Beyond The Need To Mourn The Fallen

Those two lists are now most often separated by North American security. In the five years since 9/11, security has become a political magic wand. Wave it once and objections to everything, from military intervention to the loss of human rights, simply vanish. That's what happened in Iraq. In misleading the world about weapons of mass destruction and substituting Saddam Hussein for Osama bin Laden, President George W. Bush momentarily convinced his country that a war that has now claimed an estimated 100,000 lives and challenged U.S. values would somehow make America safe. Afghanistan is different, even though the stated objective is identical. Unified by the attacks on New York and Washington, a diverse coalition toppled the Taliban and is trying to stabilize a country that usually puts internal differences aside only long enough to resist outsiders. Being part of that coalition makes considerable sense for Canada. It allows Ottawa to support Washington in its least contentious operation and is central to again making an indelible and uniquely Canadian mark abroad. True, giant question marks hang above the Afghanistan mission. The absence of an exit strategy and meaningful reconstruction timetable are as worrying as the former Liberal government's willingness to skew military, aid and development priorities toward a country somewhere down the list of those closest to Canadian interests. Important as those issues are, they leave untouched the debt owed every Canadian serving in Afghanistan. Nor do they reduce the sacrifice of those who have died there or will die there. Instead, those questions demand something more of the rest of us. Rather than genuflecting to the promise of security, Canadians need to assure themselves that their foreign policy has a reasonable chance of delivering security... Full story: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146088213588&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

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