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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
November 25, 2001
Confession of shame
Several readers have noticed that I have not written a single thing about Canada in the last nine weeks. They ask why I have not. The truth is I've been trying to avoid it. Let me try to explain. Unbeknownst to our government here in Ottawa a huge multi-faceted campaign -- a war -- has been launched against terror networks around the world. These networks are unified not under a single command but by their common pathological hatred for the United States and Israel and more generally the West; for Jews and for Christians. (They call these last two "Zionists" and "Crusaders" but who could be confused?) We call these terrorists "Islamist" for want of a better term. Let me mention once again that the word is not interchangeable with "Islamic"; it is more precisely the term for a fanatical violent political ideology that claims to speak for all Muslims and does alas speak for several million of them. This is a war it is international and it is extremely consequential. The president of the United States has declared that the West is under attack and the leaders of all the NATO countries have declared with him. With their endorsement and with the permission of a nebulous United Nations resolution George W. Bush ordered attacks within a country in Asia called Afghanistan helping to depose a very evil regime. The rest you can more or less find in the newspapers. There will be more such events. Indeed the consensus of the learned is that the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is not long for this world. Other regime changes may come to be consummated in Syria Sudan Libya Iran even as far afield as North Korea. (A state which is neither Islamist nor Islamic but nevertheless satisfies three conditions: 1. It trains terrorists. 2. It is developing weapons of mass destruction. 3. The ruler is a psychopath.) The fallout from such events could be considerable; it is certainly unpredictable. By all means watch this space. Well now that I have established a little context I look back to Canada. And let me tell you I do not look back in anger or even any more in sorrow. The feelings that remain are shame and disgust. Do you know that part of what made me so proud to be Canadian was the speed and confidence with which this country entered into the horrors of World War II? Not because we were ourselves directly attacked but because Poland was and our allies Britain and France were at war. We knew who we were and we could not do otherwise. Even a man like the prime minister of the day Mackenzie King though capable of obtuse complacency was able to understand what was at stake. To understand that Canadians would not hesitate to fight given such an enemy. When I last wrote on the contemporary Canadian response nine weeks ago it was to note that our government was not yet taking the security threat seriously. It still is not. Even baggage checking arrangements at Canada's airports are essentially unchanged. The RCMP CSIS and the CES continue to be starved of resources. Our immigration department remains on overdrive. Another billion has somehow been found to help Brian Tobin's leadership aspirations with unauditable new make-work projects that have nothing to do with our perilous situation. We sent off a small contingent of Canadian troops by boat from Halifax with much empty political rhetoric and fanfare. Now the only news one reads of this Canadian expedition in the world press is that it won't be allowed even to help with humanitarian interventions because our prime minister has decided that would be too dangerous. Prior to this the last time Canada made world news was because the health minister Allan Rock breached patent law by ordering generic "Cipro" when he panicked over the anthrax scare. Mr. Rock has since tried to recover his position with another bold attack on cigarette smoking. And the justice minister Anne McLellan produces an incompetently drafted anti-terrorist bill that is now falling apart in Parliament under the weight of its own contradictions. With its special provisions for the secret prosecution of "hate crimes" it already revealed a government more defensive of its multicultural policies than eager to pursue terrorists in Canadian hiding. In the latest draft it backs off even from calling these people "terrorists" choosing the neutral term entities instead; probably to avoid giving offence to people who might support them. Jean Chretien a politician years past his stale date has all his life practised the "politics of appeasement". His cabinet is designed to appease his various constituencies from Hedy Fry on the lunatic left to John Manley on the centre-right. Indeed one could easily form the impression that Mr. Manley has been simply delegated to speak up for the "pro-war" constituency while the others buy off the other points of view -- using tax money that needs to be impounded for urgent entirely neglected tasks. Hence Mr. Manley's sudden prominence in the media; he does the "tough talk". There is no constituency the prime minister will not try to appease. In the belief that the Christian religion that is shared by a substantial number of his fellow citizens is an affront to unnamed immigrant groups he and the party he leads continue to strip away all non-generic references to God from public life and ceremony. It is a symbolic effort; but I am hardly alone in detecting real malice in this case towards a constituency that unlike the Tamil Tigers will not vote Liberal. This last week we learned that even chaplains in the Canadian Armed Forces have been forbidden to speak the word "Jesus" or otherwise confess their Christian faith except in the company of consenting adults. Imagine what effect this has on our soldiers who are for Mr. Chretien's information overwhelmingly believing Christians and who have agreed to put themselves in harm's way. And Canadians continue to stand for this to allow our government to conduct its "business as usual" even in this time of war. We allow it to desecrate our past and demoralize our present. We are naive about this government. We agree to overlook each failing on the grounds that no capable alternative presents itself to sight. Our naivete consists in our belief that the incompetence the stupidity the malice and the corruption are somehow unrelated to each other. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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