The Trouble With Elephants: Canadians don't want to be crushed

by the increasingly isolationist attitude of the U.S. government

By Neil Arya

Ottawa Citizen

Aug 30, 2001

Canadians across the political spectrum relish in dumping on Uncle Sam. Hence
the popularity of the “I am Joe, and I am Canadian” commercials and the
rather smug, Rick Mercer "Talking to Americans" segments on CBC. Yet most of
our neighbours to the south are decent, thoughtful, caring people, albeit a
bit insular.

Now commentators are talking seriously about closer ties to the U.S. — open
borders, freer trade and increased social connections. Others have argued
the pros and cons of these issues. My concern is more global: Do we wish to
be closer to America’s international values? The idea of emerging
unilateralism or isolationism of the U.S., defended by some (including the
Ottawa Citizen), deserves scrutiny.

Distrust of international collective action by the U.S. has been amply
evidenced, from late entries in both World Wars to failure to endorse the
League of Nations, to refusal to sign the Law of the Sea agreement. Bill
Clinton chose not to push very hard for ratification of the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty and signed on to the International Criminal Court only
during his last days of office, knowing there was no hope of Senate
ratification.In six months in office, George W. Bush has taken this unwillingness to work
with outsiders to new heights. I will focus on four recent issues: the
Biological Weapons Convention, the Kyoto Accord, National Missile Defence
and illicit small arms.

The Biological Weapons Convention, signed in 1972 and ratified by the U.S. in
1975, obliges parties not to develop, produce, stockpile or acquire
biological agents or toxins “of types and in quantities that have no
justification for prophylactic, protective, and other peaceful purposes.”

This year’s protocol negotiations were meant to design inspection measures to ensure compliance.

The U.S. suspects at least 13 countries of violating the
accord. Yet it worked to limit the scope of visits by foreign inspectors on
its own soil, ostensibly to protect the privacy of American pharmaceutical
and biotechnology companies, and its own biodefence installations.

Thoughtful dissent? The rationale for pulling out of the discussions was that
the inspection regime could not detect illegal biological weapons ie. too weak
production, but would threaten proprietary business information of U.S.
companies. ie. too strong! When other Western allies asked what modifications the U.S. might
propose to the draft, its response was that the treaty was so flawed that no
tinkering could save it.

As for Kyoto, the Bush administration concentrates its objections on “unclear
science” and the impact on the economy of any reduction of greenhouse gases.

Unclear science? Scientists throughout the world, from the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the vast majority of living
Nobel Prize winners in the sciences say there is no controversy about global
warming and its cause is known. They are worried about famines caused by
rapid change in average temperature, about lack of fresh water, about
increased severe weather events, about migration of millions of people
displaced by floods, and about potential violence resulting from these
phenomena. In the health sector we already see the migration of tropical
disease further north.

An “economy wrecker”? All of the above have their own
economic consequences.

What about National Missile Defence (NMD)? The U.S. claims that the “flawed”
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty needs changing, as global threats
have changed. The premise of the ABM Treaty was that no side should build a
defence system, as others fearful of a pre-emptive first strike would feel
it necessary to increase their own arms to be able to overwhelm the system,
thereby fuelling an arms race. From my organization's viewpoint, what hasn’t

changed is that there can be no medical response to a nuclear war and NMD, even

if it were to work, would fuel this arms race and thereby increase the risk of a deliberate or
accidental nuclear attack. Even if, as in the most optimistic scenarios, the
system were more than 50-per-cent effective, the expected response by other
states would be to build more bombs. And that is precisely what the U.S.
asks the Russians to do. It encourages them to keep this larger arsenal of
nuclear weapons indefinitely, and to keep them on hair-trigger alert. No
wonder allies are nervous. Not only that, NMD offers no protection against
the real potential threats of suitcase or harbour-launched bombs.

And how does this jive with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (signed in
1968 and re-affirmed by the U.S. and others last year) in which governments
committed themselves to an unequivocal undertaking to abolish nuclear
weapons? Wasting more than $60 billion dollars makes no sense when 30 per
cent of Americans lack basic health insurance.

Sober second thought, reflecting on the changed global climate, might have included

discussion of de-alerting, a no-first-strike policy and movement towards the abolition of
nuclear weapons.

Finally, at the recently concluded UN Conference on illicit small arms, the
U.S. reiterated that it could not countenance anything that would affect
domestic control of weapons. It also opposed controls on sales to non-state
actors, human-rights violators or any agreement that was binding.
Non-governmental organizations and most governments argued that the movement
of weapons from the legal market to illegal was murky and that therefore
agreement on registration, control of sale, marking and tracing were
necessary to complement border controls. In Canada, more than half of handguns

recovered in crime have been imported from the U.S. where they were once legal. The

problem of small arms, therefore, is not just a Third World problem. The U.S. pays

a price with 30,000 deaths annually due to firearms. Firearm fatalities rival traffic
accidents in damage in the age 15- to 24-year age category. If we are
looking at outmoded law, perhaps the Second Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution, or at least the Bush Administration’s and National Rifle
Association’s interpretation of this amendment, is what needs to be changed.

Americans themselves must consider that when their Western allies, with
similar economies and values, universally oppose their positions on certain
issues, it may be time to re-examine priorities. With global problems such
as biological and nuclear weapons proliferation, global warming or small
arms, international efforts are more effective than unco-ordinated,
piecemeal efforts. Until the time when Americans recognize this, we
Canadians ought to be cautious about closer integration. We shouldn’t dump on

Americans just for the sake of it. But is the Canadian mouse sure that it wishes

to snuggle up to this American elephant who could dump on it?

Dr. Neil Arya, a family physician, is president of Physicians for Global
Survival, the Canadian affiliate of International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War. He is based in Waterloo, Ont.