It amazes me that anyone who supported and/or still admires Stephen Harper can be critical of Justin Trudeau's performance at the #EAInquiry. That most Harper supporters *are* critical says everything about their moral emptiness & puerile partisanship...
When you're a politically homeless Tory such as I am, you can't afford to determine provisional partisan allegiances on policy alone, because no current policy stances reflect your views. You thus tend to fall back on that most conservative of ethical considerations: character...
Then the question becomes "Does this party leader have a baseline level of integrity? Does he/she accept responsibility for his/her decisions? Or is he/she a weak, mendacious, venal, vaguely human-shaped sack of dogshit who runs away from accountability like a fucking coward?"...
I saw Justin Trudeau explain his decision to enact the EA without weaselly evasions. I saw him be fully accountable for it. I saw him take 100% responsibility. I did *not* see him underbus subordinates or colleagues. Think what you will about the EA, that shows character...
Let's compare Trudeau to the guy who is adored by his right-wing critics as a statesman of almost Bismarckian proportions.
Stephen Harper became PM after years of denouncing the Libs as soft-on-terror shirkers...
Stephen Harper became PM after years of denouncing the Libs as soft-on-terror shirkers...
...of swaggering around the country proclaiming the superiority of his fidelity to "Canadian values", "freedom", and a whole repertoire of facile cant delivered with that smug sanctimonious mien that always begged for a rude ballistic encounter with a brick...
"I will never cut and run", he said, repeatedly using that implied smear against his critics. "I won't make decisions based on polls," he said. He pledged to stay in Afghanistan until the end, forever if necessary, until the job was finished...
But, hey, it's the prerogative of neocon nonentities to change their minds.
And Harper *did* change his mind. By 2007, the polls he said would never guide his policies showed declining support for Canada's Afghan mission. Worse, the mission appeared stalemated...
And Harper *did* change his mind. By 2007, the polls he said would never guide his policies showed declining support for Canada's Afghan mission. Worse, the mission appeared stalemated...
...and its costs were becoming a burden on the Treasury at a time of high economic uncertainty.
Harper could've announced to the country that he had been wrong, that Canada could not sustain combat operations in Afghanistan indefinitely, that he had decided on a draw-down...
Harper could've announced to the country that he had been wrong, that Canada could not sustain combat operations in Afghanistan indefinitely, that he had decided on a draw-down...
But that would require *character*. You need character in order to accept responsibility for such a momentous decision, particularly one that reverses a pledge you made repeatedly, piously, & arrogantly.
If you lack character, you will fob the decision off on someone else...
If you lack character, you will fob the decision off on someone else...
And so it was that, in 2007, Harper struck the "Manley Commission" tasked with pointing a way forward on Afghanistan. It was comprised of ideologically reliable people whom he knew would give him the recommendations he wanted...
..and thus give him the cover he needed to withdraw Canadian troops from front-line combat, where the need was greatest, and into undefined training and "reconstruction" roles, the kinds of roles Harper had dismissed as disgracefully inadequate when in Opposition...
The Commission's report allowed Harper to cut and run, in effect, without appearing to have made an independent decision or acted on his own initiative. Like a fucking coward.
The Afghan mission was Canada's largest, most consequential military deployment since the Korean War...
The Afghan mission was Canada's largest, most consequential military deployment since the Korean War...
Stephen Harper repeatedly, stridently promised the people of Afghanistan that Canada would share their struggle until the bitter end. Within 3 short years of taking office, Harper decided to cut and run, largely because the polls were starting to burn his ass...
Having reneged on his solemn pledge--now exposed as nothing more than a cheap ploy with which to own the Libs--Harper didn't even have the mite-sized cojones it would have taken to accept responsibility for his actions.
And so we abandoned Afghanistan to its fate...
And so we abandoned Afghanistan to its fate...
...in what was arguably Canada's most shameful act of collective cowardice since Mackenzie King sent ships full of Jewish refugees back to Europe.
Our Afghan mission presented Stephen Harper with the most significant policy dilemma of his term of office...
Our Afghan mission presented Stephen Harper with the most significant policy dilemma of his term of office...
The convoy occupation likewise presented Justin Trudeau with the gravest single policy dilemma he has so far faced in his term of office.
The differences between how the two men met their respective dilemmas illustrate what character, and a lack of character, look like.
The differences between how the two men met their respective dilemmas illustrate what character, and a lack of character, look like.
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