Canadians should condemn all wars
I thought we were finished with the colonial mentality which asserts only other nations commit war crimes, and that the suffering, the death and destruction we sow is ethically different from that of our enemies.
If it’s a war crime for Russia to launch a war that has claimed thousands of civilian lives in Ukraine, why isn’t it a war crime for the U.S., Canada and Britain to kill a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya?
If Putin is a war criminal for attacking Ukraine, why aren’t Bush, Blair, Obama, Harper and Trudeau guilty as well?
Shouldn’t Canadians be as familiar with the flags of the nations that we and our allies have attacked — Yugoslavia, Iraq, Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, to name a few — as we are with that of Ukraine?
It seems to me it is, they are, and we should.
Canadians are only deceiving themselves by pretending the war in Ukraine is a war of certainty — good versus evil.
It’s clear to the rest of the world that there are no ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ in this conflict, and that it’s western, rank hypocrisy to claim that this war should be viewed differently from all others.
It’s time for Canadians to stop their warmongering, and to condemn all wars — not just those of our ‘enemies’.
And I think we should start by putting an end to arms exports, withdrawing from NATO — an alliance that has become little more than a tool of American hegemony — and by returning to our once honoured role as a nation of UN Peacekeepers.
Mike Ward
Duncan