Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. Indeed, a little more clarification is required.
Yes, I think he is right. We must also take action against nations that protect, finance and encourage terrorist acts. Now, as everyone knows, and I am taking Afghanistan as an example, the Afghani regime, the Taliban, strongly encourages the numerous terrorist camps within Afghanistan.
Does this justify an unprecedented bombing, of Kabul for instance? This is where we make certain distinctions. I am not saying that article 5 of NATO or of the North Atlantic Treaty ought not to be applied. It must, but with distinctions, because as I have said already, in various wars the aggressors have been clearly identified.
Here, they have not. It is certain that we are beginning to find leads to Osama bin Laden and so on. But would that justify, for example, the bombing of Kabul, because it houses a regime sympathetic to this terrorist leader?
This is where Canada, the Bloc Quebecois and all parties in this House have a role to play. The House of Commons must weigh the action of the government carefully. I would, moreover, point out that this was the object of my question this afternoon.
What are the government's intentions? According to the government, “We have U.S. assurances that they will need to go back to NATO and tell them "Here is the proof and here is what we suggest"”. Each of the member nations will then be free to act as it sees fit. Certainly, we are linked by the treaty, but it is equally certain that we will not be bombing civilian populations. The law of retaliation does not apply here.
Just because 5,000 civilians were killed in the United States, we are not going to kill 5,000 more in Afghanistan. That is not the purpose. This is, moreover, the reason President Bush has said the war will be a long one, because I believe he wants to go after the terrorists and not the totally innocent civilian population.
The terrorists did not make that distinction. I believe that we, as responsible members of this House, as parliamentarians, must make that distinction. We must not attack civilians. We must strike directly at the terrorists.