Sunday, March 23, 2008

Fear and Lies

The Globe and Mail, and in particular reporter Graeme Smith, should be applauded for the excellent series of in depth reports based on interviews with a broad sample of Taliban fighters which will be appearing over the coming week and started today. The interviews can be found online here.

I have had ongoing doubts about the quality of information on Afghanistan available to the Canadian public. Although I don’t believe there is a central conspiracy, these doubts persist because of a confluence of interests from potential misinformation distributed by military industrial lobbyists, to laziness on the part of some in the media who are content to serve merely as the conduits for propaganda, to misplaced patriotic zeal and an irresponsible right wing political movement in the U.S. and Canada ready to fuel the flames of xenophobic terror in order to further their own domestic electoral aims.

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Stephen Harper wanted Canada to invade Iraq.

Yet Jean Chretien and Canadian Liberals were able to stand against the onslaught of neoconservative lies and even turn public opinion which could easily have gone the other way. It takes time to build up a leader like Chretien who can confidently advance Liberal values. Alot of liberals currently seem to forget the hard times while Chretien’s leadership was being established. It also helps in defending Liberal values when we form the government.

We doubted the neoconservative lies about Iraq and the global war on terror. I think we should also be wary of the same with regard to Afghanistan. As the opposition, Liberals can start by exposing misinformation about the Afghan mission and deflating Conservative rhetoric. For instance, global Jihad is a neoconservative boogeyman. Go see the Globe and Mail report.

2 comments:

Johnathon said...

I wonder if those excellent interviews you're talking about with the Taliban consist of the same people who KILLED our soldiers.

You must be very excited when you read about our soldiers being blown to bits.

Liberals are in bed with muslims and terrorists and your just another example of that.

You should be ashamed of yourself for being in bed with the terrorists.

Chretien,meanwhile ,should be ashamed for trying his hardest to keep Saddam in power.

After all, being in lockstep with a brutal dictator who killed and raped his own people is nothing to be proud of.

Happy Easter.

Aaron said...

Johnathon,

The response to terrorism needs to be effective, informed and proportionate to the threat posed.
For instance, we are not fighting Islam as your xenophobic comments about muslims would suggest. I am surpised that you are not interesting in finding out more about the Taliban as this might save alot of Canadian soldiers lives. I guess Ignorance is Bliss, eh?