In times of war, journalists typically reserve personal opinions for back room chit chat and rarely put it on record. Carol Off, however, is no typical journalist.
On March 1 people flocked to the University of Calgary Club to hear Off, a Current Affairs journalist for CBC Television’s The National present her opinions on war and moral equivalency. The speech, entitled "Doing the Right Thing in an Age of Cynicism," was based on Off’s experiences as a journalist in recent war zones, and was part of the Ross Ellis Memorial Lecture Series sponsored by the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the U of C.
Off opened by explaining that in the wake of September 11, Canadians need to determine the role our armed forces should play.
"Canadians always want to do the right thing and are asking questions about our forces that are long overdue," she said, adding that "the government is not up to the task of answering these emerging questions.
Off focused on both moral equivalency among peacekeepers overseas and the effectiveness of peacekeeping in situations of ethnic cleansing. She stressed that the emphasis placed on peacekeepers to be neutral observers in times of ethnic cleansing is a flawed concept, since this neutrality allows persecutors to continue their attacks upon others.
"You can’t be neutral," said Off. "To be impartial is to actually take sides. Neutrality and impartiality during ethnic cleaning is a stupid idea. There is nothing ambiguous about watching women and children flee a village on fire."
Off accused Canadians of withdrawing from current events by declaring that there are "no good guys in war," and that we therefore should not become involved in conflicts.
"I find this a cynical mindset," she said. "The 1990s have been a time of moral equivalency. We didn’t get involved in Bosnia [until the end] because we didn’t want to."
Off believes the notion that there are "no good guys" is enforced upon Canadian peacekeepers overseas, and that misrepresented events encourage this belief. Off gave the example of the Breadline Massacre of May 1992, when the Bosnian government was accused of masterminding an attack against its own people to encourage sympathy. It is Off’s belief that this accusation was constructed to achieve equivalency.
"The point of moral equivalency is to find a level playing field," she said. "[The Breadline Massacre] was used as a device to force people to negotiate."
Off also spoke about the trauma that many peacekeepers go through as observers in war zones. In particular, she discussed the challenge of peacekeepers to remain neutral in the face of atrocities, and the actions of some peacekeepers that have lead them into direct conflict in the defence of others.
"It takes tremendous personal courage to use your own moral competency," she said. Off also feels that Canadians have to realize what war is really about.
"Canadians like to see themselves as International do-gooders, kind of the boy scouts of the universe," she explained. "We are squeamish about war. We like to think of Canadian forces as peacekeepers, not soldiers. But we are in war to kill. We have to realize this and endorse actions as morally right."