(Hat tip: Rempelia Prime.)

“We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war during obvious danger to these individuals.”

For some reason, this statement — said after Harper stated he thought the death of a Canadian member of a UN observation team during an Israeli bomb attack wasn’t deliberate — has resulted in an outburst of pride in Canada, as documented by the American site Little Green Footballs:

“Harper continues to restore my faith in our friends up North. Welcome back to the “real world”, Canada!”

“How did Canada luck out like this? What a sane man. Bless him.”

“That’s MY prime minister. Way to go, sir.”

“I hadn’t felt in a long time… pride at being a Canadian. I’m so glad I voted for Harper.”

“I have been going around feeling so all proud and chest puffed out happy at being a Canadian since Harper got in that I’m beginning to develop a permanent curvature in the spine.”

And there are lots more in this vein. And for what? For a statement that is, for Harper, an expression of common sense. No more, no less.

The thing about these observers is that, according to CTV News, they were assigned to report on ceasefire violations with the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL). Obviously, with the outbreak of the Israeli bombing, the ceasefire no longer applied.

Why, then, were they not ordered out of the area?

The question is not a case of “blaming the victims,” but rather holding their bosses to account. The UN personnel should have realized that, so long as Hezbollah fighters were using UN locations as shields, there was no way their people could escape becoming part of the casualty list. Precision bombing can never get that precise. So why keep their people in what is obviously a war zone?

For Harper, asking this question isn’t an act of bravery, or “not drinking the UN flavor-ade,” or lock-stepping with the U.S. It’s a matter of common sense.

And common sense is the reason why Harper doesn’t want to send Canadian troops into the area as part of either a UN or NATO peacekeeping effort. He knows that right now, there is no peace to keep, and there won’t be for a while yet.

I’m still not sure, though, why this expression of common sense should generate such an outburst of pride. I suspect, though, that it may be simply a reflexive action against the foreign policies of the Martin era, in which foreign policy was driven by electoral calculations: i.e., which policies would lose the least votes?

So the injection of more common sense into Canadian foreign policy could be seen to be refreshing, even intoxicating. We’ll know if it’s a true sea change, though, if Harper decides to appoint Mike Harris as the next ambassador to the UN.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 09:12 and is filed under Federal Government, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.