Canada's Addiction to American Security: The Illusion of Choice in the War on Terrorism
1. America's Addiction to Security and Public Safety Despite the absence of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, American officials are becoming increasingly addicted to achieving perfect security and absolute safety in the midst of an unwinnable war on terrorism. Success will remain elusive because, over time, more groups and individuals with expanding lists of grievances will acquire the power to inflict levels of damage considered by political leaders to be unacceptable. In essence war is becoming privatized (Nye 2004) (3) through the democratization of technology and knowledge (Friedman, 2001), (4) miniaturization of weaponry and lethality, increasing accessibility and transferability of weapons of mass destruction, and a rising number of competing terrorist groups with religious, political and financial motivations to terrorize. Even more disturbing are trends towards the privatization of political power. The Madrid train bombings in March 2004 revealed that a relatively straightforward attack by a small group of terrorists could have a significant impact on the outcome of a democratic election and play a major role in the immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. The Philippine government withdrew their troops in July 2004 in response to the kidnapping of a single truck driver in Baghdad. These "successes" reveal that terrorists have acquired a measure of political power that far exceeds the influence of hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters in Spain and the Philippines who were demanding the same outcome (an early withdrawal from Iraq), but failed. Mass protests in Katmandu after the murder of twelve Nepalese workers in Baghdad provoked both an apology from the government in Nepal for failing to secure their release, and an explanation from officials that they received no offer from the kidnappers--the implication being that had such an offer been made the government would almost certainly have negotiated with the terrorists. The Kuwaiti government paid a $500,000 ransom for the release of seven Indian and Kenyan employees of a Kuwaiti company involved in post-war reconstruction in Iraq. (5) Several Egyptian, Jordanian, and Turkish companies agreed to cut short their constructions operations in Iraq in exchange for the release of kidnapped employees. (6) In August 2004, terrorists threatened to kill two French journalists as a protest against legislation in France banning the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public schools. The kidnappings provoked a flurry of French diplomatic activity resulting in the release of the hostages in December, 2004. (7) Apparently even the strongest critics of the U.S.-UK led war in Iraq are not immune from kidnapping and extortion. More recently, the Italian government was forced to address accusations that $1 million was paid for the release of two aid workers in October 2004, and significantly more to obtain the release of Italian reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, after a controversial rescue operation in March 2005. (8) Negotiating with terrorists is standard operating procedure for governments eager to avoid a public backlash against policies that are too closely associated with an unpopular war, and an even less popular American president. But these concessions (and others to follow) will guarantee that more kidnappings, bombings and killings will occur as coalitions of insurgents and terrorists cooperate to build on political victories and financial windfalls. (9) Consider the following illustration of the privatization of political power in Iraq today--the overwhelming consensus across the international community is that success in Iraq requires an end to the insurgency and a credible and sustained effort by a broad-based, "multilateral" coalition of states supporting an unwavering commitment to post-conflict reconstruction, counter-insurgency, liberalization, and democratization. Yet despite this multilateral consensus, supported by unanimously endorsed UN Security Council Resolutions 1483 and 1511, unilateral self-interests motivated by domestic political imperatives to protect their own citizens and troops remain the most powerful determinants of whether states join (or remain in) the U. …
Northern Enigma: American Images of Canada
The crashing of planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, altered instantly American thinking about itself and other states in the world. Gone was the view that the United States was shielded from foreign incursions and problems. The tragic events of September 11 "punctured America's sense of invulnerability" (Daalder and Lindsay 2005, 77). This article examines the emergence of a new image of Canada as a security threat to the United States in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It then argues that this new image, challenging the traditional image of Canada as a friendly, benign neighbor, has significant policy implications for Canada, particularly in terms of the making of Canada policy in the United States. For the most part, Canada is a country that excites little interest in the United States. That Canada is often overlooked by Americans is not a recent phenomenon but rather is a longstanding characteristic of the relationship between these countries. In 1920, upon taking up his position as a staff writer for the Toronto Star, Ernest Hemingway wrote of the "opinions and views of [the] average American" concerning Canada. This "average American," Hemingway noted, had "a vague idea of Canada" (Hemingway 1985a). Twenty-seven years later, Leslie Chance, then the head of the Canadian Consular Division of External Affairs, in a letter to then Under Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson concerning the opening of consulates in the United States, noted that the "foremost task" of the new consulates was "to lift the Canadian image from its humiliating position" in the U.S. (Page 1977, 62). Dean Acheson, former U.S. secretary of state, in his 1969 review of the bilateral relationship, wrote that "Americans take Canada for granted" (Acheson 1969, 134). Similarly, in 1981, the former Canadian diplomat John Holmes wrote of "one persistent problem" for Canada being that "the US forgets about us" (Holmes 1981, 73). Later, in 2003, John Herd Thompson, professor of Canadian Studies at Duke University, in his review of Canada-U.S. relations over the 1994-2003 period, wrote that "Americans don't know or care very much about Canada" (Thompson 2003, 17). This was followed by Derek Burney, Canadian ambassador to the U.S. from 1989-2003, who noted that "very few Americans spend much time concerning themselves with Canada" (Burney 2005, 48). Finally, David Leal, associate professor of government at the University of Texas, titled his lead article for a symposium on Canada in the October 2006 issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, "Canada: The Unknown Country." In the article, Leal wrote, "I have noticed that asking scholars to care about Canadian politics is like asking them to get a physical or eat more vegetables. Everyone agrees these are probably good ideas, but there is often a certain reluctance to comply." Leal continued: "If you want someone to look at you quizzically, just say 'I've become interested in Canada lately'" (Leal 2006, 813). Part of the reason for this lack of American interest in Canada is due to a lack of coverage of Canada in the American media (Belch 2004; Flournoy et al. 1992; Husselbee and Stempel 1997). Unlike Canada, where most Canadians live within a narrow band stretching along the border, "only about 5 percent of Americans live close enough to the Canadian border to pick up Canadian radio or television broadcasts" (DePalma 2001, 11). Americans, then, rely on domestic media sources for information concerning Canada. In his examination of the news media in the Canada-U.S. relationship, Brian Buckley noted that there has been "scant" coverage of Canada by the American media and that "serious studies of US media portrayals of Canada and Canadian issues are very rare" (Buckley 2003, 94). For the print media, a recent study of six American newspapers by Chris Belch found that "overall coverage of Canada was particularly limited. …
Experimental models in antifungal chemotherapy
Summary. This review summarizes detailed information about a wide variety of animal models of fungal infections used for research and in the pharmaceutical industry.