To the Editor:
Pay Attention to criticisms coming from all directions, including some high profile veteran liberals. The official Liberal and N.A.P. position in the House of Commons is the correct one. Canada should decline any direct involvement in the present hostilities in Iraq and Syria.
It would have been foolish and wrong headed for us to have followed George Bush in his campaign to dislodge Saddam Hussein. It is even more fool hardy to follow some of our Nato friends back into Iraq and Syria in 2014.
The Bush administration with the best of intentions, led their country into a fruitless and very costly adventure in Iraq. The one positive thing you can say about Bush is that he was all in. Boots on he ground. He did not pretend otherwise.
The fundamental weakness with the present adventure is that its advocated pretend that you can go to war half way. It is not possible any more than you can go for a swim and not get wet. You are either in or out.
Canadians have nothing to prove to anyone regarding our willingness to stand up and be counted. We were all in World War I, three years before our friends south of the border showed up. We were all in, in World War II, two years before our friends to the south showed up. Canadians of all political stripes willingly sacrificed blood, tears, and treasure in both of these wars and others including Afghanistan. We have nothing to prove to our nato friends or to Mr. Harper and Mr. Bairn.
The present venture is sill-advanced to the point of being fooled hardy. How will we know when to stop the bombing? When we do - what then?
It is quite likely that after a couple of years that the situation will be even worse than it is now.
1. Constant images of casualties (men, women, and children) will be plastered over the airways. These casualties will be an inevitable result of aerial attacks against military targets concealed among civilian installations.
2. There will be images of thousands more refuges. Now some of the will be fleeing alien bombing runs as well as ISIS atrocities.
3. The bombing will certainly increase the local support for ISIS. It will be even more firmly established in Iraq.
4 .The Assan regime in Syria will be strengthened because of the wakening of some their opposition at home and because of a ground swell of hatred in Syria for those mending outsiders from the west with their airplanes and their bomb.
5. Even the arming of the Kurds has to be viewed with a jaundiced eye. Will these arms and trained operators end up being used against us rather than our adversaries? That is certainly what happened to the sophisticated military it hardware and training provided by the Americans to the Iraq army. Much of that hardware is now in the hands of ISIS
Again the question is if and when the bombing has proven counter productive, what next?
1. Will we decide to go back home and let the people in the area sort things out as best they can? Will we fold our tents and silently steal away.
2. Will our leaders decide to put boots on the ground again and try to sort things out with a full scale invasion? Canadians will then be involved in Iraq we were in Afghanistan.
Let me be perfectly clear. I have ten grandchildren and six great grandchildren. I do not want one of them to be sent by their government into a gorilla war in the middle east where you cannot tell friend from foe. Marching off to war in a uniform that clearly sets you apart from the rest of the population
For heavens sake let us not exhaust our money and energy on some wild eyed bombing venture that can only send even more innocent men, women, and children on the run.
Doug Cowling, Yorkton, Sask.
