Going To War -- Secretly

The Harper government doesn't like to release information -- on Afghan prisoners, on the cost of fighter jets, on budget cuts. It has now applied the same strategy to Canada's involvement in Mali. Tom Walkom reports:

But then everything about Canada’s role in Mali is treated by Ottawa as a state secret. Canadians learned of the initial C-17 deployment only after Mali’s president tweeted the information on the internet.

When that initial, one-week deployment was extended, we were first told not by our own government but by Mali’s ambassador to Canada.

The pattern continues. On Tuesday, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino announced that Canada will give Mali $13 million. He said it was for humanitarian aid.

But he made the announcement from Ethiopia where, at a summit hosted by the African Union, other nations had just pledged $455 million to fund a military expedition against Malian rebels.

What are our special forces doing in Mali? Some reports say they are there to protect the C-17 crews. Others say they are guarding Canada’s virtually empty embassy.

 If the government follows past practice, it will never say. It claims that commando operations must be secret.

A democracy can only function when citizens know how their money is being spent. For the last six years the Harper government has insisted that the public doesn't have the right to that information. An election was fought on the issue.

But you know you are in a dictatorship when the government sends citizens off to war but won't tell you why.

A line has been crossed. The future is ominous.

Arab Dominoes?

When the French were defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, they asked President Dwight Eisenhower to help them re-establish their hold in Vietnam. Eisenhower -- who was  a dark realist when it came to sizing up battles  -- refused their invitation.

But his successor, John Kennedy -- humiliated by Nikita Khrushchev early in his administration -- decided to draw a line in Southeast Asia. Some historians claim that he quickly saw the folly of his decision and that he planned to remove American troops from the rice paddies by the end of his first term. Unfortunately,  Kennedy was assassinated; and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, bought the line that Vietnam was a domino. Once it fell, the other countries in the region would fall.

Thomas Walkom writes that Western governments seem to be buying the same theory today. This time the battlefields are the sands of the Middle East. The invasion of Afghanistan spawned rebellion in Pakistan. The invasion of Iraq emboldened Iran to seek protection in its nuclear program. The international intervention in Libya led to an insurrection in Mali -- which, last week, led to the hostage taking and consequent carnage in Algeria.

All of the military muscle flexing, however, has left the United States and Canada weary:

For practical politicians, all of this is a nightmare. After Iraq and Afghanistan, the American public is loath to involve itself in another war. As a result, Washington speaks softly and carefully.

Canadians too have been made weary by the Afghan experience. Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows that. That’s why his office has been so reluctant to admit that Canada’s very, very limited commitment to the war in Mali is gradually expanding.

Both the U.S. and Canada have sent logistical support in the form of air cargo planes to ferry French troops and equipment into what used to be French West Africa. President Eisenhower knew how easy it was to get into a war. It would appear that we're getting into another one.

Unfortunately, our leaders -- particularly Mr. Harper -- do not possess Eisenhower's experience or wisdom.