[R-G] Following President George Bush's lead; Women and Afghanistan

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 Sherbrooke Record
All Rights Reserved
Sherbrooke Record (Quebec)

October 16, 2007 Tuesday
Final Edition

SECTION: COMMUNITY FORUM; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 463 words

HEADLINE: Following President George Bush's lead; Women and Afghanistan

BYLINE: Ivy Weir, The Record

BODY:


Lifting yet another page from the George Bush handbook, Prime  
Minister Stephen Harper named a panel to study Canada's future role  
in Afghanistan. By-passing elected parliamentarians to buy time for  
himself to either proceed with an election or remove the  
controversial war from his agenda, Harper exuded control.

As Canadian troops battle and die, presumably to promote democracy,  
our elected officials are being ignored, thereby eroding the  
democratic process at home. Even as the Tories claim to be improving  
the lot of women in the war-torn country, women at home are feeling  
the sting of cuts to Status of Women Canada, among others.

Even more insidious, the words "equality", "advocacy" and "action"  
were quietly removed from the Terms and Conditions of the Status of  
Women mandate and from various documents, such as its website -- a  
chilling process that attempts to change history. Once again, the  
tactic was borrowed from the Bush administration's actions on women's  
organizations in the U.S.

The Bush model on Iraq allowed the U.S. president to release a  
pressure valve, as an eminent panel studied the Iraqi cauldron and  
months later watched their recommendations being shelved. There is  
ample evidence that the same process could be repeated here.

The Canadian investigative panel is to be chaired by former deputy  
prime minister John Manley, well known for his appreciation of U.S.  
foreign policy and a decision maker in Canada's initial policy to go  
to war. Notwithstanding his Liberal credentials, Manley's willingness  
to serve at the pleasure of the PM offered the added frill of  
delivering one more body blow to the already reeling Stéphane Dion.

Completing the panel's team are former Tory cabinet minister Jake  
Epp; Privy Council clerk Paul Tellier; former ambassador to the U.S.  
Derek Burney, and Pamela Wallin, consul general in New York. Harper  
has confined the panel to examining four options: maintaining the  
status quo, complete withdrawal, changing the troop's venue and  
finally, concentrating solely on reconstruction.

Let's scoop the panel and preempt their report (due at the end of  
January).

One: Canadian troops will stay in Afghanistan. Two: they will be  
charged with training Afghan security forces at greater speed. Three:  
reconstruction by troops will be emphasized. Four: other NATO  
countries will be encouraged to assume the present Canadian role. The  
slight departure from Harper's options will be staged as proof of  
their independence.

No rocket science. Harper's contempt for Parliament's ability to  
debate and decide an issue as important as war, filters down to  
voters who choose those parliamentarians. Are voters going to reward  
Harper for such subterfuge or will they hold him as accountable as he  
promised to be?

Ivy Weir lives in Sherbrooke.