Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be part of this debate. I would like to start by saying that from my perspective the question is whether or not Canada's involvement in the way proposed by the government, and the terms it has proposed, is necessary. If, from a Canadian point of view, it is not absolutely necessary, is it wise? That includes the broader question of whether we can contribute in other ways that are smarter or more effective than what is being proposed by the government. That is the overall framework that I would like us to think about.
I would also like to start with a premise. The premise is that we are all on the same page about the barbaric nature of ISIS. It is important to remind everybody that there is a consensus in society, not just among Canadians and among the coalition, but also among Muslims and Muslim communities in this country.
It is important that we all hear the statement made by the Canadian Council of Imams on August 22. I would like to have this as a starting point for the consensus that we all know there is a problem. It stated:
The Canadian Council of Imams (CCI) today reiterates its past declarations condemning violent extremism.... With respect to...ISIS, we declare the following: ISIS has manifested some of the worst and barbaric human behaviour [...] They claim to establish a so-called “Islamic caliphate” but their abomination does exactly the opposite of what Islam calls upon believers to do, namely establish peace and justice and safeguard human rights. We categorically condemn the actions of this group and its monstrous crimes against humanity, absolutely and without equivocation.
Since their advent, ISIS mercenaries have caused nothing but destruction and corruption and have violated core Islamic teachings and principles such as the sanctity of life and the importance of treating others with dignity and respect. [...] we call upon all Canadian Muslims to denounce this deliberate perversion of the Muslim faith and to dissociate themselves totally from such a despicable ideology and dangerous people who intentionally use the name of Islam in their ongoing campaign of distortion and destruction. [...] Canadian Muslim communities...wholeheartedly understand and believe that it is a religious and a civic duty to promote and support peaceful coexistence and multiculturalism and to condemn bigotry, hate and discrimination against any group, here and everywhere: that is essential to being both Muslim and Canadian.
This starting point reminds us that we can all share this point of view, this horrible, almost primordial, reaction to the horrific nature of ISIS. However, it does not tell us whether or not a particular course of action makes sense, and it does not tell us whether behind the proposed course of action there is a workable strategy.
The question of strategy is important. We know that at some levels what is going on in northern Iraq, and also with ISIS in Syria, but especially in Iraq, is part of the blowback effect from the invasion in 2003 in Iraq. It is not a new conflict in that sense, but the next phase of something that was started in 2003. It is the combined effect of the incredibly wrong-minded invasion.
John Dower, who is probably the leading scholar in the world on what I would call defeat studies, how one moves from conflict to a peaceful reconstruction of a country, talks about the “strategic imbecility” of what went on in 2003. He talked about how the Americans went in with eyes wide shut, with no plan whatsoever. Despite all kinds of planning that was available, it was all ignored. Out of that emerged chaos, from which emerged an invigorated al Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually metastasized into a bunch of groups, including the current group.
As such, we have to ask what good it would do for westerners, especially led by the U.S., to get involved again in the same way, when there is no sign whatsoever of any overarching understanding of the complexity of the situation on the ground and what kind of planning would solve the problems there in the medium or the long term.
I also think it is important that we realize that air strikes have a particular cachet and a particular downside. However much they are part of warfare—I am not naive about that—in the age that we live in, we have come to understand how civilian casualties are part and parcel of air strikes as a method of war, even more so when we know that the fighters being struck embed themselves close to or within civilian populations.
This is in the context of us joining up with the Americans when they have just announced that the previously tightened rules on striking targets in the so-called war against terror have now been broadened again from a near certainty that civilians will not be harmed to the general laws of war, which, frankly, leave a lot of scope. This is at a time when commentators like Alan Dershowitz are calling on Obama to say the way in which Israel went about attacks in Gaza should become the norm for understanding how difficult it is to enforce a near certainty principle. He has actually said that Obama finally realizes how difficult it is.
Whether one thinks that Israel was engaging lawfully or not in Gaza, the reality is that civilians get in the way. Why I am emphasizing that? I am emphasizing that because of the reaction. The question is, what good is going to come from very cynically manipulated facts and images coming out of ISIS and partners about the killing of civilians on the ground? It has already begun.
As a colleague in my riding of Toronto—Danforth wrote to me,
ISIS... are not sitting out in the desert with a target painted around them. ... [T]hey are embedded in towns and cities, in buildings full of civilians. The possibility of massive civilian casualties perpetrated by the “good guys” is unjustifiable. And fuels—
—this is the point—
—further anger, an increased sense of the West v. Islam.
I was also written to by another member of my constituency, who said:
I am an Iraqi-born Canadian. My family left Iraq at the beginning of the Saddam era....
I am extremely alarmed and saddened by what is happening in Iraq. However, I don't think Canada should play a role in combat intervention. The Americans and British put Iraq in an environment that nurtured such extremist groups....
I would like to see Canada play a role but in more humanitarian and diplomatic ways. I would urge Canada in finding ways to stop groups/countries from financially supporting ISIL.
I will get to that, because if we focus on the reality, it is not just the Americans who opened up the current situation. Frankly, it is Saudi Arabia as well. It is the birthplace and the continuing nurturing source for Wahhabism of a particularly virulent kind, which easily metastasizes into exactly the kinds of groups that we see, fuelled by financing and by a government and intelligence agencies turning their eyes from the millions and millions of dollars in support coming out of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has 1,000 combat aircraft. What if we were to say that if air strikes must be part of immediately saving lives, why should they be western airplanes? Saudi Arabia has 1,000 combat aircraft. Saudi Arabia is the heart of the Sunni Islam that is causing what is going on in northern Iraq and Syria. Surely a Sunni-on-Sunni dimension to this would be far more beneficial than a west versus a fictionalized version of Islam, in the minds of these monsters.
The last thing I would like to say is that this is not the only crisis in the world. Canada has only so many resources and so much money. We know that massive help is needed in West Africa with respect to Ebola. Even the Americans are sending troops there because of that realization.
We know, at least from the NDP perspective, that we should be involved in peacekeeping and state rebuilding, if it ever existed, in the Central African Republic, especially given our experience in Africa and our French language capacities. Not everyone needs to pile onto the same crisis. We have about 60 partners in this crisis. What can Canada do where capacity is desperately needed in other parts of the world? That would be a question I would ask.