Pride Vs How Many Killed

I heard Paul Martin the other day proudly displaying Canada’s humanitarian vigor by sending $20 million in equipment and training into Sudan to help with their current crisis. At a recent press conference, he even “called for the international community to follow Canada's lead.” I must begin by stating that humanitarian efforts are great and deserve to be praised.

Everyone acknowledges there should be more done around the world in that vein. What confuses me is how we pride ourselves in helping with a crisis that has killed an estimated 70,000 in the Sudan and with the same breath condemn the U.S. for bringing down Saddam Hussein, a man who has killed an estimated 1 million plus Kurds in Iraq.

The reality is that so many have quickly jumped on the liberal anti-Bush bandwagon that they completely ignored the humanitarian effort of stopping Saddam from killing millions more of his own people. If all you watch is CBC or CNN news, or read our very own Capital News paper, you will never see or hear about some of the good things that have happened in Iraq. Our news doesn’t report on the schools that are allowing girls to learn for the first time. You won't see the Kurdish children in Iraq celebrating in the streets because they know they won’t face the same genocide that their parents and grandparents faced.

We are so easily blinded by the lack of WMD’s and false Michael Moore propaganda that we fail to see good that those young men are dying for over there. So don’t feel ashamed James, unless you look beyond what we’re being fed for news up here, you can’t help but become another “docile sheep” just sitting back and hating Bush while he and the U.S. defend millions around the world including us.

L.M.