Full frontal optimism from a polite citizen
Rome wasn't burned in a day, Washington either. Canada tried to burn down Washington in 1814, allegedly for Americans' burning down Toronto, but we've noticed Washington has been rebuilt. Unfortunately, so has Toronto. Except for the Leafs. (If that sounds strange, any random Canadian will explain.) Meanwhile back in D.C., Dick and George have managed to finish the job and burn down Washington quite thoroughly. Those fires don't look to be going out any time soon.
We've had a similar problem up here, but dealt with it differently. This apparently caused confusion on The Daily Show, and stimulated a Canadian need to apologize to Americans (particularly) for being boring. The last thing we should do is apologize. I'm here to help clear up the confusion.
In a nutshell, the Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) built a Cult of The Leader inside the federal government and is about to get his head in a bag as a result. It's pretty straightforward. We don't normally hold with megalomaniacs up here, unless of course hockey is involved, but even in hockey it doesn't pay to act like a star, especially if you aren't one. There's no obvious government to replace Steve’s Conservative Party either, even if they found a new head, not that people haven't tried. Some have despaired. Heartfelt moaning can be heard about the decline in standards of civility and debate in the House of Commons, and about the inability of Members of Parliament to behave like grownups. People think the political outlook is like the economic outlook: dismal.
People should get a grip and Jon Stewart should pay attention. Canada is about to fire its executive using an antique method developed haphazardly over centuries. Charles I lost his head over it. It’s called parliamentary democracy and it’s a Rube Goldberg contraption with two standard and fabulously incomprehensible features built in: (1) it works, (2) it learns. I’m not an expert, I just grew up here and I don’t see anything confusing about it at all. Stand back and watch it work.
Bad news is everywhere of course, not just in Canada. Apart from the economic disaster, the last eight years have been ugly for anybody who thought that Nuremberg and International Humanitarian Law actually meant something, and Canada is in ISAF up to its back bacon. But so what? The good news is that the British form of parliamentary democracy has one thousand years of momentum behind it, and seems to evolve relentlessly towards open and responsible government despite frequent attempts at sabotage, including those made in Canada. I'm not saying Americans are doomed any more than the rest of us – I sure as hell hope not – just that it's too soon to know if the American Constitution can withstand the current savage onslaught from within.
Which brings us back to Steve, Canada’s Prime Minister, who has alienated lots of Canadians including some of his supporters, by trying to run the country as if it were a one-party state like Alberta. Not all Canadians might use those words but people are riled and Steve can be fired in several imaginative ways; we don't have to wait eight years like our neighbors to the south. I don't think we should feel shy about pointing out these advantages to our American friends. In fact there's a good chance Steve will be fired in January, most likely by the Governor-General unless there's a revolt in his own party and the Conservatives fire him first. I'm impressed that the Governor-General can actually fire Steve, having no apparent power other than that conferred by history and tradition, and more remotely, some transatlantic telegraphy to the Queen. We don't talk about that much, and it doesn't seem to matter. When you learn that the Governor-General was born in Haiti and is getting her constitutional advice from a New Zealander, you'll have to admit American family dynasties look, well, awkwardly feudal.
And here's another thing, we have the Bloc Québécois, a federal party dedicated to removing Québec from Confederation (which arouses a lot of consternation) but the system accommodates this contradiction, and peace, order and good government continue to happen. A Venezuelan acquaintance saw his first Canadian federal election recently and couldn't believe it: “At home, there would be bloodshed, family breakup, and interruption of basic services. Here, everything keeps working.” Americans might think this is a little weird too, but last I heard there were some elements in the South that weren’t too crazy about joining up with the North and that pockets of disenchantment linger still.
I'm not saying Canadian parliamentary democracy is perfect, but it learns. The next stage of evolution might be the involvement of citizenry more directly in federal politics by means of the Internet. Word reached us some guy named Obama came to the same conclusion. Whatever. Within hours of Steve discovering he wasn’t Dear-Leader-for-Life and being forced to make an unplanned visit to the Governor General, thousands of comments about this were posted on websites of the CBC and Globe and Mail among other members of the “press”, and Members of Parliament heard from their constituents almost instantaneously. No more waiting for the news to filter out from Ottawa by mail or telegraph, even. I'm betting this will change the way government works, maybe even frustrate crazed Orwellian attempts to run Canadian politics as if selling lousy beer to stupid customers. Such change won't happen overnight of course but …we'll add a new feature to the Rube Goldberg contraption and then.....
Canada's Parliament convenes January 26, 2009. It's show time.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Bang heads together or bring 'em home
Mr. Michael Ignatieff
Leader of the Official Opposition
House of Commons,
Ottawa
Dear Iggy,
Re: The giant sucking sound of Afghanistan.
I admit, I'm not a big fan of yours. There is, as Rick Salutin observed, the whole business of your being a fashionable intellectual camp follower, providing literate, urbane cover for the grossest violation of everything that Nuremberg stood for.
Nevertheless, you are here as the New, More Streetwise and Reformed Iggy, Leader of the Official Opposition, a Canadian who can wield both official languages with style and effect, the literate answer to Don Cherry. Speaking as an ordinary private citizen, I am extremely grateful that you are here, given the rhetorical wasteland of the last several years.
Obviously, the economy is on your mind; that would be the horrendous crashing noise. But don't let that obscure the horrible sucking sound of Afghanistan, an undealt-with problem that won't conveniently go away until 2011. I point out some obvious facts, which seem to be getting trampled in the rush to deal with, say, the auto industry.
1. Afghanistan is draining money we don't have out of the Canadian economy, conservatively 5 times as much as the projected auto industry bail out, with absolutely no chance of repayment or having a viable industry as a result.
2. There is no plan for Afghanistan. The Manley Report is a prevarication.
3. Canadian soldiers continue to die in Afghanistan, and nobody knows why. All official explanations are transparently wrong.
4. You have the votes to bring down the government.
5. Something is terribly wrong with NATO, and by extension, the United Nations Security Council that is rubber stamping ISAF. NATO operates in secret, always bad news, and cannot agree among its own members what it's doing in Afghanistan. If it had its act together, somebody could explain it to us, and all its soldiers would run the same risks as ours.
You don't have to be Winston Churchill to figure this out, Iggy, and a lot of Canadians feel the same way, including most of Quebec. We need a debate, a real debate, in the House of Commons, but there's nothing stopping Canada from banging heads together inside NATO right now: we're their friends, we've more than paid our dues, and anything less than brutal honesty from Canada is a gratuitous insult to our own soldiers.
There's no doubt you have the brains for this job. The question is, do you have the soul and the balls?
Leader of the Official Opposition
House of Commons,
Ottawa
Dear Iggy,
Re: The giant sucking sound of Afghanistan.
I admit, I'm not a big fan of yours. There is, as Rick Salutin observed, the whole business of your being a fashionable intellectual camp follower, providing literate, urbane cover for the grossest violation of everything that Nuremberg stood for.
Nevertheless, you are here as the New, More Streetwise and Reformed Iggy, Leader of the Official Opposition, a Canadian who can wield both official languages with style and effect, the literate answer to Don Cherry. Speaking as an ordinary private citizen, I am extremely grateful that you are here, given the rhetorical wasteland of the last several years.
Obviously, the economy is on your mind; that would be the horrendous crashing noise. But don't let that obscure the horrible sucking sound of Afghanistan, an undealt-with problem that won't conveniently go away until 2011. I point out some obvious facts, which seem to be getting trampled in the rush to deal with, say, the auto industry.
1. Afghanistan is draining money we don't have out of the Canadian economy, conservatively 5 times as much as the projected auto industry bail out, with absolutely no chance of repayment or having a viable industry as a result.
2. There is no plan for Afghanistan. The Manley Report is a prevarication.
3. Canadian soldiers continue to die in Afghanistan, and nobody knows why. All official explanations are transparently wrong.
4. You have the votes to bring down the government.
5. Something is terribly wrong with NATO, and by extension, the United Nations Security Council that is rubber stamping ISAF. NATO operates in secret, always bad news, and cannot agree among its own members what it's doing in Afghanistan. If it had its act together, somebody could explain it to us, and all its soldiers would run the same risks as ours.
You don't have to be Winston Churchill to figure this out, Iggy, and a lot of Canadians feel the same way, including most of Quebec. We need a debate, a real debate, in the House of Commons, but there's nothing stopping Canada from banging heads together inside NATO right now: we're their friends, we've more than paid our dues, and anything less than brutal honesty from Canada is a gratuitous insult to our own soldiers.
There's no doubt you have the brains for this job. The question is, do you have the soul and the balls?
One Day in the Life of the United Nations Military Staff Committee
Office of the Rotating President
0800 Got in to work. Locked out of office again. Office turns out to have been moved again.
0810 Called locksmith to get at files.
1136 Locksmith arrives. Surveys problem and will return after lunch.
1425 Gain entry to office after breaking down door. In-tray empty. Phone disconnected.
1440 Call UN switchboard on cell phone to find new office. Got answering machine.
1500 Go for coffee while awaiting return phone call.
1700 Go to bar while awaiting return phone call.
1931 Fall into interesting collegial discussion with locksmith.
2217 Give in-tray to locksmith with careful instructions to drop in East River.
2317 Go home to watch The Daily Show.
0800 Got in to work. Locked out of office again. Office turns out to have been moved again.
0810 Called locksmith to get at files.
1136 Locksmith arrives. Surveys problem and will return after lunch.
1425 Gain entry to office after breaking down door. In-tray empty. Phone disconnected.
1440 Call UN switchboard on cell phone to find new office. Got answering machine.
1500 Go for coffee while awaiting return phone call.
1700 Go to bar while awaiting return phone call.
1931 Fall into interesting collegial discussion with locksmith.
2217 Give in-tray to locksmith with careful instructions to drop in East River.
2317 Go home to watch The Daily Show.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Talk about slant...
Taliban destroy 100 trucks in biggest raid on Nato supplies bound for Afghanistan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/08/afghanistan-taliban-nato-raid-pakistan
US rises to Taleban's challenge
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7770463.stm
It's the same story.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Nuremberg, the United Nations Security Council, and Everything
“Well, when the president does it – that means that it is not illegal.”
Richard Nixon talking to David Frost, 1977
Who's in charge in Afghanistan? Where is Douglas Adams when we need him?
A normally paranoid and suspicious citizen (me) of a UN member country (Canada) figures that United Nations Security Council Resolution 1386 is what authorizes the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, and the continued authorization of said Force is by Resolution 1833 (September 22, 2008), a resolution that the Security Council passed unanimously at a meeting that lasted precisely 5 minutes (from 1 to 1:05 PM). The fabulous World Wide Web, given to us by physicists in Switzerland, makes all of these documents easily available anywhere for neurotic scrutiny by any ordinarily obsessed person who worries about what happened at Nuremberg. As tidily noted on the UN website, the 5 minute meeting lasted long enough that the Libyan representative (admittedly from the Axis of Untouchables):
“…voiced his concern over the magnitude of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and reasserted that the struggle to defeat terrorism did not excuse such deaths. He urged the international force to protect civilians and their rights, and asked that those who harmed civilians be brought to justice. He also stressed that terrorism would not be defeated by force alone.”
There was no other discussion.
I’m with the guy from Libya. You’d think that other members of the Security Council might have had something to say about the continuing civilian casualties caused by ISAF in Afghanistan or provided some comfort for the Libyan representative, although Libya’s concern is perhaps tainted by the Lockerbie terrorist bombing and destruction of Pan AM Flight 103 (269 deaths). On the other hand, the rocketing and destruction of Iran Air Flight 655 (290 deaths) by the USS Vincennes could equally well lead to fears about civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Or maybe not. But the Security Council could at least have advised ISAF to ease up on Afghan wedding parties.
Resolution 1833 seems to make clear that its legal basis is Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which states in Article 47 that military operations should be administered by the UN Military Staff Committee. The UN….what? It’s in the Charter, and it apparently exists, but the Committee seems to have done nothing but have a rotating president for over 60 years. And if the Military Staff Committee does nothing but rotate, where is the chain of command – I’m talking about legal military chain of command – from the UN Security Council to ISAF? What about NATO? What about Operation Enduring Freedom, whatever the hell that is? If war crimes are committed in Afghanistan by ISAF forces, and ISAF has been “authorized” by the UN Security Council, can members of the Security Council be indicted in the International Criminal Court?
Why not? At Nuremberg, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was hung on the order of the International Military Tribunal because he did not resist Hitler’s “crimes against the peace” or “crimes against humanity”. Keitel’s role was administrative. As far as is known, he did not himself advocate the invasion of Austria, or murder with his own hands Russian prisoners of war. However, he “authorized” these acts, as found in the judgment:
“When, on 8th September 1941, OKW issued its ruthless regulations for the treatment of Soviet POW's, Canaris wrote to Keitel that under international law the SD should have nothing to do with this matter. On this memorandum in Keitel's handwriting, dated 23rd September and initialled by him, is the statement: ’ The objections arise from the military concept of chivalrous warfare. This is the destruction of an ideology. Therefore I approve and back the measures’."
As a result, he was found guilty and executed. He of course was a military officer.
Nuremberg didn’t stop there. Civilian administrators were indicted and convicted. Fritz Sauckel for example, was hung for his role in the Nazi slave labor program. Which brings us to UN Security Council Resolution 1386 (December 20, 2001):
“Acting for these reasons under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,
1. Authorizes, as envisaged in Annex 1 to the Bonn Agreement, the establishment for 6 months of an International Security Assistance Force to assist the Afghan Interim Authority in the maintenance of security in Kabul and its surrounding areas, so that the Afghan Interim Authority as well as the personnel of the United Nations can operate in a secure environment;”
As unequivocally established, Afghan prisoners at the Bagram Air Base under American administration were “pulpified” among other atrocities (the medical term for this is rhabdomyolysis but “pulpified” is more poetic) and these events occurred subsequent to 1386. The responsibility for these and similar violations of the Third Geneva Convention would seem to a very uptight civilian to rest squarely with the American chain of command (just as responsibility for transfer of prisoners from Canadian custody to illegitimate “Transferring Powers” in Afghanistan rests squarely with the Canadian chain of command), but why not also with the Security Council that “authorized” the force?
How would Security Council Resolution 1386 stand up in either the World Court or the International Criminal Court? When the UN Security Council does it, does that mean it’s not illegal?
Richard Nixon talking to David Frost, 1977
Who's in charge in Afghanistan? Where is Douglas Adams when we need him?
A normally paranoid and suspicious citizen (me) of a UN member country (Canada) figures that United Nations Security Council Resolution 1386 is what authorizes the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, and the continued authorization of said Force is by Resolution 1833 (September 22, 2008), a resolution that the Security Council passed unanimously at a meeting that lasted precisely 5 minutes (from 1 to 1:05 PM). The fabulous World Wide Web, given to us by physicists in Switzerland, makes all of these documents easily available anywhere for neurotic scrutiny by any ordinarily obsessed person who worries about what happened at Nuremberg. As tidily noted on the UN website, the 5 minute meeting lasted long enough that the Libyan representative (admittedly from the Axis of Untouchables):
“…voiced his concern over the magnitude of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and reasserted that the struggle to defeat terrorism did not excuse such deaths. He urged the international force to protect civilians and their rights, and asked that those who harmed civilians be brought to justice. He also stressed that terrorism would not be defeated by force alone.”
There was no other discussion.
I’m with the guy from Libya. You’d think that other members of the Security Council might have had something to say about the continuing civilian casualties caused by ISAF in Afghanistan or provided some comfort for the Libyan representative, although Libya’s concern is perhaps tainted by the Lockerbie terrorist bombing and destruction of Pan AM Flight 103 (269 deaths). On the other hand, the rocketing and destruction of Iran Air Flight 655 (290 deaths) by the USS Vincennes could equally well lead to fears about civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Or maybe not. But the Security Council could at least have advised ISAF to ease up on Afghan wedding parties.
Resolution 1833 seems to make clear that its legal basis is Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which states in Article 47 that military operations should be administered by the UN Military Staff Committee. The UN….what? It’s in the Charter, and it apparently exists, but the Committee seems to have done nothing but have a rotating president for over 60 years. And if the Military Staff Committee does nothing but rotate, where is the chain of command – I’m talking about legal military chain of command – from the UN Security Council to ISAF? What about NATO? What about Operation Enduring Freedom, whatever the hell that is? If war crimes are committed in Afghanistan by ISAF forces, and ISAF has been “authorized” by the UN Security Council, can members of the Security Council be indicted in the International Criminal Court?
Why not? At Nuremberg, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was hung on the order of the International Military Tribunal because he did not resist Hitler’s “crimes against the peace” or “crimes against humanity”. Keitel’s role was administrative. As far as is known, he did not himself advocate the invasion of Austria, or murder with his own hands Russian prisoners of war. However, he “authorized” these acts, as found in the judgment:
“When, on 8th September 1941, OKW issued its ruthless regulations for the treatment of Soviet POW's, Canaris wrote to Keitel that under international law the SD should have nothing to do with this matter. On this memorandum in Keitel's handwriting, dated 23rd September and initialled by him, is the statement: ’ The objections arise from the military concept of chivalrous warfare. This is the destruction of an ideology. Therefore I approve and back the measures’."
As a result, he was found guilty and executed. He of course was a military officer.
Nuremberg didn’t stop there. Civilian administrators were indicted and convicted. Fritz Sauckel for example, was hung for his role in the Nazi slave labor program. Which brings us to UN Security Council Resolution 1386 (December 20, 2001):
“Acting for these reasons under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,
1. Authorizes, as envisaged in Annex 1 to the Bonn Agreement, the establishment for 6 months of an International Security Assistance Force to assist the Afghan Interim Authority in the maintenance of security in Kabul and its surrounding areas, so that the Afghan Interim Authority as well as the personnel of the United Nations can operate in a secure environment;”
As unequivocally established, Afghan prisoners at the Bagram Air Base under American administration were “pulpified” among other atrocities (the medical term for this is rhabdomyolysis but “pulpified” is more poetic) and these events occurred subsequent to 1386. The responsibility for these and similar violations of the Third Geneva Convention would seem to a very uptight civilian to rest squarely with the American chain of command (just as responsibility for transfer of prisoners from Canadian custody to illegitimate “Transferring Powers” in Afghanistan rests squarely with the Canadian chain of command), but why not also with the Security Council that “authorized” the force?
How would Security Council Resolution 1386 stand up in either the World Court or the International Criminal Court? When the UN Security Council does it, does that mean it’s not illegal?
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