Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation
"Canada absolutely must not support the U.S. in what is likely to be one of the major blunders in world history," Paul Hellyer warned today. "Instead, our country must take a clear stand against any apparently-arbitrary power play on the part of our southern neighbours."
The Leader of the Canadian Action Party and former Liberal cabinet minister was reacting to the U.S. request for Canadian support for, and possible participation in, a U.S. invasion of Iraq - a position that could have negative consequences for Canadians.
"Prime Minister Jean Chr�tien says Canada will not support a U.S. attack without 'proof" that a threat exists, but what 'proof" would be convincing?" Mr. Hellyer asked. "The reliability of U.S. intelligence is suspect - as we have learned since last September 11th.
"This is also the lesson Canadians learned when we cancelled the Avro Arrow interceptor program on the basis of a wildly exaggerated U.S. Air Force intelligence assessment of Soviet missile capability," the former Defence Minister suggested. "It's the same old trick of the Pentagon producing 'evidence' to support U.S. policy rather than basing U.S. policy on solid evidence.
Canadians should also think about the fact that the Pentagon has opened an Office of Disinformation, for the precise purpose of misleading civilian populations during these precarious times," Mr. Hellyer noted. "If the U.S. does actually have 'proof' that stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction exist it must know where these weapons are - in which case a few super-bombs could destroy those facilities without the necessity of a war that would produce thousands of military and civilian casualties," the CAP leader argued.
"It seems more than obvious that if U.S. leaders are sincerely concerned about the spread of weapons of mass destruction, they would not embark on a misadventure that will guarantee an unprecedented explosion of hate and violence," Mr. Hellyer said. "Such an explosion has the potential of spiraling out of control with genuinely frightening results," he stated, "because the Arab League has already warned the U.S. that an attack on Iraq would be considered an attack on all Arab countries, and has predicted that the consequences would be nothing less than a 'hell' in the Middle East.
"Based on my past experience in these matters, I know it cannot be stated too strongly or too often that Canada must not condone or endorse, let alone commit Canadians troops to participate in, a war based on policy gone made," Mr. Hellyer concluded. "There is simply too much at stake."
Copyright 2002. For fair use only/ pour usage �quitable seulement .
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HEL210A.html