Tue, July 19, 2005
Call 'em scumbags
Army boss needn't apologize
By TOM BRODBECK -- Winnipeg Sun
It wasn't chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier's portrayal of terrorists as "murderers and scumbags" last week that bothered me.
In fact, I found his comments and his honest assessment of the role of our military, "to be able to kill people," quite refreshing.
It's nice to know the guy leading our armed forces knows the difference between our allies and our enemies and is not afraid to say so.
No, what disturbed me was the response by some Canadians who thought Hillier's language was extreme and alarmist.
"His use of epithets such as 'scumbags' and 'killers' is reminiscent of language used by (U.S.) President (George W.) Bush and U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld," said Steven Staples, project director of The Polaris Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Ottawa.
What would you call people who murder innocent children, Steve? Our buddies?
And then there's Maude. Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians.
She says Canada should take a more "moderating" position on the war on terror, calling Hillier's comments "very aggressive."
Yeah, maybe we could just moderate the conflict. We could get some of the key al-Qaida leaders in a room with the heads of democratic states and try to work out a deal.
Maude could be the moderator.
Of course people who blow themselves up in busy markets and subways are scumbags. We need to wipe them out, kill them if we have to.
We need to eliminate the terrorist cells plotting their next attack and we need trained, well-resourced military personnel to carry it out.
When Hillier says our military is designed to kill people, he's simply telling it as it is.
"We're not the public service of Canada, we're not just another department," Hillier said last week.
"We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."
Some people don't like to hear that.
They prefer sugar-coated, politically correct terminology like peacekeeping or policing.
But Hillier is simply being honest. Soldiers are trained to kill. They're not counsellors and they're not diplomats. And the people they're killing are the bad guys -- the scumbags and the murderers.
They are the people who fly airplanes into office buildings and the people who will eventually attack Canada, too.
RISKING THEIR LIVES
They want to attack western society; they want to obliterate democracies.
You can either sit back and do nothing about that. Or you can go after these scumbags aggressively.
That's what Hillier's job is. And we should be supporting him in his efforts, not taking pot shots at him.
Canadian soldiers are risking their lives in war-torn countries such as Afghanistan while hunting down terrorists to protect the very freedoms people like Barlow and other lefty nutbars enjoy.
They should at least show their appreciation for that.
For the first time in a long time, we have a chief of defence staff who isn't afraid of running a real military. I'm grateful for that.
