Mr. Chair, let us get right down to it since we only have five minutes. Why Afghanistan? Why Canada? And why now? People forget that in 9/11 al-Qaeda were the perpetrators of that horrific situation. Canadian citizens died in that event.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban controlled the country and they harboured al-Qaeda. We are there to get rid of the Taliban and particularly, we are there to get rid of al-Qaeda. If we do not do that then al-Qaeda would come back and use Afghanistan as a staging point to engage in activities against us and our allies. That is not an option. For the citizens who are watching out there, that is the crux of the matter. That is the bottom line as to why it is in Canada's interest to be in Afghanistan today, a world half away from our own.
The way we are doing it is an innovative 3D strategy that we put together utilizing foreign affairs, defence, our international development arm and also the RCMP. These provincial reconstruction teams are in Afghanistan right now to enable the Afghani people to build their schools, to build their clinics, to rebuild their economy, and to have their own and take over their own internal security. We are there to assist them. In particular, that is why our troops are there, not to engage, as the NDP would suggest, in some war-making fashion.
It actually irritates me to no end to think that individuals in our country today, sophisticated individuals in this House, somehow do not understand, as I said in my questions, that the milk of human kindness does not flow through everybody's veins. There are nasty people out there who behead people in Afghanistan, prevent people from going to school, kill the peacemakers and the moderates in that country, and destabilize the country.
Those people do not listen to diplomacy, as much as we would wish. We tried that as a first effort. We tried that as a second initiative, and a third. However, there are some people who will not listen to that. Our troops are there to provide the security, to provide the peace, and to enable the Afghani people to rebuild their country. They do it with honour, they do it with courage, and they do it with the full respect for them and their families for the sacrifices they make for our country every single day.
The end point for this is at the end of 2007, when this particular mission will be reassessed. That is the obligation that we made as part of the NATO backed UN supported force. The Afghani people asked us to be a part of ISAP. They asked us to go into Afghanistan and help them, which is completely different from the situation in Iraq and what our friends south of the border have got themselves into in that country.
As my friend from Mount Royal said, there are also other countries well deserving of interventions. The Minister for Public Safety spoke very eloquently and mentioned “what price freedom?”
I would ask the government, using the logic of my colleague, who is extremely experienced and a world leader in human rights, what about the Congo, where our troops in fact have actually been and have tried to maintain the peace? What about the Congo, where two million people have been killed, the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world next to Darfur? What about Uganda, which is the worst place in the world to be if one is a child?
A friend of mine was doing her Ph.D. out there. She wrote to me about child soldiers who were forced to hack off the lips and ears, and noses of women, and forced them to eat those parts of their own body, not to kill them but to terrorize them. She wrote about torture and horrendous acts against innocent civilians that we cannot hope to ever in our wildest nightmares imagine. That is what is going on there today.
What about Zimbabwe, where despotic Robert Mugabe is killing his people by another means entirely. He is preventing his people from eating. He is starving his people to death.
This intervention is fully backed by the Liberal Party. We sent our troops in there. We are deeply honoured and respectful, and grateful for the incredible work that they do. I hope, at the end of the debate, that we will see all party support, fulsome 110% support, for our troops and the work that they are doing over there, not only for the benefit of the Afghani people but also for the benefit of Canadians.