The banality of evil

Ottawa City Council votes for war and death.

From the corporate services committee, June 15:

Councillor Rick Chiarelli said the city is the home to the Department of National Defence and needs to help make such events happen, rather than shutting them down. Chiarelli said that if military shows are shut down, exhibitions on health or foreign policy could be next.

The acting chairman of the committee, Steve Desroches, said the military exhibition business must be mindful that the community has limits as to what is on display at such shows. But he said Ottawa is a capital city with international defence obligations.

“We are a nation under threat of terrorist attack,” said Desroches, describing a ban on military shows as the “start of a slippery slope.”

Yesterday the full City Council agreed. Warmongering is welcome in Ottawa.

It took a courageous Afghan MP to speak truth to power:

You may have heard of the USA bombardments of civilians in Afghanistan and the tragedies caused by it. The most recent example is the massacre in Bala Baluk district in Western Afghanistan, where U.S. B-1 bombers dropped a series of 2000-pound bombs on two small villages and over 143 civilians, mostly women and children, where torn into pieces. Many mournful families never found the dead bodies of their loved ones as they were burnt in the flames of the bombs. In a similar incident, a wedding party was targeted in Nengrhar province of Afghanistan and 47 women and children, including the bride, were killed. Such tragedies are daily realities of life for Afghan people.

Dropping thousands of cluster bombs and the depleted-uranium (DU) and white phosphorus bombs used in Afghanistan have caused terrible health problems. It has also ruined our environment and in the past few years the number of congenital abnormalities and disorders in newborn babes have raised to high levels. The use of DU weapons not only put our people in danger, it will also have bad effect on soldiers fighting in that environment. Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan may not be safe from its impact.

The bomblets of cluster bombs, scattered in Afghan villages are like dead gifts to Afghan children and they routinely kill or disable our kids. It is so sad to know that many components in the war planes used to distribute such deadly weapons used against our people are produced in Canada and that they are put on display at Ottawa weapons shows.

A brave voice--contemptuously dismissed by the little Eichmanns running Ottawa at the moment.