Life Is Not Purgatory
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Only a Middle Power
Canada is an established middle power in a world where there are several great powers and only a single universally acknowledged superpower. It was a Canadian politician, and statesman who was one the driving forces behind international peacekeeping operations, and it behooves us to carry on in that role.
The world stood by without a care as an under funded and ill-equipped peacekeeping operation failed to stop the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda over the course of ninety days. France, the United States, and many others could have deployed the 5,000 trained soldiers that Romeo Dallaire needed to stop the bloodshed, but not a single major or even middle power lifted a finger to stop it.
Canada is in a unique position to place ourselves and our military in that role as peacekeepers, and we as a country are not afraid to send our soldiers, our brave peacekeepers, in harms way in order to save the innocent and further international humanitarian law.
Our military exists for three purposes: international peacekeeping, emergency disaster relief, and to protect our territorial sovereignty. It is time we focused on what our military actually does rather than operating as a third and weaker arm of the American or NATO forces.
We can develop and maintain a significant force that would be capable of deploying 5,000 – 10,000 trained peacekeepers to regions like Rwanda, or Sudan to prevent another human travesty from occurring. We can offer training grounds and expertise to other nations for their own peacekeeping forces.
We are one of the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world. It will not be a great power that takes the lead in this sort of action; it has to be a middle power, one that is respected throughout the world. This is what Canada can, and indeed must do.
Canada is an established middle power in a world where there are several great powers and only a single universally acknowledged superpower. It was a Canadian politician, and statesman who was one the driving forces behind international peacekeeping operations, and it behooves us to carry on in that role.
The world stood by without a care as an under funded and ill-equipped peacekeeping operation failed to stop the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda over the course of ninety days. France, the United States, and many others could have deployed the 5,000 trained soldiers that Romeo Dallaire needed to stop the bloodshed, but not a single major or even middle power lifted a finger to stop it.
Canada is in a unique position to place ourselves and our military in that role as peacekeepers, and we as a country are not afraid to send our soldiers, our brave peacekeepers, in harms way in order to save the innocent and further international humanitarian law.
Our military exists for three purposes: international peacekeeping, emergency disaster relief, and to protect our territorial sovereignty. It is time we focused on what our military actually does rather than operating as a third and weaker arm of the American or NATO forces.
We can develop and maintain a significant force that would be capable of deploying 5,000 – 10,000 trained peacekeepers to regions like Rwanda, or Sudan to prevent another human travesty from occurring. We can offer training grounds and expertise to other nations for their own peacekeeping forces.
We are one of the wealthiest and most developed nations in the world. It will not be a great power that takes the lead in this sort of action; it has to be a middle power, one that is respected throughout the world. This is what Canada can, and indeed must do.
