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BARRY'S BAY THIS WEEK (CANADA) COMMENT Why are we serving under NATO? Posted By David Goulet Posted 46 mins ago It's time for Canada to say goodbye to NATO. I realize that must sound a bit crazy given the importance NATO has had in the history of the 20th century. If not for NATO, who knows how far the Iron Curtain would have spread in Europe. Canada was right to be a key member of that alliance of freedom loving nations. But times change and so has NATO. With the Soviet Union defeated, NATO's reason for existing is also gone. NATO is like a 600-pound gorilla, which is a good friend to have when you're staring down the nose of another 600-pound gorilla. But when that other gorilla is replaced by a 100-pound chimp, what happens to your gorilla? He starts looking for something else to fight with. This is what's happening to NATO. It's been co-opted by its most influential member, the United States, into becoming the main battle group against the war on terror. But here's the problem with that: most of the countries where terrorism originates are in the Middle East or Asia. NATO is a Western military alliance. When NATO acts outside of the European framework it comes across as a foreign belligerent, meddling in the affairs of the rest of the world. That plays right into the hands of Islamic extremists who rant on about a modern Crusade being undertaken by Christian Europe and America. Canada doesn't need to get sucked further into that maelstrom than it already has. I found it disgusting to see Stephen Harper begging his NATO counterparts for troops and resources. Remind me again why our soldiers serve under a NATO flag? But it doesn't stop there. NATO has just turned down membership to Macedonia, yet offered it to Albania. Once again the Serb population in the region feels they are the fall guys for all the unrest in the Balkans. NATO is becoming some kind of military country club, where membership is based on parameters far removed from its original mandate of protecting Europe from communist aggression. Why does Canada have to get its hands dirty in Eastern European politics? Becoming a NATO member means accepting NATO's ideals of what the new Europe should look and sound like. Tote the line and you're in. Go against those ideals and you're left out in the cold. It's like being a member of the United Nations, without all those Third World countries slowing you down. It smacks of Western elitism. This brings me back to my original point. Why is Canada a member of this European-American country club? The simple answer is that we don't want to be kept out of the party. To pull out would anger the Americans and possibly affect our image in some European circles. But if this country has any soul, it will recall that it is a member of a global community called the United Nations. This is where its primary efforts and loyalty belong. Not to an organization that is becoming the very behemoth it was founded to protect against. There are plenty of battles to be fought in this world, some of them Canada should be in. But it should be because the fight is one that serves the greater good, not NATO's myopic self interests.
