Svend could thrive. That should go down a treat. I
understand that this WWII-as-great-progressive-crusade
rubbish is taught in schools now, but I always reckoned
Liz to be about my age, 50 or so. As for Jews and
political dissidents, is Liz old enough to remember the
name of our great Second World War ally? Does Joseph
Stalin ring a bell? The Iron Curtain? The Gulag
Archipelago? The Doctor’s
Plot?
No time for that, however. Liz has reached her
terminus, and our magical mystery tour is complete.
When we next think about Iraq
and the Middle East and the vacant hole that is our
presence there, we should think about the debased and
servile position of women under Shariah law. We should
spare a thought for the girl-children [qu'est-ce que
c'est?] we are refusing to help. And imagine a future,
in which our granddaughters would be so oppressed. And
when you look in the mirror, have a good look at your own
cheese-eating surrender monkey.
Wait a minute. I thought this was a war against terror.
Never mind; never mind. But hey, Liz, next time you look
in the atlas, try to find Afghanistan and Iraq. Let
me assist you. Afghanistan was the religious
dictatorship. That’s where Shariah obtained. And
that’s where Canada fought. Iraq was the secular
dictatorship. Women weren’t forced to wear veils there.
They will be soon enough, the way things
are going, but war is funny that way.
Iraq’s where Canada didn’t fight. Got that,
Liz?
Your Canada. Your Post. Your anti-patriotism.
Stephen Harper, Jay Currie, Kathy Shaidle, David Warren,
behold your Queen Elizabeth!
Kevin
Michael Grace, 12.27 a.m., April 26, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
By stepping outside the
stylistic norm instead of slavishly following it, you
leave yourself high- or zero-reward options only.
There’s no middle ground.
—Mike
Thorne
Kevin
Michael Grace, 6.27 p.m., April 23, 2004►
TO THE WASHINGTON
STATION
Paul Martin and the Liberal Party have announced their
intention to attack Conservative leader Stephen Harper for
his activities in support of the invasion of Iraq. As the Globe
and Mail reported,
Mr. Martin told the MPs that
he is proud of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's
legacy of refusing to join the war and criticized Mr.
Harper for going to the United States to appear on a Fox
News program and criticize the Liberal government for
refusing to have Canada join the war.
This infuriates
blogger Jay Currie for some reason. "Vile," he
calls it. "Knee jerk anti-Americanism," he
thunders. He then presumes to give George W. Bush advice:
Martin is going to Washington
next week where he will meet President Bush—maybe.
Frankly, if I were Bush I would suddenly find a reason to
be out of town.
One suspects Currie would cheer if Bush shipped Martin
to Guantánamo. Or even if he launched the 82nd
Airborne against Ottawa. Tell me, Currie, is Canada
allowed to have an independent foreign policy? If not, why
not?
For all Currie’s bluster, Stephen Harper has an Iraq
problem—two problems, actually. The first is that Harper
was wrong about Saddam Hussein and his
legendary "weapons of mass destruction." The
second, graver, problem is that in going the extra mile in
his support of "regime
change," Stephen Harper demonstrated
active disloyalty to Canada.
Here is what I wrote
at the time of the of Harper’s American interventions:
We are all Americans now. So
exhorted newspaper columnists Andrew Coyne and Margaret
Wente after the September 11th terrorist
attacks. One hopes they meant this metaphorically.
Unfortunately, Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper
seems to have taken it all too literally.
What else could explain
Harper's extraordinary attacks on Canada's refusal to
support the American invasion of Iraq, first in the pages
of the Wall
Street Journal and then on the Fox
News Network? NBC reporter Peter Arnett and
country rockers the Dixie Chicks were accused of
"treason" and virtually lynched for criticizing
their government abroad. And they are only private
citizens. Harper, of course, is the leader of Her
Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
If, say, the U.S. Senate
Minority leader or any other Democratic Party leader
attacked American foreign policy in wartime in the pages
of the National Post and then on Global News, we
all know what the result would be: disgrace and
resignation.
I think it's fair to say that
Harper's behaviour would not have been tolerated in any
other Western democracy. But in Canada it went almost
without comment.
Where have all our patriots
gone? The Canadian right delights in accusing its
opponents on the left of being unpatriotic, of showing
disdain for Canada's history and traditions. There is
considerable truth in this. And yet the right is guilty of
the same thing. The Canadian right judges every issue not
by what is good for Canada but what is good for the United
States. Its motto is "Their country, right or
wrong."
Witness the way in which the
accusation of "anti-American" has recently
become the deadliest of insults. It goes without saying
that a reflexive anti-Americanism, the kind expressed in
gratuitous expressions such as "moron" and
"bastards" is foolish. Canada needs good
relations with the United States. But this should not mean
shouting "how high?" whenever the Americans say
jump.
Canada remains a sovereign
country. And every sovereign country has unique interests.
Canadian interests will usually coincide with American
interests. But not always. Liberal MP Bonnie Brown had it
exactly right when she asked what the "payoff"
was for Canada's involvement in the American-led war on
terror. Canadian foreign policy is supposed to pay off for
Canadians. We do not want to go so far in antagonizing the
Americans as to invite reprisals, but we must always
insist on our independence.
Independence is not
"anti-American." It is pro-Canadian. It is
patriotic. It's time for the Canadian Alliance and the
rest of the Canadian right to stop worrying about what's
best for America. Its deadliest insult should not be
"anti-American" but "anti-Canadian."
A vain hope, as it turned out. The Canadian right is as
anti-patriotic than ever. Hearing Stephen Harper and
reading David
Warren, Jay Currie, Kathy
Shaidle, the Western
Standard or any number of columnists
for the National Post and CanWest News, I must
continually remind myself they are Canadians.
Here, for example, is Stephen Harper discoursing
on Canadian history:
My parents and my
grandparents and their many friends and relatives of their
generation have always told me that war is at worst
horrific and at best a terribly inadequate way of dealing
with the problems of humanity. They also told me that
Canadians have nevertheless gone to war many times. In
fact, they remember when Canadians were among the leaders
in war, when it became the only option for the long run
security of Canada and the world.
It is a given that whenever Stephen Harper waxes
maudlin about his family, he is about to say something
particularly fatuous.* Someone should acquaint him (and
Foreign Affairs critic Stockwell Day) with the British
Empire and Canada’s membership in it. Canada did not go
to war in 1914 or 1939 because of concerns "for the
long run security of Canada and the world." Canada
went to war then because the motherland was under attack.
We had no choice in the matter in 1914. When Britain was
at war, Canada was at war. Mackenzie King had to fight for
a separate
declaration of war in 1939—eight years
after the Statute
of Westminster. Canadian citizenship did
not exist until
1947.
Since the Second World War and the attenuation of ties
to the Empire (which had become the British Commonwealth
of Nations), Canada has no longer been among the leaders
in war. We did not fight in Vietnam and were in no hurry
to commit ground
troops in Korea. As an official history notes,
The Far East had never been
an area in which Canada had any special national interest.
While Canadian opinion supported UN action, Canadian
contribution to the conflict, of necessity, came
piecemeal.
Almost four decades later, Canada made a token
contribution to the Gulf War.
The only time in our history Canada made a significant
contribution to (as Harper would have it) to "the
long run security of Canada and the world" (as
opposed to fulfilling our obligations to the Empire or the
United Nations) was in 1999, when our planes were
responsible for one-tenth of the terror
bombing of Serbia.
Stephen Harper and the Canadian right see the world and
this country through American eyes. They are, as they used
to say in the Soviet Union, "internal
émigrés." In the Soviet Union, of
course, emigration was a problem. Not so in Canada. Anyone
who chooses to leave is free to go. And America is a
remarkably porous country. I became a legal resident
there, so how hard can it be?
The immortal words at the base of the Statue of Liberty
beckon:
Give me your tired, your
poor,
Your huddled pundits yearning to drink Schlitz,
The whining refuse of your teeming blogs.
Send these, the thankless, treason-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
So I say to all America Firsters still resident here,
embrace your destiny! Or in other words—put up or
shut up.
*My favourite example:
We are always
surprised by the wisdom of children, and I was struck a
few days ago when my six-year-old son Benjamin asked me in
the car, as we were listening to a radio broadcast on the
war, "What happens, Dad, if Saddam wins?" He
said that very fearfully, because to a six year old the
outcome of a war is not obvious as it may be to some of us
here.
We do have to
cast our thoughts on what would be the consequences if
Saddam were to be victorious, and all that he is and all
that he aspires to be, if that were to be fulfilled. We
have the luxury of guessing and second-guessing our
friends and allies, but if we guessed wrong we would
devastate, as a conclusion of this war, every aspect of
our economy, our country and our future if we had the
wrong outcome.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 3.35 a.m., April 22, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
In 1953, the head of General
Motors, nominated to be secretary of defense, proclaimed,
"What's good for General Motors is good for
America." He was widely criticized for not saying
that what's good for America is good for General Motors.
Either way, both he and his critics presumed some
coincidence of interest between corporation and country.
Now, however, multinational corporations see their
interests as separate from America's interests. As their
global operations expand, corporations founded and
headquartered in the United States gradually become less
American. In the 1990s, corporations such as Ford, Aetna,
Motorola, Price Costco and Kimberly-Clark forcefully
rejected, in response to a Ralph Nader proposal,
expressions of patriotism and explicitly defined
themselves as multinational. America-based corporations
operating globally recruit their workforce and their
executives, including their top ones, without regard to
nationality. The CIA, one of its officials said in 1999,
can no longer count on the cooperation of American
corporations as it once was able to do, because the
corporations view themselves as multinational and may not
think it in their interests to help the U.S. government.
—Samuel
Huntington, "Dead
Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite,"
in National
Interest
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.49 a.m., April 21, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
“Defeating an enemy on the
battlefield and winning a war are rarely synonymous.
Winning a war calls for more than defeating one’s enemy
in battle.” He recalled that, in 1975, when Harry G.
Summers, an Army colonel who later wrote a history
of the Vietnam War, told a North Vietnamese colonel,
“You never defeated us on the battlefield,” the
colonel replied, “That may be so, but it is also
irrelevant.”
—Col. Hy Rothstein (retd.), quoted by Seymour
Hersh
Kevin
Michael Grace, 1.35 a.m., April 20, 2004►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
I propose that we outsource
George Will, David Frum and the rest of the
neoconservative pack to India. There’s probably a
sweatshop in Bombay that can churn out neocon drivel at a
far brisker pace and for less than 50 cents an hour.
—Taki
Kevin
Michael Grace, 1.33 a.m., April 19, 2004►
