Tom Wilkinson: Clueless lefty editorialist

Tom Wilkinson’s column in Niagara News, Mar. 29, 2006, claims that rescued former hostages Loney and Sooden were “rightwing religious fanatics”. Although they may have been looney to go to Iraq in these circumstances, since when has the CPT been right-wing? Does Wilkinson have any clue of the issue?

Although titled “Rescue mission an expensive photo-op”, nowhere in his column does Wilkinson actually specify what photo-op he’s talking about, or, exactly why it wasn’t worth the expense.

Incidentally, what has Stockwell Day and his sea-doo got to do with the hostages? If you want a truly expensive photo-op, just think of Chretien’s Gomery golf ball stunt.

Wilkinson presents a conspiracy theory unintentionally indicting the Liberal’s lack-lustre efforts. He claims the hostages were rescued because Harper was “obviously sending signals to Bush that a new Canadian government would be much more co-operative with the U.S. in military ventures”. (The downside being what - resultant rescues of kidnapped citizens?)

Wilkinson asks “does that scare anybody?” The answer: no, why should it? That doesn’t scare me as much as his column does. And yes; Canada’s renewed co-operation to enable democracy anywhere should scare those terrorists dedicated to tear it down.

With awkward innuendo, Wilkinson fear-mongers that Harper “wants to hire a new ethics commissioner who won’t be investigating him so much” because Wilkinson is worried “how far Harper will go to demonstrate his loyalty to George Bush.” Huh?

It’s clear to most Canadians that the ethics commissioner’s office was a self-legitimizing tool of a scandal-plagued Liberal government, and from the start should have reported to Parliament, not to the PMO.

Wilkinson orders his readers: “Do not give me the argument that Saddam was a bad guy and had to go.”

Sorry to challenge your edict, oh great Wilkinson, but as apparently unpalatable as it is to you, that argument remains valid.

Wilkinson's specious argument appears to be that, since North Korea and Iran might have WMD’s, and since “the U.S. lied” about WMD’s in Iraq, and since Harper “refused to meet with the ethics commissioner” therefore “we should be staying away from Iraq”. Huh?

Wilkinson points out the obvious: “There’s dozens of bad guy leaders in the world”, neglecting to mention what, if anything, he would actually support doing about any one of them. What does Monday-morning quarterbackWilkinson propose to do about North Korea or Iran, besides continue to whine about Bush or Harper from the sidelines?

Was Germany’s invasion of Poland or Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait as offensive to Wilkinson as the coalition’s invasion of Afghanistan, or of Iraq? Throughout history, at what point do the Wilkinsons of this world say: ‘Enough. Stalin has starved too many Ukrainians’, ‘Hitler has killed too many Jews’, ‘Milosevic has killed too many Bosnians’?
Is turning your cheek morally responsible?

“Removing Saddam has been expensive in lives and money” Wilkinson writes. As opposed to what – allowing a corrupt U.N. to appease the genocidal tyrant?

Iraq is a “beacon for terrorists to rally around” Wilkinson claims. So civilian Iraqis should be deprived of becoming a democratic beacon? Terrorists loathed democracy even before Iraq.

Wilkinson claims that many young middle-eastern men and women are joining terrorist movements. But, how many hundreds of millions are not? How many millions will suffer the consequences if we abandon them and consent to what the terrorists (and Wilkinson) demand: “stay away from Iraq”? Just as we should have abandoned one of our own lost sheep, Loney?

Is that Wilkinson’s noble cause?