More Canadian Soldiers Heading to Iraq

More Canadian Soldiers Heading to Iraq

>by Daron Letts
April 30, 2003

Yesterday Prime Minister Jean Chrétien responded to America’s request for military support in Iraq with an offer to send units of the Canadian Forces’ Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), along with, possibly, RCMP officers and other Canadian legal professionals.

As Canada pledges more troops and resources to the unilateral reconstruction of occupied Iraq, military watchdogs are asking what “peacekeeping” means under the New World Order.

Although Canadian public opinion still embraces the legend of the blue-bereted Canadian peacekeeper celebrated on the five-dollar bill (an image coveted by the U.S. administration), UN peacekeeping missions are fading into the background of Canadian foreign policy. Fewer than ten per cent of Canada’s deployed troops typically participate in UN peacekeeping missions.

“That trend is going to continue if we keep participating in missions that are run by the U.S. and NATO, especially in Iraq,” says Steven Staples, director of the Polaris Institute’s Project on the Corporate-Security State. As the U.S. stakes out new heights of economic and military control in the Gulf region, Staples says, it is a crucial time for Canadian policy makers to lead by example.

“Already it has become apparent in Canadian defence policy that [the government] views the protection of our economic interests — free trade — as a role for Canada’s military,” he says, indicating that the five-dollar bill does not represent the only connection between Canadian peacekeepers and Canadian economics. “The more that we pursue this destabilizing route that the global economy is creating — this architecture of rich and poor with stability for some and instability and insecurity for others — the more we’re going to see military responses required to defend globalization and an unfair global system.”

Project Ploughshares executive director, Ernie Regehr, advocates for the swift reconstruction of Iraq, however he also opposes on principle the deployment of any Canadian forces not administered by the UN, including the DART.

“I am very concerned about Canada going in and making a contribution, essentially, to consolidating and legitimating the occupying force’s position when it’s really an illegal occupation that exists now,” he says. “Our contribution there isn’t going to be a decisive one, but it’s going to be a politically significant one. So let’s take the time that we need to make sure our involvement is constructive both in humanitarian terms and also politically.”

Janis Alton, co-chair of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, characterizes the implications of yesterday’s commitment as “profound”, emphasizing that the delivery of humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of Iraq’s decimated infrastructure are tasks better suited to non-governmental organizations than to the Canadian military.

“Canada’s complicity with the illegal actions in Iraq will jeopardize Canada’s reputation as a peacemaker in the future,” she forecasts. “It’s difficult to predict the domino effect of colluding with the U.S., but it obviously takes the glow off the understanding that Canada can be fair and undertake political actions that are free of coercion from the U.S. and free of the motives that we ascribe to the U.S. actions in Iraq. By participating, I think we deepen the shades of grey rather than preserving the untainted image that we want to maintain.”

In addition to yesterday’s commitment, Canada maintains over 1,000 military personnel in the Gulf region, as well as two warships, two CP-140 Aurora aircraft and three CC-130 Hercules aircraft.

A Maritimer by choice, Daron Letts is an independent journalist and a Fredericton-based community activist.