Don’t believe the lie — Mulroney never led fight against apartheid

 

According to many of the obituaries, Brian Mulroney was an internationalist, justice-minded statesman. In reality Mulroney promoted the US Empire and economic policies benefiting the rich during his time as Canada’s Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993.

For example:

• Five thousand Canadian military personnel were deployed to the Middle East during the early 1990s Iraq war. Among few other coalition members, Canadian fighter jets engaged in combat with CF-18 Hornets joining US and British ships in destroying most of Iraq’s hundred plus naval vessels in what was dubbed the “Bubiyan Turkey Shoot.” Coalition bombing destroyed much of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure including electricity production, sewage treatment plants, telecommunications equipment, etc. Twenty thousand Iraqi troops and thousands of civilians were killed. Initially part of a UN mandate, Canada’s military operations went beyond what the UN authorized. In the lead-up to the war the Mulroney government was hawkish on a conflict that deepened the US foothold in the region. Canada’s aggressiveness grew after Iraq bombed Israel. Soon after SCUD missiles were launched at Israel the PM told the House of Commons: “We have resolved never to remain indifferent while Israel is threatened with mass destruction.”
• This hyperbolic statement was part of Mulroney’s staunchly pro-Israel posture. In 1988 the prime minister told an Israel bonds dinner: “I am the heir of the rich spiritual and cultural legacy of Israel, which is the core of Western civilization. I have admired modern Israel in the way one admires a miracle.” That statement came a year after Israel began suppressing the first intifada (uprising). Mulroney told the CBC that Israel’s brutal suppression of rock-throwing Palestinian youth was handling the situation with “restraint.” When questioned by a CBC reporter about the similarity between the plight of Palestinians and Blacks in South Africa, Mulroney replied that any comparison between Israel and South Africa was “false and odious and should never be mentioned in the same breath.” At the 1987 Francophonie summit Canada was the only country (41 participated) that failed to support a resolution calling for Palestinian self-determination. More than a decade after most of the world supported the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s admission to the UN, the US finally agreed to initiate low-level contacts with the PLO. Ottawa refused to follow Washington’s lead. Abdullah Abdullah, the PLO’s representative in Ottawa, complained that “Canada is now the last country in the world outside of Israel that does not formally deal with the PLO.”  (more...)

Don’t believe the lie — Mulroney never led fight against apartheid