The principled left

Although this blog strives to be as apolitical as possible, we cannot escape the fact that politics drives defence and foreign policy and so bleeds into our mandate here at The Torch. In that context, I have been quite critical lately of the federal NDP for their simplistic, unprincipled, knee-jerk pronouncements and positions regarding the Afghan mission.

It is with great relief, then, that I note the NDP doesn't speak for all on the Canadian political left, especially when it comes to the question of our nation's Afghanistan policy (ht:MC):

It should be painfully obvious to observant grown-ups that the "anti-war" movement in Canada is playing a similar role on Canada's left: Intimidate, sow dissension, sow doubt, and turn the duty of solidarity we owe our Afghan comrades into a matter of "contentious political debate." That debate does not exist in Afghanistan, and it is disgraceful that the debate exists in Canada, especially on the Canadian left.

There is much debate to be had, alright, but our Afghan allies should be leading it, and we have anti-war, progressive, socialist Afghan counterparts to whom we might turn for guidance. And I don't mean RAWA, which by now almost certainly has a greater membership among the rich, white liberal ladies of Santa Barbara, California, than among the women of Afghanistan.

Most notably, among the Pashtun people of the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands who remain the Taliban's greatest victims, Canadian social-democrats have their counterparts - the young men and women of the Pakhtunkwa Milli Awami Party, who recognize the Taliban, not NATO, as the war-maker and the aggressor. You can bet that the NDP has not consulted with the Pakhtunkhwa, or sought their counsel in any way. You can bet that the NDP hasn't even heard of them.

You can betray our Afghan comrades if you like. Ignore the Pakhtunkhwa, ignore the Afghan Women's Network, ignore the United Nations, ignore W4WA. For your leadership and counsel on these thorny questions, go ahead and follow George Galloway and Zafar Bangash and Eric Walberg and all the rest. I ask only one thing. Spare me your pleadings.

Stop pretending you're a liberal, or a progressive, or a socialist, or a democrat, because you're none of these things. Just look at yourself. Spiffy new uniform you're wearing. Nice boots.

Those who have read my scribblings here and at my other blog for any length of time will undoubtedly have discerned that my politics slant further to the right than the left. But I have often despaired over the moral vacuum that seems to be sucking the life out of Canadian politics, with only blind partisanship to fill the empty space it leaves.

With his application of consistent principles, and his courage to speak them as truth to his own political tribe's most powerful, Terry Glavin gives me hope that we can reinvigorate political debate in this great country. Left, right, or centre, the Canadian Forces need strong, mature and far-sighted political leadership, and it seems to me that that renaissance can only start with people like Terry who put values ahead of blinkered, rabid, partisan groupthink.