Posted on 08/21/2006 10:33:28 AM PDT by RWR8189
BENT JBAIL, Lebanon - It would aid the cause of peace if Canada dropped Hezbollah from a list of banned terrorist organizations, according to two Canadian MPs now on a fact-finding mission to Lebanon.
When asked if he was in favour of Hezbollah being taken off the terror list, Etobicoke Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj said: ''Yes, I would be.'' He likened the situation in the Middle East to Northern Ireland, where ''if there wasn't the possibility for London to negotiate with the IRA, you'd still have bombings....
''Hezbollah has a political wing. They have members of parliament. They have two cabinet ministers. You want to encourage politicians in this military organization so that the centre of gravity shifts to them.''
New Democrat Peggy Nash, who represents the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park, said her discussions in Lebanon had led her to believe ''that it is just not helpful to label them a terrorist organization.
''If the political parties in Lebanon who may disagree with Hezbollah, and be opposed to them and their philosophy, can figure out a way to work with Hezbollah and try to get along internally, then perhaps we should take a cue from that.''
This was the message that both MPs said they would bring back to their caucuses, and eventually to the House of Commons, when they return to Canada later this week.
Their visit came as Israeli armoured forces continued to withdraw from southern Lebanon Sunday,36 hours after an Israeli commando raid in northern Lebanon threatened the UN-brokered ceasefire.
Maria Moureni, the Bloc Quebecois MP for Ahuntsic, is also a member of the Canadian delegation that forms part of a week-long tour of Syria, Lebanon and Egypt organized by the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations.
Asked about her opinion of Hezbollah or its terrorist status in Canada, Moureni replied tersely: ''According to the government of Canada, Hezbollah is a terrorist group.''
Earlier in the day, after being taken to the ruins of a house in Qana, where 28 members of the same extended family had died in an Israeli air raid, Moureni, who is of Lebanese descent, criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper for supporting Israel during the war.
''This is Canada's shame,'' Moureni said. ''Mr. Harper has given us a rather negative international image. We can see here that the attacks were (far) from being measured. The devastation is incredible.''
As he met with Lebanese in towns such as Qana and Bent Jbail, that were badly hit during the war, Wrzesnewskyj repeatedly denounced Harper's support for Israel.
''We are deeply ashamed that our prime minister had some incredibly irresponsible comments to make at the beginning of the war,'' Wrzesnewskyj told a group of Lebanese who had lost many relatives during the conflict.
It was the Liberals, not the Conservatives, who placed Hezbollah on Canada's terror list when they were in power. While acknowledging this, Wrzesnewskyj said: ''When you realize that a mistake has been made that does not provide for a solution, you don't entrench your decision.''
The NDP's Nash said Harper ''had misread the amount of devastation that took place. What I am picking up here is that the time has come for a negotiated settlement, and it would be useful if Canada was a voice for negotiation. Canada's response was disappointing and bewildered people here.
''I feel just as badly for those who have suffered in Israel. It shows how futile war is.''
Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro, who represents Peterborough, Ont., pulled out of the trip at the last moment, citing security concerns. But Wrzesnewskyj and Mazen Chouaib, executive director of the Canada-Arab Council, both insisted that it was the prime minister's office that had scuppered the trip.
The Canadian parliamentarians were outnumbered by journalists during what was a long day that started with a visit to a suburb of the port city of Tyre, where several apartment blocks had been flattened by bombs. They were visibly shaken when they were taken to rows of freshly marked graves in Qana and heard graphic accounts of what it was like to be there during the bombing.
Later, in Bent Jbail, widely regarded as the most resolutely pro-Hezbollah community in the south, the Canadian parliamentarians had a chance encounter with the local MP, Ali Bazzi of the Amal Movement. He provided a brief summary of war damage to about 90 per cent of the 1,000 homes and all of the schools in the town.
While ''respecting the Canadian government's point of view,'' Bazzi said, ''we see Hezbollah as the resistance, as freedom fighters'' comparable to George Washington.
As they travelled narrow back roads, the Canadians passed scores of homes shattered by the war and got trapped several times in chaotic traffic caused by the destruction of roads and bridges.
A $25-million aid package for Lebanon announced last week by the Canadian government will be put to immediate use to help the war-torn country, International Cooperation Minister Josee Verner said on Sunday in Ottawa.
''As everybody knows in Canada, the victims of this conflict are the Lebanese people, and we have to help them as soon as possible,'' Verner said in an interview with CTV's Question period.
The overall aid announced for Lebanon now adds up to $30.5 million in total. Verner said the money could be used to help rebuild homes, schools, clinics and water systems damaged during recent attacks by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah.
Two Israeli tanks, their crews standing on top, stood silent watch on a hill overlooking Bent Jbail when the Canadians did a walkabout there. But the parliamentarians missed by a few minutes seeing a stack of Katyusha rockets prohibited by a UN ceasefire resolution last week being nonchalantly loaded into the back of a van by Hezbollah fighters in the nearby border town of Yaroun.
Wrzesnewskyj and Nash had paid for their trips to the Middle East or had them paid for by their parties, they said. Air tickets and hotels for the Bloc's Moureni had been paid for by the Canada-Arab Council, she said.
''The Quebec-Israel people organize such trips all the time and nobody says its propaganda,'' she said. ''It is normal to accept such an invitation.''
Chouaib said the trip was similar to many ''organized by the Israeli lobby in Canada for politicians and journalists.''
Wrzesnewskyj hoped to pay a visit to Israel before the end of the month. An NDP colleague was slated to visit Israel, Nash said.
Meanwhile, after a cabinet meeting Sunday in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said his government rejected the inclusion of UN peacekeepers from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Such a policy may make the work of those struggling to put together a force of 15,000 blue helmets to police the ceasefire more difficult. The only countries to volunteer a significant number of troops so far are the Muslim nations of Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. European countries such as France had indicated a willingness to participate in the force, but have been very slow to make concrete commitments because of concerns about the rules of engagement.
At a news conference Sunday in Beirut, Lebanese Defence Minister Elias Murr said anyone in Lebanon violating the ceasefire would be considered collaborators with Israel and dealt with ''decisively'' by Lebanese forces deploying to the south of the country
Just like Reuters and AP.
The lady who manages my credit union account in Mississauga
has a son that serves in the US forces
and is currently in Walter Reed Hospital recovering from wounds received in Iraq.
If the IRA wanted to institute a world-wide version of the Spanish Inquisition, then you could compare them to Hezbolla.
But as it is, they suck too. But then British Nobility sucked. I'm glad I don't live there, but I do live here, and I cannot stand the fact that we keep importing them in the name of "diversity". Idaho is getting 1,100 more Somolians!!! Does anyone think people live in Idaho to be surrounded by African Muslims?
Perhaps you visit the limp-wristed, country club liberal sort of places. I Imagine they love Canadians in the Hamptons.
I know not all Canadians are P***ies, backstabbers, but enough of you folks seem to wish us harm and lack the ba\\s to stand up for what is right that personally, I don't give a crap about Canada. I get the general impression that Canadians and French share a sense of Shadenfreud whenever something goes wrong for us.
You Canadians seem to revel in Cuban vacations, probably just to flaunt our embargo.
RE Sharia in Canada (alternate title, How far cowards will sell their country go to avoid making Nutjobs mad)
http://www.youmeworks.com/sharia_canada.html
Liberals are selfish creatures. They don't act unless something effects THEM. As long as the US is the main target, or Israel, they can kick back and smirk at us, marvelling in their moral superiority at not getting involved.
Liberals (and other dolts) are like the frog that is content to be slowly boiled to death. I agree that it would be best in the long run if the Islamicists turned up the heat a bit too fast, to wake the frogs (not just the French, but all the dolts)up.
Personally, I wonder if the nuts will bomb San Fran, the home of the biggest supporters of the arabs, but also the home of the people and lifestyles most offensive to muslims.
Well, by demonstrating the classic symptoms of a psychopath, we now have evidence that the Conservative "big tent" in the U.S. is reality.
BTW, most of my time in the U.S. was spent in that hotbed of Liberalism - the DFW area in Texas..
What possible evidence do you have to make such a psychotic statement??
Please get professional help.. Statements like that can only eminate from a severely disturbed personality..
I believe a clue to your own recognition of your problem is the handle you gave yourself here "Whacko".
That's actually a good sign as it means you know you have a problem.
Please get help before you hurt yourself or others..
- your pal in Canada
I agree, a large % of those 57+million are just as messed up.
But let's not pretend that all has been sweet in US/Canadian relations. Let's not pretend that pretty much the whole of Ontario is enemy territory.
I notice you did not respond to the sharia article that I posted. Kinda embarrassing, eh?
Or the ICBM thing.
Or the Iraq thing.
Or the Cuba thing.
Or the gun control thing.
Or the gay marriage thing.
Or the "bible as hate speech" thing.
Or the going to jail for saying gays are sick and wrong thing.
But hey, thanks for the help in Afganistan. That raid that was posted was awesome.
> Let's not pretend that pretty much the whole of Ontario is enemy territory.
You must feel pretty unsafe there in Idaho, with all those mean Ontarians living so close, seething just across the border half the continent away, baying for blood. You're dangerously close to The Enemy!
Who knows -- they might sneak across the border one night when the moon is full, and run quickly across three-or-four midwestern states to GET YOU!
Better be prepared! Got your flashlight, favorite blanket, hot water bottle and a warm glass of milk? Good. Find the broom closet and lock yourself in there, where you'll be safe from those Ontarians...
...but first check to make sure the Boogie Man isn't in there first! /sarc
And you call me deranged, that was a nutty post.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add Quebec and Vancouver to the list of loopy Canadian provences.
BTW, Americans don't fear Canadians, didn't you see the South Park movie?
The very face of terrorism
Naive MPs do a disservice by going soft on Hezbollah
Calgary Herald
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Two Canadian MPs who advocate dropping Hezbollah from Canada's list of banned terrorist organizations should crawl back to the obscurity of the opposition back benches. Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj and New Democrat Peggy Nash are hardly credible experts on the subject, as shown by their ridiculous comments following a visit this week to Lebanon.
The two Toronto-area MPs argue if you remove the terrorist label, Hezbollah might negotiate peace with Israel. Wrzesnewskyj compared the situation to Northern Ireland, where London negotiated with the IRA to end more than 25 years of violence. Nash said her discussions in Lebanon led her to believe "it is just not helpful to label (Hezbollah) a terrorist organization."
Nash and Wrzesnewskyj are hardly high-profile politicians with impeccable track records. For example, Wrzesnewskyj, who was elected in 2004, accepted a free trip to the Ukraine to observe elections there. Ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro revealed that the $4,597 trip was partly paid for by the University of Alberta's Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
And Nash, a rookie MP elected this year, was the one who filed a notice to dismiss Gwyn Morgan's appointment to head the public appointments commission. She rejected the EnCana founder as unsuitable even before she entered a committee room to hear him speak.
One might also point out their host in Lebanon was the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, which has always opposed the Canadian government's total ban of Hezbollah. Canada added the group's charitable operations to its list in 2002.
The council argued that the military and charitable arms were different and should be treated separately. But Canada wisely decided the social arm wasn't distinguishing itself enough from terrorism, a conclusion it reached in part because Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah called for an extension of the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign.
Hezbollah, which operates schools and hospitals in the south of Lebanon, is unquestionably a terrorist group. Yes, it provides social services, but its motive appears to be public relations more than benevolence.
Just a few days ago, it was before the cameras handing out wads of cash to desperate Shia families. It's wasn't charity. The money -- no doubt supplied from Iran -- is a way of convincing the impoverished people of the area to join the Hezbollah cause, which includes having as many children as possible and raising them to become martyrs and suicide bombers.
No matter what you call Hezbollah, the group will never negotiate with Israel because it exists to destroy Israel. Its leaders have said countless times that the Zionist entity must be extinguished. Wrzesnewskyj compared Hezbollah with the IRA, a fallacious assertion because the IRA never said the United Kingdom or Northern Ireland should be annihilated, nor does it believe Protestants have no right to exist.
Hezbollah might be better compared with Adolf Hitler's Nazis, who believed in the superiority of an Aryan race.
Hezbollah's political manifesto couldn't be clearer. It calls for eliminating Israel and turning the once Christian-dominated Lebanon into an Iranian-style Islamic republic. Hezbollah is anti-western, and opposed to a democratic Lebanon.
The comments from Wrzesnewskyj and Nash are an embarrassment. Thankfully, Ottawa quickly announced it has no intention of dropping the terrorist designation.
Wrzesnewskyj and Nash might want a refresher course in history. They can start by looking up Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who, in 1937, naively believed the German government had genuine grievances that could be addressed. He thought that by agreeing to some of Hitler's demands, he could avoid a European war.
He was wrong. So are Wrzesnewskyj and Nash, for lacking the courage to name terrorism for what it is, and instead trying to legitimize Hezbollah.
© The Calgary Herald 2006
Hezbolla probably bribed them using US foreign aid funds.
On October 23, 1983 Hezbollah killed 241 U.S. soldiers in their barracks in Beirut. They killed 58 French soldiers a the same time. The moronmedia and the lunatic left ignores facts, or they are ignorant of facts.
Killing Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda etc. is the way to win the current war. We should be killing them as fast as possible - faster than we are now.
So the left is allied with the terrorists!
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