Dallaire should show some courage himself
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Last week, Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire slammed Prime Minister Stephen Harper for what he called "an acute lack of courage." His wording was somewhat convoluted; however, it seems he was attempting to say that the prime minister was exploiting divisions within the Liberal party regarding the current mission in Afghanistan for short-term partisan reasons, and this equated to a lack of "courage."
If my interpretation is correct, and a review of his comments would suggest that is the case, the hypocrisy contained in his comments is blatant and disturbing, to say the least.
In Senator Dallaire we have someone who, two years ago, prior to his accepting a partisan appointment to the Senate, was part of the chorus rightly calling for western military intervention, primarily from NATO countries, to stop the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan. On taking his seat in the Senate he immediately abandoned his professional judgment and limited operational background gained from his experience commanding the largest operational failure in the UN's history.
He could have been a strong voice for intervention by professional militaries to stop the genocide, but instead opted to abandon his principles and, displaying "an acute lack of courage" himself, vocally supported a flawed Liberal foreign-policy decision to merely help the inadequate African Union peacekeeping force with some cash, vehicles and a handful of advisers, saying that was enough for Canada to contribute.
To make matters worse, following a short visit to the Darfur area he yet again displayed an astounding lack of military judgment -- or succumbed to partisan pressure, or both -- when he opined that the situation for the victims of the genocide was improving. The fact that fewer victims were being slaughtered because the genocide was working and therefore there were fewer people left to kill was presumably not considered.
In a bizarre change of heart, the senator went on to suggest that those of us who continued to call for western intervention were recommending a racist solution: "Anybody who says that the era of the white man going into Africa and sorting out their problems ... should remain is someone who's totally disconnected from the reality of Africa" was his response.
Senator Dallaire held his anti-western-intervention opinion for the relatively short period prior to the defeat of the Liberal government. Then, completing a 360-degree change of course he returned to his original call for western intervention in Darfur -- presumably ready to accept the mantle of racist by his own definition. His weak excuse for the change of heart was that the situation in Darfur had deteriorated since his visit, a statement not substantiated by the facts, which suggests a lack of military awareness when he visited the area, or once again "an acute lack of courage" to disagree with his party's stand on Darfur.
Lest the reader assume that this is a partisan rebuttal to Senator Dallaire's inconsistent utterances on the tragic situation on Darfur, let me state that I disagree with the current government's policy regarding the crisis. It has been stated on a regular basis that due to our current commitment in Afghanistan the Canadian Forces would be incapable of deploying a substantial force to Darfur. This is only the case due to the outdated procedure of limiting a unit's overseas tour to six months. This was the policy from the 1960s to the 1990s, as it was usual for the UN Security Council to renew the authorizing mandate for each UN peacekeeping mission every six months.
It drove UN commanders crazy, as it meant all your units left at the same time and every six months you had new inexperienced units feeling their way. Fortunately, a number of national contingents were chronically late arriving in theatre, so there was some staggering of the end-of-tour rotation dates thanks to their inefficient arrival. There was no "tour length" in the First and Second World Wars. Units deployed to Korea for a minimum of one year.
My view will be highly unpopular with those soldiers currently serving in Afghani-stan, but I contend that it would be possible, if we are serious about putting boots on the ground in Darfur, to extend the current tour of duty for our soldiers in Afghanistan to one year and deploy the unit currently training to replace them in August to Darfur. I am not recommending that this be done, but because it could be, the excuse should not be made that we are incapable of sending a significant unit of 1,000 soldiers to Darfur.
Meanwhile, Senator Dallaire should take his lead from his Liberal colleague Senator Colin Kenny, who frequently comments that the Senate should be a non-partisan body as much as possible -- frequently setting an outstanding example himself.
If there is a clear "acute lack of moral courage," it is demonstrated by those who know better than partisan politics dictate and capitulate to their own self-interest.
Retired general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of the UN's Sector Sarajevo during the Bosnia civil war.
