Conservative policy vs Liberal expediency

The Liberal Party's frontman Bill Graham had the ear of Vancouver's media yesterday - much to the dismay of Canadians who haven't been lobotomized.

"Canada has always had a proud tradition in the Middle East of being able to work with all parties in a way to establish the conditions of a long and lasting peace," he said (as quoted in a CanWest article linked here).

Nice one, Bill. In other words, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's principled support of the Middle East's only Western democracy when it is under attack is a bad idea - because Canada has so much pull in that part of the world.

Canada played a crucial role in the rescue of six American diplomats during the hostage Iranian hostage crisis... forty-six years ago.

"Okay, but a Liberal Prime Minister invented peacekeeping in the Middle East!" die-hard Liberals cry from the rooftops. "Surely that counts for something!"

Fair enough. We did put peacekeepers in between Egypt and Israel back in 1956. Of course, those peacekeepers politely withdrew from Sinai just as soon as Egypt asked them to, in 1967.

Egypt prompty rushed its tanks and soldiers on to Israel's border and declared, "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel ... to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not of more declarations."

Pearson's peacekeepers were nowhere to be found. Israeli leaders, deciding not to wait for their declared enemies to drive them into the sea, went to war.

The Liberal government also sent Canadians into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and Al Queda. Liberal denunciations of the ongoing mission ring hollow, since the exact same reasons for becoming involved in the first place are just as valid now, if not more so.

Of course, our ability to act as an honest broker died then, if we ever truly had it. The Liberals' stated reason for opposing Conservative policy is a case of closing the barn door six years after the horses have escaped.

tags: Stephen Harper policy wonk, Liberal Party hack, political expediency, Canadian peacekeeping history