Give our troops a positive mission
Re Canadian troops will wear Kurdish flag, July 23
It seemed we just came out of a dark abyss under racist leadership and now our government is committing our troops to service in Iraq. Is our new prime minister too young to know about the brutal legacy of civilian death and suffering we have already inflicted on that nation?
In one of the most despicable crimes against humanity in world history, our country shamefully participated in the blockade that prevented food, infant formula, childhood inoculations and antibiotics from reaching dying Iraqi children. Weeping mothers, too malnourished to breastfeed, watched over tiny birdlike infants. Children with terminal cancer had no pain relievers to lessen their agony. More than a million beautiful treasured little lives were lost in the decade prior to the 2003 Iraq War.
Former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark urged Canadians to stop supplying the U.S. with depleted uranium for its weapons. But why would we? The sale of depleted uranium was lucrative. Radioactive residue will remain in Iraq’s environment for centuries, causing cancers (especially childhood leukemia) and terrible birth defects. Future children of troops returning from the region could be at risk of tragic medical consequences.
Give our troops a positive assignment. Send them to Canada’s north to build decent housing, community centres and arenas for our own native children who have also suffered unforgivably under brutal “northern apartheid” enforced by successive federal regimes.
Isn’t it about time to start doing something positive for the world’s children and begin absolving ourselves of our heinous record of child genocide? How many more children must suffer so we can realize our dreams of power and “supremacy”?
When will we find a leadership motivated by justice and humanitarian concerns that will return us to the worthy commitment to peace making and peace keeping, which once earned Canada honour and respect around the world? Carol Winter, Peterborough