Madam Speaker, it seems to me as I listen to more of the speeches in the House that we have somehow or another forgotten the date of September 11. After that event we were shocked. Everyone in the world was shocked. Many of us were surprised that it went to that extent. The damage that it did was unbelievable.
Right after that event I listened to Mr. Bush several times and heard him loudly and distinctly say that the responsible people were terrorists and that America was declaring war on terrorism. Is that true? Did he declare war on terrorism? I am sure he did. Now suddenly we are listening to the fellow who just asked a question about the motives behind why these things are happening. Has September 11 been forgotten?
Americans are encouraging their president to continue down that line because the last thing they ever want to see happen again is another event that took place like September 11. They want all steps to be taken that are necessary to ensure that it never happens again.
I appreciate the paper I received from the hon. member from the Liberal Party. I appreciate that because it is a well thought out idea of an individual indicating the way he sees it. It is a rational thinking paper. I cannot argue with that. It is too bad that I did not write down some of the conversations that I had with military personnel from the United States who were in the gulf war and who spent a lot of time in that region, including my own son who has spent a few months in that region because he is in the United States army. He would ask this particular person: Do you not really understand how serious of a threat this human being is? Yes, there are dangers to whatever one does when it comes to war. We are at war with terrorism. Of course there are dangers. No one denies that.
I talked to people on both sides of the border. I was trying to get a feel for what the people on the ground were thinking about the world situation. They do not get the opportunity to read CSIS reports and FBI reports and military intelligence reports. They are common ordinary folk who would really like to get a feel for what is going on. They were adamant in saying that we must do everything that we can to make certain that this kind of thing never, ever happens again. They said that we must make absolutely certain that individuals who have indicated in the past that they are capable of bringing total disaster on numerous people, like Saddam Hussein, who has done it over and over again, who has made rash statements about how he would wipe out half of the Zion nation, are stopped. We cannot sit back and take that lightly.
I want to thank Dave Naylor, a reporter from the Calgary Sun . I never received permission to quote part of his article, but I think this man is bang on. He writes:
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.
This is not a recent bit of rhetoric. This is from President George Bush in his attempt to acquire international support for a pre-emptive attack on Saddam. The quote is Winston Churchill commenting on Adolf Hitler. History has forgotten that Churchill, who was one of the greatest leaders of all time, was widely criticized as a warmonger. He was especially called a warmonger when he called for military action against Germany's new Nazi regime.
The then British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, said that Churchill could not be trusted and described Churchill as “a dangerous man”. Chamberlain instead chose to trust Hitler. After meeting with Hitler in Munich, Chamberlain said that for the second time in British history a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. He told his people to go home and get a nice, quiet sleep as all was well. It was not long before the world found out how well it could sleep and how well a tyrant could be trusted like Hitler. We are in the same situation now.
There is no evidence is what I hear over and over again. I even heard some of the Liberals quote the amount of tonnes of different kinds of gases, mustard and anthrax. They know about the quantities that are being produced. They know what Saddam Hussein did to thousands of people in his own land. They know of the episodes of beheading anyone who spoke against him and putting the head on public display for his own people to look at, so that they could learn a lesson that he was not putting up with anything. They know what kind of a tyrant he is.
When people such as George Bush and Tony Blair speak out in the manner that they are, they are not basing it on anything more than solid stuff that must be coming through strong intelligence work.
I would rather trust what they are doing in their hands than to trust diplomacy with a person like Saddam Hussein. He is not capable of being responsible or responsive to any diplomatic efforts. We must realize that. He has proven that over and over again. He has laughed in the face of the United Nations when he defied its resolutions 16 times. Do members of the House think it matters to him when he is of that frame of mind?
That is a little to the other side of some of the comments that I have heard, quite a bit to the other side. It is worth thinking about, as well as the document that was handed to me by my good friend from Edmonton. History and some of the hard facts about this human being must be seriously considered. What is the man capable of and what will he do?
Saddam Hussein does not hate the world because of poverty, as the Prime Minister believes. Iraq is not a poor nation. Iraq could be one of the richest nations on earth if Saddam was not squandering all his wealth on himself by amassing weapons that he will use against vast populations. He will use them.
Saddam Hussein is not an individual who reasons or feels any remorse. When is the last time the world has heard any remorse come from Saddam Hussein about anything? Did members see him weeping and sending condolences to the United States and to Canada when we lost our citizens when the mighty towers of the World Trade Center fell? I do not think so. He was probably cheering, smiling and enjoying it.
Soft diplomats on that side of the House prefer to work through multilateral, international institutions, meaning the United Nations. Yet in 1998 these same people supported limited military strikes by our good friends, the United States and Britain, and at that time there was no explicit Security Council authorization of any kind. What has happened to them now? Why was it supportable then and not now?
It is this kind of inconsistency that sends the wrong signal to Saddam Hussein. He sees hesitation as a weakness. He sees those who seek diplomatic solutions as weaklings. He is not a man of reason, nor is he a man of remorse and we should never forget that.
I wish to compliment the Liberals speakers who are here tonight for not bashing the United States as they did a couple of nights ago. Even Warren Kinsella came on TV and said that it was the wrong thing for them to do. These people to the south are our neighbours. I would like members who bash them one more time to stand in their place and tell me who they would like to have in their place as neighbours rather than the United States. They should stop it. These are people we can rely on. Let us get with the program.