The humiliating withdrawal by Canada from the race with Germany and Portugal for a covetted place on the United Nations Security Council revealed what close observers have long known -- that the current Conservative government in Ottawa has nothing but disdain for the world’s tattered peacekeeper and would most likely just use its seat to serve US and Israel’s agenda. Four years of Stephen Harper’s government was enough for the world to turn its back on a once beloved peacenik.
Dubai’s police chief’s announcement Monday that Canada is covering up its arrest of a suspect in Israel’s assassination of Palestinian leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the UAE in January merely confirms the world’s distrust.
Canada has served on the SC many times in the past, once each decade since the 1950s, and was never refused when it ran for a seat. It carved out a highly respected role: the good cop to its southern neighbour’s bad cop. It refused to break relations with Cuba after the 1959 revolution, refused to send troops to Vietnam (unlike another privileged ex-British colony Australia), recognised China in 1970, and refused to send troops to Iraq in 2003 despite intense pressure from US president George Bush.
One of Canada’s finest moments was Lester Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for negotiating the withdrawal from Egypt’s Sinai of Israeli troops, replaced by UN peacekeepers, including, yes, Canadians. Israel killed the 14 UN soldiers caught there during its invasion of Sinai in 1967, though that did not prompt Pearson to return his prize for helping create a no man's land that proved to be easy prey for the Israelis.
How did the present sorry state of affairs come to pass?
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http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42127
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