Reading Mr. Atamanenko’s article, “The use of mercenary armies by Canada,” made me reflect on how it is getting more and more difficult to define what is Canadian and what is American political policy.
It is criminal that the Harper government hides the truth of how it is using our tax dollars to hire mercenaries that shoot first to carry out their objective of perpetuating continuous wars for profit. Not only does this dishonour our troops, it creates more terrorists that want to kill Canadians.
When I immigrated to Canada from the U.S.A., forty years ago, I was a principled young man who was willing to sacrifice all to avoid the bloodguilt of killing people for profit. My reasons for immigrating to Canada were shared by many other refugee soldiers from other lands.
At that time, Canada was viewed by the international community as a country with a conscience, a place of refuge from oppression. Canada was leading all nations of the world as an example of a multi-cultural society that could live together in peace with tolerance and respect for all.
The last decent thing the Canadian government has done to honour it’s international reputation was refusing the invitation to join president Bush’s illegitimate invasion of Iraq. In retrospect this display of moral character appears to have been nothing more than a token gesture. Sadly, the Conservatives’ war policies that support the U.S. agenda to establish a new world order, have undermined the peace-keeping reputation of Canada. What this amounts to, for Canadians, is that we are no longer welcomed as a friendly neutral nation by all other countries. We are now being identified as oppressive invaders and targeted as enemies; no different than our U.S. military counterparts.
The assimilation of Canada into the U.S. agenda has been an incremental process of relinquishing our sovereignty. This is accomplished without our consent by using propaganda that extols the sacrifices of our military engagements as a necessary evil in the idealistic effort to establish our form of corporate democracy in distant lands like Afghanistan. This patriotic rhetoric placates our sensibilities while serving the interest of the many corporations that rake in huge profits from wars with no concern about the body count.
It is a myth that we need to continue sacrificing our young men and women to fight in questionable war efforts to civilize the world. The policy of the Canadian government using mercenaries is degrading and dangerous.
Thank you Mr. Atamanenko for revealing and speaking out against the mismanagement, hypocrisy, and secret agendas of the Harper government; keep up the good work.
-Steve Clement,
Castlegar