Don't they ever get tired of being wrong?

National Post ^ | September 27 2002

[knighthawk]

Canadian activists love to beat up on the Pentagon. Judy Rebick, David Suzuki, Naomi Klein, Linda McQuaig, Svend Robinson -- the sound of an F-16 engine being fired up is their cue to get in front of a microphone and start bashing Uncle Sam. With war against Saddam imminent, these luminaries, along with 115 others, have put their names to a manifesto calling on Canadians to stand up for pacifism. The "greatest threat to world peace today" are "the thugs in the White House" says Osgoode Hall Law School professor Michael Mandel, who spoke at the group's Wednesday press conference. "The way to deal with Saddam Hussein is not by killing thousands of Iraqi civilians any more than the way to deal with American foreign policy was by killing thousands of American civilians on September 11."

Don't these people ever get tired of being wrong? Recall that, back in 1999, Mr. Mandel told Canadians that the United States military was committing atrocities against the Serbs -- and instructed the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that "NATO's adventure in Kosovo was not just wrongful and harmful," but also "clearly illegal and, indeed, criminal." Mr. Mandel opposed the war in Afghanistan with even greater vehemence. In a Globe and Mail op-ed, he wrote that "the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism" and that "those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks."

These words now strike the reader as ridiculous. Aside from the hard-left activists who signed this week's petition, how many Canadians seriously believe that the bombing death of, say, Mohammed Atef, al-Qaeda's chief of military operations, comprised a "crime against humanity"? It is sobering to think about what would have happened had we paid heed to Mr. Mandel et al. back in 1999 and 2001. Mr. Milosevic would still be in power in Belgrade and Yugoslavia would still be a rogue quasi-dictatorship instead of a democracy on its way to integration within Europe. Meanwhile, Afghanistan would still be a theocracy. Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden would still be running their terrorist training camps, plotting more acts of mass murder, and making life miserable for 10 million Afghan women.

As for the anti-war manifesto released this week, it is a rehash of the specious appeasement arguments we have been hearing since sanctions were imposed on Iraq more than a decade ago. The authors argue, for instance, that "an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis have died as a result of shortages of food and medicine under sanctions." What they fail to add is that most -- if not all -- of these deaths are Saddam's fault. It is he who rejected the UN's oil-for-food program until 1996, and diverted billions toward weapons and personal palaces.

The manifesto is also contradictory. We are told, falsely, that "no convincing evidence has been produced that Iraq is in possession of weapons of mass destruction." (Memo to activists: Read Tony Blair's dossier.) Yet a few sentences later, we learn that "bombing sites that could contain nuclear, chemical or biological weapons should be unthinkable, as it would hold the potential for a global human and environmental catastrophe." Well, which is it? It seems Saddam's weapons are imaginary ... yet will somehow assume solid form if we try to destroy them.

There is something profoundly depressing about the wholesale Ed Asner-ization of Canada's activist community. Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, Yasser Arafat, Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden -- it seems there is no dictator or terrorist so murderous or repressive that Canada's artistic and intellectual elites won't hold a press conference for their benefit. We can only hope Canadians will take a good look at the activists' record, and judge their doomsday prophecies accordingly.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[MichiganCheese]

I guess it's time to quit spending my money in Canada for my annual fishing and hunting trips. This guy and Chretien are not good neighbors. Our canuck friends need to wake up to the America-hating leftists who infect their country. Get them out of office, like we will in November in our country.

[knighthawk]

Don't stop spending money there: buy a National Post!

[Steve0113]

Re-read the last paragraph. This is the opinion of radical leftwing activists, of which we have many of our own. It's not the opinion of ordinary Canadians.

[facedown]

There is something profoundly depressing about the wholesale Ed Asner-ization of Canada's activist community.

The ultimate put-down. Asner has become a self-parody.