Nice Beard Though

As a Canadian, there are a number of things that cause me to feel ashamed: here in Ontario, it was the election of the dumb demagogue Doug Ford, while federally it has to do with my many fellow citizens who believe the government propaganda that we can have our climate-change cake (more pipelines, more tarsands} and eat it too (bitumen extraction as a way to afford reducing our emissions!)

But given current events, most cringe-worthy for me is the absence of a Canadian response to Donald Trump's latest effort to destabilize the Middle East through the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. While few would argue that the general was not responsible for much death and mayhem, his killing at the hands of Donald Trump will likely have far-reaching implications.

Yet despite that, only silence from Mr. Trudeau.

Contrast that with the fact that even a right-wing government like Boris Johnson's is now speaking out, this time over Trump saying he will target cultural sites in Iran if the latter retaliates for the murder:

Britain’s foreign secretary has said that targeting cultural sites in Iran would breach international warfare conventions in an implicit rebuke to Donald Trump for threatening to bomb protected heritage sites.

Dominic Raab did not criticise the US president directly over his threats, but said: “We have been very clear that cultural sites are protected under international law and we would expect that to be respected.”

Trump’s comments amount to threatening a war crime because such action would violate international treaties that the US has signed up to.

The director general of Unesco, which lists 24 protected sites in Iran, highlighted that both the US and Iran were also signatories to a 1972 convention prohibiting states from taking “any deliberate measures which might damage directly or indirectly the cultural and natural heritage” of other states.

The UN security council also passed a unanimous resolution in 2017 condemning the destruction of heritage sites following attacks by Isis, including on the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria and on the Mosul Museum in Iraq.

Canada's craven and submissive silence should not be a source of pride for anyone. If history teaches us anything, appeasement never works.

But in other news, Trudeau has a nice beard, eh?