" I am embarrassed and ashamed to be a Canadian."

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/adler.html


Jean's legacy one of shame
By CHARLES ADLER -- Winnipeg Sun
" I am embarrassed and ashamed to be a Canadian." This quote is heard everywhere in this country. I hear it on my radio talk show phone lines and thousands of e-mails fill my inbox from Canadians who are disappointed, upset, angry and even ill over the politics of Jean Chretien.

Let the prime minister know here and now that his legacy is that of a man who made millions of Canadian ashamed of their citizenship and heritage. It would be so easy to dismiss the letters and phone calls as coming from right-wing zealots, knuckle-dragging, warmongering Neanderthals. That is not the case.

The calls represent the diversity that is Canada. The young and the old and all in between, native-born Canadians and immigrants, especially those who have fled tyranny in their own countries. People from all social and economic classes and many who have voted for the Liberal Party all their lives.

Let the prime minister know here and now that his legacy is that of a man who has turned many people off the Liberal party for life.

The question now becomes: Can St. Paul (Martin) bring back the faithful? Perhaps. But only if they forget that Martin voted for a resolution to keep Canada out of the war in Iraq -- a resolution which came from that august Canadian nationalist body known as the Bloc Quebecois. Liberals, including Martin, shamelessly voted for the BQ resolution.

Martin then said he stood firmly behind his vote. Was it because he chooses not to alienate his Quebec supporters? Was it because he chooses to make nice with the Carolyn Parrish wing of the party? Parrish is, after all, a Paul Martin booster. Perhaps Paul Martin genuinely believes that trashing the United States at this hour is good domestic politics and he can patch things up later when he becomes prime minister.

I am not embarrassed to be a Canadian. But I am one Canadian who believes that Chretien and Martin and many others have embarrassed their country.

Has anyone noticed that many of those people who are against the war know very little about the issues? And I am not just talking about Jean Chretien, who has never been known for intellectual curiosity.

Whether it's the so-called arguments that get aired on CBC, which Stephen Harper tells me is now sounding like Radio Baghdad, or many of the columns I read in Canadian newspapers, it seems there's a dearth of knowledge even among those who keep promoting the sanctity of the United Nations.

Don't these people know that it was precisely the UN that issued resolution after resolution, only to have its moral authority violated time and again by Saddam Hussein?

No organization has catalogued the abuses of Saddam Hussein more assiduously than the Untied Nations.

When some slippery soul like Jean Chretien tries to tell you that he respects the United Nations, ask him whether he has read the list of weapons of mass destruction that the UN believes Saddam Hussein possesses. When it comes to human rights violations, ask Jean Chretien whether he has consulted the UN. They will tell him precisely how murderous Saddam is.

When it comes to trashing UN resolutions, it is Saddam Hussein who has done so, enabled by his old business partner Jacques Chirac and now supported by fans of the French president, like Jean Chretien.

Now if you don't want to take my word on just how lethal an agent Saddam is, check out the United Nations web site, www.un.org and check out the charter of the UN while you are at it.

The other day, Scud missiles fell on Kuwait. It was none other than UN weapons inspector Hans Blix who went on the Fox News Channel and said he was astonished. They're not supposed to have those kinds of weapons any more, he said.

Can this Swedish apostle of objectivity be that gullible? Does a Volvo have wheels?


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Charles Adler can be reached by e-mail at cadler@cjob.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@wpgsun.com.