Ukraine anti-war email thread, Dufferin Grove listserv spring 2022

April 1, 2022, from Doug Anderson

I am copying some people who responded favourably to my cranky and despairing e-mail about Julie’s new role as chair to the Parliamentary-NATO committee. To her credit, she has ignored my tone and invited concerned constituents to a tea on Saturday April 7 or Saturday April 14.

What could we contribute? I’m not naive enough to suppose that we can change what I regard as the overall machiavellian orientation of our foreign policy establishment; however, we have a chance to begin at least making this parliamentary committee aware that people are watching them and are very, very concerned - that we are more interested in diplomacy and nuanced strategic messaging than in the kind of public posturing that seems to be driving things now. It is my understanding that Chretien stayed out of the Iraq war in 2003 in large part due to a perception that people in Quebec and other provinces (excepting Alberta) were strongly opposed to that illegal war (Bush and Putin both belong in the ICC in the Hague as far as I’m concerned). I am cynically convinced that Chretien may well have sent our boys to Iraq if the political winds in Quebec had clearly been blowing in bellicose ways. We can at least help politicians like Julie to say, “I’m hearing this on the ground…. Busy, informed people took the time to get together and pull me into this meeting…. ” Which is at least something, and let’s not underestimate it.

Why am I doing this when I am so pressed for time in other areas (as I’m sure you all are)? Simply, put we are now (according to the bulletin of atomic Scientists) arguably closer to “doomsday” than at any time in history. Even if unlikely, thermonuclear war is still a possibility, and by informed accounts may be a higher possibility than ever before, even than in the early 60’s or early 80’s! Aside from that grim possibility, we are looking at a deterioration of the overall international environment in ways that threaten us all, in just about every conceivable way. International diplomacy appears to be a dying art, vexed by economic and political polarization, the ongoing ascendancy of the “military industrial complex”, and an ever worse oversimplification of the complexity of the overall situation in our increasingly anemic media.

If anyone knows of local scholars or veterans of the international scene in Europe and US-Russian relations who could help us with this discussion, it’s appreciated. Even though I disagree with them in many ways, I like the realists (John Mearshimer or Stephen Cohen in the US) for their precise knowledge of diverse and complex realities, but don’t know if there’s anyone like that in our vicinity…. To be clear, I guess I could be qualified as a kind of “pacifist”, but this is not about pacifism, and I would sit down with a diverse array of perspectives to consider the complexity of this. It’s about pushing for a deeper analysis and more careful strategy and discussion at levels we are usually not privy to. Again, simply put, decision makers need to hear that we are very, very, very, very, very concerned (if indeed we are, which I am hearing is the case, anecdotally). The NATO parliamentary committee feeds into the overall NATO conversations. NATO needs to hear what people are thinking, and I’m pretty sure they are not, from what I’ve seen.

Please share with those you might see as interested and RSVP to myself and Orianna (in Julie’s office, who can help set up the meeting). I will leave this wit Orianna, thanks Orianna!