Nonsense? There are 15 million people in Iraq who are surviving because of food from the United Nations. There are people now in Basra who are suffering because of the lack of food and the lack of water.
There are these moralizers on the other side who are taking a stand against the Pope and against the churches, against all the Christian values in the world. These moralizers on the other side are taking a stand against all kinds of reasonable people. In fact even Henry Kissinger, that famous Republican, has said that this war is illegal, that this war is a violation of international law. He was the chief Republican adviser to the president of the United States for a long time. Yet these Neanderthals get up in the House and say to commit young Canadian men and women into the theatre of war. I find that absolutely disgusting.
Then they try to distort the position of certain political parties. I had it reported to me that the foreign affairs critic for the Alliance made a comment that the CCF was against World War II just because one person, the leader of the party, J.S. Woodsworth, who was a pacifist like Gandhi, was the only member of the House of Commons who got up and voted against the war. I remember Tommy Douglas saying to me that Woodsworth had difficulty reading notes and he would pass him his notes to make his speech at that time as he stated his position. The CCF caucus and council took a strong stand in terms of committing our country to war. I had an uncle who was killed in Normandy in that war.
There is a kind of distortion and misinformation that goes on by the Alliance. I find that to be absolutely offensive from the party across the way.
The global public opinion is overwhelmingly against what George Bush and Tony Blair are doing in Iraq. People in our country are opposed to what they are doing in Iraq. There have been large demonstrations weekend after weekend. They are growing in number right around the world. I am very proud to be part of that movement. We will do whatever we can to make sure that does not happen.
We could go to any riding in this country and we would find that people are increasingly opposed to this illegal war by George Bush, this illegal action, a violation of the United Nations.
I wish the people in the Alliance Party would take this seriously. Here they are condoning something that violates international law. The so-called party of law and order. The so-called party of grassroots Canadians. The so-called party of Christian values in the House of Commons. This is what the Alliance is doing. People should be aware exactly where that party stands, in opposition to what it said historically. I say that already there are innocent civilians who are dying.
I am probably one of the few members in the House of Commons who has been in a war zone and has seen people die. When I was 22 years old, in 1960, I volunteered to go into the Biafran civil war. I spent a week inside the war zone. I saw people dying of starvation. I saw little kids who were dying of starvation. I saw people who were shot, who were wounded and whose limbs were blown off because of bombs.
I was driving a small convoy of cars late one night near a little airstrip when we were caught in a bombing raid. I saw the terror and the fear and I know the terror and the fear when bombs are dropping beside us. When the bombs started to drop we jumped out of the cars and dived into the jungle brush. People all around were crying. Some people were saying the rosary. People were praying. People were terrified. That is what is happening in Iraq today.
I saw kids in big feeding centres at sunrise in the Biafran jungle who were dying of kwashiorkor, the protein deficiency disease. I saw kids who died because of a lack of food. Food supplies were cut off because of a war that was being carried on. This is what is happening in Iraq today. To have a political party in our country advocate being part of that theatre of war, being part of that suffering that is going on, I find absolutely disgusting.
I do not think many people realize the suffering that goes on. I remember being there, hearing little kids cry, seeing people terrified and seeing people who were walking skeletons. I remember someone coming out of the bush in Biafra carrying a little child who was barely alive and who was basically a skeleton because of a lack of food and water.
I remember going up to the front after dark one night in that war to see what happened. I saw the terror on the Biafran side when they fired into the jungle because they heard the noise of machine gun fire on the other side. We took back with us in a jeep that night a wounded soldier who had bullets in his hands and arms that had come from the other side.
This is what happens in a war. People do not seem to realize that. It is not like sitting at home and watching some kind of video game on CNN. These things are bloody awful. We saw yesterday the American prisoners of war who were taken by the Iraqis. We saw how awful that was. We saw how awful it was to see the Americans, with Iraqi prisoners of war behind barbed wire, kneeling down with machine guns pointed at them. This is the reality of war.
Here we have the Alliance across the way once again ignoring their constituents, ignoring the Canadian people, ignoring public opinion, ignoring what the churches are saying, ignoring what international law experts are saying and ignoring what the United Nations are saying. I say thank God for Jacques Chirac. Thank God for France, Germany, Scandinavia and for the majority of people in this country, the majority of people in this world, who have taken a very strong stand against an immoral war. Yet we have the Alliance taking the exact opposite position.
Jacques Chirac and France represent global public opinion. Chancellor Schroeder in Germany represents public opinion. The Scandinavian countries represent public opinion. The Dutch and the Belgians represent public opinion in the world and also in their countries. This is what this war is really all about.
I wanted to say to the House today that I am pleased that our country is not involved but I am concerned that we do have some people on an exchange program who are now in the theatre of war. I believe those people should be pulled out of that exchange at this time. I am also concerned that we have Canadian ships escorting ships of war. I believe they should be pulled out of the region as well.
A time comes when we have to stand up for what is right, for being on the side of international law, not on the side of someone who is violating international law. We have to stand up for people in our constituencies, stand up for the people in this country and stand up for global public opinion. Being on the same side as Norman Schwarzkopf, Henry Kissinger, the Pope, the World Council of Churches and public opinion is not a bad thing. I am proud that I stand with all those folks.