Anyone who has paid any attention at all to events in America knows that expressing an anti-Iraq-war opinion can swiftly get you labeled traitorous, anti-American, and anti-US troops in general, directly, or indirectly, by the Bush administration, and those who support it.
Here in Canada we have basically been spared that particular rhetoric, at least from our government - until now that is.
(via email)
During the debate last night re Afghanistan, while the NDP MPs were speaking, Jason Kenney (Conservative, Calgary Southeast) was often heard heckling them.At one point he claimed that two NDP MPs were outside, prior to the debate, at an “anti-troop rally”.
I was one of the lead organizers of the demonstration on the steps of Parliament Hill yesterday, and can assure you it wasn’t an “anti-troop rally”.
In fact, what we said was “Support our troops, bring them home.” I personally wore a “white poppy” on my shirt, which is shown to commemorate the lives of all people killed in war, both military personnel and innocent civilians. We also read aloud the names of all the Canadian Forces personnel killed in Afghanistan, as well as the one Canadian diplomat, and the innocent Afghani civilian Nasrat Ali Hassan, before observing a few minutes-of-silence to remember them all.
Personally I happen to disagree with the “bring Canadian troops home from Afghanistan now” movement, but I would never accuse them of being anti-troop.
What’s next? Will Canadian citizens who express dissent with government decisions be labeled traitorous? Anti-Canadian? Will they too be accused of “giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war”?
CPoC MP Jason Kenney has introduced a new and unacceptable low into the House of Commons, it remains to be seen how his party and his leadership will choose to address that new low - if they choose to address it at all, which will also give us an indicator of where they may plan to take us as a nation in this respect.
I just wrote yesterday about how the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister both stated that Jack Layton didn’t support the troops because Layton dared to ask some questions about the mission. Some of those questions had been asked by the Defence Minister in ‘05 and the other question was related to Harper’s promise to put the deployment to a vote in ‘07 when the current mandate is up. Instead of answering those questions, they decided the better alternative was to paint Layton anti-military.
All I can say is that people who use, and believe, this argument have a serious mis-understanding of what democracy is, and what it really means to be anti-military. Asking questions meant to ensure that our troops are sacrificing for a just cause is not anti-military. Like you SL, I think our mission there, for now, is the right thing to do. But we live in a democracy and opposition parties and their ability to ask questions are inherent to that system. More and more, it appears that the Conservatives just don’t understand what democracy really is.