Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Halifax West.
Let me begin by reading some words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free”. Those words are engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty in the United States, in New York harbour. I will focus my remarks on that famous monument because I think the Statue of Liberty is central to what is happening here with respect to the Americans wanting to invade Iraq, to rescue the Iraqis from an evil dictator.
Every school child knows that the Statue of Liberty was built in cooperation with the French. It was a centennial project celebrating the declaration of independence which was declared in 1776, and a century later Americans wanted to celebrate the occasion by doing something that was really profound because, of course, the declaration of independence contains very famous words.
The declaration of independence says, among other things, that “all men are created equal and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. That was an incredible statement for its time and it arose out of enlightened thinking, a renaissance of thought that was occurring in the 18th century when the social institutions of the monarchy were being questioned across the globe. Some of the lead thinkers were French.
The Americans took inspiration from the French and there was the American revolution and the declaration of independence. Then the French in their turn took inspiration from the Americans with the French revolution. This sent out an enormous message to the world that individuals did count. It was not the state that counted, it was individuals who counted and that they had certain inalienable rights. The French in their turn came out with the first declaration of the rights of man and that is where we get the expression, “liberty, equality, fraternity”. That came out in 1792.
There is this huge linkage between the French and the Americans in terms of being pioneers in the development of the institutions of liberty and the rule of law and so it was no coincidence and no surprise indeed that the Americans and the French should get together and attempt to build this monument that was to symbolize all these wonderful thoughts. That monument was the Statue of Liberty. The internal structure was built by the famous Alexandre Eiffel, who built the Eiffel Tower, and the Americans built the base. The Statue of Liberty officially opened 10 years later in 1886.
Everyone in the world knows that monument. It has become, as the Americans like to say, an icon and a beacon of liberty around the world. I think that the principles that are embodied in that statue and the declaration of independence are so ingrained in the American psyche that I believe that the President of the United States is motivated by the very principles that are seen in those two symbols of American society, of American heritage. I take him at his word that he is wanting to go into Iraq to give liberty and opportunity to the starving, oppressed and the tortured. I accept that, but unfortunately, something has gone terribly wrong.
All that idealism I think is falling on barren ground and it is falling on barren ground in the world because public opinion in the world does not see the attack on Iraq as something that does embody the principles of liberty, equality, freedom and life for all. Instead, people see it as a superpower exercising its muscle and trying to come into Iraq for its own personal gain.
One of the problems in language is that much of the debate we have heard from the American representatives at the UN, and even from the president tonight, revolves around the suggestion that resolution 1441 of the Security Council gives legal authorization for the use of armed force against Iraq for its non-compliance. The Americans and the British argue that it does give this legal power and others argue the opposite way. This is to miss the point.
The problem is that the war on Iraq, the attack on Iraq without the support of the UN Security Council, is not seen as justified. All the arguments that the Americans and the British have put forward have not been sufficient to carry world opinion, so we have the situation where 90% of Turks are opposed to an attack on Iraq unilaterally, and around the globe we have similar statistics.
So if a war is not justified, if people do not see that it has been justified, then it becomes an unjust war. This is a terrible problem for the Americans, because quite apart from all other damage that might occur to the Americans, to the free world, to our institutions of the United Nations and whatever else, or the loss of trade or economic consequences, nothing compares to the damage that is going to occur toward the image of the United States as a beacon of liberty, as an upholder of the law, as a bastion of freedom.
If we were to go into New York harbour and take the ferry, not long ago we could look in one direction and see the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the symbol of the economic power of the United States. We could look in the other direction and we could see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, the symbol of freedom, of liberty, and of all the things for which the United States has been admired for many years.
I am very afraid that one of the great consequences of what is going to happen should the Americans decide to go into Iraq is that all of that will be lost. The destruction of the United States as a symbol of hope, of freedom, of liberty, of the rule of law, will be just as certain as the destruction of the World Trade Center. It will not be a matter of flying an aircraft into the Statue of Liberty. It is that the Americans, I truly fear, will destroy that symbol themselves and it will then become only a copper monument 301 feet high. It will not actually represent the hope and the wishes of the world.
I really do despair of what I see coming, because if the world loses confidence in the United States and confidence in the goodwill of the United States to other lands, then I just do not know what the consequences will be. There will be a kind of anarchy that rules the world because suddenly material wealth will become an end in its own right. Material wealth and the pursuit of happiness were always linked with the idea of liberty and giving life to other people and respecting the lives of other people. I am afraid that this has all become twisted around and what the world sees is a superpower that does not have respect for life and is only concerned about its own happiness.
I think it is a very sad situation that we are faced with now. I would hope that even at this late hour the Americans will reconsider this prospect of an attack on Iraq. In the end, whether or not Saddam Hussein is removed does not matter, because there will be an enormous and permanent loss of goodwill toward the United States and I do not know what kind of world will be left after that.