Naomi Klein says in
her June 15 article that, if Stephen harper is elected PM and sends troops to join the "coalition of the willing", Canadians at home and abroad will become targets.
If the Conservatives are given the chance to turn Canada into more of a card-carrying combatant in Mr. Bush's disastrous war on terrorism than we are already, the little bit of grace I encountered in Iraq will quickly disappear. When I go back, showing my passport to the ad hoc inspectors could well have a very different effect.
I was in Iraq in April, at a pivotal moment when the United States decided to wage two pre-emptive wars within a pre-emptive war, one against the resistance in Fallujah, the other against Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and Sadr City. The LA Times estimates that 800 Iraqis have been killed in the past two months of U.S. attacks on Sadr City, almost as many as the 900 that than are estimated to have died in the siege on Fallujah.
As mosques were desecrated, prisoners tortured and children killed, I witnessed George Bush's awesome enemy-manufacturing machine up close. Hatred of Americans soared, not just in Iraq but also in neighbouring countries....
It is a privilege not to be hated for your nationality, and we should not relinquish it lightly. George Bush has denied that privilege to his own people, and Stephen Harper would cavalierly strip it from Canadians by erasing what few small but important differences remain between Canadian and U.S. foreign policy. The danger posed by this act is not just about whether Canadians are safe when we travel to the Middle East. The hatred that Mr. Bush is manufacturing there, for the United States and its coalition partners, is already following the soldiers home.
I have felt that hatred in Iraq, and trust me: We don't want to experience it here in Canada. Or don't trust me, trust the citizens of Spain, who decided in their March elections that they are not willing to accept the blowback from George Bush's wars, that they don't want these multiplying enemies to be their enemies too. ....
As long as the United States continues to act as a global aggressor, the best way for us to stay healthy is to stay as far away as from Americans as possible.