Take No Action Protestors

In today's Vancouver Sun there was a guest editorial from the Washington Post entitled, "Western countries must not let up pressure on Sudan". In it, they urged U.S. President Bush to go against current thinking and intervene militarily to put an end to the genocidal devastation that is going on there every day.

Why should he? After all, when he intervened against the murderous cruelty imposed on the people of Iraq by Saddam Hussein, much of the world condemned him. More to the point, exactly the same people who are urging him to intervene in Sudan are the very ones who condemned him for intervening in Iraq.

Whenever I'm walking downtown and see a "Free Tibet" protest, I just shake my head. I very much agree with their stated goal of freeing the Tibetan people from the iron grip of Communist China, but let's face facts: If Canada or the U.S. or any other country were actually to do something to free Tibet, these very same people would be the ones protesting the actions that were required to make it so.

Perhaps one day I should go up to one of them and ask what it feels like to be a hypocrite, to be someone who changes their tune as soon as the going gets tough. Perhaps. For now, I'll just politely smile and walk to the other side of the street like most everyone else does.

I often wonder if those brave Canadian soldiers who fought in World War 2 are turning in their graves over the immense shallowness of thought and conviction of their descendants.