by Klaus Rohrich
Thursday, July 20, 2006
If you want to know what people are made of, you need to see how they react to a crisis. Canada's Left is not offering any surprises in its talk about the latest Middle Eastern Crisis. NDP leader Jack (Chicken Little) Layton and interim Liberal leader Bill Graham are singing from the same old song book in their round condemnation of Prime Minister Harper's handling of the Israel/Lebanon situation. This time around these guys are to the left of the arabs as they call for a "nuanced" approach to the conflict.
Rather than call on Hamas and Hezbollah to restrain from indiscriminately lobbing missiles into Israel, Layton and Graham are calling on Israel to show "restraint" and joining Kofi anan in the call for international intervention in the form of a peacekeeping force to act as a buffer between the warring factions. Only problem is, there already is a UN mandated peacekeeping force at the border between Lebanon and Israel, a fact that certainly Bill Graham should have been aware of since he was at one time Canada's Minister of Foreign affairs.
The arab states, on the other hand, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi arabia are recognizing that Hezbollah, which is the proxy of Iran, is the real problem and are hoping for that group's disarmament. The Lebanese government has long wanted to disarm Hezbollah, but has been unable to do so, as thanks to Syria and Iran, the Hezbollah militia is better armed than the Lebanese army. In fact Hezbollah (The Party of God) has some 23 of its members serving as members of Lebanon's parliament two of whom are in the Lebanese Government's cabinet. If that sounds strange think of it in terms of Jack Layton and the NDP having its own militia in Canada.
When Prime Minister Harper said that Israel's response to Hezbollah's latest round of violence was a "measured response", which echoed the joint statement issued by the G-8 leaders the opposition went ballistic.
Graham and Chicken Little are protesting that Harper has moved Canada away from its "traditional non-aligned" stance, which would make it difficult in the future for Canada to play a role in reaching a diplomatic solution to this latest crisis. No diplomatic solution to the Middle Eastern conflict is possible, given the fact that both Hezbollah and Hamas are totally committed to the utter destruction of Israel and to the death of every Jew on the planet. Since its inception in 1948, Israel has had to defend itself against attacks from its neighbors and has managed to do so successfully. Every effort at a negotiated settlement has failed and will continue to fail because of both Hamas and Hezbollah's intransigence. Until Israel's right to exist is universally accepted, there will be no peace in the Middle East. But that's food for another column.
In addition to the carping about the Harper government's unqualified support of Israel, the lefties are also complaining about the government's lack of speed in getting the 40,000 odd Canadians that are stranded in Lebanon out. Dan McTeague, Liberal MP for Pickering-Scarborough East, chided Harper for doing "too little too late". It is always amazing how politicians seem to always be living in the here and now and forgetting any role that they played in the past.
Maybe someone should remind McTeague that it was the Liberal Government, of which he was a member, that gutted Canada's ability to react to international crisis. The Liberals mothballed the Canadian Navy. The Liberals refused to equip the military with transport aircraft, choosing instead, to buy posh new luxury jets for government politicians. It was clear in December 2004 that Canada did not have the capability to move people and materiel internationally, as the Liberals had to rent a Russian transport to get its troops into Sri Lanka to assist in the tsunami disaster.
Many of those being rescued seem to believe that it is a basic human right to be saved from international conflicts by their government free of charge. They are complaining that the waiting time is too long and that while they are waiting the government isn't providing them with adequate comestibles. One wonders why there are so many Canadians in Lebanon and weren't they warned they were entering a potential war zone, given that the region has been unsettled for at least the last 40 years! Did the Canadian government send them there and did they get there under their own volition?
Most of the rhetoric being flung about by Canada's left is more for gaining political advantage than about moral or ethical concerns. In reply three words are most apt: "Shut up, already"!
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