Canadians have a very bipolar disposition when it comes to Americans stating their views about us or about matters pertaining to us.
We maintain apocryphal notions of how little the U.S. cares and knows about us, but then when a high-ranking official like Hillary Clinton ever so tactfully indicates that our presence as a continuing ally in Afghanistan would be welcome, there pours out the kind of bombast and hyper-defensiveness seen in both the editorial and editorial cartoon in The Citizen (Saturday, April 3).
It is hard to grasp how what Mrs. Clinton actually did say could lead to such bloviating. In the wide-ranging interview that has caused such offense CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos naturally got around to Afghanistan and Hillary's first response only praised Canada as a great ally whose forces "have been superb."
After further kibitzing about Americans and Canadians playing hockey in Kandahar, the interviewer asked straight out, how Hillary felt about Canada's scheduled pull-out.
Given that the American policy which Obama (with Hillary) developed so painstakingly for months is well-known, what else could she say but the extraordinarily temperate statement about Americans regretting the Canadians' leaving. Her remarks, as the Citizen editor admits have not worried knowledgeable foreign policy experts a whit.
But still there came the howls and teeth-gnashing of Canadian editorialists, displaying the behaviour more of a thin-skinned adolescent who can't take the mildest reproof, than of a supposedly mature neighbour. To go on to imply, as The Citizen has, that Hillary should have even further tempered her remarks in light of Cpl. Fitzpatrick's death is to push this self-centred hot air to the furthest outpost of hyperbole.
Still, I am glad The Citizen has brought up the connection between that tragic loss and Canada's position on military withdrawal. For it brings forth the question we should be asking: if Afghanistan was worth dying for in 2010, what will have magically changed that makes such sacrifice utterly unthinkable beyond 2011?
Personally, I never thought the mission had much prospect for success midst the endless turmoil of that sad country, but I fail to see that anything but the calendar will change next year, certainly not whatever was the underlying rationale that took young Fitzpatrick away from here and, then, ended his promising young life.
So, thank you, Hillary for helping us get real in pondering such literally grave and puzzling matters.
Norman Dale
Prince George
