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Marching as to war and repeating the same mistakes
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
A headline in the Washington Post this week said it all: “Even if we defeat the Islamic State, we’ll still lose the bigger war.”
There it is from one of the most prestigious newspapers in the U.S., the paper that made Watergate a household word and brought down a corrupt president, warning that once again the Western World is plunging over the abyss in launching yet another futile war in the Middle East.
And who’s right in line eager to please Uncle Sam? Stephen Harper, of course, who has no qualms about sending our brave troops to a war-torn part of the world that hasn’t seen peace in a thousand years. Harper, who wouldn’t know which end of an AK-47 to fire, can spout war rhetoric with the best of them.
Speaking to a business audience last week far from the battle in New York our brave prime minister said: “we haven’t ruled out anything. We need to have some additional debate within our government before we reach a final decision, but we’re wanting to see this successful. And we want to be supportive as best we can.”
Didn’t that make you feel warm and fuzzy with patriotic fervor? Especially when Capt. Canada talks to Americans about our war plans before disclosing them to Canadians at home. Yup, Canada is marching off to war again hanging on to Uncle Sam’s apron strings, showing we too are part of the “coalition of the willing” to steal a phrase from that great Commander in Chief, George Bush, who lost the lives of more than 5,000 American soldiers in Iraq and left the country a shambles in a war that former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien wisely rejected for Canadian troops.
It’s enough to make you weep.
We already lost 158 soldiers in Afghanistan, another senseless Middle East military venture that lasted 10 years and was the longest war Canada ever fought but did little to hold back the Taliban, who are poised to take the country again once the Americans leave. Meanwhile, many of the brave Canadian soldiers, who fought in that campaign, are back in Canada trying to make sense of it all and several of them – unable to do so and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – end up committing suicide.
Some 187 of our courageous troops have done this since 1996, more than died in the Afghan war itself. These are Canadian military statistics. Look them up yourself. It’s a tragedy that shames us all.
So what will six aged Canadian CF-18 fighters and 600 military “advisers” accomplish in the Levant where ISIS fighters, battle hardened and fighting on their own soil, are attempting to set up another Islamic caliphate in Syria
and Iraq? You can bet our ‘smart’ bombs will kill more innocent civilians and make Westerners even more hated in that dysfunctional part of the world. And when it’s over – actually it’s never over – more Canadian fighters will return home to join the ranks of the brave soldiers who succumb to PTSD and some will tragically commit suicide because they’ve seen the horror of what we do over there; a sight none of the politicians sending them there ever see or would be willing to see.
“War should belong to the tragic past, to history: it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future.”
That’s what Pope John Paul II said in a 1982 speech. He wasn’t listened to then and it doesn’t appear he’s being listened to now as we beat the war drums again. Will we ever learn? Not as long as we say “aye, aye ready sir” every time a politician – American or Canadian – beats those drums.
P.S.
As you may have read elsewhere in e-KNOW, I’ve decided to seek another term as a Cranbrook City Councillor. So in fairness I’ve decided to withdraw from this opinion pulpit for the duration of the campaign.
