Posted on 10/08/2006 9:41:42 AM PDT by Heartofsong83
Liberals won't win with Harper-lite leader Ignatieff closer to Bush and the PM than most Canadians, says Haroon Siddiqui
Oct. 8, 2006. 01:00 AM HAROON SIDDIQUI
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the main tasks for the next Liberal party leader seems clear enough: To help end the alienation that a majority of Canadians feel from their own government on the most central issue of the age — George W. Bush's failed war on terror.
After begging off the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Canadians have also turned sour on the mission in Afghanistan.
Fifty-nine per cent believe "we cannot win" there, a new poll by Decima Research shows. More telling, three-quarters believe Bush has made the world more dangerous by spawning more terrorism.
This finding is consistent with other polls. Quebecers and those living in our major urban centres are the most skeptical.
Yet Stephen Harper is enthusiastic in backing Bush and, in fact, takes pride in violating the will of Canadians. The Prime Minister says that's leadership.
For providing just such "leadership," Tony Blair is being hounded out of office, and Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar have already been voted out.
It follows, then, that to win the next election — by doing well in Quebec and the urban centres — Liberals need a leader who won't easily be tarred as a Harper Lite or, worse, Bush Lite, as was John Kerry.
Yet in the first round of Liberal leadership balloting, the candidate handed the most votes is closer to Bush and Harper than most Canadians. Michael Ignatieff has backed many of the major elements of the Bush policies that are responsible for much of the mess in the world.
Ignatieff says he supported the war on Iraq because he wanted the oppressed Kurdish minority liberated. But that was never among the principal stated objectives of the war.
As the only leading Liberal leadership candidate to have supported Harper in extending the Afghan mission to 2009, Ignatieff said he expects Ottawa to maintain the "Liberal mission's balance between the reconstruction, humanitarian and human security components." But Paul Martin himself has since said the mission has already lost that balance.
Ignatieff also said that by 2009 the Afghan security forces would be up to scratch. This is alarmingly similar to Bush's mantra, now three years old, that American troops will stand down in Iraq when Iraqi troops can stand up to insurgents.
Ignatieff has also supported aggressive tactics in questioning terrorism suspects.
And, "he has apologized for the notion of the American Empire," according to Jim Laxer, York University professor and a leading New Democrat, who has just written a book, Empire.
"To have a Canadian prime minister who believes in an empire is mind-boggling, considering we've spent our whole history getting out from under the British Empire and then the informal American empire," Laxer said in an interview.
It must be noted that a vast majority of the Liberals who voted last weekend backed the candidates whose positions are different than Ignatieff's and, in varying degrees, in tune with most Canadians'. Still, having him as the leading candidate poses "a big problem for Liberals who see foreign policy as a defining wedge against the Conservatives in the next election," writes Peter Donolo in The Globe and Mail.
The director of communications for Jean Chrétien is even more right when you consider that foreign policy is now domestic policy. It can carry a heavy price for Canadians, as Afghanistan amply demonstrates.
NATO forces, including Canadians, are as overstretched and under-resourced there as the Americans are in Iraq. Both are also caught in the same vicious cycle: killing and displacing civilians in order to kill the insurgents, who keep coming back in bigger numbers, leaving development work at a standstill and local anger on the boil.
With so much Muslim blood already spilled in the "war on terror," every civilian death and every village destroyed is one too many for the Muslim world, further complicating the "war."
Even Harper concedes there's no clear military victory on the horizon in Afghanistan. Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf thinks so, too, and has decided to cut his losses. He's withdrawing his troops from his side of the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.
Should Canada pull out, as Jack Layton says? If not, should we be talking to elements of the Taliban, as he, and now even some leading Republicans, suggest? Should we be taking the advice of development agencies and veteran aid workers to abandon the failed American model of having the soldiers do the killing and the reconstructing at the same time?
We need specific answers, not bromides, especially from Liberal leadership candidates.
For providing just such "leadership," Tony Blair is being hounded out of office, and Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar have already been voted out. - Blair was re-elected after the war, and you forget about Bush and Howard being re-elected, plus Merkel and - yes - Harper being elected defeating anti-Americans.
It follows, then, that to win the next election — by doing well in Quebec and the urban centres — Liberals need a leader who won't easily be tarred as a Harper Lite or, worse, Bush Lite, as was John Kerry. - That would destroy them everywhere else, and you have to compete on the same playing field with the Bloc and NDP, leading to a Conservative majority.
As the only leading Liberal leadership candidate to have supported Harper in extending the Afghan mission to 2009 - Scott Brison also voted to extend the mission.
I find myself agreeing with the main point in the article, that the Liberals should run a far-left socialist who is open about his beliefs.
And if the socialist gets elected?
I find myself agreeing with the main point in the article,that the Liberals should run a far left socialist who is open about his beliefs
As long as Stephen Harper holds to "steady as she goes", he and his party will likely be alright. Even a Foleygate, would not shake his party. That is, if there is one. One can be sure the likes of the Toronto Star are praying for such. The Liberals are the most cunning tricksters on the face of Canada's earth.
Now for Haroon. He is 63 years old. Emeritus, or some such title. Like so many of his kind, he cannot let go. What irks him is that the third world does not rule. If not them, a pure ingratiating, pliable socialist.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
I don't know why Haroon doesn't put a towel on his head, pick up a gun and come racing across the border to attack the United States. He really wants to. If Canada doesn't attack the states as under Martin, Maroon is at lost in the vicious clutches of western culture.
John Kerry = Bush Lite ?????
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
I couldn't read past that line. The author actually views John Kerry as some sort of conservative.
Another fine example of magical and wishful thinking in regards to the many, many failures of the Canadian left.
I think Prime Minister Harper is going to get a majority one day but it may not be as much fun as watching his minority Conservative government drive the moonbats even crazier.
None of Blair's potential replacements are going to change policy either.
Regards, Ivan
Where is PMPM these days?
Himself seems to be missing in action. /s
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