Time to redefine ties with U.S. [View All]

[CHIMO]

Time to redefine ties with U.S.
Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy blasts Washington's ` imperial attitudes' to international agreements

Outrage over the duplicitous diplomacy used to avoid treaty obligations on Devil's Lake is not enough.

Cancelling a meeting of trade bureaucrats in defiance of a NAFTA trade ruling on softwood lumber is blowing smoke in the wind.

Telephone tag between the Prime Minister and President George Bush is a sop, not a solution. Huffing and puffing will neither impress nor influence the Bush administration in Washington, nor their regional allies like the governor and senators of North Dakota.

The reality is that we are dealing with an American political system currently steeped in the ideology of "empire." It recognizes few rules, adheres only to those treaties that are expedient to basic interests, and believes that the only political currency that counts is the exercise of raw power.

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