Trying to find the official Liberal Party position on Lebanon and Israel and terrorism is like trying to find the Liberal Party position on anything. The trick is to wait until they’ve done lots of polling, called all their friends in the liberal media and asked them what they think, read the Toronto Star columnists (except Rondi Adamson), asked George Stroumboulopoulos’s pierced face club members, sorted through the state-run CBC email, and screened the “diversity” section and the “arts and feelings” section of all the newspapers, all of which when they were in power they might have done with your cash and public sector bureaucrats.
Then they’d tell you what their official principled position is and always was (see Lloyd Axworthy’s hilarious comment below). And the answer would inevitably involve the United Nations which has already failed multiple times in this very conflict (perfect—they’ll need more cash!), a reduction in Canada’s military (because it was guns that got us to where we are in the first place), and of course a whole bunch of tea and buns.
[…] Brison wouldn’t comment on whether the Israelis were sufficiently cautious in the weekend bombing attack that killed seven Canadians in southern Lebanon.
But he sounded much like Harper in declaring that “the fault in the initiation of this conflict was Hezbollah’s. We should avoid a knee-jerk anti-Israeli positioning on this issue.”
The comments drew a blast from former Liberal foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, who dismissed Brison as someone so new to the party he “doesn’t really understand what Liberal foreign policy is about.”
“He’s almost at the forefront of a very small group of nations who say whatever Israel does is right. … We’re becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
The split in Liberal ranks is reminiscent of a similar division that plagued the party last spring over Harper’s decision to extend the current military mission in Afghanistan.
Brison and Michael Ignatieff, a former Harvard University scholar and international affairs expert, supported the extension while all the other Grit candidates opposed it.
Brison resurrected that debate Monday, accusing Rae of being inconsistent in his approach to world affairs.
“The biggest challenge in Lebanon is going to be nation-building,” Brison said. “If Bob Rae is against nation-building in Afghanistan, why is he for it in Lebanon?”
“He’s sucking and blowing at the same time.” […]
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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