Posted on 01/29/2003 2:35:08 PM PST by knighthawk
But enough about true leadership. Let's go to the other end of the moral clarity spectrum and talk about Colleen Beaumier, Canada's one-woman peace delegation to Iraq.
Ms. Beaumier is not alone. There are plenty of naive Westerners only too willing to visit Baghdad and learn all about the great suffering of the Iraqi people under the jackboot of the great American Satan. But most of these useful idiots are Hollywood stars, "peace" activists and marginal loons like the NDP's Svend Robinson. Ms. Beaumier, on the other hand, is an elected federal official from Canada's ruling party. Saddam can only have been too pleased.
People are known by the company they keep. And Ms. Beaumier apparently thinks she came off well from the visit. "I've extended a hand on behalf of Canadians who feel the same way about humanity I do," she gushed from Baghdad. "So I have established some credibility. Probably what the Iraqi officials have done for me, more than I have done for them, is they've given me some credibility with Canada."
In describing her experience, Ms. Beaumier didn't see fit to emphasize Iraq's totalitarian nature, or the million dead who've been chopped down in Saddam's wars and purges. Rather, she seemed to be describing a love affair. "Am I enamoured with these people?" she said Monday. "They are extremely charming."
As for all that unpleasantness -- the summary beheading of dozens of women accused of prostitution, the use of eye gouging, child torture, piercing of hands with electric drills, submersion in acid, all that stuff -- Ms. Beaumier is not one to let such trivialities get in the way. "President Hussein has spoken to his ministers and said some of these [anti-freedom and anti-human rights] laws are harsh and they have to be revisited." Oh, good. Call off the invasion.
Last year, a declaration from a group of pro-Iraqi Canadian professors and celebrities caused us to despair in this space over the "Ed Asnerization" of our intellectual elite. Thanks to Ms. Beaumier, Canada's got a Jane Fonda too.
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