Inform yourself, then brace yourself

Yet again, Bruce Rolston at Flit has knocked the proverbial nail squarely on the noggin - while I have excerpted below at length, you really should read the whole piece:

As for Fife and the rest of the CTV team behind that piece, who, if they were ever pointed to this document, apparently failed to keep their lips moving past the third page, I fear they're beyond redemption. It seems almost all public disapproval of this mission in the Canadian context is an argument from ignorance, fuelled by ignorant media. There are some interesting discussions we might be having about Afghanistan's future, about NATO's future, about the future of Western counter-insurgency in this context, but it's all quite moot because the baseline public awareness and understanding levels here are simply too low for that dialogue to have any public value. The primary fight at home is not against timidity; it's against ignorance.

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has it right. One can support the troops without supporting a war: by activism to ensure they have the tools to do the job, and to "try our hardest to be the best and most informed citizens that we can be". I think most soldiers overseas would consider themselves supported -- and would understand the public's conclusions about the futility or utility of their missions -- if they thought the population at home took those two, and only those two, responsibilities of their citizenship seriously.

There's one point Bruce makes that I'd like to comment upon in further detail. I agree with him that the primary fight that needs to take place is against domestic ignorance. Without an informed public, I doubt we can move forward on any number of issues, including Afghanistan.

But I wonder if there isn't more to the public opinion polls than simple ignorance. I wonder if there's a subconscious tendency to avoid information that would require Canadians to step out of our comfortable lives, largely insulated from the more dangerous aspects of the wider world, and take a more robust position. I wonder if we, as a people, value peace over justice - as though the two could ever be separated in the long-term. I wonder if, in the absence of an informed opinion, we default to timidity and inaction. I wonder if we're too fat and happy in our little gated community north of the 49th, with oceans for a moat and the world's policeman as a next door neighbour.

In light of our unwillingness to delve beyond the predictable soundbites and headlines of our established media organizations - whose only purpose is to sell more advertising by telling us what they think we want to hear - I wonder if there's any set of circumstances that would have Canadians rearing up on our hind legs and charging into a fray.

I can think of only two scenarios that leave me confident Canada would fight for its interests. One is an invasion of our own shores - I think we'd want to fight, at least at first (whether we'd have the stomach to fight on if we were overmatched from the start is another matter). The other is what I'd term a 'consensus fight' - a mission that much of the world took on. I think in that case we'd be looking not to get left out.

What I don't see is a desire to stand on our convictions, even if we knew what they were, alone in the world if need be. Oh, we have some fine individuals and organizations here in Canada, but I'd liken us less to the fellow who sees a house burning and charges into the flames and smoke to rescue the inhabitants, and more to the fellow who stands on the sidewalk and shouts "Somebody, do something!" (We'd take a corner of a blanket, I'm sure, but only if asked - we wouldn't organize it ourselves.)

In fact, I wonder if that's not almost as much of a problem as our willful ignorance in the case of Afghanistan: we supported it when it was a 'consensus mission', regardless of what we did or didn't know about the country, and now that we see other nations getting cold feet, we're not interested in staying our course. That's probably because we never thought of it as our course, a Canadian course, but rather a 'consensus' course.

We all know people who are brave when they're part of a group, but whose courage fades away when their friends do. I had hoped Canada aspired to more than that.

Update: Case in point:

The so-called "war on terror" will not be won on a battlefield; it will be resolved through economic development, fair trade practices, strategic assistance and respectful negotiation.

Like slavery, subjugation of women and eugenics, the age of war has come and gone. It will not be missed.

Anyone else find the unintentional irony of arguing against our mission in Afghanistan while simultaneously putting forth the lie that the "subjugation of women...has come and gone" is a bit too much to stomach today? I certainly do.

This is the sort of idiot who would be frantically trying to appease his captors even as the butcher's knife was drawn across his throat, and with his dying thought would still not understand that evil needs to be fought, not negotiated with.

Upperdate: Kate Heartfield, in the Ottawa Citizen, neatly lays out a Darfur argument that dovetails with this post's discussion of Canadian will on the topic of Afghanistan:

Of course, it's easy for Canadians to tut-tut about China, but less easy for a dinner-party's worth of Canadians to agree on what kinds of military intervention are acceptable. Are we willing to send Canadian soldiers (assuming we had them to spare) into danger?

We're going to have to get willing if we're going to stop future Darfurs. You can't protect a bully's victim without facing the bully. It is difficult to stop people from dying without offending the killers.

...

But the humanitarian organizations on the ground say a no-fly zone would make their work impossible. They need to use the air space, and relief agencies anywhere depend on a certain amount of goodwill, or at least indifference, from local authorities. Understandably, they don't want to do anything to anger them.

It's a reasonable position, but ultimately irreconcilable with the Responsibility to Protect.

...

Here's the crux of the problem: The Responsibility to Protect is always going to be popular in principle, and almost never going to be popular in practice. Implementing it requires a slightly quixotic approach to foreign affairs, a willingness to give offence and take a few risks, when the alternatives are horrifying.

The details may differ from case to case, but before we deal with those, Canadians need to come to grips with the underlying principle: either we understand that difficult problems require difficult, costly, and sometimes unpalatable solutions in the real world, or we don't. All the normal cliches apply - rubber meeting road, money where the mouth is, all hat and no cattle. As a nation, we need to get serious.

I seriously doubt we have a political figure on stage now or in our immediate future who can lead us there.