Peackeeping humbug

That's the view of a retired Canadian colonel:

We should retire peacekeeping from lexicon

The Ottawa Citizen
August 11, 2009

Re: National peacekeepers day, Aug 10.

Misguided attention paid to peacekeeping continues to undermine Canadian support for the counter-insurgency combat mission in Afghanistan.

Those who are determined to prolong the myth of peacekeeping now seek to place operations in Afghanistan in that category.

This is nonsense. Peacekeeping was never effective at preventing conflict. Moreover, in recent times it has been associated with disasters in the Balkans, Somalia and Rwanda. It was always a peripheral issue in Canadian defence policy, and in later years Canada absorbed strong criticism from allies for using it as an excuse to avoid contributions to conventional military operations.

It is time to retire peacekeeping from the Canadian lexicon and accept post-Cold War gritty reality.

This involves contributing military resources to combat operations in defence of Canada's national interests. The latter are at stake in Afghanistan as we seek to eliminate an important base for terrorism.

The government of Canada should demonstrate leadership by educating Canadians in these matters.

A. Sean Henry, Ottawa

Colonel (Ret'd)

Plus a letter of mine sent to the Toronto Star and not published:

Where are our peacekeepers?

In their August 8 article Walter Dorn and Peter Langille lament that Canada has been "abandoning UN peacekeeping operations" and that the Canadian Forces' focus has been "shifted to NATO, where they are not doing peacekeeping but are conducting counter-insurgency operations" in Afghanistan.

That ignores one very important fact. The NATO mission in Afghanistan is itself a United Nations mission. The UN Security Council has repeatedly authorized that mission, including its combat role, most recently in September 2008. The mission is a much a UN one as any other.

What Messrs Dorn and Langille actually seem to lament is that Canada is not now participating significantly in "peacekeeping" operations run by the UN itself. They specifically cite the missions in Haiti, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur. But none of these operations seem to have done all that well in truly establishing peace; and, Darfur aside, they have been going on for many years with no end in sight (as is likely to happen in Darfur too).

It should also be remembered that the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Croatia--in which the Canadian Forces played a major role--was a crashing failure. Peace was only established after NATO intervened forcefully by bombing in 1995. NATO then replaced the UN in charge of running the international military force on the ground.

In the case of Afghanistan the cry is always raised, "What's the exit strategy"? I would like to know the exit strategy for participation in UN peacekeeping missions. After all the Canadian Forces took part in the UN operation in Cyprus--which still goes on--for 29 years before they were withdrawn in 1993.

I suspect what Messrs Dorn and Langille really object to is Canada's taking part in a combat mission--even under a UN mandate.

References:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9450.doc.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/deliberate_force.htm
http://www.comfec-cefcom.forces.gc.ca/pa-ap/nr-sp/doc-eng.asp?id=2279
http://vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/canadianforces/factsheets/cyprus

And an earlier post:

Peacekeeping sure ain't what it used to be

Update: A letter that the Star did publish (give them credit):

Focus has been with NATO allies

Aug 12, 2009

Re:Peacekeeping legacy a proud one,

Letter, Aug. 10

Martin Meslin's letter is a prime example of the sort of cultural mythology that dogs Canada. Canada's last major peacekeeping operation was in the early days of the collapse of Yugoslavia in Bosnia-Herzegovina. That mission was then assumed by NATO with a more robust mandate when the UN failed to stop the violence there. While Canadian Forces members have participated in limited scale UN peacekeeping operations in Eritrea, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo, our main focus in recent years (long before Stephen Harper) has been supporting efforts with our NATO allies [in, e.g, Bosnia and Kosovo--including an airstrike role with CF-18s in 1999]. To suggest that Harper had any impact on the relative importance of peacekeeping in this country is factually utterly wrong.

Nick Butler, Oshawa