The European weasels take a bow

Andrew Coyne in The National Post (Feb.2) has skewered the hypocritical European response to the successful Iraqi election. The spokesman for French President Jacques Chirac made the astounding comment that Iraq's election was "a great success for the international community". France, Russia and Germany were of course considered part of that "international community". That all these countries bitterly opposed any military intervention to oust Saddam has miraculously been forgotten. If they had had their way Saddam would still be in power and the only elections would be the farcical ones that again elected him president by 99.9% of the vote. Even if these three countries had been neutral toward Saddam's barbarous regime, they would not sound so absurd congratulating the vote, but they actively supported him. France sold him nuclear material, Russia missiles, and the Germans poison gas (Coyne's comment: "I thought Germany got out of that business.")

Coyne does not spare Canada either. He brings up Chretien's famous rationale for doing nothing. "We are against regime change," he said. Spoken like a true democrat, Jean. Of course the Iraqi war did interrupt Chretien's relationship with the principals associated with Totalfina Elf's profis in the oil-for-food scandal. Some of the billions in that scam ended up in Totalfina Elf's pockets. But gee, weren't some of those UN boys doing the dirty too. Maybe that is Chretien's idea of the perfect multinational action. Martin is not spared either, "And look! There's Paul Martin, as though anybody cared, saying on behalf of all Canadians, "how much we admire the courage of the Iraqi people." From afar, of course, but admiring all the same." As a final jab at the non-stop howling of the lefties, he points out that they were wrong on most of their apocalyptic prophesies. There were no "million dead', nor were there the millions of refugees predicted. However, when you are dealing with the hardcore ideologues of the left, victory can always be construed as defeat. Rick Salutin of The Globe and Mail called the election nothing more than "a fetish"--whatever that means. If the main opponents of American intervention had won the day, Saddam would still be in power oppressing his people and all the scamsters that profitted off the 'oil-for-food' program would still be getting rich off the backs of starving Iraqi children. I'm surprised that Irwin Cotler hasn't piped up about the rights of that poor minority, the Baathists and jihadis.

Bud Talkinghorn