Bush, Iraq and Canada: Killing us softly with his lies

In my personal opinion, it doesn’t matter who the next prime minister is. Take the case of Paul Martin. Say what you like about Paul Martin, but there’s nothing he is going to do that will kill me. The same goes for Stephen Harper.

If it strikes you as selfish, deciding what I think is best for the whole country on the basis what the chances are that I’ll get killed, that’s the way it goes.

I said it was a personal opinion. Now let me tell you why I occasionally obsess about George W. Bush. It’s because every minute of his waking life is devoted to getting me killed.

Iraq had nothing to do with what happened on 9/ 11 at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But Iraq — and Iraqis — had everything to do with this past 11/ 9 in Amman. What got Iraq into the terrorism act? George Bush. So okay, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were faroff incidents. Jordan is even farther away. But the remoteness of the location is irrelevant. When a tree branch falling on a hydro line in Ohio can cause us havoc, if the power grid in California is bombed, what do you suppose the chances are of my lights in Riverdale staying on? As the spillover from the Iraq war intensifies, and as we discover that homeland security in the U. S. consists of everybody involved with it crossing their fingers, we are naive if we’re even the tiniest bit confident that there won’t be another, more catastrophic, attack down there. Or that it won’t cause impossible damage up here — politically, economically, environmentally, physically. Who knows what motivates him. Stupidity? Blind fundamentalism? Pathological greed? An inability to tell the truth? “ We do not torture.” An inability to recognize the truth. It could be he’s crazy. Every day’s news brings evidence of all those.

It doesn’t much matter. Every misstep he takes makes us more vulnerable, and every step he takes is a misstep. The idea that I could end up as collateral damage in George Bush’s war bothers the hell out of me. Are any of you even sure why he decided to fight it? I mean really sure?

For a long time I was convinced it was about oil. Given the consumption of the United States and the shortage of secure reserves, establishing strategic control of supplies coming through Afghanistan and inside Iraq made a practical sense to me that nothing else did.

I never heard of anybody robbing a bank except for the money. I never heard of anybody doing it to liberate the clientele from the tyranny of Scotiabank or the CIBC. Now I dunno. That’s why I included craziness on the list of possible motivations.

It is a very peculiar leader who, in the midst of waging a war, comes up with a new excuse every couple of weeks. My favourite was that the U. S. had to keep on fighting otherwise it would dishonour the sacrifice of the troops who had lost their lives fighting so far. Every screw in a brain that could dream that up is either loose or has fallen out.

If it was any kind of rationale, the U. S. would still be sending bags full of bodies home from Vietnam.

Journalists like to describe their role as “ speaking truth to power,” but this is a bit of selfglorification. Doing it, however, is always a good thing, and one that, when it comes to Bush and Iraq, is more suited to nations.

“ You pissed on my rug!” Lyndon Johnson shrieked, grabbing Lester Pearson by the lapels a few hours after Pearson, in a 1965 speech at Philadelphia’s Temple University, called for a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War (a war Canada made a point of conscientiously objecting to, same as this one).

It is a nervous- making business. It will take courage. But pissing on George Bush’s rug may be the single most important thing the next prime minister can do.

Since, as far as most of us can see, the coming election isn’t about anything at all, it might as well be about this. Put it to the candidates at your door: If your leader, as prime minister, has the guts to condemn George Bush’s insane war, you’ve got my vote.

If any of them argues that this is hardly a national issue, I’ll grab them by the lapels and shriek, “ My life is at stake, and that’s a national enough issue for me!” Slinger’s column appears Tuesday and Thursday.