A rchive Date
[ 13-04-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/leishman.html
Many on left owe Iraqis an apology
By RORY LEISHMAN - London Free Press
April 13, 2003
The scenes of jubilation broadcast by Al-Jazeera television from Baghdad, Basra, Erbil and other Iraqi cities over the last week have been reminiscent of the rapture expressed by the Dutch to their Canadian, United States and British liberators during the Second World War, but for one major difference: This time, there was not a single unit of the Canadian Armed Forces on hand to join in the celebrations.
Why not? Why did the government of Canada not allow our Canadian troops to make any contribution to the liberation of the Iraqi people from the brutal rule of Saddam Hussein?
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Prime Minister Jean Chretien maintained that, "Canada took a principled stand against participating in military intervention in Iraq. From the beginning our position has been very clear: to work through the United Nations to achieve the goals we share with our friends and allies; disarming Saddam Hussein."
That's poppycock. For the last 12 years, the Security Council of the United Nations repeatedly called upon Iraq to give up its weapons of mass destruction. For 12 years, Iraq flouted the UN and refused to comply.
Finally, the United States, Britain and Australia said enough is enough.
With the backing of more than 40 other countries, they undertook resolute military action to disarm Iraq and overthrow the Iraqi tyrant.
Instead of taking this same principled stand for the liberation of Iraq, the Chretien Liberals chose to have Canada sit on the sidelines. Had it been up to the government of Canada, most Iraqis would still be cowering in fear of Saddam instead of dancing with joy upon the remains of his toppled statues in the streets of Baghdad.
Of course, in betraying the Iraqi people, the Chretien Liberals have had plenty of support among other Canadians, including many, if not most, academics, journalists, bishops, priests and ministers. Leading Canadian Muslims insist virtually everyone within their community opposes this war of Iraqi liberation. That's disturbing.
Perhaps someone will take up a collection so some of these self-styled peace activists - Christian, Muslim and secular - can fly over to Iraq to explain why they did not want Canadian forces to help free the Iraqi people from the fear and terror of Saddam's barbaric government.
As it is, a Canadian-led "fact-finding team" of "health experts," backed by Oxfam Canada, World Vision Canada and the United Church of Canada, made a flying visit to Iraq last January. Upon their return, they predicted if another war broke out with Iraq, "casualties among children will be in the thousands, probably in the tens of thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands."
On the basis of such scare-mongering misinformation, thousands of naive Canadian peace marchers took to the streets in opposition to the use of military force to free Iraq. What, though, has been the actual number of civilian deaths in the war? While no one yet knows for sure, Iraqi government officials told Abu Dhabi TV on Tuesday, the day before the Saddam regime collapsed, that the total civilian death toll up to that point could be "as high as 1,200."
Consider what the death toll would have been if Saddam had been left in power. Over the last 24 years, his ruthless security forces have murdered at least 200,000 Iraqi civilians. On one infamous day alone - March 16, 1988 - Saddam's troops killed 5,000 civilians and injured 10,000 in a gas attack on the village of Halabja in northern Iraq.
By any measure, the Iraqi war of liberation has been a huge military success. United States, British and Australian forces have liberated the Iraqi people, while holding the number of civilian deaths to an astonishingly low level.
Will all the left-wing leaders of the peace demonstrators who took to the streets of Canada in opposition to this just war of liberation now apologize to the Iraqi people? Not likely. These naive zealots are more apt to go on blaming the United States for every evil in the Middle East, while urging Canada, France and the United Nations to carry on with a policy of appeasement toward Muslim terrorists.
Write Rory at The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, London, Ont. N6A 4G1 or fax 519-667-4528 or E-mail. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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