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Interesting "Article" by Dr Axworthy

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http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/story/2610442p-3026695c.html

Missile Counter-Attack
Axworthy fires back at U.S. -- and Canadian -- critics of our BMD decision in An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Thu Mar 3 2005

By LLOYD AXWORTHY

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 a 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


Lloyd Axworthy is president of the


University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister
 
Are you sure this isn't some sort of put on? I have read posts by "trolls" which were much more coherent and articulate.
 
Yet another completely irresponsible article that demonstrates Axworthy and his ilk represent the worst Canada has to offer to the world,if only because the best thing that can be said about that article is that it simply confirms his naivete with regards to the world as it exists, nit the world as it might be.  
 
a_majoor said:
Are you sure this isn't some sort of put on? I have read posts by "trolls" which were much more coherent and articulate.

Nope.  Open letter published in the Winterpeg Free press.  Heard interview with the Doc on CBC Radio tonight.

Dave
 
whiskey that doesn't sound like someone that has been in politics for a lot of their life.  The tone of the letter sounds like CiviU or Smarty.
 
Well if you actually heard him speak on this then I stand corrected.  Doesn't sound professional at all.
 
If any member is able to write to the Winnipeg Free Press, please pass on our opinions of this letter.
 
Wow, I'm so glad Dr. Axworthy has told me my opinion on the matter with the whole "We the people from north of the 49th parallel". Seems to me he needs to be put out to pasture.
 
I found the article in need of a response, so I did.   This is what I sent to the Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press:


What a wonderful sense of humour you have.   Your fabricated article   'Missile Counter-Attack
Axworthy fires back at U.S. -- and Canadian -- critics of our BMD decision in An Open Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice"   on Thu Mar 3 2005   attributed to be by LLOYD AXWORTHY was marvelous.   I sure hope that Mr Axworthy doesn't sue you for making him appear to be a pompous ass.   The arrogance put forward in that letter is sure to make friends with our Southern Neighbours and help our already strained Trade Relations.   Surely you don't think the Canadian Public is so naïve as to believe such a learned man as he would actually compose such tripe?

I wonder what will become of it?



a_majoor

Here is a link to the Letters to the Editor:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/info/letters/index.html


 
My letter:

Dear sir,

I was sent a copy of a letter published in your newspaper puportedly by Dr Lloyd Axworthy in the March 03 edition. After haveing read this several times, I have a great deal of difficulty believing this is not some sort of hoax. I have seen more coherent posts on the Internet by "trolls" looking for a verbal sparring match.

The childish and condecending tone, the misrepresentations of facts and the rather bizzare concluding paragraphs which bear little relationship to the opening certainly do not sound like the work of a fomer Foreign Minister or a current University President.

I urge you to verify the source of this letter, as it certainly does nothing to enhance the reputation or standing of Mr Axworthy

Arthur Majoor
 
a_majoor

That may explain some of the bizarre ideas coming out of University student's mouths for the last two or three generations...... Educators with strong NDP philosophies and gargantuan senses of naivete.

 
It wouldn't surprise me if it was Lloyd.   Everytime I had the "pleasure" to hear him speak all I heard was whining about the US which seemed to be a front for moaning on "why my Foreign Policy sucked and ultimately failed in the face of reality...."
 
As a young Liberal MP, Lloyd Axworthy was a typical Trudeau Liberal of the period, who had in
fact no outstanding qualities, but was focused on moving up in the government structure of the
Party - he was a competent Cabinet Minister, but he was also surrounded by a very competent
staff, and was a fast learner. But, as he became a more senior Cabinet Minister, his ego grew
with the size of his desk, and became a "statesman" - capable in his own mind of uttering profound
statements on any conceivable subject - with of course the full support of the national Liberal
media. I do not think he has any right to address the US Secretary of State as "Dear Condi", which
will not sit well in conservative Republican Washington, (if indeed anyone reads the meanderings
of Lloyd Axworthy in Washington DC) and is patronizing as hell. Regards MacLeod
 
in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington.

I had to laugh when I read this zinger!!! What was Canada until the last election put the Liberals in a minority position?

As for the rest of it, consider the source. This is the guy who, IIRC, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, was all for reducing us to nothing but a slightly heavier version of the RCMP so we could do nice "blue hat" jobs for the UN and not get involved in any of those nasty coalition things.

Cheers
 
Quote,
in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington.

...ya beat me to it, PBI, I just read that line and rushed right down to the bottem just to stomp all over it and........
One thing, I'm not much of a word guy, but this article does not read like it was written by someone with years in the public eye[and probably proof-readers]. If he did write it I would just more or less put it off as a punch-drunk politition craving one last round in front of a crowd.
 
I echo your sentiments gentlemen. Burn Lloyd at the stake and we can offer him as a sacrifice to the Americans. It is about the only good he will be able to do.

Blue Max.
 
Although we know the letter is "for real", I suggest a covert operations campaign:

Everyone please write to your local newspaper(s) with some variation of my letter suggesting his letter iss a hoax. Use internet blogs as well. IF we can generate enough "buzz", Lloyd will probably come out to defend his letter and "prove" it isn't a hoax, shooting himself in the foot yet again and exposing him as a hopelessly out of touch "troll".

Dear sir,

I was sent a copy of a letter published in your newspaper puportedly by Dr Lloyd Axworthy in the March 03 edition. After haveing read this several times, I have a great deal of difficulty believing this is not some sort of hoax. I have seen more coherent posts on the Internet by "trolls" looking for a verbal sparring match.

The childish and condecending tone, the misrepresentations of facts and the rather bizzare concluding paragraphs which bear little relationship to the opening certainly do not sound like the work of a fomer Foreign Minister or a current University President.

I urge you to verify the source of this letter, as it certainly does nothing to enhance the reputation or standing of Mr Axworthy

 
I have finally figured out how I am going to become a millionaire.  I am going to design and market a printer which accepts soft, perforated paper spooled off a 6" roll for the purpose of printing hardcopy of things like this.
 
Axworthy fires back at Bush, Rice
Last Updated Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:26:21 EST
CBC News
WINNIPEG - Former Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy launched an attack on U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, defending Canada's decision not to participate in the anti-missile defence system.

"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 rigged to show results," Axworthy writes in a column published in the Winnipeg Free Press last week.

 
Former Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy. (file photo)  
"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."

Axworthy, the current president of the University of Winnipeg, begins the open letter with "Dear Condi."

He said he wrote the column to defend Prime Minister Paul Martin, who he believes has unfairly come under attack in the media for his decision on missile defence.

In the column, Axworthy criticizes Bush's handling of the missile defence issue and for not addressing the House of Commons during his recent visit to Canada.

"Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington," Axworthy writes. "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."

In contrast, Axworthy boasts of Canada's parliamentary system, "where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions."

Axworthy goes on to laud the ability of the governing party's caucus members "to tell their leader that their constituents don't want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada's continental co-inhabitant."

Axworthy also swipes at the fiscal state of the U.S., referring to the "gargantuan, multibillion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a 'liberation war in Iraq.'"

He blasts the Bush administration for its policies on weapons expenditures, and tax breaks, 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," he writes

But Axworthy appears to temper his remarks by the end of the column, saying Rice should "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."

Axworthy said he is receiving more than 100 e-mail messages each day since writing the column and is receiving interview requests from around the globe.

"What I found was that there was this theme in the commentary along the lines of, 'Oh my gosh, what will George Bush think?'" Axworthy told the Winnipeg Free Press. "That wasn't the point. The point was that Canada finally made a decision. And that enabled Canada to have a reasonable, distinctive foreign policy. That's not a bad thing."


Here is the latest on the Ax(un)worthy sophomoric screed - I'm sure it will make Lloyd popular among the effete cocktail set where they will undoubtedly describe him as brave and intellectually honest...

cheers, mdh
 
I almost vomited when I read this tripe. I can't believe this guy is supposed to be some sort of intellectual giant and that he actually teaches at a university. He sounds more like a spoiled brat. Axworthy is as a big of an ass now as he was when he was in politics.
 
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