Canadians must wake up quickly to Middle East nightmare

No-brainer: UN agency has documented atrocities of Islamic State, giving legitimacy to military intervention

IRBIL, Iraq

Scores of young women forced into sex slavery, hundreds of mass executions and thousands of other gross human rights violations of every imaginable kind, especially against Shia Muslims, Christians and Iraqi minority groups such as the Yazidis ...

For Canadians such as Liberal leader Justin Trudeau who are still in a quandary over whether the country should join the international coalition trying to stop the ghastly march of Islamic State, a report issued Thursday by the United Nations Human Rights Office provides an abundance of stark evidence.

Canadians, and especially those who vote Liberal or New Democrat, have become reluctant in recent years to take military action overseas without the UN’s imprimatur. Well, there it is: an unofficial call to arms to end this scourge from a UN body that investigates only such outrages.

Still, Trudeau remains unswayed. A staunch member of the Kumbaya choir, no matter who the foe or what outrages they have perpetrated, Trudeau wondered Thursday: “Why aren’t we talking more about humanitarian aid?”

That was an easy partisan shot which demonstrates that Trudeau is not yet able to speak without his usual tired partisan script. When I have spoken with UN officials living this nightmare every day in the Middle East — as I have done several times this year — all of them readily offer that the Harper government consistently has been one of the most responsible and generous donors to the massive international aid effort that began when the civil war in Syria suddenly created an almost biblical wave of refugees into Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Ankara may have made the debate a little easier for wavering Canadian parliamentarians Thursday when the Turkish parliament voted overwhelmingly to join the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State. That decision could be a crucial boon to the RCAF, because Turkey also has said for the first time that foreign nations could use its airbases, which are of NATO standard and only a few minutes away by jet from where the extremists are still operating with almost total impunity.

As I wrote on Wednesday, if Canada becomes the newest country in the coalition it may stage the operations that it has been planning from Turkey. Or, although not quite so convenient, from Jordan or Cyprus.

Yes, as Trudeau and others in Canada have said, despite the Harper government’s now habitual strident rhetoric, it has not made it easy for Canadians to grasp what role their country might play in confronting Islamic State in Syria or Iraq. Even at this very late hour, it has provided little information about what its modest intentions are or what the thinking is behind its strategy. For example, it has not explained that Canada will contribute only about four per cent of the aircraft (six of 150 fighter-bombers) that are or will be part of this air war.

This simply isn’t good enough, particularly since countries that are Canada’s peers, such as Britain, France and Australia, and minnows such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark are so much further along in their decision-making process that they are either already intensely involved militarily, or will be within the next 48 hours.

Notwithstanding how little leadership or guidance Ottawa has provided, I am hugely puzzled why many Canadians somehow think they can sit this one out or get away with signing a few more cheques to feed and house millions of refugees in neighbouring countries.

Why is it that so many Canadians have remained disconnected despite Islamic State’s joy at repeatedly showing the world the war crimes it has committed in Iraq and Syria. What incident of mass murder or mass rape might be the one that finally tips the moral balance for those Canadians who blithely choose to remain unmoved?

Have they not thought about the risk to western societies that is posed by the growing exodus of homegrown jihadis who have been coming to Iraq and Syria to gleefully join the mayhem?

Having dinner tonight with a British couple long familiar with conflict zones, I mentioned that Canada was still debating the merits of a modest military commitment that will amount to no more than 200 men and women and half a dozen vintage fighter jets.

“Why even have a debate?” the woman asked. “There aren’t many no-brainers in international affairs. But this is a no-brainer.”

There was even more disbelief Thursday night at the big park across the street from where I am staying. With Eid, which is akin to the Christian Christmas, falling this Saturday, the park was even more crowded than usual with Christian and Shia refugees who were among the first wave who fled Islamic State’s pell-mell offensive in May and June.

A refugee enjoying a warm fall evening in the park with her husband and a swarm of children put it to me this way. Thousands more panicked Syrian refugees have crossed into Turkey during the past few hours.

“Nothing will stop (Islamic State) except to meet their violence with violence. We lack the military means to do this ourselves. We need help. We need not only your pilots. We need your soldiers.”