On Political Carnage and Mark Carney

While the political crisis in Ottawa has unfolded, I have been reading Fichte’s “Addresses to the German Nation” (1807), which delivered national consciousness-raising to Germans following the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon at the Battle of Jena.  This sort of scenario might sound familiar to Canadians who are facing a 25% tariff threat by the incoming Trump administration if we don’t do more to limit the illegal aliens crossing the border from Canada to the USA.  Trump, as we know, has even mocked Trudeau as the “governor” of the 51^st state., and so on.

Canadians are in a moral panic – and everyone is pointing their fingers at Justin Trudeau.  Last Friday, he told Chrystia Freeland via Zoom that she would no longer be Finance Minister, but she was expected to deliver the Fall Budget nonetheless.  A miscalculation on the part of Trudeau, perhaps, but no one acknowledges that she was not being removed from her post as Deputy Prime Minister.  On top of that she was offered the alternative responsibility of handling Canada-US relations – in other words, Trump. Who could ask for more?  Does Chrystia Freeland not have a political ego, too, and is she not letting Canadians know about it?  I, for one, have never been fond of Freeland and her pedantic manner: it’s as if she were the kindergarten teacher, and we are all her pupils.

The last time the Canadian nation was in a moral panic was at the discovery of the unmarked graves at the former Indian residential school in Kamloops, B.C.  The news ricocheted around the world, Canadian flags were at half mast seemingly endlessly, and there was tremendous soul searching.  How could such things happen in Canada, many wondered, as if this were “news”.  What did Trudeau do: he appointed our first Indigenous Governor General, Mary Simon.  Unfortunately, she knew little French, owing in part to circumstances and language rules at the time, having been born Indigenous in what was then Quebec.  Nonetheless she was greeted in English Canada as if Trudeau had pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

Can Trudeau pull a rabbit out of the hat once again?  In light of all the political carnage we have witnessed under Justin Trudeau’s terms of office, this seems unlikely.  His flavour has passed.  Dominic LeBlanc was named Finance Minister in Freeland’s absence, but he should be considered a stopgap measure.  If he remains in that office, then Justin Trudeau should step down because LeBlanc represents the kind of thing the Trump administration relies on: Dominic used to babysit Trudeau the Younger, when Romeo LeBlanc (the Elder) and Pierre Trudeau were in government together.  Justin Trudeau would appear simply to be too reliant on family connections to run a government.  This is aside from Dominic LeBlanc’s inexperience with Finance.

If Mark Carney steps up to the plate and takes on the role as Finance Minister, he would put some wind in the Liberal party sails, but, as it stands now, the Trudeau government is something of a ship wreck.  Carney has vast experience as Governor of the Bank of Canada (during the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008) and Governor of the Bank of England (during Brexit!).  Clearly a man of talent, who has a recent book out (Chrystia’s is forthcoming), he has zero experience as an elected representative, and here the Liberal Party might be revisiting its Michael Ignatieff moment, which was certainly a failed - and most undesirable - venture.  Carney, at least, merits more attention than Ignatieff ever did.

If Mark Carney doesn’t in the end accept Trudeau’s invitation as Finance Minister, he will be sinking the Trudeau government, as well as his own ambitions, as, by implication, he would be demonstrating an inability to play as a team.  He could leave Trudeau twisting in the wind, and I figure not many in the Liberal Party would appreciate that, as well as other concerned Canadians. We all know Carney wants only one job, Trudeau’s.  But there will be no pieces to pick up following Trudeau’s eventual departure, one way or another.  Carney needs to get his feet wet now, not wait for the polished photo-op.  If Carney doesn’t grasp the gravity of the moment – of a listless government having to confront an unstable Trump administration and its tariffs - then he is not worthy of a future in Canadian politics.  Time to answer the call, Mr. Carney, and begin speaking to the country.

Is Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present – Present Today?

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.

“Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.

“My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.”

“To-night!” cried Scrooge.

“To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.”

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.

 

Source: Project Gutenberg eBook. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Original First Edition, 1843, available online. 

On Fathers and Sons and Presidential Pardons

There has been much political hand-wringing – expected by Republicans but also among Democrats - concerning President Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon of his son, Hunter.  Precedent-setting, perhaps, but certainly consistent with the recent Supreme Court decision to grant the American presidency absolute immunity from prosecution for all official acts. 

In my view, we need to assess the net effects of such a move: Hunter Biden gets to live a a life not consumed by personal and legal troubles and away from the dubious intentions of the incoming Trump presidency.  Compare this to George Bush (the lesser), who launched the Iraq War ostensibly to defend the honour of George H. W. Bush Sr., whose life had been threatened by Saddam Hussein in retaliation for the Gulf War.  Thousands of American and countless Iraqi lives were lost.  In other words, people died in this instance, at least in part, because of a father and son relationship.

Another interesting comparison is Stalin and his son Yakov Djugashvili, who ended up in a German POW camp after he was captured in 1941.  By virtue of being Stalin’s son he was considered a “valuable hostage”.[1] A prisoner swap was proposed but Stalin washed his hands of him in part because – in Stalin’s mind – being a POW was a dishonour to the nation: better to fight to the death. Stalin was also constrained by the fact that millions of Russians had died in the war, and he could not be seen to be giving his own son preferential treatment.[2] Yakov was dead in a POW camp by April 1943.  It was believed that Stalin was informed of his son’s death by intelligence services, but he kept it secret. 

 

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[1] Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2013), p.  125.

[2] Ibid., p. 126.

Trump’s nepotism, and then some

Nepotism: Originally derived from the Italian nepote, meaning NEPHEW, the term nepotism is a “reference to popes with illegitimate sons called nephews”.[1]

Exhibit A:  Trump named Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France.  Thus, Charles Kusher joins the esteemed ranks of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who served as the first and second American ambassadors to France, respectively. Note: In 2004, Mr. Kushner “admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister.”[2]

Exhibit B:  One day after he named Charles Kushner as ambassador to France, Trump announced that “he would name Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser covering Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.”[3]

Exhibit C: According to sources, Donald Trump Jr “has emerged as the family’s most influential advisor of the moment as his father builds the most controversial cabinet in modern US history.”[4]  Apparently Don Jr was also influential in championing J.D. Vance as president-elect Trump’s running mate. Note: In his first term of office as president, Trump’s eldest daughter and her husband Jared Kushner, were top advisors.

Clearly the advice president-elect Trump has been getting – and will continue to get – has not been hashed out by academics in seminar rooms.  As Trump lowers the bar, we need to keep our expectations of American politics, if not global affairs, low. Note: During the First World War, it was the British working-class soldiers who fared the best, as they had a lifetime’s experience, especially from being in the mines, which kept their expectations low.

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[1] Oxford Canadian Dictionary 2004.

[2] Zach Montague, “Trump Names Charles Kusher as Pick for Ambassador to France,” New York Times online, November 30, 2024.

[3] Zach Montague, “Trump Offers Massad Boulos Middle East Advisor Role,” New York Times online, December 1, 2024.

[4] Richard Luscombe and agency, “Trump’s eldest son emerges as key voice influencing cabinet picks – report”, The Guardian online, November 24, 2024. 

Trump’s win was no “landslide”

Trump’s vote share at 49.9% is a fraction below the 50% mark.  My guess is, if Covid-19 hadn’t killed so many anti-vaxxer Republican supporters in the previous two administrations (Trump's followed by Biden's), then Trump would have passed the 50% threshold at the November 2024 elections.

See: James Fitzgerald, “Just how big was Donald Trump's election victory?”  BBC News online, 22 Nov. 2024.

Jonathan Freedland: Benjamin Netanyahu is a wanted man – and he has only himself to blame

Months ago, in an earlier post this year, I drew attention to the saga of Samsung and Delilah as an allegory to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The recent decision by the International Criminal court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, invites us to revisit this Old Testament parable.  Israel has lost its way under Netanyahu.  Is it in the process of self-destruction?  In the words of Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, Netanyahu “risks turning Israel into a pariah state.”  In the following compelling article, Freedland lays out the case against the Israeli prime minister:

Thanks to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, which once dreamed of being a light unto the nations, has taken a step closer to becoming a leper among the nations. The Israeli prime minister and the defence minister he sacked a fortnight ago, Yoav Gallant, are now wanted men, the subject of arrest warrants issued on Thursday by the international criminal court (ICC), accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. From now on, some 124 countries are effectively closed to them: if Netanyahu or Gallant set foot in any member state of the ICC – which includes Britain and most of Europe – they face the risk of arrest. The UK government has already said it will follow the law, which sounds like a commitment to detain the two men if they come here. They are to be shunned, as a matter of international law.

Israeli ministers and their allies are raging against the ICC, accusing it of bias and double standards in levelling against Israel charges that it has never made against the leaders of any other western democracy. But the blame lies squarely with Netanyahu himself. Because this move, which signals a new isolation of Israel, was entirely avoidable.

Start with the law. Ask why the ICC didn’t go after, say, Britain for suspected war crimes in Iraq or the US on similar charges in Afghanistan, and you’ll be told that the ICC stays out of countries that have their own, reliable systems of justice. The legal principle is called “complementarity”, by which the ICC defers to the courts of the country accused, so long as it’s satisfied that any crimes will be properly investigated and pursued.

For Israel, the simplest solution would have been the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 and all that has followed. As it happens, that’s been a loud demand within Israel ever since that murderous day 13 months ago. But Netanyahu has refused to give way. He fears an investigation will point the finger at him for leaving Israel exposed to the deadliest attack in its history. An inquiry would blow apart his pretence that, though he has been in the prime minister’s seat for most of the past 15 years, he was blameless for that horrific failure – though simultaneously responsible for all of Israel’s military successes. So, in a break with all Israeli precedent, there is still no inquiry into 7 October or the conduct of the war in Gaza. And that, under the principle of complementarity, opened the door to the ICC.

Of course, Netanyahu’s culpability goes much deeper. The ICC’s statement makes clear that the heart of its case against Israel’s leaders relates to the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The ICC says there are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity”.

Netanyahu and his defenders say that the ICC’s warrants are outrageous because they overlook the viciousness of Israel’s Hamas enemy and seek to tie the hands of Israel in defending itself. But the way Israel has pounded Hamas is not at the heart of the ICC case. Instead, the focus of the charge sheet is aid.

Now, obviously, the primary reason why Israel should have ensured sufficient supplies of essentials is moral. It is indefensible to use “starvation as a method of warfare”, as the ICC puts it. The second reason is strategic. As I wrote early on in the war, even senior US military figures sympathetic to Israel tried to persuade the country’s leadership that it would be wise to make crystal clear that its war was with Hamas, not the Palestinians of Gaza. It should have provided Gaza’s civilians with all the food and medicine they needed, in order to drive a wedge between Hamas and the people that group has ruled so oppressively and so long. Instead, it made harsh lives even harsher and sowed hatred into the hearts of a new generation. An epic strategic failure.

The legal arguments come last. It should have been obvious to Netanyahu and his allies that while charges relating to the military conduct of a war are legally hard to prove, aid is a clear and measurable commodity. The absence of a domestic Israeli inquiry tasked specifically with examining aid policy, coupled with reckless statements about the imposition of a “total siege” – a threat that was never implemented but which immediately painted the Gaza operation in “illegal and excessive colours”, as the Israeli scholar of international law Prof Yuval Shany put it to me – and Netanyahu and Gallant had all but written their own arrest warrants.

Israel, backed by the US, will argue that the ICC has acted unfairly. They will note that, while the court bent over backwards to help the likes of the UK, US or even Venezuela clear the complementarity bar, it gave no such leeway to Israel. They will say that sending aid into Gaza is no easy task, not when Hamas or other armed men stand ready to steal it for themselves, as happened just this week. They will say that it is appalling to include a Hamas commander in the same warrant as Netanyahu and Gallant, as if there can be moral equivalence between a democratic state and a terror organisation (though they would surely have blasted the ICC just as vehemently had it overlooked Hamas’s crimes). They will say the ICC didn’t give Israel enough time or notice, that the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, cancelled a planned trip to Israel in May at the last minute, preferring to announce his application for arrest warrants on CNN. They will say that Khan is compromised, himself the subject of an internal inquiry into alleged sexual misconduct.

There will be plenty of takers for these arguments, especially the one alleging double standards. The US, perhaps backed by Hungary and others, could well seek to intimidate the court, threatening to cut off funding or to impose sanctions on ICC officials. The outgoing Biden administration has already denounced the warrants and Donald Trump will only be tougher.

But the charges will not melt away. I have spoken to four different specialists in international law about the Gaza war, and all four believe it is likely that war crimes and crimes against humanity have indeed been committed. Importantly, those same four also believe that the gravest accusation against Israel – that it is committing genocide – cannot be legally sustained. That view is hardened, incidentally, by the ICC’s decision to reject one charge sought by the prosecutor against the Israeli pair, namely the crime of “extermination”.

Few people expect to see Netanyahu in the dock at The Hague any time soon. On the contrary, this move will only strengthen him politically, just as serial domestic indictments only helped Trump. Netanyahu will say he is the victim of hate-filled outsiders, that it’s Israel against the world and that he alone stands as its true defender, ready to sacrifice his own liberty for the sake of the nation.

But make no mistake, this will have a major impact. It will strengthen calls for arms embargos of Israel and for criminal investigations into lower-level Israeli political and military figures. It will accelerate Israel’s path to international pariahdom. And remember, this is exactly what Hamas hoped for on 7 October: to drive Israel so mad with grief and rage that it would lash out in ways that would destroy its international legitimacy. Netanyahu gave them exactly what they wanted. Hamas set the trap – and he walked right into it.

• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist, published online in The Guardian Fri 22 Nov 2024 17.00 GMT

Crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court

War crimes

War crimes include torture, mutilation, corporal punishment, hostage taking and acts of terrorism. This category also covers violations of human dignity such as rape and forced prostitution, looting and execution without trial. War crimes, unlike crimes against humanity, are always committed in times of war.

• Genocide

• This includes all acts committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic or religious group.

• Crimes against humanity

  Crimes against humanity are acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, such as murder, deportation, torture and rape. The ICC prosecutes the perpetrators even if the crimes were not committed in times of war.
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• Source: Government of the Netherlands.