The do-not-call fall

Sometimes things take a while to make it to Canada. The nutrition facts label on pre-packaged food was introduced in the U.S. in 1994. Canadians had to wait until 2005 for a similar labeling scheme. When it comes to the scourge of unwanted telemarketing phone calls it's no different. The U.S. National Do Not Call Registry came into effect in 2003. Five years later, Canada is finally getting a do-not-call list. It should be operational this fall (September 30th, so they say).

The bad news (as I see it) is that there are some exemptions. Even if we sign up, we'll still get calls—whether we want them or not—from charities, political parties, polling companies and companies with whom we have existing business relationships.

I can see the argument for allowing charities to make fundraising calls, but I still disagree. When I give to a charity, I want as much of my donation as possible to go to the cause, not to pay for fundraising. I suspect that a lot of money is wasted on competition between charities.

To plug the holes in the do-not-call legislation, Michael Geist has created a free service called iOptOut that provides automatic opt-out notification to exempted organizations. The Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) also has a Do Not Contact Service. It covers mail, telephone, and fax. Note: When the National Do Not Call List comes into effect it will supersede the CMA's telephone service but not its mail service.

Don't call me, I'll call you

At the end of the day, I prefer an opt-in arrangement rather than an opt-out one. And if nobody opts in? Well, I'd say that's just fine.

Consider the U.S. experience:



What do you think? How has the do-not-call system worked in the U.S.? Are the exemptions in the Canadian system warranted?

Dragging the people along

As I pointed out in my recent post, democracy is not so easy to measure. The sine qua non of democracy is generally felt to be "free and fair elections". But that begs quite a few questions: Can you have "free and fair" elections without freedom of the press? How was the list of candidates assembled? Is wealth a precondition for running? Have there been any implicit or explicit threats conditional on the outcome?

But there's a lot more to democracy that elections ("free and fair" or otherwise). Elected representatives should be responsive to their constituents' concerns. When those concerns are consistently ignored, there is clearly a problem.

This has been just the case with Canadian public opinion on the war in Afghanistan. According to public opinion polling conducted by The Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV News, since the summer of 2006, a majority of Canadians have opposed sending troops to Afghanistan. In the poll of January 10th-13th, 47% said they would like to see Canadian troops return as soon as possible, 31% said the troops should remain in Afghanistan but hand over their combat role to another NATO country, and just 17% said that they should continue their combat role against the Taliban.

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
                                   — Hermann Göring

These words are chilling, not just because they were uttered by one of the top Nazis, but because they continue to be put into practice.

What're we fightin' for?

According to the government:

Our goal is to protect Canadians by ensuring that Afghanistan never again falls into the hands of the Taliban and that Afghanistan becomes a stable, free and democratic society.

Interestingly, despite the grandiose language, the supposed danger is only hinted at.

To boost support for the war, it helps to fan the flames of patriotism. And what better way than banners and decals proclaiming "We support our troops!" In several cities across Canada, including Ottawa and Toronto (where there was considerable controversy), decals have been put on police cars and fire engines.

Proponents claim that there's nothing wrong with this, that it's just expressing concern for the wellbeing of Canadian troops. But as many have pointed out, there's a political message here and dissent is being marginalized. It seems to me that putting political messages on public vehicles damages democracy.

To further stifle debate, here's General Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of Defense Staff:

I'm not going to stand here and tell you that the suicide bombings of this past week have been related to the debate back here in Canada. But I also cannot stand here and say that they are not.

Imposing democracy

The great irony is that these anti-democratic developments are justified as advancing the cause of democracy in Afghanistan. But as Ghandi said:

The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within.

A limited mission or an endless war?

It came as no great surprise: the Liberals today proposed a very gentle amendment to the Conservatives' motion to extend Canada's military stay in Afghanistan. The key difference is that the amendment calls for withdrawal of troops starting in February 2011, whereas the original motion simply referred to extending the stay until 2011 (and then?).

Seems like a cosmetic change to me, but I guess it keeps everyone happy (except, of course, the Canadian public, who have consistently been of the opinion that the Canadian military presence needs to wind down). Stephen Harper must have been delighted. But it's not yet a fait accompli, so he prudently kept his response low-key, referring to the amendment as a "positive development". The Liberals, who got Canada involved in Afghanistan in the first place, have some internal divisions about this. But it lets hawks like Michael Ignatieff pretend to be doves. Here he is, yesterday in the House of Commons:

When the government speaks of extending Canada's combat role to 2011, is this a withdrawal date or a renewal date? Which is it, Mr. Speaker, a limited mission or an endless war?

Note the clever juxtaposition of mission with war. (Note to Payroll: Increase speech-writer's salary.) And yet even with a "withdrawal date" of 2011, who's to say that the "situation on the ground" won't change? Well then we can just get another extension, now can't we?

But don't take it from me ...

There are some excellent posts about the war at the StopWar blog. Eric Margolis has some unique perspectives and insightful analyses, such as his post on the Manley report and his post yesterday on the NATO conference last week. There are a number of good articles at rabble.ca, such as Making war a winner by Duncan Cameron, and Ottawa gets advice of prolonging the war - part I and part II by Roger Annis. Project Ploughshares has an extensive set of documents and commentaries on the war in Afghanistan. There are some good posts on the Ceasefire Insider blog.

There are many more articles and resources out there. But they don't get a lot of play in the mainstream media. Theories anyone?

Obstacles

When I talk with people about Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan, their reaction is pretty consistent. Yup, it's a mess. Yup, maybe we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. But the Taliban were pretty nasty when they were in power [Agreed!] particularly in terms of how they treated women [Agreed again!].

Should we withdraw? Probably ... except ...

• Except we have a reponsibility to the people of Afghanistan.
  
• Except if we did, the Taliban would take power again.
  
• Except if we did, women's rights would disappear.
  
• Except our NATO "partners" would be upset.
  
• Except how can reconstruction take place unless order is established?
  

It's no wonder that with obstacles like these, many Canadians feel quite ambivalent about the idea of withdrawal from Afghanistan. But the real obstacles are in our minds: we are imprisoned by our own assumptions. To list a few: the assumption that we know best; the assumption that the Taliban are the source of all troubles in Afghanistan; the assumption that the solution is more violence.

It is widely accepted that ultimately peace in Afghanistan depends on negotiation rather that violence. For example, the Manley report states:

Eventually, achieving a genuine and stable peace in Afghanistan will necessitate a more thoroughgoing political and social reconciliation among Afghans themselves—citizens who have been divided for generations on differences of tribal, regional and political identity. With time, better governance will involve a negotiated coming-to-terms between the present Afghan political leadership and some adherents of the former Taliban regime who renounce terror and repression and adopt the norms and practices of democracy.

Negotiate with the Taliban? No, not the Taliban, some-adherents-of-the-former-Taliban-regime-who-renounce-terror and-repression-and-adopt-the-norms-and-practices-of-democracy. But, to save space let's just call them ... the Taliban.

When Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, suggested something similar more than a year ago, he was demonized by the right wing and labeled "Taliban Jack".

But rhetorical nonsense aside, the point remains that in the end, negotiation is essential. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the price of peace was negotiation with unsavoury characters. Refusal to negotiate isn't a badge of moral righteousness, it's a commitment to ceaseless violence.

The Manley report mentions negotiation twice. The first time is in the paragraph excerpted above, in a section on "Governance". The second time is in Appendix 10:

Across the various polls conducted in the last four years, views on the Taliban have remained uniformly negative. In the autumn of 2003, some 75% of Afghans viewed the Taliban unfavourably (62% very unfavourably), 89% felt that way in October 2005 (75% very unfavourably), and 73% in September 2007 (53% very negative). At the same time however, when asked whether President Karzai should enter into negotiations with the Taliban and allow them to participate in the political process, some 60% of Afghans currently believe a negotiated settlement should be pursued.

Though it is not unlikely that some of the survey respondents may have given careful replies, fearing that the "wrong" answer might have undesirable consequences, it seems clear that by in large Afghans are unfavourably disposed to the Taliban. And yet a majority support negotiation. They can't be bothered with righteous moral purity; they just want to live in peace.

Political plots

Last week the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan released its report. The full report is available here. The basic message? Stay the course: Canadian soldiers should stay in Afghanistan well into the future. The argument is propped up by the usual noble words—and a few ignoble graphs, two of which I've shown here.

The graph below shows Afghan's opinions about the direction in which their country is moving:


Comments both graphical and political would be most welcome!

"For service in English, press 1 7"

I kid you not. (That's Bell Canada, by the way.) If I were writing a novel and I made that line up, my editor would say, "Come on, Nick, that's just not plausible."

As to why you have to press 1 7 for English, my best guess is as follows. Obviously for service in French, you must have to press 1 (after all, French is Canada's other official language). I'm guessing Inuktitut is 2, and if so, I applaud Bell Canada: it's about time Canada's First-Nations peoples got their proper respect. (You can probably see where I'm going with this: Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu, ... all the way up to 17.)

Enough cheap wisecracks ...

But at this point I think I'll skip the silly jokes and instead use the mention of proper respect for Canada's First-Nations peoples as an excuse to comment on what I think is perhaps Canada's greatest shame: the way native people here have been treated ever since the first contact by Europeans.

On any number of measures (perhaps the most appalling example being suicide rates, which are staggeringly high among native people), Canada's First-Nations peoples are in dire straits. I really don't know too much about all this, but what I do know is very disturbing. And I think it's time that we Canadians face up to our responsibilities.

I recognize that the problems are complex, and I certainly don't claim to know what's going to work. But I do suspect that non-aboriginal Canadians just haven't made this enough of a priority. Speaking for myself, I can say that I'm often far too busy pontificating about problems in other parts of the world (over which I generally have zero influence) to think about what I can do (and what privileges I may have to give up) to make a difference regarding the plight of Canada's First-Nations peoples. And if all this sounds just a bit precious—well, I think that's not really very important.

Supporting the troops the war

The Ottawa International Airport has a large banner in the arrivals area proclaiming that "We Support Our Troops". I think it's worth considering what this means, so let's take it word by word ...

We

Who exactly is "We"? Perhaps the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport Authority, since they're the ones who presumably authorized the banner. But isn't the airport a public place? Nobody asked my opinion.

Support

Perhaps the key word. As a taxpayer, I suppose it's a given that I support the troops financially. But let's cut to the chase: we're talking about the Afghanistan mission here, and I don't believe Canadian troops should be in Afghanistan. My disagreement is not with the troops themselves, it's with the foreign policy of the Canadian government.

Our Troops

The trouble is, the wording of the slogan seems to suggest that if you disagree with the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, then somehow you're "against the troops". It brings to mind George W. Bush's infantile pronouncement that "You're either with us or against us". Is it just me, or does this sound a bit Orwellian? The standard left-wing response has been a modified slogan: "Support our troops: bring them home". A clever rejoinder, but I still wonder if we shouldn't challenge the whole framework.

Criticizing the Canadian military adventure in Afghanistan is not equivalent to passing moral judgement on individual soldiers.