Canadian attorney Warren Kinsella is seen as a high-profile internationalist in his country, largely on account of a book, "Web of Hate", ostensibly a researched treatise on what the Far Right is up to. He pops up here and there and takes swipes at politically incorrect people.
He did a real "Kinsella" in a guest editorial that was run two days ago, June 1, in the National Post. I feature in that article, though not by name. I am, opines the gent, a "follower". Where is Gloria Steinem when we need her?
There has been a small flurry of replies, the strongest of which was written by one of Canada's foremost free-speech activists, Paul Fromm. I run it here as a warm-up exercise - with more rebuttals to be published soon, I hope.
Paul Fromm here:
Subject: REBUTTAL TO WARREN KINSELLA'S ARTICLE IN NATIONAL POST, June 1, 1999
The Editor,
The National Post. BY FAX
Dear Sir:
Warren Kinsella's opinion piece "Far right's opposition to war is no surprise" (National Post, June 1, 1999) is a disgrace and a mish-mash of smear and disinformation.
One thing he does have right is that the left and the right and, truth to tell, many in the centre, are united against Canada's involvement in Clinton's War. He makes the scurrilous and preposterous claim that "the far right generally supports the genocidal programme devised by Milosevic and called ethnic cleansing."
What follows are our reasons for opposing any Canadian participation in Clinton's war of aggression in Yugoslavia.
NATO is a defensive alliance. No NATO member has been attacked. The NATO attacks are attempting to forcibly meddle in the internal affaitrs of a sovereign nation. We would rightly resent foreign air strikes to punish a Canadian government for efforts to suppress violent Quebec separatists.
Nations are well-advised to ponder carefully before letting "slip to the dogs of war" which, as Shakespeare warns, create "havoc" and unexpected consequences. Mumbling Pentagonese, Kinsella hails Clinton's War as "a long overdue ... international response to a humanitarian crisis." Well, this "humanitarian" war has already caused great "collateral damage" (to use aniother Pentagon obfuscation). The demolition of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade has plunged U.S.-China relations to their lowest in several decades. Admittedly, the Kosovars may have been poorly treated prior to hostilities. Now, over three quarters of a milion have been made into refugees. Some victory for the "humanitarians"!
Nations should only go to war when attacked or to defend clear, narrow national interests. Obviously, Canada hasn't been attacked by Serbia and it is hard to imagine that Serbia threatens any serious national interest.
The Balkans are immensely complicated. The region is riven by religious, ethnic, ideological, and linguistic fissures. All factions have long memories. Otto von Bismarck wisely concluded that the region, like a surly bear, was best left alone. He declared: "The Balkans are not worth the blood of one Pomeranian grenadier."
To take one example. What's going on in Kosovo is a bit more complicated than "ethnic cleansing,." The region was, until recently, Serb. Albanian Muslim Kosovars have moved in and overwhelmed the Serbs over the past half century. The region contains the Field of Blackbirds, an emotive shrine where Serb Christians were massacred in a heroic attempt to stop the invading Muslim Turks. Would Americans be quite so moralistic if, say, Hispanics came to dominate Pennsylvania and decided to secede, taking with them such historical shrines as the home of the Liberty Bell and Valley Forge?
Kinsella does the serious debate between us Isolationists and his fellow internationalist interventionists no service by striking up the chant of Klan, Nazis, and Holocaust with which he created so much unhelpful smoke in his much criticized book Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network.
Sincerely yours,
Paul Fromm
Director, C-FAR
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Another response to the Kinsella article was written by Marc Lemire and can be found at http://www.freedomsite.org/colum/owens1.html
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Thought for the Day:
"Our policy hasn't changed. Everything we attack is a military target. Just because there wasn't a tank on the bridge, doesn't mean it wasn't a military target."
(Jamie Shea, spokesperson for NATO)
Back to Table of Contents of the June 1999 ZGrams