Mr. Speaker, there comes a time in the affairs of a nation when leaders need to embody their people, and the people their leaders. Whether we as a country send our soldiers to war is the responsibility and the accountability of the civil power, for in times past had it not been for soldiers and because we had soldiers, we can now afford to have politicians.
The people ask now who these politicians are who send soldiers in the people's name. Is it really for a noble cause? When is offensive war called an act of humanity? When is bombing peacekeeping? Can it truly be said that we are defending our high moral beliefs and defending democracy when perhaps the sending of war is the gravest betrayal of it? Perhaps we have become involved in an intrigue so dark and twisted that the cover song carries us all the way to tragedy.
We belong to a club, NATO, whose rules for membership were once noble and clear but now have incrementally changed. For the ties that bind under the NATO table are not spoken, for the appearances set above and before the club members and the world. We do our duty in the club and cite moral superiority to the community of nations. Yet because of divisions at the United Nations most are relegated to observation. All see the dead, but we cannot rightly judge, for surely all in this play have been killers.
What happens to our humanity, as neighbour beside neighbour, when the constabulary and social order evaporates? They leave all civility, take a cowardly gun and go to the neighbour's farmhouse, whose cousin is married to theirs, then murder the boy who could become a soldier, humiliate and renounce all sense of community, burn the home, steal the livestock, take any money from the victims and send the remaining souls, having lost all, on a foot journey into the unknown.
What hatred and evil comes too easily to the lips of those neighbours when together in the past they have shared the fruit of the land, co-operated in toil, though their language of birth was different and their God had a different name. Yet being brethren and part of a larger family is all cast aside for vengeance, for purity of hate, for belief in the lie of race, for a twisted version of social justice. Another bomb will not change that belief or that behaviour.
On the other edge of this pit of human misery and ignorance we look down, we roll the dice, we pick winners and losers for unspoken plans. Who are the villains? Who are the innocents? When old prejudice spills blood, when money may buy a war, who are the sides in the brawl and who is the referee? Sadly we know who the victims are.
Are we Canadians also victims of this circumstance? For surely the dead we know, the childless mother we know, the marred youth we know and the hollow men. Where does the evil come from and how can we stand against it? For evil we see and an evil it is. It comes from the human heart, and can that sin of the heart be stopped with another bomb?
Canada belongs to a club. We have done our duty there, but now we must reach deeper to have love beyond duty, for love of mankind. For duty can do well but love can make beauty from ashes.
Regardless of how complicated plots, hatred, betrayal and double dealing shall rage, can we find midst the brawl an honourable way for ourselves? In times past whenever called upon we have done our duty and we have done it again in this circumstance. But club membership in NATO must not be higher than the law of love to the human race. Shall we hang on to the actions of the club in the same manner that the ethnic groups hang on to their prejudice and willingness to choose suicide rather than life and to take uncounted innocents with them?
Today before the House we have the following non-votable take note motion:
That this House take note of the continuing human tragedy in Kosovo and the government's determination to work with the international community in order to resolve the conflict and promote a just political settlement for Kosovo that leads to the safe return of the refugees.
The motion may make us feel good, but it is unrealistic. Our original moral objectives are now undermined by our actions. More bombs at this time will not produce a humanitarian end, even a political solution.
The objectives of self-determination for a people within the rule of law and democratic process have been manipulated by Kosovo ethnic Albanians for us to fight their war of independence that they could not win on their own. So Canadians will fight and pay for it and ensure it in the end.
Who gave our government permission to fight a foreign war of independence on behalf of a local people? Maybe we should, but the decision to do that must be approached honestly in our parliament, not through the back door of the slippery slope of incremental entanglements.
The present military objectives will also not be accomplished. The assurance of the government today of success of the air war defies history and is tactically unsound. In this case we will not bomb the Serbs into submission, but that may not be the deal anyway. Rather it may be just to try out our techie stuff, to send the Russians a message. I certainly hope not. Air bombing will not deliver the stated objective, so why continue? Ego? Club rules? The children pay.
Partition of the inhabitants, separating the belligerents is the best we can hope for in this generation of hatred, in this internal civil war of independence and revenge. If we honestly become the policemen, apprehend the wrongdoers and actually protect the innocents, then that is worthwhile, but our course is not toward such as of yet. It needs to be.
We on this side of the House have added to the motion “and in particular, this House take note that the government's determination to resolve the conflict would have more credibility after the adoption of a motion submitted to this House specifying the moral, political and military objectives of Canada's involvement, subject to such conditions as this House may impose”.
Let us understand that NATO is attacking a sovereign state. It is doing so not because Yugoslavia committed aggression against a neighbour country but to try to alter the Serbs' handling of a domestic separatist problem based on ethnic and cultural grounds. In the world of diplomacy there is no bigger no-no than using military force to intervene in the internal affairs of a country.
NATO is an alliance that was formed solely to defend its members against aggression, not to launch attacks against others. Is NATO to become a kind of international cop, the enforcer of proper behaviour by governments? If so, why not act for instance against Turkey or East Timor?
The Turks have been brutal in their submission of Kurdish demands similar to the Serbs in Kosovo. Why not bomb the Turks? We do not because Turkey is an ally. That leaves one rule for NATO members and another for the rest of Europe, a policy without principle. That is the precedent NATO is setting in Kosovo.
NATO will likely not be successful and the air war will fail to force the Serbs to come to terms. Therefore, we can expect some unravelling of western and international order that could endanger stability far beyond the Balkans.
We now need to say to our club members in NATO that we played our role but we are out for now, putting Canadian planes on the ground to exercise independent thought and prepare for our role of peacekeeper and honest broker when the dust settles. Certainly our only role in the fighting is a symbolic one of the flag on the airplane as technically we are not needed for logistical purposes.
We have picked sides and we are no longer pure anyway. Therefore at NATO at this stage we need to say that we have done our duty, that it is over for now, put Canadian planes on the ground and prepare for the peacekeeping role of preserving a deal of separating the belligerents.
In the future the Liberal government may try to fool the people and themselves for a while with lofty speeches, but we will never do better than my suggestion in the coming months. It is a better chance for a reasonable outcome than persevering with the present course for unworkable, unrealistic objectives. Canada should stop our bombing now, recover some of our honest broker status and prepare for peacekeeping when it can be used.
No matter how we slice it, Canada has slid into the wrong. We can fix it. We can lead a way out instead of being stuck in this downward spiral. As a nation we need to move from duty to the higher principle of love. We have a unique opportunity to bring some duty out of ashes.