The Munk Debates Page 5
LYSE DOUCET: Let’s take another question from the floor. Pamela Wallin, former Consul General to New York.
PAMELA WALLIN: Is there a way in the short term for America to move troops into Afghanistan? How do you deal with that, because as we learned in Iraq, time is of the essence, and if there’s not a movement of a greater number of troops in Afghanistan, then I think that poses a problem. The other issue is related to the security of both of our countries, and it was raised earlier on the question of energy resources.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: We’re now in the seventh year of this war in Afghanistan. It is that war that we must win. Whatever happens in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan will go on a lot longer than the war in Iraq. The Taliban cannot win. You can’t win based on terror tactics, such as executing teachers in schools because their students are young girls. The memories of the black years in Afghanistan make the overwhelming majority of Afghan citizens not want the Taliban to succeed. However, having said that the Taliban can’t win, I must say with great regret that the side we’re supporting cannot win either, as it is currently operating. In other words, we have a very dangerous long-term stalemate. What are the factors that must be addressed?
First, the Pakistan border. We now have an Afghan-Pakistan theatre of war. NATO forces can fight only on the western half of it; we can’t go into Pakistan, except briefly, covertly — a predator drone here, a few nighttime raids there, because of the politics of the situation. The new Pakistani government is involved in negotiations that may result in giving them more breathing room against the militants and putting more pressure on Afghanistan to contain al Qaeda.
Second, the drug situation. The drug policies that the United States has followed in Afghanistan are without doubt the worst foreign assistance program I’ve ever seen in my forty-plus years in and out of service in the U.S. government. Last year the U.S. alone spent eight hundred million dollars on drug eradication. It isn’t just a complete waste of money; it is helping the enemy. According to its own statistics, for the eight hundred million dollars the United States invested in drug eradication, it got a 40 percent increase in opium traffic last year.
The third thing is the weakness of the government. Afghanistan’s government is corrupt, it is weak, and within that subset the police are even worse. This is the most important issue that we haven’t addressed. These problems must be fixed. There are a dozen other problems — the role of women, agriculture — but those are the four I’d single out: the border areas, drugs, corruption of the government, and the total hopelessness of the national police force. This administration has done a very bad job on addressing these issues when they should have done better for all the reasons we know.
I agree with Niall that I’m attacking this administration too much, partly because Senator McCain has not clearly laid out his position on Afghanistan yet. I hope we will change our position on Afghanistan next year because we can’t afford to lose this war.
LYSE DOUCET: Thank you, Richard. Now on to a very important issue for Canada: NAFTA. When they were campaigning in Ohio, both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton said they’d reopen it.
SAMANTHA POWER: Obama has long talked about some of the benefits of free trade. His concern is the people who have been hurt by NAFTA and the impacts on environmental labour standards. He looks forward, I am told, to sitting down with Canada and Mexico and looking at environmental and labour standards. He has been fully supportive of — and he has voted for the Peru free trade agreement, and he has voted against the Colombian one because he felt there were insufficient provisions. He is not anti-trade. He is just looking to strengthen those measures.
LYSE DOUCET: And that brings us to a close on this part of the debate. Let’s give our four fine debaters another chance to convince you of their arguments. Three minutes each, starting with you, Richard Holbrooke.
RICHARD HOLBROOKE: First of all, I want to thank Peter Munk and CBC for this opportunity. I sure hope there are debates of this quality and intensity in the United States to inform its voting public. I thought a great deal about Senator McCain’s central argument, which is if you get out of Iraq things will get worse, and the Obama/Clinton argument that we have to start to draw down our combat troops. This is an enormously difficult decision, and I believe it will define the next presidency.
Unlike our Republican colleagues, I am not filled with certainty about the war in Iraq, and I’m astonished at their certainty, given their track record over the last seven years. It is the toughest problem I have ever seen in my government service, and with all due respect I am the only person here who has served under combat in the United States government on several continents. I’ve negotiated with the worst people in the world; I work closely with the Canadian government and other governments, trying to improve the condition of humanity; and I’ve also worked heavily in Africa on issues such as HIV/AIDS. So I care passionately about these issues.
It is my view that the McCain/Bush position on Iraq boils down to this: stay there forever until we win. Neither of our opponents have addressed the amount of time the McCain strategy would require in order to achieve success. Stay there forever in order to avoid defeat? That means people are going to die — coalition forces, Iraqis, civilians — if we don’t create a process that stabilizes the region. First, that to me raises fundamental problems of morality. Second, it’s going to drain the United States of the capacity to deal with all the other problems of the world. One last thing: we haven’t had time to talk about China and Africa, and, by the way, it’s not China and Africa — it’s China. Africa’s just a leading edge. But I think the other side has inaccurately and inadvertently diminished the climate change issue. There is plenty of room for leadership on that issue, and thank God you have a Republican candidate who agrees with that particular point.
LYSE DOUCET: Thank you. Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I want to also thank you for the forum, for the opportunity to address you in this remarkably interesting political year in the United States. The issue of NAFTA was raised, and I think you have to understand as Canadians that it is a symptom of a larger issue for the Democrats. They are now in a period of withdrawal, pulling in on protectionism, appealing to the popular sentiments of a people who are economically dissatisfied and weary of a war abroad in another long twilight struggle. The appeal to protectionism is not an accident; it’s a part of the drawing in.
It seems to me extremely odd that a leading candidate for the presidency would make a point of scapegoating NAFTA and Canada in a time of economic difficulty. It’s extremely odd that Obama would say that he would take the hammer to Canada on NAFTA and at the same time say he’s going to have a chat with Ahmadinejad, given the fact that Canada has been an incredibly stalwart and courageous ally in the war on terror in Afghanistan. As many Americans, Republican and Democrat, are aware, Canada has the highest per capita casualties in the war on terror. And as an American who was raised, nurtured, and educated in Canada, that does not surprise me because I know of Canada’s history in the twentieth century, the courage and valour its soldiers displayed in the First and the Second World Wars — which, incidentally, Canada entered long before the United States. I find it rather odd and unfortunate that Canada should be used as a scapegoat. But America is drawing in as a result of this long twilight struggle.
Richard is right, no one is certain about an outcome in Iraq. But one thing is certain: if we liquidate the war the way the Democrats want, we will have a return of al Qaeda; we will have a collapse of the government in Baghdad; and possibly even have a genocide, which our opponents here are so concerned about in other areas of the world. So I say the safer course is to elect a man who understands the difficulties of this issue, who’s been in combat himself, who understands the military, who has experience and has a realistic understanding of what has occurred on the ground and how the peace ought to be preserved. Fragile it is, delicate it is, reversible it is, and that’s precisely why it cannot be allowed to be reversed. Tha
nk you very much.
LYSE DOUCET: Thank you, Charles. Samantha.
SAMANTHA POWER: Charles said something very important about Darfur. One could generalize in terms of American foreign policy or even in terms of Canadian foreign policy. Those who care must, as he put it, “step up and be serious.” We probably all agree with that, but it is clear that we have very different perspectives on what “stepping up” and “being serious” entails. We had a long discussion about Iraq, we had a long discussion about Iran, we talked about Darfur, we talked about Afghanistan, we talked about fixing the UN, we touched upon trade. All of these issues — in a globalized world where everyone can see all policies at once, and the policy statements of leaders in Western countries are broadcast into countries where economic and security interests are at stake — are connected, and we have to see those connections and talk and think about policies that are responsive to those connections.
I think stepping up and being serious entails recognizing those connections, and I want to give you just a few examples. Our standing in the Middle East, our ability to broker or be useful in helping broker an Arab-Israeli peace agreement, will be affected by how we get out of Iraq or how we draw down in Iraq. Again, the struggle against terrorism and the proliferation of terrorism will be affected in terms of how al Qaeda’s residual presence in Iraq is dealt with. An important point is that Sunni tribal chiefs have done more of late to contest al Qaeda in Iraq, and we should hope that continues. And both Democratic candidates are for maintaining a residual force. But this connectivity goes further. You cannot do as the Bush administration has done — and I know John McCain will not do it, but it’s a temptation to call on UN forces to be sent to Darfur, then denounce genocide on a Monday; to endorse water boarding on a Tuesday, and then turn back on the United Nations on Wednesday, and expect other countries to take you seriously.
It is very difficult to put meaningful pressure on China in the context of Burma, Tibet, and Darfur when China has become America’s ATM machine, which is what has happened over the course of the last seven years. It is very difficult to build a coalition in Africa that will have credibility with Robert Mugabe on the issue of democracy in elections when we back Pervez Musharraf — uncritically — in Pakistan. We have got to understand that dealing with multinational threats — global threats — are going to require actually being able to summon and not simply coerce co-operation. Thank you.
LYSE DOUCET: Thank you, Samantha. And last but not least, Niall.
NIALL FERGUSON: Ladies and gentlemen, I want to remind you of something: this is your only chance to vote in this election, so please use your vote wisely. We need a president who knows war; we need a president in Washington who knows torture. Samantha completely misrepresented John McCain’s position on torture. He has led the way in condemning the maltreatment of prisoners of war. We need a president who understands what Richard seems to have overlooked: that giving up in Iraq could end up costing many more lives. We need a president who can command respect from allies and a measure of fear in our enemies. We need a president who’s not afraid to do the right thing, even when it means being unpopular. We need a president who has learned from history that you don’t just sit down with the bad guys without preconditions. We desperately need at this time — when trade barriers are being raised all over the world, not least because of rising food prices — a president who is committed unequivocally to free trade, and is not afraid to say that free trade has created many more jobs in the United States than it has lost. We need a president who understands the magnitude of the challenges that the United States and the Western world faces from a renascent, rapidly growing Chinese dragon, and an incorrigible Russian bear.
One final point that’s been unmentioned this evening: we need a president who realizes that the war on terror is not over. Experts put the probability of a nuclear attack on an America city at somewhere in the region of 15 percent. Think about that. Al Qaeda has expressly said that its intention is to carry out a Super 9/11. Ladies and gentlemen, it has to or it’s finished. It’s failed in Iraq, and 9/11 did not bring capitalism to its knees. What do you think they are going to do next? I ask a question that was asked quite rightly by Richard Holbrooke’s friend Hillary Clinton: Who do you want to answer that telephone at three in the morning? Thank you very much.
LYSE DOUCET: Niall Ferguson, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Holbrooke, and Samantha Power. Join me in thanking all of them.
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SUMMARY: The audience voted 29 percent in favour of the resolution at the beginning of the debate. At the end, 46 percent voted in favour of the resolution and winning the debate.
HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Be it resolved that if countries
such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Burma
will not end their man-made humanitarian crises,
the international community should.
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Pro: Gareth Evans and Mia Farrow
Con: John Bolton and Rick Hillier
December 1, 2008
hHUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
INTRODUCTION: Few topics evoke more emotions than that of humanitarian intervention — history is full of examples of the tragedy of non-intervention. But whether intervening will always help or whether it is even always possible was at issue when four debaters — Americans Mia Farrow and John Bolton, Australian Gareth Evans, and Canadian Rick Hillier — debated the following resolution: Be it resolved if countries such as Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Burma will not end their man-made humanitarian crises, the international community should.
The pro side found actress and activist (in particular on the matter of Darfur) Farrow and Australia’s former Foreign Minister and President and Chief Executive of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans paired up, while the con side featured the United States former Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton and Canada’s Rick Hillier, former Chief of the Defence Staff, the highest position in the Canadian Forces.
Farrow spoke passionately about her experiences in Darfur and of her belief that it would be possible to help in the region without putting Western troops in harm’s way. This proved to be the main point of division in the debate, for while everyone concurred that it would be desirable to help, Bolton emphasized that an “international force” actually means an “American force,” and Hillier asked the audience to imagine how they would react once the casualties started mounting. He used his experiences in Afghanistan as proof of how fickle public support can be for a mission, regardless of how dire the crisis.
* * *
BRIAN STEWART: It is an honour to take the reins of this debate. Humanitarian intervention is an inescapable problem for reporters, for diplomats, for soldiers, for voluntary groups working in the field, indeed for all of us. The same questions keep coming up: when to act, when not to act, what action would work, what action might make the situation worse.
Governments do ask and wonder — does the public really care enough? Will the public care even in the face of casualties? I learned a long time ago that these questions do get asked because humanitarian interventions have mixed results, as we know.
Take, for example, the civil war in Somalia in the early 1990s. It seemed for a while it would be easy to put a cap on the militias that were interfering with humanitarian work there. Three years later, the United Nations had to retreat, and chaos has existed in Somalia ever since.
And there was the genocide in Rwanda. Eight hundred thousand lives may have been saved had there been intervention beforehand. The genocide remains an open sore — it is a terrible problem for Africa, the region around it, and the world.
The war in the Balkans was long and arduous, but would you not consider the UN and NATO intervention in Bosnia a success?
The mission in Afghanistan was not undertaken as a mission of humanitarian intervention, but more as an international security intervention. It has morphed increasingly into a la
tter-stage humanitarian crisis, thus raising the question: does one stay for the long haul or leave?
A few years ago, after the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, the United Nations put forth the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, or R2P. It is a doctrine that declares that if a state cannot or will not protect its people from abuse, from famine, from genocide, then the outside world should be able to intervene as a last resort, with the use of force, if necessary. The Responsibility to Protect is an extraordinary doctrine. It is critical and controversial, and it is not just a product of the post–Cold War period or of media emphasis on these situations.
The common human desire to intervene on humanitarian grounds goes back a very long time. In ancient Rome, it was argued that human beings should be able to interfere to protect people at great risk, and in the nineteenth century the British fought slavery, against their own national interest. In 1820, the Romantic poet Lord Byron and the artist Eugène Delacroix fought against the Ottoman oppression of Greeks in the Greek War of Independence. So the desire to intervene on humanitarian grounds has existed for quite some time. It is a continual flame. Whether it can flicker beyond this point is part of our debate.