When the Peaceniks are in Charge

According to Friday's edition of The Globe and Mail, Brian Lagui ("Debate delayed DART") the DART team was ready to go 24 hours after the tsunami struck Asian shores. But military readiness was not the problem. They even had the foresight of contracting a plane for their transport right away. The politicians and governments departments arguing over money, and trying to protect their turf, seem to have been the source of the delay at the expense of lives in Sri Lanka, no doubt.

As CTV news reported:

An unnamed military source told the Globe that a political debate kept the team grounded. In a teleconference Friday from Phuket, Thailand, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said the Ottawa was right in taking the time to make the decision. "Some military said it should have gone on the 27th and just a defense observation team. We preferred to send a team led by foreign affairs with defense and CIDA people that would be multivocational, multifaceted," he said.

The political debate took place between Foreign Affairs and CIDA, the two branches of government under whose budget DART lives. Multifaceted and multivocational, indeed. Pettigrew's stinginess, as well as a lack of ability in the PMO to make a final decision, seems to be at the root of the deadlock. All of this betrays yet another weakness in the policy structure surrounding DART. Emergency decisions cannot be made by committee.

There is an interesting and ironic role-reversal here. The harsh warriors, those who are typically trained to kill, are caring enough to want quickly to jump to the rescue of the disaster victims; the supposedly peace-loving, softbellied and soft-power peddling bureacrats and politicians dragg their feet, pinch pennies and blame victims for their paralysis in the face of all the suffering. It is not hard to see that more have ended up suffering longer when the peaceniks are in charge.

There is serious need to reconsider a more direct chain of command. DART should not be so tied to indecisive cabinet ministers and bureaucrats, whose principal worry is their political or administrative careers. It is time to give DART an effective place within the military structure.