Peace Magazine and the myth of Canada's noninvolvement in the Iraq War

By Richard Sanders (written in 2013)

Peace Magazine began in 1985 and has evolved into what is perhaps the most widely distributed periodical in Canada that is specifically focused on peace issues. 

Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Peace Magazine has included numerous references to the ensuing war.  However, none of the magazine’s editorials, articles, book reviews or interviews have ever provided any details about Canada’s extensive military cooperation with the US in Iraq.  However, there have been numerous occasions when Peace Magazine helped to promote the untruth that Canada stayed out of the war. 

For example, in 2005, when Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade invited NGOs to provide input for the government's international policy review, Peace Magazine's editors wrote a statement which they published under the title “Canada's International Policy Review.”  In their statement, the magazine’s editors said that

“Canada should refuse participation in questionable American military projects -- as happened when it refused to join in the last invasion of Iraq.”[i]

Later that year, the magazine published an article by American Iraq-War resister Jeremy Hinzman which explained why he came to Canada.  Referring to a statement attributed to Pierre Trudeau, that “Canada should be a refuge from militarism,” Hinzman said “We chose Canada because we took Trudeau's words at face value.”  Hinzman then said “In addition, Canada, although one of America's most important allies, refused to contribute soldiers to the ‘coalition of the willing.’"[ii]  Four years later, Hinzman was quoted in a Peace Magazine article by Dave Perri on Canada’s relationship with US war resisters.  Hinzman “was hopeful,” wrote Perri, “because of Canada's refusal to participate in the invasion of Iraq.” "We were aware of Canada's history during Vietnam,” Hinzman said, “but what was more influential was that Canada refused to participate in the Iraq War. That said a lot to us.”[iii]  Unfortunately, Perri did not point out that Hinzman had erred in believing the well-established Iraq-War myth. However, Perri did reveal that the quote ascribed to Trudeau, about Canada being a "refuge from militarism,” was “the product of inaccurate journalism parroting slipshod academic research.” In discussing research by Joseph Jones, Perri notes that “Trudeau never made such a declaration. The quote was manufactured, through a combination of conflation, misquotation and disregard for context.” This, said Jones, is "the kind of process where folklore is generated…. It's something that everyone `knows' is true. Until someone digs in, goes back, and does the work, everybody buys into a fabrication."  This is, of course, deeply ironic because – thanks in part to Peace Magazine -- the same process of “folklore” generation has taken place in creating the mythology which led Hinzman, and so many others, to believe that “Canada refused to participate in the Iraq War.”

In early 2006, Peace Magazine published another article in favour of letting American Iraq-War veterans come to Canada.  This article, about the US group Iraqi Veterans Against the War (IVAW), gives a parenthetical reference to Canada’s alleged non-involvement in the Iraq War.  The article, describing Kelly Dougherty, a co-founder of IVAW, says that while “speaking in Canada, Kelly called on Canadians (whom she respects for staying out of the war) to support US war resisters.”[iv]

In that same issue of Peace Magazine, yet another American gives credence to Canada’s Iraq-War myth. This occurs in the review of a book called Unquiet Diplomacy by Paul Cellucci, who had been the US Ambassador to Canada during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The reviewer noted that Cellucci “didn't realise then that it would be Quebec that would ensure that Canada did not agree to declare war on Iraq. Or that France would agree with us.” The review went on to comment that “Canada's refusal to go to war on Iraq was,” what Cellucci called, a “’bump in the road’ for Canada-US relations. Iraq was ‘not something we wanted to do or should have to do on our own.’"[v] Unfortunately, there was no reference to Cellucci’s important statement in March 2003 that Canada gave “more support to this war in Iraq...than most of those 46 countries that are fully supporting our efforts there.”[vi]

The same thing happens in a Peace Magazine review of 2007 book, The Unexpected War, by Stein and Lang. In this case, the reviewer underscores the Iraq-War mythology by selecting a quote by Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister in 2003. "There was no question,” said Bill Graham, “every time we talked about Afghan mission, it gave us cover for not going to Iraq."[vii]  The book reviewer completely ignored the many references in Stein and Lang’s book which explored Canada’s contributions to the war, such as their reference to Chretien’s diplomats bragging in Washington that Canada’s “contribution to the American war effort in Iraq…exceeded that of all but three other countries that were formally part of the coalition.”[viii]

Another example of how Peace Magazine has lent support to the illusion that Canada played no part in the Iraq War was an article by Debbie Grisdale, then executive director of Physicians for Global Survival.  She described an effort by some activists to encourage the government to teach about peace at the Canadian War Museum, she asks “how will wars, like Iraq, that Canada has intentionally decided not to enter, be reflected?”[ix]

Over the past decade, Peace Magazine did publish one piece that at least made passing reference to the possibility that Canada secretly supported the Iraq war. The article, about conscientious objectors who refuse to pay the portion of their taxes that support war, stated:

 “In a democratic world the citizens can say ‘We don't want a war’ in such numbers that the powermongers, the weapons manufacturers and their investors, can't prevail against them, and war is simply voted down. This happened to some extent when majority opinion opposed participating in the present Iraq war and so Canada didn't take part. But it seems we support it covertly.”[x]

By saying only that “it seems we support it covertly,” the article raises doubts about whether Canada did or did not aid the Iraq War.  And since none of the evidence of Canada’s many contributions to the war was ever presented, readers of Peace Magazine were still no closer to knowing the truth about Canada’s military service in Iraq.

The next reference in Peace Magazine to Canada and the Iraq War cropped up more than a year later in an article about the Campaign for a Department of Peace.  In this article, a representative of that group was quoted as saying:

"We know that the government responds to grassroots initiatives across the country -- the public opposition to the war in Iraq is the reason Canada did not become involved."[xi]

In 2010, Peace Magazine published yet another item crediting the peace movement with keeping Canada out of the Iraq War.  The piece quotes from an address by the Voice of Women’s co-chair, who said

“Canada did NOT join the US in attacking Iraq against international law because of our determination – WE joined hands and made that difference.

“We need to believe in our own power, and we need that power now more than ever.“[xii]

Clearly the Iraq-War myth was called upon in this speech to rally and empower activists to take action.  Although untrue, it is a convenient falsehood that offers hope to those who may otherwise feel powerless in the face of overwhelming odds.

Financing:

Peace Magazine is published by the Canadian Disarmament Information Service (CANDIS) of Toronto. “CANDIS…was originally funded by the city and the Department of External Affairs.”[xiii]

 “We have previously received grants from governmental sources, including the City of Toronto, the Disarmament Fund of the Ministry of External Affairs, and the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (this year $6000 from CDPS).”[xiv]