To those Americans who mistakenly perceive our nuanced, sophisticated and uniquely Canadian world view as “anti-Americanism”, former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy (Liberal) would like to explain more thoroughly, in this open letter to the US Secretary of State, Dr.Condoleeza Rice.
Dear Condi,
I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile- defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can’t quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we’ve had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we’re going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.
Sure, that doesn’t match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a “liberation war” in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.
Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government’s role should be when there isn’t a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.
Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.
You might also notice that it’s a system in which the governing party’s caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don’t want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada’s continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.
Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.
Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.
If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don’t embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.
Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the “northern territories,” Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn’t really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.
Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of ‘experts’ from Calgary think-tanks and neo- con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).
I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti- Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.
These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.
To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.
To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court — which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.
And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed — beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.
On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ while you’re in Ottawa. It’s a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.
This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means. There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world’s largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.
Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree — and agree to respect each other’s views when we disagree.
Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.
In friendship,
Lloyd Axworthy
For those who may not recognize the name, Lloyd Axworthy is the man credited with bringing about the sweeping economic, democratic and human rights reforms in Cuba in 1997.
hat tip – Greg
ouch.
Robert McClelland uses Lloyd Axworthy as a pen name?
This from our former Minister of External Affairs.It could have come from the Daily Kos,or Al Jazeera,but least it will get Lloyd a big hug from Linda McQuaig.
Mrs. Axworthy, it’s up to you.
Lloyd Axworthy, the former Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, is a self declared lover of Broadway musicals and The Canadian Library Association recently endorsed him as a speaker who was “easy to listen to”.
Now he would like to ” to set the record straight”.
It’s about time!
After years of boasting about the usefulness of the enormous soft power he wields, Dr. Axworthy could certainly use some straightening.
Perhaps this oxymoron of soft power (which conjures up an image that I’d rather not contemplate) could best be laid to rest by Mrs. Axworthy. Has she been as satisfied with his years of flaunting his soft power, as he seems to be?
Amazing letter – how often do you see something where it’s so easy to disagree with every single sentence?
Making a comment from the less-than-polite side, I think Mrs Axworthy is probably upset by his “soft power”.
“Lloyd Axworthy…is a self declared lover of Broadway musicals”
I can see it now: Lloyd Axworthy, Mark Steyn under Thunderdome to fight for Broadway musical supremacy. Two go in, one comes out….
The steering wheel just flew off Lloyds big hurtling ,no brakes, Yugo commie tractor!!
This can only end badly for Lloyd.
Smug, condescending, ignorant and arrogant. It’s An excruciating display of mind-boggling patronizing stupidity. Yuck.
Well, for anyone who’s ever heard Mr. Axworthy share his intellect with the great unwashed….is anyone really surprised by his claptrap. Like most of the rest of his musings……Lloyd has simply found a way to give flatulance some substance.
Aren’t you proud he’s Canadian?
All Canadians are not like this.
Kate at small dead animals posts the entire text of a letter from Lloyd Axworthy, former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy (a Liberal) to the US Secretary of State, Dr.Condoleeza Rice, as printed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The letter…
I’m torn about this. One part of me wants to publicize it in the American blogosphere, the other wants to run to the fireplace and burn it before anyone finds out…..
Wow. All I can say is “wow”. I mean, Lloyd is going to put Scrappleface out of business with letters like that. Almost every line of that embarrassing diatribe reminded me of why I’ll never vote Liberal. I actually thought that Kate had written that as satire, but no, I checked the link and it came from The Winterpeg Free Press with Lloyd Axworthy’s name on it. Arrogance. Stupidity. At least he’s not in government any more and only leading an entire faculty and student body. (Hmmm, maybe that isn’t so great).
I was trapped in a poor radio reception area tonight on the way back from a week with the folks and was listening to As it Happens, the CBC “news” magazine. Apparently the letter was covered on yesterday’s program and I was astounded to hear how many people called and wrote to add their kudo’s and to say they were in complete agreement with Pink Lloyd’s letter. Astonished that was until I considered the audience of lefties that the CBC caters to. These were mainly folks from Toronto, Montreal and Victoria. Soft Power central……and the power base for the Liberal Party of Canada.
As I type this, there are 8 posts over on the Shotgun and 11 posts here.
I’ve had to read them all to really get it through my head that this letter wasn’t a joke. I was convinced that it was a scene cut from the screenplay of ‘Legally Blonde 2’ or something.
It is unbelievable to me that a real Canadian politician would draft such a letter and actually direct it to the Secretary of State of the USA, presumably with the idea that the letter would be taken seriously.
Americans are already angry with Canadian anti-Americanism. However, more recently Americans have begun to become more indifferent to Canada and its motives. This Axworthy guy could start encouraging Americans to laugh at Canada. Surely the Canadian Left doesn’t wish to actually become an antagonist of the US.
To all of you friendly, conservative CanComs up there — it may be time to start considering an exit strategy.
My Head continues to Shake!
What a piece of work this guy is. I slowly being conviced that the Libs WANT the border to shut!
Actually, I kind of enjoyed the letter. It was so achingly juvenile, so mind-numbingly pathetic, that I felt a glow of satisfaction that this self-important buffoon who we were once forced to call foreign minister, is now spending his final years on the planet curled up in a state of bitter and twisted misery.
Imagine look on his face every time a story credits Mr. Bush for spreading democracy, and you just have to smile.
I’m going to be sick
Let’s hope that the adults who actually run the world either totally miss or just igore this lame tantrum from “Student Council President for life” Axworthy.
I wrote about this assclown yesterday :
http://misterpundit.blogspot.com/2005/03/axworthy-misfires-back-at-condi.html
What is it about these third-rate politicians that appeal to so many Canadians? Axworthy no doubt believes he is a courageous “rebel” for writing this braindead drivel. These are the same morons who preach to Americans that they should be more “sensitive” in their dealings with other nations. What a farce.
Ted Kennedy. Call your lawyer.
I thought the last test was successful.. Anyway, the Patriot missile sucked when it was first developed and it’s much better now. In the future, as nutso dictators like that wad in North Korea get technology to build better long range missiles, a defense system will seen as necessary. Might as well be proactive just once, instead of responding after an attack as is our usual method.
Let’s keep it in perspective folks – it’s not like he’s in an elected position or anything.
On the other hand, I have a memo I got from dan rather that says Kate fully agrees with axworthy’s position.
(I think she may have just been envious of the boots tho)
Wait! This letter wasn’t prepared on a 1972 vintage selectric!
Perspective: he’s the president of a tier III Canadian university. No one outside of Canada will take him seriously.
Floyd Axworthy addressing Dr. Rice, the world’s most powerful woman and, in 3 and a half years from now, possibly the first female and black president of the United States of America, on a first name basis, in an open letter, is a bit rich.
Although, I can well understand how it could go to one’s head, holding such a prestigious office as president of the University of Winterpeg.
Floyd, we have Dr. Churchill on the line from the University of Colorado. He wishes to offer his congratulations.
We can only hope that Condi doesn’t read the Winnipeg Free Press.
I’m still wondering at the choice of the word “master”. I suspect he meant to spell it “massah”.
America, I apologize
I suppose we can take the “P” out of professional…
Just like the wimp to point out that the PM should not be embarassed by a question because he can’t answer it with a prepared statement . And they call Bush an idiot!!
This is a example of the idiots that ruined a once great country and try pathetically to defend their stupid ideology that brought it down.
Soft power indeed(sounds like a personal problem to me).
I think I’ll change my name to Ken the cheesehead because it is just to embarassing to admit that I came from that shitty little country anymore.
FREE ALBERTA!!!
Anyone got lloyd’s email address I’d like to send him a letter of congratulation. This is the most sophomoric piece of idiocy I’ve read in a long while. It ranks up there with Maude Barlow’s and Buz Hargrove’s announcement a few years ago that we needed a MADE IN CANADA INTEREST RATE. These are the self annointed telling the great unwashed of Canada how it should be! It’s amazing how much arrogance and ignorance you can pack inside a human head. It makes you wonder what the criteria was when the university went looking for a president.
I tend to divide the “left-lib” set into two types: “wieners” and “wingnuts.” Noam Chomsky is a “wingnut.”
I’ll let you figure out which type I think Lloyd is.
Is Mr. Axworthy using his trip to southern California as a basis for his opinion on American sentiment? Yeah, because so cal is soooo much like the rest of America. I live in so cal and even I realize we have no clue as to how the rest of the country lives.
I used technorati’s tag system to look for blog comments on this letter. There were 125 when I looked. It is being publicized in the US. Of the most recent 14, only one thought the letter was a product of a diseased mind. Joel at http://joelafleming.blogspot.com/2005/03/they-all-sound-same-see-update.html dissects very nicely.
I apologize if I’ve referred to anything incorrectly. I’m new at this.
Lloyd,
I find it hard to believe that a former Canadian cabinet Minister could write such a sophomoric letter. But then again we have lately been treated to columns In the National Post by Ms. Copps. So clearly you don’t have to be a genius or even mature to be a Liberal cabinet Minister. A knowledge of what is politically correct and a willingness to follow the herd is more important than maturity or intelligence.
Your allegation that America is a one party state is laughable especially coming from someone who lives in a quasi democracy where power rests in the office of one man. If you knew anything about the American system of government you would know that within his bailiwick a President doesn’t have nearly as much power as a Prime Minister.
It is impertinet for a minor politician such as yourself to address Ms. Rice as Condi. Ms Rice and her boss have liberated 50 million people. What did you do when in power?. You and Ms Rice are not equals or fellow travellers and the familiarity is inappropriate.
Your use of quotation marks to describe the liberation of Iraq is odious. At what point will you get it?
I would suggest you keep a low profile and be thankful you haven’t been found out. It is obscene for a clueless anti-liberationist such as yourself to presume to be giving advice to Ms Rice.
I posted this up as a comment on another blog, but I’d like to share here too.
W
As the architect of the CDN foreign policy of “soft power”, Lloyd has no balls. (Diplomatically speaking of course – pun intended).
When I read that he did up this wacky statement in the Winnipeg Free Press, I thought that maybe this was written by a U of W student who spoofed the WFP saying it came from Lloyd.
“I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests…”
Let’s see…put in the snark over GWB’s religious beliefs and make comments to a black woman from Birmingham Alabama about her “master”.
Do you think he’d appreciate if we referred to his old bosses Trudeau and Chretien as his “masters”?
Geez, what subtlety…what tact…and this guy was once supposted to be a diplomat?
No wonder this former Foreign Affairs super genius is now president of the second largest university in Winnipeg.
I’m not going to fisk this letter, as I should be doing other more productive things (the clothes need washing), but the one dumb point I saw was the comment about Canadaian balanced budgets vs US spending (love the cute contrast – Canadian spending on day care vs American “cutting food programs for poor children” – wow, don’t hold back Lloyd, tell us what you really think.).
Also loved the plug for the ICC (Sudan didn’t sign on – but that’s the Americans fault somehow?).
The UN cannot agree if Darfur is genocide, and sanctions are being block by China.
I’ll be waiting to see what similar friendly letter Lloyd drafts for China’s Foreign minister…oh wait, China didn’t sign on to ICC either. I won’t hold my breath waiting though.
It is pretty easy to slash our own defense spending, become free riders in International security, contract out our defense to the Americans, and then bitch about the consequences. Very Canadian of us.
Whenever I hear any of his statements, I think of John Manley’s comment about Canada sitting at the big table and running to the bathroom when the cheque arrives.
“And that there are times when truth must speak to power”. Whatever.
And people wonder why Canada doesn’t get much respect any more. Canadians are “deeply concerned” about lots of stuff. We just choose not to do much more than talk. And that’s pretty sad.
Lloyd, this is how grownups disagree with Americans. Read and learn…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/cpress/20050304/ca_pr_on_na/liberals_ignatieff
“We know that to govern is to choose,” Ignatieff told the convention.
“We understand that no party can endure in office if it pretends to be all things to all people.”
Ignatieff’s point is good, you don’t just oppose things for sake of opposition, or pander to what is popular.
You need to express your principles why you oppose things, and propose reasonable alternatives.
You can disagree with the Americans without being disagreeable. You will usually get a more respectful hearing that way.
And if the Americans are right on some subject, and it is not popular to the Canadian public, then you go out, make the case and convince people.
That’s what leadership is supposted to be. Isn’t that what it used to be in Canada?
from what this yank sees in this and other canadian blogs all hope is not lost for canada, there are still good men and women up north who think and speak logically, and when they do disagree with us do it with reason, courtesy and respect:
“You can disagree with the Americans without being disagreeable. You will usually get a more respectful hearing that way.”
quite right warren, and thank you for kind words, i’ll leave you-all to deal with mr. axworthy, you’re doing a good job of it and leave you with the assurance that we yanks are not laughing at canada, only some individual canadians such as mr. axworthy, and i’ll invite you to have a laugh with us at our “barking moonbats” on the left down here. we’ve got enough and to spare.
best regards
“(I’ll) leave you with the assurance that we yanks are not laughing at canada, only some individual canadians.” Gunner is wrong.
“Americans are already angry with Canadian anti-Americanism. However, more recently Americans have begun to become more indifferent to Canada and its motives.” Greg is closer, but these two statements are not mutually exclusive. Maybe we’re pissed off – AND – no longer care what you do.
I confess my total lack of understanding of your (Canadian) political system, but when you keep electing these “bastards”, at some point we come to believe that they do indeed represent the will of the people. Just as our re-election of President Bush entitles you to assume that at least the majority of Americans support our stubborn, willful, crazy cowboy President.
I’ve ridden my bike through your beautiful countryside. What a fabulous place for motorcycles! But I’ve also read your papers. Listened to your politicians. Felt the sting of the insults. The betrayal of what I thought were our friends and allies.
We’ve taken our last two vacations in the U.S.A. when we had planned on Mexico and a return to Canada. For the first time in my life, I’ve begun to read EVERY label, looking for the “Made in” sticker before I purchase. And Canadian products don’t fare much better than French products in our household.
Americans are sick to death of subsidizing our enemys. And again, like France, Canada is starting to look less and less like a country that disagrees with us, and more and more like one that does not wish us well.
We can raise plenty of cattle in the U.S. to meet the demand. Have lots of timber too. Iraqi oil will be coming on the market in greater quantities before long. And we haven’t done the ANWAR drilling yet.
So just how stupid are your politicians?
Did you see our new Ambassador to the U.N. yet? Do a Google search on Bolton. Maybe you’ll began to get a sense of just how much the status quo is being shaken.
After 9/11 your “elephant” neighbor began to wake up. Canada could have jumped astride and gone along for the ride. You could have given us the occasional pat on the head, and we would have continued to pretend that Canada was a trusted ally. Instead your politicos chose to stand in front of the elephant stridently screaming “STOP”. Now there is a brilliant strategy! Especially as nations all over the world are beginnng to join the rush toward freedom. It’s a stampede! (That’s what clumsy cowboys quite often do, you know? Start stampedes.) But your leaders are sleeping peacefully through the cacophony of the thundering hooves. Wonder if they will wake in time.
Forgive this rant, please. Pent up frustration that just occasionally blows the lid off, when I hear one too many stupid, vicious, condesending attacks on my country for the horrible crime of trying to rid the world of this particular stripe of subhuman monster, global terrorists. And we’ve committed the additional offense of holding the first democratic elections in the history of Afganistan and Iraq. (Developments in Libiya, Syria, Lebonon, Pakistan, ect. will go undiscussed for now.) Well hell, no wonder they hate us!
Thanks to all of you on this site, and other sympathetic blogs. It’s nice to know that ALL of Canada is not insane. And in America, somewhat less than half of my countrymen are stark, raving mad. So perhaps there is hope for reproachment yet.
So why did I go off on my tirade here? When many of you are defending my countries honor, and thus it is least deserved? Cause I, and millions like me, am angry at Canada on the whole, though not at all Canadians in particular. I read your papers and get a sense that many of your columnists, at least, fail to judge the American mood acurately. Or believe that a ruined relationship with the U.S.A. will be consequence free. You betcha!!! Just ask the French tourist and wine industries. And didn’t a group of Canadian farmers just converge on the capital to plea for help? Can you name ONE American politician who feels the cattle ban is an urgent matter? Didn’t think so. How long have you had complaints about softwood imports? Boy, we’re really in hurry to solve those issues too, huh?
Canadians should have a crystal clear grasp of the damage that has been done to the relationship between our countries. I’ll not be so presumptuos as to suggest what should be done. Except to remind all of you that we can always find a place for a few more good citizens if it gets too crazy in the frozen north. This nation is proudly made up of those who either left, or were thrown out of their country of origin.
Sorry for being so blunt, but I thought you should know. Thanks for listening.