The View From 1776

Monday, August 21, 2006
OPPOSITION MP’S GO ON LEBANON ‘SHOCK TOUR’

by John Lawrence

I love my freedom. I love the fact that I live in the greatest nation on earth. I also love the fact that I can worship with impunity and teach my children what I believe is the truth, not what the state tells me it is. It is with those thoughts in mind that I am truly glad that we did not have the same caliber of opposition members in the days of World War II as we do today.

I know I resurrect the second world war in my stories often, but the more I hear the drivel coming from our unlearned elected members of parliament such as Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj who represents a riding in Toronto, the more I feel that I would be remiss if I didn’t attempt to draw a parallel from yesterday to today. It is only by using historical way points that one can truly understand how stupid some of our elected officials sound today.

Three opposition MP’s have traveled to Lebanon to take in for themselves the carnage left behind by Israel’s response to the constant terror that originated on Lebanese soil, which was aided by way of apathy by the government of Lebanon and which was supported by many of the residents of Lebanon. Perhaps this pathetic trio of MP’s should give some thought to the fact that they are not only walking among the dead and among ruins, but also among launch pads.

NDP MP Peggy Nash, apparently awed by the surroundings which she found herself in, said “To say that Israel’s response was a measured response is just so far out of whack from reality.” This comment was in direct response to Prime Minister Harper’s comments at the outset of this latest round of Middle East violence in which he suggested that he believed that Israel’s response was measured. While Israel’s attacks did far greater damage than that caused by Hezbollah on Israeli soil, one has to wonder just what Ms. Nash would have preferred Israel to do.

Should they have simply used ground troops? This would apparently appease her political and worldly naivety as Israel then would have had as many body bags as Hezbollah. The deaths would be beautifully ‘measured’ and equal.

Does anybody else think that this fixation on the term ‘measured response’ is somewhat strange? Why do these people think that we, the free world, research and spend trillions of dollars to develop bigger and better weapons? Is it so we can kill more people? It is, in fact, to ensure that we can deliver a far greater blow and inflict far greater damage on our enemies than they can on us. It is also to guarantee that the enemy will endure a far greater body count than we will. That is call superiority, and it’s a good thing to possess. Only those lost in a political fog could escape that reality.

To some, our superiority is loathsome, and you can hear it when they speak. Consider these words from MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj: “Over 1,200 dead and counting. Over 40,000 apartments and houses flattened. A country’s infrastructure dismembered. You look around here. I believe what’s happened is absolutely criminal.” What is criminal is that the world has allowed Lebanon to give haven to Hezbollah for so long. He went on to suggest that Israel is guilty of war crimes and state terrorism and called for an international investigation. It is good to know where Borys and his Liberal party stands.

Every Canadian needs to have their eyes opened right now and has to look at this situation from an historical perspective. If this were 1945, these MP’s would be considered enemies of the state, for they would, without a doubt, be up in arms as Germany is bombed in an attempt to shut down the German war machine and to cut off access to the east. I can see them standing in what used to be Dresden, a beautiful city of cathedrals and architecture. They would be shaking their heads, demanding that the Americans and Britons be held accountable for their atrocities. Just what was their atrocity? Saving the entire planet from Hitler and his final solution.

For months, Germany attempted to flatten England and crumble her buildings, her cities, and her resolve. It failed miserably. Between February 13 and 15, 1945, the allies (us) dropped 3,900 tons of bombs on the city of Dresden. The death toll? Historians believe that it sits around 20,000, but could be as high as 60,000. Of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed. An area 15 km² was completely flattened. There was no measured response to the Germans. We attempted to show them that we were the superior power and that they would never defeat us. It is also worth noting that total loss of life from all allied bombing of Germany over the course of the war is put at anywhere from 300,000 souls to as high as 600,000.

While many today still consider the bombing of German cities as war crimes (which they were not), they have been shown to have shortened the duration of the war and thus, had saved allied lives. In war, lives are not equal. ‘Ours’ should be and are considered worth more than ‘theirs’. Any one who thinks differently should not be in a position of power when times get tough.

Chief of the Air Staff for Britain at the time, Arthur Harris, in an early draft to address the horrific bombing of Dresden made some pointedly courageous remarks. “Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.”

The parallel today of course, is that the ruins in Lebanon were not entirely civilian in nature, they were military bases of operation as well. There was, therefore, complete and unquestionable justification in hitting them with whatever was at Israel’s disposal.

The current tour of carnage taking place in Lebanon is being conducted via the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations. There is no Jewish affiliation with it, and is absolutely as one-sided as the same MP’s accuse Stephen Harper and his government of being. I have not seen Borys, Peggy, or Maria Mourani tour a Jewish suburb during a missile strike, nor have I heard them openly condemn Hezbollah for instigating the conflict which saw this destruction come to be. I suppose that wouldn’t be politically correct in Hezbo-Land. It appears that the Conservatives are not allowed to incite Hezbollah and Iran by labeling them terrorists, but it is okay for the other parties to openly accuse Israel of being a criminal state which engages in terrorism. Is there a double standard here?

In the end, all Borys Wrzesnewskyj could suggest was that Israel was breeding terrorism. He apparently hasn’t noticed that the middle east is rife with that already. It is not bred in Israel either. It is bred in Iran, and Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Dubai, and......well, I think you get the point.

I think that this trio of MP’s should stay in Lebanon, just in case the fighting renews. They could be observers. (I wonder when our own soldiers in Afghanistan will be attacked by this bunch.)

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