User:Lou Sander/Canadian Troops

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On January 26, 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program the fifth estate [sic] aired a report called Sticks & Stones. A widely-circulated video clip shows part of its interview with Ann Coulter. (A transcript appears below; you can see the three-minute clip HERE and the entire 42-minute program HERE.)

The clip begins with the narrator asserting that “Rachel Marsden isn’t the only one on Fox to base outspoken opinion on misconception.” It goes on to present an edited excerpt from a Hannity & Colmes interview in which Coulter talks about the need for Canada to be more supportive of the United States. Then it switches to an edited excerpt of the Sticks & Stones interview, where Coulter and host Bob McKeown discussed Canada’s role in the Vietnam War.

Contents

[edit] Transcript of the interview

This is a full transcript of the discussion between Coulter and McKeown:

Host: Explain...why you said that.
Coulter: We were on Hannity and Colmes discussing the...the antiwar protestors. Canada...used to be one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable, and more of a threat than Saddam?...
Host: (interrupting Coulter) No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.
Coulter: I don’t think that’s right.
Host: Canada did not send troops to Vietnam.
Coulter: (looking puzzled) Indochina?
Host: No. Canada...Second World War, of course, Korea, yes...
Coulter: (talking over him) I think you’re wrong.
Host: Vietnam, no, took a pass on Vietnam
Coulter: I think you’re wrong.
Host: No. Australia was there, not Canada
Coulter: I think Canada sent troops.
Host: (shaking his head no)
Coulter: I’ll get back to you on that.
Host: OK.
Voice: (haughtily) Coulter never got back to us. But for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam.

[edit] Analysis of the interview

The interview is presented as an "outspoken opinion based on misconception," and the implication is that those words apply to Ann Coulter. But the outspoken opinion was actually expressed by the host: "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam; Canada did not send troops to Vietnam; No. Canada...Second World War, of course, Korea, yes...; Vietnam, no, took a pass on Vietnam; No. Australia was there, not Canada; but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam." Was the host's direct and insistent (=outspoken) opinion based on a misconception? Yes it was. For the record, Canada DID send troops to Vietnam (see specifics below).

Other than a few words about international threats and friendship, and her illustrative point that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam," Coulter's opinion was limited to polite responses to the host's outspoken challenge: "I don’t think that’s right; Indochina?; I think you’re wrong; I think Canada sent troops; I’ll get back to you on that." Do these words express an "outspoken opinion?" Absolutely not. Were they based on a misconception? Not if Canada sent troops to Vietnam, they weren't. And for the record, Canada DID send troops to Vietnam.

[edit] Canadian troops in Vietnam

Despite the repeated denials by CBC's interviewer, Canada DID send troops to Vietnam. The facts are well-documented and beyond dispute. The interviewer constantly repeats his assertions, but no other source supports them. These facts contradict him:

  • The government of Canada awarded medals to 1,550 of these troops for their service between August 7, 1954 and January 28, 1973. You can see the details HERE. A second medal was also awarded to the 240 Canadian troops who participated in Operation Gallant in Vietnam from January 28, 1973 to July 31, 1973. Details HERE.
  • Many official Canadian government documents about the International Control Commission for Vietnam (a mixture of Canadian troops and Canadian civilians) are available on the Internet and elsewhere. Some of them can be found HERE.

Canadian military personnel who died while in Vietnam or other parts of Indochina include:

  • Sergeant James S. BYRNE, CD, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps. Died 18 Oct 1965. His body was not recovered.
  • Corporal Vernon J. PERKINS, Royal Highland Regiment of Canada (Black Watch). Died 18 Oct 1965. His body was not recovered.
  • Leading Seaman Ned W. MEMNOOK, HMCS TERRA NOVA. Died 15 Mar 1973. He was posthumously awarded the Special Service Medal & "PEACE" Clasp
  • Captain Charles E. LAVIOLETTE, CD, 12e Regiment Blinde du Canada. Died 7 Apr 1973.

[edit] Canada in Vietnam: America's friend in arms

Coulter told the interviewer that "Canada...used to be one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa," then she mentioned Vietnam and the troops that Canada had sent there. Though the troops are not in doubt, some people question whether they were "fighting" troops, or supportive of the United States to the detriment of their "peacekeeping" role. Many sources confirm that they were both.

Canada's loyal friendship was confirmed by one of Canada's greatest leaders. On August 24th, 1954, Prime Minister Lester Pearson gave secret instructions to the head of his country's Vietnam "peacekeepers":[1]

"26. Though the Americans are not as intimately concerned with Indochina as are the French, you will wish to bear in mind, in your contacts with them not merely our very close and friendly relations with the United States, but also the demands of judicial objectivity and discretion, and the practice and attitude of the Chairman of your Commission."

Canada's "peacekeepers" bore in mind exactly what their Prime Minister ordered them to. The authoritative Canadian Encyclopedia says this:

"...Cabinet papers, confidential stenographic minutes of the truce commissions as well as top-secret American government cables revealed Canada to be a willing ally of US counterinsurgency efforts.
"...Canadian delegates engaged in espionage for the US Central Intelligence Agency and aided the covert introduction of American arms and personnel into South Vietnam while they spotted for US bombers over North Vietnam. Canadian commissioners shielded the US chemical defoliant program from public inquiry, parlayed American threats of expanded war to Hanoi, and penned the reports legitimating both the rupture of the Geneva Agreements and the US air war over North Vietnam.[2]

Throughout the war, the Canadian government persisted in claiming neutrality. But an active antiwar movement thoroughly documented what they saw as its shameful complicity in wrongful American aggression.[3] [4]

Long after Canada's troops had ended their eighteen-year stay in Vietnam, Canada's government continues to claim their neutrality. And Canadian scholars continue to confirm what Canadian activists had so long and loudly proclaimed: that Canada's troops in Vietnam, along with their diplomatic counterparts, had actively participated in U.S. efforts in fighting the war.[5] [6]

[edit] Reaction to the interview

Except on the fifth estate website, the interview was not widely discussed in the mainstream media. It was widely discussed on the Internet, where uninformed viewers attempted to use it as evidence that Coulter "didn't know what she was talking about," or "lied again," et cetera. Time magazine commented on this phenomenon:

Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words "Ann Coulter lies," you will drown in results. But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors. One of the most popular alleged mistakes pinging around the Web is from her appearance on Canadian TV news in January, when Coulter asserted that "Canada sent troops to Vietnam." Interviewer Bob McKeown said she was wrong. "Indochina?" Coulter tried. McKeown said no. Finally, Coulter said haltingly, "I'll get back to you." "Coulter never got back to us," McKeown triumphantly noted, "but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam." What he didn't mention was that Canada did send noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972.[1]

Time was correct in labeling this as an "alleged mistake," but they skimped on the facts about Canadian troops in Vietnam.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Documents on Canadian External Relations, Volume 20 - 752
  2. ^ The Canadian Encyclopedia: Vietnam War
  3. ^ Student Association to End the War in Vietnam: Ottawa's Complicity in Vietnam (1967)
  4. ^ Canada Vietnam Newsletter: U.S. Aggression in Vietnam & Canada's Complicity (1969)
  5. ^ Victor Levant, Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986)
  6. ^ Jeffrey L. Kerr, "Honest Brokers"?: Canada and the International Commission for Supervision and Control, Cambodia: 1954 to 1964 (Ottawa, Ontario: Department of History, Carleton University, 1997)

The following web pages are very long, and contain much extraneous material. You can find the pertinent parts by using your browser to search for the word "Memnook". In Internet Explorer, use CTRL+F.