Is this member of the Canadian parliament a coward?

I wrote Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP and a member of the Canadian parliament on September 13, 2006 when I heard that he wanted all Canadian forces withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Dear Mr. Layton:

You made an impressive statement with respect to the terrible event that took place five years ago when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11th , 2001. I quote you in part;

“On September 11th, 2001, an immense tragedy struck the United States, and the whole world felt its impact. The scourge of terrorism continues today and bringing it to an end must be a part of our international and cooperative efforts. We cannot let that act of terror, that day of great loss, cloud our vision of ourselves, our country or our world and we must move forward. At this time of mass grief and commemoration of so many lives brutally cut short, let us move forward with dialogue and development and let us rebuild the international community's consensus to help bring closure to this tragedy.” unquote

Bringing closure to this tragedy is exactly what Prime Minister Harper is attempting to do by keeping our Canadian troops in Afghanistan. His government acted with the United Nations when the mission to Afghanistan was launched in October 2001. It is a noble cause.

Already you have forgotten about the human rights abuses in that country before the NATO forces went in and rescued that country from the Taliban abuses heaped upon the women and girls of that country. As a result of NATO's 35-nation military campaign in Afghanistan, Afghans have held elections for a president and parliament, girls go to school, women are permitted to work for a living and run for office and women are not publicly whipped in a stadium that the international community built for them.

In your speech, you said, “…..let us move forward with dialogue….” When asked about the NDP's position, The American Secretary of State Rice vehemently disagreed when she said, "You can't negotiate with Taliban. C'mon, these are people who whipped women in stadiums given to them by the international community. The Taliban made Afghanistan a failed state and a terrorist haven for al-Qaida so that they could launch the Sept. 11 attacks. What's to negotiate?" unquote

You weren’t around when Hitler was in power so you didn’t see British Prime Minister Chamberlain holding a peace of paper in his hand, and crying out, “Peace in our time.” after getting a written promise by Hitler that he would not encroach on the borders of his neighbours. When he invaded Poland, England declared war on Germany and soon after, so did Canada. Before the Allies could bring an end to that war, Hitler massacred almost six million Jews, many of them in Poland.

This raises an interesting rhetorical question. If you were a member of parliament in 1942 when the war in Europe wasn’t looking very good for the Allies, would you have stood up in Parliament and demanded that we withdraw our soldiers and return them to Canada?

The world stood by and did nothing when almost a million Rwandans were slaughtered on orders of the governing powers in that country. The Sudanese government has forbidden UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region of Sudan and so far, over 200,000 people have been slaughtered there. Despite these tragedies, I can find no public statements of condemnation made by you when those Rwandans were being slaughtered, nor can I find anything said by you re the plight of those victims in Darfur and now you condemn our prime minister for trying to bring stability to the lives of Afghans.

Despite progress in Afghanistan, a large area of that country is still in the hands of the Taliban and aside from the fact that women and girls under their control are still suffering from human rights abuses heaped upon them by the Taliban, 90 percent of the world’s poppies are grown in their sector of Afghanistan which increases the flow of heroin worldwide thereby providing most of the revenue which goes directly into the coffers of the Taliban.

Obviously the Americans have a vested interest in fighting the Taliban since most of the heroin created in Afganistan ends up in the veins of Americans. That is also the reason why the Americans invaded Panama and arrested, tried and convicted its leader as a drug trafficker.

Terrorism is a plague that has encompassed the world. Three times since 1975, I have addressed United Nations crime conferences (the latest in Bangkok in 2005) about the dangers of terrorism and I have consistently said that we must stamp it out like one stamps on bugs that are prone to infesting homes.

Thanks to the ruling Taliban—Muslim fundamentalists who imposed radical Islamic rule on the country—Afghanistan had become a base for terrorists, namely Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps. Because Afghanistan was such a chaotic place, and because the Taliban were deeply influenced by bin Laden’s philosophy, the Taliban welcomed him and his network into the country. There they could plan their attacks with less fear of reprisal because other countries were wary of entering Afghanistan. Are we to believe that the Taliban have since renounced terrorism? Not likely. If the Taliban overtake all of Afghanistan again, it will be a cesspool of terrorists and we will all be back to square one again.

The battles are not won and although we have a bloody nose, we must persevere. Until the Taliban is eradicated and Afghans can live in peace and enjoy equality for all, Canadian soldiers should continue to fight the Taliban and any other warlords who abuse the people of Afghanistan and encourage heroin trafficking and harbour terrorists.

When John W. Dafoe wrote a letter to George Ferguson in 1939 after Canada declared war on Germany, he said in part; “I thought the news would knock me out. Instead it was such a relief that the sword had at last come out of its scabbard in a good cause.” unquote

Canada has drawn its sword and is swinging it at the Talibans in Afghanistan. Your demands that Canada put it back in its scabbard before the fight is over are the words of a coward.