The Kitchener Record devoted it's Insight Page to a debate on the North American security perimeter. The chasm in intellectual honesty between the two cases was unbelievable. Batting for the "We should" side was WLU Business & Economics professor Detlev Nitsch.
Aside: I took Professor Nitsch's International Strategy course during my MBA studies at WLU and I found him to be a very good teacher. After reading the article the best thing I can say about his teaching is that I came out of his class having no idea of his political leanings. This is exactly as it should be. He did an excellent job of presenting the course material and I cannot remember any political bias entering in.
This is how he writes the article as well. Since it is behind the Record's subscriber wall I will quote more than usual. Look at the balance of how he presents the issue.
I was disappointed but not surprised by the all-too-predictable responses of two habitual anti-U.S. and anti-business commentators to the recent report released by the Council on Foreign Relations Independent task Force on the Future of North America, co-chaired by former cabinet minister John Manley. Their objections, as usual, do not focus on the very real, legitimately debatable issues, but rely on sound bites designed to conjure up tired old boogiemen.
...For example, Maud Barlow, who must find it annoying that, despite her Cassandra-like warnings, civilization as we know it did not cease to exist after the North American Free Trade Agreement, huffed about "an unprecedented surrender of Canadian sovereignty."
...reasonable people can disagree about whether the benefits will be as
great as projected, and whether they are worth the price.
...Again, legitimate objections might be raised on whether the plan makes any sense from the perspective of environmental and natural resource stewardship, but the notion of Americans getting our gas or water while Canadians go begging is a red herring
...nobody is proposing that Canada sign a deal under duress. There will be negotiations, and we can away if we don't like the terms being offered. In this respect, we are just as "equal" as any other.
...maintaining Canada's sovereignty does not preclude co-operating with others; nor does it depend on always disagreeing with our neighbours.
A well reasoned and balance article. Prof. Nitsch you get a gold star.
On the "No, we shouldn't" side we have John McMurtry, a retired Philosophy Professor from the University of Guelph.
His article is taken straight from the looney-left boiler-plate...let me count the ways.
...the cause [Summit of the Americas] was to "protect security" for more liquidation of Canada's economic independence.
...Bush Jr. Administration's many steps in ensuring that America was not secure against the 9-11 attack - which very conveniently saved the stolen-election presidency from the lowest polls in post-election history.
...The Project For A New American Century...presciently called for (I quote) "full spectrum U.S. dominance" across the world by "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbour."
... This administration opposed or sabotaged laws to protect individuals and peoples against nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, landmines, small arms, international ballistic missiles, torture, racism, sexism, child abuse, arbitrary seizure and imprisonment, crimes against humanity and war crimes, military weather distortions [Ed: what the heck is that!], biodiveristy loss, and international climate destabilisation [Ed: he forgot that Bush is the anti-Christ, but that would be piling on]
...It has also perpetrated for the first time [Ed: sic*] since the Third Reich the "supreme crime" under international law of armed invasion and occupation of other countries [Ed: but he did not forget Bush=Hitler]
...Canada-bashing coalition which brought us the Free Trade Agreement and North American Trade Agreement against the majority of citizens' votes, and recently almost managed Canada's complicity in the U.S's illegal weaponization of space under more phoney "security" alarms
..."Deep integration" handcuffs Canada just as the country begins to take an independent stand against the greatest threat to world security since 1945 [Bush really = Hitler]
Now that John McMurtry is retired he can act as a staff-writer for the next Michael Moore or Oliver Stone film.
I am embarrassed for Professor Nitsch that his column had to be presented beside such vacuous ramblings.
* I added the [sic] as the American Invasion was not the first "supreme crime" as Dr. McMurtry noted. I can think of Iraq invasion of Kuwait as one such example.
Update: Bob Tarantino drives a Mack Truck through the door I opened with this post. Go here to see how The Master does it.
Upadte II: It seems that the KW Record has been lapse on their fact checking for a while. Mark Steyn has posted a Topical Take from March 2003 on the Iraq War which states:
'The United States is about to destroy an entire country and kill 20 per cent of its people,’ wrote Nicholas Oshukany in Monday’s Kitchener-Waterloo Record in Canada. That would be just shy of five million dead iraqis.
I guess the KW Record is the trailblazer in the TorStar newspaper chain.
