The damage Stephen Harper has done within our borders is apparent everywhere we turn. But Canadians may not be aware of how much damage he has done to their country's international reputation. Harper's tenure on the international stage has been just as destructive as it has been at home. Daryl Copland writes:
The inventor of peacekeeping, long-standing proponent of North-South relations, and determined promoter of sustainable development — once universally welcomed as an honest broker, helpful fixer and provider of good offices and innovative ideas — is today regarded as an obstruction to progress, a country with little to bring to the table.
Canada’s vaunted foreign service has languished, marginalized and under-employed by a government uninterested in professional diplomatic advice or enlightened international initiative.
Unrecognizable to its former partners and friends, Canada has become something of an international pariah — a serial unachiever, the fossil of the year, the country that others don’t want in the room. The one-time boy scout has become a distant outlier in the international system, sometimes ostracized but more often simply ignored.
Harper claimed we wouldn't recognize Canada by the time he was finished. Our international partners don't recognize us either. When they look at us, what do they see?
All fight, no talk. Dialogue, negotiation, compromise and knowledge-based problem-solving have given way to hectoring rhetoric and debilitating retrogression. Diplomacy and multilateralism have been written off.
Over the past decade the warrior nation wannabes in Ottawa preferred to preside over disastrous years of war in Afghanistan, to help open a Pandora’s Box of multiple misfortunes by participating in an illegal regime change exercise in Libya, and unthinkingly to join in the anti-ISIL bombing of Iraq and Syria, thus worsening the refugee crisis and exposing Canadians to a heightened risk of retaliation at home and abroad.
It's really quite a record. At home and abroad, Mr. Harper has been a one man weapon of mass destruction.
6 comments:
that day
after installing Canadians as non combatants in Afghanistan
harper moved them to active duty under the Americans
caught the eye of every military as a betrayal
the equivalent of arming the red cross
the Taliban pragmatic response?
"we can start to target the Canadians"
in an instant harper made Canadians
untrustworthy and offensive
and a target
Yet another example of what Jack Layton said long ago, lungta. You can't take Stephen Harper at his word.
Okay we all agree Harper cannot be trusted in or out of the country so why is he still the dictator PM? Eh?
Pity Layton hadn't placed stopping Harper ahead of his desire to wipe out the Libs, but I've been on about that enough at this site for the moment.
More broadly, there is a reason I started calling Harper the Destroyer and Salter of the Scorched Earth so long ago now despite my usual practice of not attaching nicknames to politicians, especially party leaders. It drives me crazy that even now so many and not just CPCers fail to appreciate just how devastating the damage to our social and governing infrastructures and institutions Harper has truly been. I'm hoping, praying, and working towards a Liberal win this time out to finally slay that beast AND to make sure the reality is not just seen by all but also most importantly able to be dealt with. I know Trudeau has the right skill-sets to deal with such disaster given what he managed with the Libs after becoming their leader following the great Ignatief disaster of 2011, Mulcair I have no reason to believe has such skills. After all, it is a rare skill-set in our political history to need to clean up after this kind of destructive situation given our tradition for good government that Harper has so inverted in practice unlike any predecessor.
I have no idea who will win this election, Scotian. But I do know that -- if Stephen Harper retires to Calgary -- the next prime minister will be engaged for a long time cleaning up the mess Harper has made.
He's prime minister because he's been very good at creating distractions, Mogs -- like shifting the debate to subjects like coalitions and niqabs.
Post a Comment