NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair says his party would pull Canadian troops out of Iraq if elected, as the party does not think Canada should be involved in a U.S.-led war.
While the NDP has opposed the current Canadian mission in Iraq, Mulcair clarified the party's plans for the mission should it form government on CTV's Question Period.
"If they (the government) extend (the mission) for a year, despite our opposition to it, yes, when we form government on October 19, we would bring our troops back home," Mulcair said.
In particular, Mulcair took issue with the fact the mission against ISIS falls under U.S. leadership.
"When it is a UN mission, when it is a NATO mission, we are open to it. But here, this is an American-led mission," said Mulcair. "We think it's wrong for Canada to be involved."
So the nature of the mission is secondary to who's running it. Truth, justice and maintaining a modicum of stability in the world is but dust in the balance. What really matters to the Leader of the Official Opposition is if the Americans are calling the shots. A matter of men and not measures.
Mr Mulcair is, of course, being deeply disingenuous. If this was a NATO mission the Americans would still be running it, they would just be doing it in a somewhat more discrete manner. If the UN was in charge then nothing would happen, Russia would simply veto any substantive action. In the unlikely event that the Russians would be amendable then the UN's legendary bureaucracy - recall Rwanda - would render intervention either a dead letter or a debacle within weeks.
This is a nonsense policy and I suspect Mr Mulcair is only too well aware that it is. What explains this bit of Dipper subterfuge? There is an iron law of Canadian politics, especially on the Left:
When in doubt kick the Americans.
This has the advantage of throwing some red meat - or is that tofu? - to the Leftist base of the NDP and Liberal Party while having no real practical impact on bilateral relations. Americans find Canadian anti-Americanism to be something between annoying and cute. Like an adorable puppy yapping away at your heels. Tommy is playing to the endemic pacifism of the Left while still making the right statesmen like sounds about multilateralism.
The point of multilateralism, of organizations like NATO and the UN, should be to enhance the national interest of the member nations. We joined NATO back 1949 because it aided and abetted our interest in keeping western Europe free of communist domination. There is no intrinsic or ethereal value in being a member of NATO or any other similar organization. If NATO began to consistently pursue actions that were contrary to the fundamental interests of Canada then we should leave.
There is something deeper here than party politics. It's a basic philosophical error: Multilateralism becomes only so much intellectual day dreaming when divorced from national interests. A plaything for IR professors and graduate students, perhaps a hobby horse for bored diplomats in foreign postings. Multilateralism is a tool, not an end in and of itself. Beyond that it becomes meaningless.
The primary issue is what Canada needs, which is obviously subject to domestic democratic deliberation, not what a group of military bureaucrats in Belgium think is right and proper. The question to Thomas Mulcair is this one: Who runs Canada's foreign policy? Is it the government of Canada or a group of unelected and unaccountable foreigners?
The NDP is known for ostentatiously wrapping itself in the flag when dealing with America. Yet for some strange reason it has no problem with outsourcing our foreign policy to non-Americans. Apparently the NDP believes that no one in North America is really qualified to decide what is in the best interests of people living on the North American continent.
From the summer of 2006 until 2011 the Canadian combat mission at Kandahar was a NATO one conducted with the full authorization of the UN Security Council. Yet the NDP ("Taliban Jack") loudly opposed it.
Mr Mulcair's economy with the truth.
Mark
Ottawa
Posted by: Mark Collins | Wednesday, March 25, 2015 at 04:01 PM