Musharraf Dismisses 40 Years of Liberal Foreign Policy

[August1991]

Gen. Musharraf, dictator of Pakistan:

"When a soldier puts on a uniform and he joins the army, is this for fighting or for peacekeeping? What has he joined the army for? He's joined to fight, and when you fight, there are casualties. The nation must be prepared to suffer casualties. So if you're not prepared to suffer casualties as an army, then don't participate in any operation," he said.

G & M

I have the impression that the Liberal Party has told Canadians a sweet lie that many Canadians would prefer to believe, even when they know it's false.

It would be nice to live in a world without criminals. But since our world has criminals, we need police. We don't ask the police to keep the peace. We ask them to arrest criminals, and sometimes they have to use force to do it.

A policeman's bullet, an act of violence, stopped the lunatic at Dawson College in Montreal. No one would say such violence is wrong, or didn't accomplish something good.

[M.Dancer]

I have the impression that the Liberal Party has told Canadians a sweet lie that many Canadians would prefer to believe, even when they know it's false.

Actually, the Gov't of the day told the truth, but Canadians prefered to believe what they believed, like Peacekeeping is what our soldiers do.......

Now I was only in the milita for little over a year back in the early 80s... and while we trained against bio-chemical and nuclear attacks, trained as mechanized infantry, trained to clear minefields.....lobbed grenades...fired LAWS....and such....we never trained to be UN observers.

The highly marketable image of Canada's armed forces as peace keepers is a myth.

Mr. Layton says that he and the NDP support our soldiers but question the wisdom and achievability of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. And, having said that, he goes on to say the mission is the wrong mission for Canada and is, at the very least, unclear. I can only assume Mr. Layton's call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2007, to pursue more traditional Canadian roles involving mediation and negotiation, is based on a widely held myth that we are better than the rest of the 192 nations in the United Nations at the dated concept of "peacekeeping."

Peacekeeping between states that went to war and needed an excuse to stop fighting worked relatively well during the Cold War and Canada played a role in each and every mission. Mind you, at the height of our participation in UN missions during the 1970s and '80s we had a maximum of 2,000 soldiers wearing the blue beret deployed abroad in places such as Cyprus and the Golan Heights. At the same time, we had 10,000 personnel serving with NATO on the Central Front in Germany, armed with nuclear weapons, ready and waiting for the Soviet hoards to attack across the East German border. Peacekeeping was a sideline activity. We did it well, along with others such as Sweden, India, Norway, Brazil -- but it was never even close to being our top priority."

The other Canadian myth that might have influenced Mr. Layton's ill-timed call for our withdrawal is the oft-quoted description of Canada's policies being "even-handed," "neutral" or "impartial." We never take a stand for fear of upsetting someone. But the facts surrounding even our exaggerated peacekeeping role explode this troubling myth. For example, in the approval process preceding the very first UN lightly armed peacekeeping mission -- stick-handled by Lester Pearson through a hesitant Security Council in 1956 -- Canada voted against the British and French and, by default, sided with Egypt. We took a stand.

To suggest, as Mr. Layton does, that we should pull out of the Afghan mission next year and return to our more "traditional" roles ignores one compelling fact. There will be no significant capability for any nation to carry out those "traditional" roles of nation-building in southern Afghanistan until those who are committed to stopping such undertakings are removed from the equation.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

[bradco]

I have the impression that the Liberal Party has told Canadians a sweet lie that many Canadians would prefer to believe, even when they know it's false.

Actually, the Gov't of the day told the truth, but Canadians prefered to believe what they believed, like Peacekeeping is what our soldiers do.......

Now I was only in the milita for little over a year back in the early 80s... and while we trained against bio-chemical and nuclear attacks, trained as mechanized infantry, trained to clear minefields.....lobbed grenades...fired LAWS....and such....we never trained to be UN observers.

The highly marketable image of Canada's armed forces as peace keepers is a myth.

Mr. Layton says that he and the NDP support our soldiers but question the wisdom and achievability of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. And, having said that, he goes on to say the mission is the wrong mission for Canada and is, at the very least, unclear. I can only assume Mr. Layton's call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2007, to pursue more traditional Canadian roles involving mediation and negotiation, is based on a widely held myth that we are better than the rest of the 192 nations in the United Nations at the dated concept of "peacekeeping."

Peacekeeping between states that went to war and needed an excuse to stop fighting worked relatively well during the Cold War and Canada played a role in each and every mission. Mind you, at the height of our participation in UN missions during the 1970s and '80s we had a maximum of 2,000 soldiers wearing the blue beret deployed abroad in places such as Cyprus and the Golan Heights. At the same time, we had 10,000 personnel serving with NATO on the Central Front in Germany, armed with nuclear weapons, ready and waiting for the Soviet hoards to attack across the East German border. Peacekeeping was a sideline activity. We did it well, along with others such as Sweden, India, Norway, Brazil -- but it was never even close to being our top priority."

The other Canadian myth that might have influenced Mr. Layton's ill-timed call for our withdrawal is the oft-quoted description of Canada's policies being "even-handed," "neutral" or "impartial." We never take a stand for fear of upsetting someone. But the facts surrounding even our exaggerated peacekeeping role explode this troubling myth. For example, in the approval process preceding the very first UN lightly armed peacekeeping mission -- stick-handled by Lester Pearson through a hesitant Security Council in 1956 -- Canada voted against the British and French and, by default, sided with Egypt. We took a stand.

To suggest, as Mr. Layton does, that we should pull out of the Afghan mission next year and return to our more "traditional" roles ignores one compelling fact. There will be no significant capability for any nation to carry out those "traditional" roles of nation-building in southern Afghanistan until those who are committed to stopping such undertakings are removed from the equation.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

and this is why Layton should not even bother trying to formulate a foreign policy....because he is stuck believing in some myth. A myth that if it were true would produce ineffective military policy.

on a side note Mr. Layton will be at UBC this Friday and I for one am looking forward to questioning him on his ridiculous foreign policy.