The God That Fails: C-51, Review Committees, and the Dangers of Window Dressing

By Matthew Behrens

            Among the Harper era’s most destructive legacies is a toxic stew of repressive “anti-terror” laws that, in building on similarly repressive measures brought it under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, extended major new powers to Canadian state security agencies CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service), CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada), CBSA (Canadian Border Services Agency) and the RCMP, among numerous others. Last year, Justin Trudeau infamously voted in support of C-51 (The Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015), claiming his support of the law was necessary to ensure his electability.

            During the federal election, the Liberals promised to revisit C-51 with amendments they felt would make it more palatable. More recently, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has hinted at a consultation process, committee hearings, and even a broader dialogue on state security issues. While it sounds like a typical Liberal plan (a good listen before they go ahead with their preordained agenda), it nonetheless provides us some space to raise serious questions about the current and traditional role of CSIS, the RCMP, and CBSA, among other agencies, in violating the rights of targeted, vulnerable communities.

Given that the 1984 creation of CSIS from the ashes of the scandal-plagued RCMP Security Service did not change the dynamics of repression in Canada (most former Mounties simply moved their desks to the new CSIS), now would be a propitious moment to discuss dismantling CSIS as an ultimately lawless, dangerous outfit. As this column has repeatedly documented, CSIS has undertaken a sweeping series of illegal and unethical activies over 30+ years: complicity in torture; defiance of court orders; lying under oath to judges; illegally recording lawyer-client calls; terrorizing targeted communities; acting as ISIS recruiters; targeting labour unions, peace activists, Indigenous people, and environmentalists; and a lengthy list of other practices which have endangered the lives of many Canadians. Despite this, CSIS gets an annual free pass and an occasional love tap on the wrist from its watchdog, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC).

            Indeed, the work of those who struggle to end the real threats to our collective security – climate change, war and Canada’s booming armaments business, a grossly disproportionate income inequality, a deeply-rooted colonial racism, and an epidemic of violence against women – would be a lot easier if we weren’t constantly the focus of investigation by the likes of CSIS and the RCMP. Think of how the heroic Cindy Blackstock was viewed as a security threat for exposing the wretched living conditions of Indigenous children. Members of Canada’s Arab Muslim communities could certainly sleep better at night too, not having to worry that their children were being coerced into spying on the community as a sign of their loyalty to Canada. And without an active CSIS, the number of terror threats coming to trial would decrease significantly, given how many of those cases are either initiated by or facilitated by agents of the Canadian state, perhaps no more clearly than in the Nuttall entrapment case currently being heard in BC.

Beware the Window Dressing

            But instead of questioning the mandates and core practices of these secretive, unaccountable outfits, efforts are already underway to save the system by putting up some nice-looking window dressing and further entrenching a parallel system of secret government. While there is no evidence that repeal of C-51 and the whole slew of post 9/11 “anti-terror” legislation would harm the security of Canadians one whit, some members of the academic-security complex are exercising a preferential option for the powerful in trying to design face-saving measures to keep C-51 intact. 

            Out front in narrowly framing the issue as one of technical and legalistic details are professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese, who, despite providing much good research on state security measures over the years, nonetheless write in their 2015 book False Security that “we have rarely opposed such laws, although often urged refinements and improvements. And even with C-51 and the earlier 2015 law, Bill C-44, we did not dispute their purported objectives, merely their means and omissions. Our focus has always been on repairing 2015’s security laws, not burying them, something that has put some distance between us and some rights groups that we work with and admire.”

            Herein lies the danger in whatever national discussion about C-51 and the broader state security environment will ensue: our goal should not be making a fundamentally oppressive network of invasive, privacy-busting, human rights-violating agencies work more efficiently.

            While polls indicate most Canadians opposed C-51, Roach and Forcese appear to have taken it upon themselves to save the law with a discussion paper and proposed legislation that is currently making the rounds in Ottawa. “Bridging the National Security Accountability Gap” calls for increased levels of state security review via a “Super SIRC” that would have an expanded review mandate for more government agencies, a secret committee of Parliamentarians, and an “Independent Monitor” who would, in the words of the proposed law, hold office part-time “during good behavior.” In theory, it's an interesting idea, and one much needed, especially for agencies like CBSA, which has no review process whatsoever. But a siloed focus on after-the-fact review fails to question the state security narrative that continues to do so much up-front damage to so many individuals, families, and communities.

            Worse still is the fact that expanded review does nothing to ultimately hold agencies accountable: there is no discussion of creating the capacity to lay charges against agency officials for the wrongdoing that ruins lives. Nor is there any infrastructure proposed that allows independent officials to step in and stop an operation that is acting illegally and at great risk to individuals whose lives are in peril because of shoddy “intelligence” work, exaggerated threat assessments, false labeling, and other systemic problems that have marked CSIS since its birth.

            Perhaps most problematic is the fact that Canadian citizens who have been targeted for torture and continue to live with the horrific aftermath are not front and centre in this proposal. Indeed, any honest attempt to bring accountability to the system would insist on having individuals like Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar, Ahmad El maati, Muayyed Nureddin, Abousfian Abdelrazik – all tortured with Canadian complicity – playing a key role in all meetings and discussions about how to control what is a shockingly corrupt system operating with complete impunity. But none of them are even mentioned in Bridging the National Security Accountability Gap.

            Instead, the tone of the document is almost a consoling sop to CSIS and their spy brethren. Forcese and Roach soft-pedal their approach with anodyne language, noting state security agencies “may stray into patterns, policies or groupthink impairing their effectiveness.” By using the qualifier “may,” they ignore the substantive public record that such dynamics constitute standard operating procedure. “Such practices,” they continue, “may result in either overreactions causing human rights abuses or underreactions causing security failures.” Again, the qualifier “may” ignores the well-documented record of such human rights abuses over the past two decades. They state such agencies have “sometimes misused” their powers, as if it were an aberration rather than a daily practice. They don't call for repeal of these powers; they simply want to see more documentation of them. In all such instances of problematic state behaviour, they conclude, “Review can counter this tendency.”

Review Cannot Help Today’s Targets

            But review does not help the pour soul trapped in an overseas Syrian or Egyptian dungeon, being tortured based on questions coming from a Canadian agency, as happened in at least half a dozen cases since 9/11. Review is retrospective. It does not rein in, much less stop, abusive practices, especially when findings are not used to prosecute and, where appropriate, punish the acts of secretive officials whose decisions imperil people’s lives.

While we must start somewhere when it comes to reining in and disarming these agencies, these academics’ approach seems more concerned with CSIS’ feelings than those of the victims of state security policies. Indeed, their approach to dealing with agencies marked by a lengthy history of incompetence, dishonesty, and reckless disregard for human life, is a pitifully low standard: “trust, but verify.” What has CSIS, the RCMP, CBSA, and their assorted security agencies done in the past that allows them such a long leash? In a democratic, transparent society, shouldn’t any position short of abolition be based on the much higher standard for secretive, unaccountable agencies: mistrust, question, assume illegality based on patterned behavior over several decades, seek opportunities to hold officials legally accountable, and ensure they do no further damage? But Roach and Forcese’s bias is clear: in stating “review can contribute to an agency’s legitimacy,” they fall into the same trap as SIRC, which time and again sees itself as a liaison between CSIS and the public, trying to explain away CSIS behavior. As SIRC wrote, for example, in 1995, “Our aim is to provide a steadily broadening and deepening public base of information about what CSIS does, why those activities are necessary, and how well the Service carries them out.”

            SIRC’s understanding of its mandate makes them sound more like a PR agency for CSIS than a watchdog tasked with rooting out problematic behavior.

Assuming for a moment that review is one answer to the problems we face, Forcese and Roach correctly argue that review should be independent of government and the agencies they review, but herewith lies another conundrum: the only people who will be appointed to conduct review processes will need to be security cleared by that very government. Will someone with the most intimate knowledge possible of the workings of these intelligence agencies, and hence the ability to properly question the workings of these outfits – say one of the returnees from torture in Syria and Egypt – be allowed onto the review committee? In case you are unsure of the answer, keep in mind that the Liberal government is continuing to fight the legal claims of three Canadians tortured abroad with Canadian complicity – Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin. All suffered intense harassment in Canada and torture overseas during previous Liberal governments.

            But the concerns of the victims of CSIS and the RCMP are not what makes this proposed legislation tick. Rather, it is making sure the spies are comfortable. That is why, in proposing a secret committee of state security Parliamentarians, Forcese and Roach suggest that it be a small group, since that may make it easier to earn “the trust of intelligence agencies in relation to dealing in sensitive information.” But isn’t it CSIS and the RCMP who need to earn our trust, not the other way around?

Shutting Down Whistleblowing

            In addition, Forcese and Roach seek with their proposed legislation to tie the hands of this secret group of MPs, denying them the Parliamentary Privilege they might otherwise enjoy to act as whistleblowers if they see something untowards taking place behind closed doors. As even these academics have acknowledged, much of what is secret is kept under wraps not for security reasons, but to avoid embarrassing the government and the spy agencies. But such a prohibition on Parliamentary privilege makes sense if, as the authors point out, the point of review is to enhance the legitimacy and image of these organizations. Thus, to save the hide of CSIS, Forcese and Roach propose that MPs on the committee who feel something needs public disclosure will face a difficult challenge: breaking an oath of permanent secrecy and being subject to charges which could land them in jail for 14 years.

            The academics also state that government should not have a unilateral veto over what is disclosed. Agreed, but then their proposed legislation does exactly that. In a section on the secret committee’s annual report, they give the Attorney General the power to keep certain information from public disclosure. Imagine this scenario: the MPs learn that CSIS is complicit in the ongoing torture of a Canadian citizen in an Egyptian dungeon. They wish this to be made public. CSIS objects and then goes to the Attorney General. The Attorney General then goes to Federal Court to argue that under the Canada Evidence Act, the information should not be disclosed and, further, that a hearing into the reasons why must be held in secret as well. Such Canada Evidence Act proceedings can take years. The transparency, accountability, and democratic oversight that is the purported point of review is thus stuffed into the ever-expanding secret bureaucracy of state security. The poor soul in an Egyptian prison does not benefit, and any MP who speaks publicly risks jail, thanks to the legislation proposed by Mssrs. Roach and Forcese.

            The problem in calling for expanded review with a “Super SIRC” under these circumstances has long been identified even by those with a preferential option for the powerful. Even Wesley Wark (who is far from a radical critic of CSIS) notes a good working relationship with a spy agency “can distort the critical faculties and independence of a review body. It can also lead to the over-valuing of the relationship between reviewer and reviewed at the expense of the review body’s public function.”

             That has certainly been the case with SIRC, which started out fairly critical of CSIS in the early years, but has since turned into the author of an annual gold-star, happy face report card. While SIRC has occasionally done some very good work –  its staff have written some excellent reports identifying serious problems with CSIS – it operates under the dynamic identified by Wark: they will point out individual problems, but fail to condemn structural abuses and question the broader agenda. In their 1991 annual report, SIRC wrote “our criticisms are no longer based upon strong and fundamental disagreements with the CSIS view of the world [emphasis added]. They are far more the results of differences of opinion regarding the  day-to-day implementation of CSIS policies than, as in the past, our opposition to those policies themselves.”

            SIRC recommendations are not binding on CSIS, which can disregard them with impunity. But let’s assume, though, that the notion of review is a viable approach to the state security conundrum. Can it prevent abuses? The answer would appear to be a very strong “No!” Simply look at the lack of action following the new SIRC report which identified CSIS improperly accessing without a warrant personal taxpayers’ Canada Revenue Agency files. No one has been arrested and charged, much less demoted or dismissed. For all we know, the practice continues, because SIRC does not have the power to put a stop to it, much less the resources to stay on top of the issue.

A Case Study of Review’s Limitations

As another case in point based on real-life  circumstances, let’s examine the lengthy CSIS record of trading information with torturers that led to the rendition and torture of Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. All of this was documented by two judicial inquiries where government witnesses shrugged their shoulders, claimed that the post-9/11 terrain was new to them, and that such unfortunate incidents were unavoidable.

Such claims were patently untrue, as this case example shows. Concerns about CSIS relationships with human rights abusers go back over several decades. In its early years, CSIS clearly wished to trade information with torturers unimpeded by what George W. Bush et al. would later condemn as antiquated notions of international law and the Geneva Convention. In 1989, SIRC raised concerns about the CSIS disbanding of a Foreign Liaison Branch which, SIRC said, acted as "an intermediary... [that could] ‘blow the whistle’ on the inappropriate dissemination of information abroad."

            What followed is a decade’s worth of unheeded warnings and concerns. In 1991, SIRC declared quite clearly:  “We continue to be concerned about relations with states having an undesirable human rights record.” But in classic SIRC-style, the deference shown to CSIS is frustratingly supine, since “we recognize the desirability of maintaining limited agreements to ensure that CSIS receives information about emerging threats to Canada’s security.” Apart from the fact that the definition of threats to the security of Canada is so over-broad as to include just about anything – and there are countless examples throughout SIRC reports of over-exaggeration and wrongful labeling of alleged threats – there is no further comment about the problem of receiving torture-tainted allegations. What, exactly, was the desirability of maintaining relations with Assad’s butchers or Mubarak’s brutes?

            Did the concern cited in SIRC’s 1991 report change CSIS behavior? No. The review for 1992-93 noted an example where CSIS “appeared to act without full and prudent regard for a ministerial directive…to ensure that particular caution was exercised when providing information to countries that do not share Canada’s respect for democratic or human values, especially where the information concerned Canadian citizens or permanent residents. In this case, the Service communicated to a foreign agency the details of an individual’s plans to travel to another country and, possibly, to meet with members of a group associated with terrorist activity. The latter belief was based solely on the uncorroborated beliefs of an informant, and was disclosed even though the Service was aware of reports of human rights abuses by security forces in that country. The individual’s full identity was not known to the Service, neither was his citizenship status or any information on his previous involvement with terrorist activity, beyond his believed fund-raising on behalf of the extremist group engaged in the conflict. We consider that the consequences for the individual and his family, had they been identified when they arrived in the foreign country, could have been extremely serious and that a potential tragedy was avoided more by good luck than good judgment. Fortunately, in this case, they were not identified and returned to Canada safely.”

            It should not provide much comfort to anyone that CSIS got away with it and that a potential tragedy was avoided because of good luck.

Did CSIS practices change when they escaped by the hair of their chinny chin chin? No. In the review for 1993-94 – in language that would form a cornerstone of the two judicial inquiries into Canadian complicity in torture led by judges O’Connor and Iacobucci over a decade later – SIRC again reiterated its concern about “the possible consequences to individuals whom the Service draws to the attention of authorities in the region we audited. Adverse information about someone deemed to be an extremist can have absolutely devastating consequences to that person and his or her family. The accuracy of the information provided by CSIS must be a paramount consideration, as well as the importance of the investigation itself….We were interested to note that the Service saw fit to provide information to agencies about persons who the Service did not see as engaged in terrorist activities.”

            CSIS responses as always included patting their SIRC reviewers on the head, assuring them of good intentions, and moving on to engage in the exact same dangerous practices. In 1994-95, CSIS entered into new arrangements with countries in Latin America and Africa with dismal human rights records. “The Committee had serious reservations about the new arrangements with these two agencies, based on recent, publicly available information. CSIS said that it relied on information from Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the human rights issue in these countries. We believe that the Service should also consider information from other sources, in view of the potential for abuse of the information it sends overseas.”

CSIS Ignores Human Rights Violations

            In that same review, SIRC raised concerns about how CSIS assessed the risk of human rights abuses in particular countries, noting “two assessments did not appear to take into account the recent, publicly available information from human rights observers who noted an increase in the reports of arbitrary imprisonment and torture, the latter sometimes involving elements of the security intelligence establishment of the foreign country….We noted too that the CSIS assessments did not address allegations of corruption within the security intelligence establishment  and overlooked significant political incidents in the country which took place in 1994. Our concern was that by not considering these information sources, the Service did not present a balanced view of those agencies with which it exchanges information. CSIS responded that it has no mandate to investigate human rights abuses....SIRC’s position is one that we have expressed previously: the Service should avail itself of up-to-date, publicly available reports from reliable non-governmental agencies and the agencies of other states. CSIS would then be in a position to consider a wider range of views about the agencies with which it shares information.”

            Along the way, SIRC repeatedly raised concerns about the failure of CSIS to log exchanges with foreign agencies, which made it difficult for SIRC to conduct its audits (and easy for CSIS to hide unsavoury information about its practices). They raise the issue of “the absence of a paper trail to indicate what was or was not shared with the foreign agencies.”

In other cases, SIRC examined instances regarding foreign agency requests “based on the actual or suspected presence of some Canadians in a region in conflict. [Counter-terrorism] Branch stated that it was sensitive to the issue of providing information to a foreign agency and assured us that both HQ and the SLO were conscious of the possible consequences of responding to the foreign requests. But we were left uneasy about the cases, not the least because the Canadians posed no threat to Canada's national security and due to the foreign country's cloudy human rights record.”

So, SIRC once again raised the possibility that CSIS sharing of sensitive information about Canadians traveling abroad could have catastrophic consequences. Did this change CSIS behavior? No. In 1995-96, we see that CSIS shared information with a foreign agency “about the family members of a person who was of interest to the Service. Furthermore, the information that CSIS gave to the foreign agency appeared to violate a restriction on the types of data being provided to services in the foreign country.”

Did this change CSIS behavior? No. In 1996-97, SIRC found that CSIS “provided adverse information about a person to two Federal Government departments and to an allied intelligence agency” that described the individual as a "witting agent" of a foreign intelligence service, “a potentially damaging statement not substantiated by the documentary evidence we saw. In addition, the authority to investigate him was not properly approved; it did not take into account his immigration status, as required by policy. CSIS later rectified the error.” Again, the problem inherent in SIRC is clear: it can discover such problems, but it does not explain how, exactly, CSIS rectified the error, what damage had already been done, and how SIRC will not have to repeat such concerns in subsequent reports.

CSIS Refuses to Change Practices

That same year, SIRC, in auditing an overseas CSIS post, “found that despite poor human rights situations and political instability generally in many of the countries in the region covered by the post – in addition to high levels of corruption in some cooperating agencies – these organizations continued to receive [favourable CSIS ratings].”

Did THIS change CSIS practices? No. The train of defiance and willful blindness continued in 1997-98, with “an instance where the Service’s sharing of information with a foreign intelligence service was questionable,” while, in reviewing an overly broad request “from a Canadian law enforcement agency to ask several allied intelligence services to conduct records checks on more than 100 people suspected of being involved in transnational crime,” SIRC found “the grounds for some of the requests to be of doubtful validity. For example, one person about whom information was requested was said to have been ‘caught shoplifting.’”

            In the years immediately prior to 9/11, CSIS continued business as usual, with SIRC issuing its annual scold that CSIS “should take all possible care to ensure that the information it provides is not used to assist in the violation of human rights.” The fact that such cautions continued to be issued means that CSIS clearly acts as its own judge and under its own laws, and that these problems must be systemic given that SIRC annually finds them even in the minor spot checks it conducts (they are spot checks given how SIRC’s limited staff and budget prevent it from conducting comprehensive annual audits).

            In the years following 9/11, when Canadians were being tortured in Syria and Egypt and secret trial detainees here at home were being detained based on information coming from those same torture regimes, SIRC reviews of CSIS exchanges with overseas agencies sounded like a broken record. A typical reminder to CSIS emphasized the spies “will need to exercise vigilance to ensure that no information received from an agency is the product of human rights violations, and that no intelligence transferred to an agency results in such abuses.”

            Despite subsequent judicial inquiries and court decisions documenting CSIS and RCMP complicity in torture, those agencies continue to operate under Harper-era ministerial directives allowing them to trade with torturers. But even when such express permission was not provided, CSIS took it anyhow, as indicated by the SIRC review reports.

            Throughout SIRC reports is the language of the stern but kindly teacher, one who provides their ward with important disciplinary direction but has no authority to enforce decisions or to mete out legal consequences. In 2001, when CSIS was lying to an Ontario court judge in a warrant application based on information it knew had been obtained in the torture of Canadian Ahmad El Maati, SIRC was busy holding the hand of the then 17-year-old agency, reminding them that “CSIS should strive for the utmost rigour in its warrant acquisition process, ensuring that allegations in the affidavit are factually correct and adequately supported in the documentation.”  

What to do?

            Clearly, Canada’s state security agencies continue to act outside the limits of the law, engaging in legally questionable operations and bullying behavior that terrorizes communities at home while risking lives abroad. Tackling this issue requires a far more critical approach than that proposed by the academic pair who were made media heroes in the anti C-51 fight, even though they do not support its repeal.

            Perhaps a far better approach is to question the mandates of these agencies and their interpretation of the world. Professors Roach and Forcese, knowing what they do about the abuses committed in the name of security, are shamefully applying a bandaid to cover up the pus when what’s really needed is to lance the boil of state security in Canada.

           Instead, their proposed legislation creates additional layers of secret government while accepting the C51 definition of activities that “undermine the security of Canada.” For those with short memories, that definition is so overly broad that it likely includes every reader of this column. Its lowlights include those whose activity  “adversely affects the stability of the Canadian economy, the financial system or any financial market in Canada without reasonable economic or financial justification.” This section is aimed at Indigenous people resisting exploitation of their lands and pipeline expansion (as well as those brave souls who have shut down Line 9 over the past few months). It also focuses on anyone who “damages property outside Canada because a person or entity with an interest in the property or occupying the property has a relationship with Canada or a province or is doing business with or on behalf of the Government of Canada or of a province,” which likely is aimed at those resisting Canadian corporations engaged in toxic mining despoiling overseas Indigenous lands.

            The definition also applies to peaceniks and anyone who “impairs or threatens the military capability of the Canadian Forces, or any part of the Canadian Forces,”  and anyone who “interferes with the design, development or production of any weapon or defence equipment of, or intended for, the Canadian Forces, including any hardware, software or system that is part of or associated with any such weapon or defence equipment.” Clearly, this is aimed at anyone trying to stop the production and sale of armoured brigade vehicles for the beheading regime of Saudi Arabia.

            If we do have a real consultation on state security, perhaps we can start by tearing up this ridiculous definition of threats to security and naming the true threats that imperil our future. Step one is repealing C51 and much of what came before it. Another step is refusing to buy into the false narratives of national security expounded by state security agencies as well as all political parties in the House (all of whom thoughtlessly use the term “radicalization” without an appreciation for the damage it does to targeted communities). Anything less will only perpetuate the human rights violations that Roach and Forcese’s secret MPs and Super SIRC will cogitate over behind closed doors while everyone else, including the direct victims, will be left in the dark.

Remembering the Start of Canada’s 25-Year War

By Matthew Behrens

Twenty-five years ago, some friends and I poured our blood on the executive office windows of Rexdale’s Litton Systems, which manufactured guidance systems for cruise missiles that were used for the very first time in Gulf War I against the Iraqi people.

It was likely the first time Canadian media showed bloodshed in covering that one-sided conflict – Operation Desert Storm began on January 20, 1991 –  and that was precisely the point. Military briefings of the time portrayed a “clean” war that looked as harmless as a high-tech Nintendo game. Generals cracked jokes showing footage of bombs hitting targets that looked no different than animated gaming figures at a Yonge Street arcade.

Blood Drips from Litton's Windows and Police Look on, Post-Arrest

Today, while Canadian CF-18s continue to drop 500-lb bombs on Iraq in 2016, three  months after Justin Trudeau promised the air assault would end, Canadian media outlets have looked back at Gulf War I through a feel-good lens that ignores the subsequent human cost and regional instability that resulted. While Postmedia’s Matthew Fisher calls it a “good” conflict, the Toronto Star’s quirky “odd details” retrospective focused on sand hockey and care packages of gloves and scarves sent to the middle of the desert.

Ignored is Canada’s almost continuous military and diplomatic role since then in the loss of over 2 million Iraqis lives through direct warfare and 1990s economic sanctions so draconian that the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator, Denis Halliday, condemned them as genocidal. 

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990, was a political godsend, allowing Washington to craft a new enemy – Hussein as Hitler – and to direct funds from the post-Cold War “peace dividend” into the coffers of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers. With the Red Menace no longer providing the raison d’etre for militaries and spy agencies, gears shifted rapidly to haul up some old standbys who have served the role of boogeyman ever since – Arabs and Muslims.

The Kuwait invasion provided then PM Brian Mulroney an opportunity to utter self-righteous pieties about illegal occupations of sovereign territories, missing the irony that the Conservatives had in fact had engaged in the same behaviour that summer by sending in 2,600 Canadian troops to occupy sovereign Mohawk land during the Oka crisis.

A Manufactured Crisis

The lead-up to war intensified with a fake PR campaign about Iraqis ripping babies from Kuwaiti incubators (a creation of the notorious Hill & Knowlton, whose then-Canadian head is Trudeau’s new ambassador to Washington.). It also featured an especially pugnacious Joe Clark leading the charge as Canada’s External Affairs Minister, from which perch he said Canada would fight with or without UN authorization. He labeled as “counterproductive” any pledges that Allied forces would not use nuclear weapons against Iraq, and ordered 800 body bags. 

Canada’s cynicism about a diplomatic solution was also clear, as a healthy chunk of change to pay for the war was set aside very early on, cutting $500 million in social programs in the process. London, Ontario’s General Motors promised it could switch from civilian to military production on a dime, and within a year its assembly line was rolling out the first of over 2,000 armoured vehicles for Saudi Arabia.

While anti-war demonstrations broke out across the country, CSIS and the RCMP stepped up an intensive, racially-targeted home and office door-knocking campaign that prompted the Canadian Arab Federation to produce a rights handbook, “When CSIS Calls.” When the  Toronto Sun produced unsubstantiated scare headlines like “Iraqi Agents Here”, falsely claiming a dozen saboteurs were lurking in the city, the results were predictable: among many such incidents of violence and vandalism, an Arabic teenager at Father Henry Carr High School was beaten by 10 white students as passersby stopped to watch.

Police Get Very Rough at External Affairs

As it appeared the U.S.-led coalition was hellbent on war at all costs, the Alliance for Nonviolent Action (a coalition in which I was an organizer) called for direct action at military bases and for a shutdown of the main political voice for war, Clark’s Ottawa External Affairs building. The RCMP threatened us with treason charges, and when the Toronto Star’s front page printed my home phone number to reserve seats on buses headed to Ottawa, there began a round-the-clock barrage of death threats that reflected a visceral hatred whipped up by politicians and press alike. As we journeyed to Ottawa, the public mood was a toxic mixture of fear, anger, and despair, with headlines about terror threats and chemical weapons producing an end-times feeling.

Police Abuse at External Affairs

After sleeping on a church floor, about 300 of us ventured out into an early morning Ottawa -35 chill to blockade the Pearson building. Among our number was 78-year-old World War II veteran, Eldon Comfort, who wore his medals as he, like the rest of us, was roughed up by a police force that hoped to freeze us out during the 4.5-hour demo, figuring we'd tire of being beaten up and frostbite (they eventually arrested only 5 people). One church group turned away by our blockade, which had gone for a meeting on human rights, was so appalled by our mistreatment that they issued a statement decrying "the violent abuse" of our peace blockaders, noting "our very credibility as supporters of human rights overseas is undermined by our own government's handling of this demonstration."

Some supportive employees refused to cross the blockade, with one cafeteria worker asking why Clark and Mulroney weren’t on the front lines overseas if they supported the war so much. Clark’s motorcade tried entering but was turned away, and when he later declared to the House of Commons that our blockade had proven “counterproductive” to the workings of Canadian foreign policy, we took it as an official acknowledgement of the effectiveness of our actions. For the first time, Canadians had successfully interfered with their government’s operations during wartime. 

Despite the success of our action, we felt the sense of gloom that permeated the peace movement for, despite our collective efforts, the bombardment of Iraq, where 50% of the population was under the age of 16, continued relentlessly. Subsequent demo numbers in Toronto declined significantly. 

By the time we ventured to Litton on February 4, only 30 people were there to protest at the same site where thousands had gathered throughout the 1980s, with 11 of us arrested. That night, we were held at Metro West Detention Centre, where, triple bunked, we were the only white people on the range. Racist guards had shown us pictures of our black cellmates in advance, warning us that we would be beaten because they allegedly didn’t like peace protesters.

Police haul away veteran resister Joanne Young, Litton, February, 1991

But we were not beaten. Rather, at about 2 am, a soft, rhythmic chanting began that bounced off the walls in a ritualistic echo that I couldn't put my finger on. One of my cellmates explained that there were a lot of Rastafarians on the range, and that they were praying for us because, he said, “you guys did a righteous thing today.” It was one of the most humbling moments of my life to be with a group of men who had been caged for weeks, months, and years, many on immigration holds, praying for a group of relatively privileged people who would be out in a day or two.

News in Baghdad

Upon our release, we were informed that our blood-pouring was a Baghdad radio news item repeated every hour we were held. I imagined frightened families in bomb shelters perhaps feeling some slight hope that someone, somewhere, cared about what was happening to them. Nine days later, one such shelter, Baghdad’s Amiriyah, was a deliberate target of two U.S. 2,000-pound laser-guided “smart” bombs that incinerated over 400 civilians trapped inside, their shadows permanently etched into the concrete like images from Hiroshima.  It now serves as a war memorial where Umm Greyda, who lost 8 of her children in that bombing, lives and acts as a caretaker.

Such horror stories were a constant during the war, which officially ended in March, but it took time for them to filter through the party atmosphere of “victory”. One story we happened upon by chance was relayed to us by a nurse at a spring anti-war event in Orillia. When she discovered we had been at Litton, she told us about a former patient who’d suffered from a series of mysterious, seemingly untreatable debilitating ailments. Turns out he was one of the men in the Litton management building who saw our blood dripping down his window. A light bulb went off as he discovered what he had suppressed for so long: that bloodshed was the ultimate result of his life’s work. He got better, left Litton and moved away to start a day care.

During bleak times, I think of those prisoners, the former Litton employee I never met, and Umm Greyda. They remind me of our responsibility to the vulnerable and targeted, as well as the power we have to change individual lives or, at the very least, provide some hope in troubled times. 

Trudeau's Ongoing War

As Trudeau announces new plans for waging war with a different face, it remains what it is: war. Refueling and aerial reconnaissance are simply bombing by proxy. Training to kill in a nation that has known nothing but killing for more than a quarter century serves no purpose whatsoever, unless you invest in weapons manufacturers.

This past weekend, Canadian bombers dropped 500-lb bombs on the devastated town of Ramadi, similar in size to Kitchener Ontario. It was the 57^th Trudeau bombing run since the election. Since he came to power, as many as 70 civilians have been killed by bombing runs in which Canadian aircraft took part. The blood of each of them is on the PM’s hands. And ours.

After all this bombing, rebuilding Ramadi alone will cost $12 billion. But the UN fund for Iraqi reconstruction only has approximately $50 million, or only one-tenth of what Canada has officially spent since 2014 to bomb Iraq and Syria. In addition to the scores of civilians murdered by bombing runs in which Canadian bombers have taken part, the ongoing toll on subsequent generations of Iraqis trying to rebuild their lives in incalculable. Diverting Canadian funds that could have built affordable homes in Canada to blowing them up in Iraq has equally lethal consequences for those freezing to death on Canada's streets. 

Nothing Trudeau announces in his "wholistic" approach to warfighting will change the circumstances. The only positive contribution right now is to pull out all Canadian military forces, including bombers, refueling and spying aircraft, and those on the ground who train to kill. Please email Trudeau if you agree: the only way to end war is to stop waging it. http://pm.gc.ca/eng/contactpm

Canadian Bombing Strikes in Iraq Likely Killing Civilians

Canadian Bombing Strikes That Appear to Have Killed Civilians Since Justin Trudeau Took Power in 

November, 2015.

Date	Location	Countries involved	Civilians Killed
November 19	Mosul	Canada/US/UK	10-13
December 3	Mosul	Canada/US/UK	2
December 9	Ramadi	Canada/US/UK	4
December 13	Mosul	Canada/US/UK	3-4
December 31	Mosul	Canada/US/UK	10
January 14	Tikrit	Canada/US/UK/France	Unknown number of  “friendly fire” casualties
January 15	Mosul	Canada/US/UK/France	36

Since Trudeau’s election, Canada has bombed Iraq on 52 separate occasions (including February 3, 2016). Canada's military has been dropping 500-lb. bombs on the Iraqi people (and sometimes in Syria) since November, 2014. Trudeau promised he would the bombing upon election. In the first week of December, Stephane Dion stated the bombing would end "within weeks." Two months later, it continues unabated.

Because there is no concern for civilian casualties amongst the bombing powers, there is no effort to link specific acts of bombing to those killed by them. In fact, most governments insist there have been no civilians killed.This chart is based on information provided by Canada's own War Dept. and airwars.org; it indicates which countries bombed the same location on particular days when reports of civilian casualties were gathered.

That stunning disregard for human life was illustrated perfectly by Canadian attempts to cover up the CF-18 slaughter of some 30 Iraqi civilians in January 2015, an air strike that only came to light eight months later when The Globe and Mail reported on documents released not by Ottawa but by the Pentagon. They indicated that:

"[t]he Canadian military made it clear to the United States shortly after the alleged incident that it felt no obligation under the Geneva Conventions to probe what happened, the Pentagon records show. 'It should be noted that Canadian Joint Operations Command [legal advisers] opinion is that, under the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) there are no obligations for the Canadian Armed Forces to conduct an investigation.'"

That work of documentation is left to groups like airwars.org. In any event, these are dates in which Canadians have bombed, often in conjunction with other countries, and civilians have been reported killed. This is likely a conservative estimate given limited reporting sources on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

Source: Homes not Bombs: Because Canada should build homes, not blow them up. tasc@web.ca

Trudeau’s Bombing Carries on Canada’s 25-Year War Against Iraq

January 20, 2016

By Matthew Behrens

For the past quarter century, the Iraqi people have served as a convenient geopolitical punching bag, used to justify unfounded racist fears and massive military budgets. The callousness with which successive Canadian governments have treated Iraqi lives as less than human is reprehensible and – rhetoric aside – Justin Trudeau is proving no different, waging an intensifying air war against that country with 47 separate air strikes since he won the election last October. 

Canada has been dropping 500-pound bombs on the Iraqi people since November, 2014, and yet there has been little public dissent beyond quibbles over mission timelines and objectives. And while Trudeau defenders claim it’s not that easy to issue an order to ground Canada’s warplanes, the military has been very clear, indicating at a December 17 press conference: “We’ll do that when the Canadian government directs us to do so.” 

But Canada’s “bad-ass” War Minister Harjit Sajjan, who was directed “to do so” in his ministerial mandate letter over two months ago, is either incompetent or just plain cowardly in refusing to issue a grounding order to his brothers-in-arms. It’s not as if Canada’s bombing allies are concerned. The day after Trudeau was elected, he immediately called the White House and then told reporters Obama “understands the commitments I’ve made about ending the combat mission.” Trudeau also spoke with NATO officials during his first overseas trips in November and met with no resistance, while later that month a prime ministerial adviser told CBC there was “absolutely no pressure for Canada to continue its contribution to the bombing mission."

On December 6, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion told Canadians that bringing an end to the bombing would be “a matter of weeks, not months.” Meanwhile, Canadian bombers dropped their load over the Iraqi people on Christmas and New Year’s, and over one-and-a half months later, the bombing continues.

            While the Liberals may seem in disarray, it’s more likely that they are simply being dishonest: they clearly want to stay in the fight because of the bizarre belief that, by bombing people, they have a right to be “at the table” where discussions about the future of the region will eventually be carried out. That also translates into being part of the marketplace for fellow bombing countries to purchase new weapons systems through the Canadian Commercial Corporation, the global death merchant that brokered the $15-billion armoured brigade vehicle deal with the beheading regime of Saudi Arabia.

A Laboratory for Warfare

Iraq has long been a laboratory for modern warfare, in which weapons merchants try out their destructive products against real people and real buildings courtesy of a mutually-beneficial arrangement with agencies like Canada’s own War Department. That symbiosis also plays out in efforts to push weapons systems on potential buyers. As the Ottawa Citizen reported last week, Canada rents out its soldiers to play the role of catwalk models in corporate sales pitches of Canadian weaponry. Between 2012 and 2014, such Canadian Forces demonstrations were used to promote armoured brigade vehicles produced by London, Ontario’s General Dynamics Land Systems to the regimes in Kuwait (which was not at the time on the registry of countries eligible to receive Canadian war materiel) and the UAE (which for 17 months has illegally detained and tortured Canadian citizen Salim Alaradi with barely a whimper of concern from Ottawa). 

Hence, continued Canadian bombing is as much an economic as a political investment for the Trudeau Liberals. What Dion, Sajjan and Trudeau have failed to acknowledge, however, is that every time their CF-18 bombers take to the air, people are killed by these bombing sorties, both civilians or conscripted fighters in Iraq. 

Clearly, Canadian officials do not care about this human cost. That’s not surprising, given this country’s historic, ongoing, profitable role in destroying the Iraqi nation, killing well over 2 million people, and banishing a number of generations to intense poverty, environmental degradation, daily violence from the air and on the ground, and depleted-uranium weapons-induced cancer.

            That stunning disregard for human life was illustrated perfectly by Canadian attempts to cover up the CF-18 slaughter of some 30 Iraqi civilians in January, 2015, an air strike that only came to light 8 months later when the Globe and Mail reported on documents released not by Ottawa but by the Pentagon. They indicated that “[t]he Canadian military made it clear to the United States shortly after the alleged incident that it felt no obligation under the Geneva Conventions to probe what happened, the Pentagon records show. ‘It should be noted that Canadian Joint Operations Command [legal advisers] opinion is that, under the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) there are no obligations for the Canadian Armed Forces to conduct an investigation’”.

            The War Department’s meticulously compiled, anodyne datebook of terror strikes against Iraq, Operation Impact, proudly touts that since it began, the Air Force has flown some 2,017 “sorties”, while “delivering some 20,522,000 pounds of fuel to coalition aircraft.” There are no human casualties listed whatsoever. That work is left to people such as the tireless researchers at airwars.org, who continue trying to piece together bits of information to show the true tally of the bombing campaign’s victims (estimates of up to 2,400 civilians killed, and over 35,000 bombs and missiles dropped).

            What’s remarkable is that anything is left standing after 25 years of almost constant warfare and devastating, Canadian-enforced economic sanctions that the UN’s former Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Denis Halliday, called genocidal. While those who committed war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Iraq do book tours and appear as talk show guests, people who resisted the sanctions by providing food and medicine were criminalized. Among the most glaring cases are those of Dr. Rafil Dhafir, a Syracuse oncologist, still behind bars as part of a 22-year sentence for a “crime of compassion” (sending humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the Iraqi people), and Dr. Shakir Hamoodi (jailed for three years because he sent money to his own and 14 other impoverished families in Iraq).  

           

Remembering 1991

            While Saddam Hussein was certainly a loathsome dictator, he was not loathsome enough to prevent arms dealers from around the globe supplying him with their deadly wares. And when it appeared the fall of the Soviet Union would leave the weapons industry in a shambles, Hussein’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait was greeted with jubilation in the offices of the war industry. A new enemy was proclaimed, Hussein was suddenly Hitler, and he had to be stopped. Ratcheting up war fever was assisted by the blood-stained Hill & Knowlton PR group (which created the myth of Kuwaiti babies being ripped from incubators). Hill & Knowlton’s Canadian arm was then run by David MacNaughton (appointed this week to be Trudeau’s ambassador to the U.S.).

            While the Mulroney government was quick to utter self-righteous pieties about illegal occupations of sovereign territories, the Conservative government of the day did the exact same thing that summer by sending in 2,600 Canadian troops to occupy sovereign Mohawk land during the Oka crisis. Their armoured vehicles, helicopters, aerial surveillance equipment, miles of barbed wire, and countless other means of firepower served to enforce the same kind of sanctions the Iraqi people were about to face, cutting off power and trying to deny the entry of food, water, medicines, and clothing to the Indigenous resisters behind the wire. The military bolstered an additional 4,000 paramilitary SQ members, numbers that dwarfed the initial commitment of 900 Canadian troops sent to take on Hussein.

In a “post-Cold War” world, Canada’s military and its war industries welcomed a new enemy, and while Indigenous resistance has always provided a major rasion d’etre for Canadian Forces and related state security agencies (witness the massive, barely-reported Gustafson Lake crisis of 1995), having an overseas target proved invaluable. 

            Indigenous lands were the first testing ground for weapons systems used against the Iraqi people, from fighter bombers who dropped 1000-pound “dummy” bombs over the Innu territory of Nitissinan to cruise missiles tested on Cree Territory. Canadian universities helped with the more horrific forms of firepower to be employed. For example, fuel air explosives, known as a “poor man’s atom bomb,” invert gravity and are designed to suck people out of air raid shelters; they were researched at McGill University, which continues to be a major war research contributor. Canada’s chemical weapons testing field at Suffolk, Alberta, had been used by a Belgian company to experiment with long-range artillery shells that were  sold to the Iraqis during the 1980s.

            From the moment Kuwait was invaded, Canada was eager for war, taking every conceivable step to prevent a negotiated solution while lobbying UN Security Council members to authorize force. Then Foreign Affairs Minister Joe Clark said Parliament need not be recalled if the need to go to war was imminent. And while the narrative of sanctions as a tool to force Hussein out of Kuwait was trumpeted by the U.S.-led coalition, the Toronto Star reported that “when Canada was committed to no more than enforcing a trade embargo against Iraq, Ottawa was calmly setting aside funds for a full-blown war.” Some $500 million in federal cuts to social programs were initiated to help pay for the war, and the government resurrected legislation allowing it to control wartime production, with General Motors in London (the predecessor to General Dynamics Land Systems) announcing it could switch from civilian work to military production of armoured personnel carriers at a moment’s notice.

            Clark also distinguished himself by naming as “counterproductive” any pledges that Allied forces would not use nuclear weapons against Iraq. On October 26, 1990, he declared Canada would go to war whether the UN authorized it or not.  In November, the government ordered 800 body bags (with a weak-kneed NDP only questioning the high number of the bags). With the outbreak of war, General John de Chastelein cheerily declared, “We are now at war and the distinction between whether our roles are offensive or defensive is immaterial.”

CF-18s Deadly, Destructive

            Canadian bombers began their runs over Iraq on January 20, 1991, with General Gerard Theriault reminding Toronto Star readers “the destructive ability of one CF-18 [is] as great as an attack by hundreds of bombers during World War II.” After the equivalent of one and a half Hiroshima bombs was dropped on Baghdad the first night of the war, the NDP’s John Brewin stood and declared: “The first feeling is one of concern for the safety of the pilots and sympathy for them. We admire the courage they will need in a very difficult assignment.” Keeping in mind the Iraqis had little anti-aircraft capacity and half the country’s population was under the age of 15, Brewin’s remarks were hardly a voice of principled opposition.

            Meanwhile, Joe Clark proclaimed, “Some wars can be a point of principle; this is one of those wars.” He insisted that the Geneva Convention protocols to which Canada was a signatory (concerning “excessive loss of civilian life”) were not being violated. Clark then fumbled his way through another statement, the like of which he was quite famous for, when he declared: “If there is one priority, one lesson, which the world must learn from this war, is that an unrestricted arms trade in the region is no longer acceptable and constitutes a threat to all members of the United Nations.” Fine words, perhaps, but not matched by the actions of a government that would very shortly change the Criminal Code at the behest of arms manufacturers Diemaco (Colt Canada now) and General Motors to allow for the import and possession of automatic weapons (crucial to the signing of the first Saudi armoured brigade vehicles contract in 1991).

            One of the strongest NDP stands during the slaughter of the Iraqi people urged people across the land to send Valentines messages to the troops. Meanwhile, Ontario NDP leader Bob Rae, despite closing hospital beds due to budget cuts, opened several up for troop casualties, while his government discussed security measures to deal with “terrorist” threats. Needless to day, anti-Arab sentiment and violence ran high (as documented in Zuhair Kashmeri’s book, The Gulf Within: Canadian Arabs, Racism, & The Gulf War).

            The horrific war crimes against the Iraqis continued directly for a good three months, followed by a 12-year-long daily grind of aerial warfare termed enforcement of no-fly zones, and sanctions that killed over 1 million people (leading to Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement about the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children: “we think the price is worth it”). Then came the 2003 escalation of the war: a bloody invasion and occupation with major Canadian participation that continues in various forms to this day.

Canada’s Victims of the Gulf War

As much as Canada has refused to acknowledge the many victims of its foreign and military policy of the past 25 years – rendering the Iraqi people invisible unless we need them for photo-ops – they have equally refused to recognize the humanity of Gulf War 1 veterans who have returned to die slowly, painfully, and largely in silence. Canada does not keep statistics on Gulf War Syndrome (a horrific condition marked by exposure to depleted uranium, a whole slew of neurotoxic and biological warfare chemicals, and an over-the-top vaccination regime that followed no proper protocols). Among those vets suffering is former navy Lieutenant Louise Richard, who recalls being in touch with at least 400 veterans suffering symptoms similar to hers, a number of whom have since died. 

A nurse and former triathlete who entered the war in top form, she returned a completely different person, as she testified in 2013: “The Gulf War veterans and modern combat vets as a whole have been made to feel like toxic waste that has been disposed of and dumped…We are released from DND undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or not diagnosed at all. We're left untreated. We're left on our own to find our own doctors, civilian doctors, specialists, therapists, psychiatrists. Canadian vets have been totally abandoned. Our symptoms, illnesses, and concerns have been minimized, belittled, ignored —stress. As for the doctors and specialists we do find who are willing to take us on, VAC [Veterans Affairs Canada] has the nerve to challenge their diagnoses, their treatments, and their credentials. Veterans Affairs dictates to us how many treatments, and the distance we can travel on our claims. Policy always overrules the needs of the ill veteran.”

Just as the seeds of violence Canada planted with the 1991 slaughter of Iraqis continue to yield horrific crops, so veterans like Louise Richard continue to suffer from a war-produced chemical brew that will occupy their own bodies in perpetuity. She is not allowed to give blood, and she shocked committee members when she challenged them thusly:

“This is in our blood supply. Depleted uranium, as we know, goes all over the body, to the organs. Does anyone here want an organ of mine if you're in a car crash tomorrow?”

Stunned MPs said no, but then proceeded on to other business.

Next steps for Canada

As for what Canada should do next, there are no easy answers, but there is a clear conclusion: the strategy of military engagement has time and again proven itself a deadly failure that inevitably sows the seeds of next year’s and next decade’s brutalities (just as militarist adventurism, support for dictatorships like those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and proxy wars of the past 40 years have left us at the current impasse).  The only way to end the spiral of violence is to stop adding to it. It would not be a crime for Canada to step back, take a pause, examine how we can end our own contributions to the spiral of violence, and proceed from there. 

Canadian policymakers would also do well to read the expert writings of Andrew Cockburn, who points out in Harper’s Magazine that the ever-shifting allegiances in the region essentially have “Western” powers cozying up with Al-Qaeda front groups as the preferred alternative to ISIS. Al-Qaeda? You remember them, don't you? Aren't they supposed to be bad guys that we created and funded in Afghanistan during the 1980s who had something to do with that 9/11 thing? Canadians should also be aware that news of “progress” against ISIS is generally poppycock; indeed, some 50 high-level Central Command intelligence analysts wrote a letter of protest last year, concerned that their intelligence was being manipulated to transform ISIS strength into ISIS defeats, making Obama and company look like they were in charge. 

Canada is also a less-than-honest player in the region given its utter silence on the brutal Turkish military crackdown on Kurds,  surrounding and starving whole communities in the southeast of the country, cutting off power and denying sustenance.  On the one hand, the Kurds are portrayed as heroic fighters against ISIS, but the minute they talk about self-determination, they are labelled terrorists by the Turks and Canadians (Canada has labeled the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK a terrorist entity.) And yet, as the hardly radical Wall Street Journal points out, “The PKK and its Syrian affiliate have emerged as Washington’s most effective battlefield partners” against ISIS. 

Canada should also come clean about its role in recruitment and facilitation of travel for young people to join ISIS. In a story that has disappeared from any discussion, Turkish authorities last spring arrested an apparent asset of Canadian spy service CSIS, who was nabbed escorting young women across the border into Syria to join ISIS.

As the Trudeau government fidgets about its next steps, calls for an end to the bombing seem too narrow, and provide Trudeau with the cover he needs to wage the war in a different fashion (something he has clearly indicated he wishes to do).  These narrow calls fail to ask how, exactly, Canada (along with the rest of NATO) can contribute anything positive to the region after applying so much direct and indirect violence. The calls could be stronger if they demanded that Trudeau must also include an end to any military “assistance” in the air (one proposal being considered is keeping refueling and reconnaissance aircraft in the area, making Canadians simply bombers by proxy. Indeed, Canada’s War Dept. proudly says these aircraft “fuel the fight.”). He should also cancel the current and proposed expanded role for Canadian Forces on the ground. The idea that the armed forces of the Canadian state have anything to offer in this situation (apart from their experience in repressing indigenous communities and their design of hierarchical institutions in which violence against women is at epidemic levels) is completely without foundation. As in Afghanistan, a Canadian approach based on militarism leave behind a toxic legacy of hatreds, trauma and violence.

Perhaps a period of non-intervening reflection and consultation with grassroots groups on the ground, or massive investments in food security, clean water, and reparations for all the misery we have caused would be a far better choice. An end to the production and export of Canadian weapons would help too. Working to stop the flow of arms into the region from Russia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey would be a step forward. Investments in groups that work for reconciliation and the conditions needed for true justice on the ground would be a bonus. There are groups in the region who have been doing this work on a small-scale level for years, such as Muslim Peacemaker Teams along with numerous women’s groups who, in the heart of ISIS territory, have organized protests and won demands. But in classic colonial fashion, Canada refuses to listen to the voices on the ground, seeing our role as a “protector” and wise parent. As German politician Jürgen Todenhöfer wrote last November after spending 10 days embedded with ISIS, “we have to finally start treating the Muslim world as true partners, and not as a cheap petrol station we can raid when we feel like it.”

Ultimately, as we focus on how to end the Canadian bombing of Iraq, we need to take into consideration the broader picture, the lengthy history, the significant amount of blood on our hands, and what we can do to prevent Canadian corporations and political careers from profiting off the lives of people halfway around the world from us.