My Log 778: January 7 2020: Chronicles from my Tenth Decade: 213: We are awash in euphemism, the language of diplomacy; but there is no diplomacy; our beleaguered leader must be close to doing and saying something undiplomatic

Euphemism is the language of diplomacy. But although recent events have been marked by an abandonment of diplomacy by the great powers, nevertheless we are awash in a tsunami of euphemism.

i can’t say that at the moment I envy Justin Trudeau. At a time when our greatest ally, with whose future we are inextricably involved by the facts of geography, demography, and international diplomacy,  has committed an unprovoked aggression against another nation, an act that any normal person would have to describe as an act of war, our Prime Minister, to quote the headline in one of this morning’s newspapers, has no option but to “stay mum” on the issue. Like me, like my children, like my friends, like everybody, in fact, he knows that what Trump has done in his capacity as President of the United States is indefensible. But  although our leader knows  that the unpredictable president could possibly bring down on our country the most terrible consequences, Trudeau has to stay quiet.   I hope he realizes that his constituents, namely most of the people of Canada, back him in the difficult path he is forced to follow.

My only quibble might be to agree with someone who said this week that we have knuckled under too far to the bully. But if our Prime Minister stood up and told the truth, if he acknowledged in public that when push comes to we cannot knuckle under to to his murderous tactics, no one could be sure how the idiot might react. (I use the word “idiot” advisedly, because this man does seem to lack the information, let alone the intelligence and balance that is needed to do his job.)

Let’s face it, the election of Trump to the presidency was a terrible accident. Evcn those staunch Americans who have shrunk from criticizing him on the grounds that respect is owed to the office he fulfils, must know in their hearts that such an excuse makes of their country a laughing stock around the world. On the other hand, one has to admit that the troubles of the United States did not begin with President Trump. We thought Reagan and Bush were bad enough, so bad, indeed that we would never see worse.

But let us remember, as did Brett Williams, a blogger on the site Common Dreams just yesterday, that since the Second World War, the US  has invaded or attacked North Korea, Puerto Rico, Lebanon, Cuba, North Vietnam, Laos, the Dominican Republic, Cambodia, Libya, Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Serbia, Yemen, Pakistan and Syria, and that in pursuit of whatever were their aims in these conflicts,  the casualties have amounted to millions dead --- soldiers, combatants and non-combatants, men, women and children who were innocent bystanders ---  all gone, in their millions, 

1,000.000 North Vietnamese

200,000 Cambodians

150,000 Laotians

1.200,000 --- 2,000000 in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan in the “war against terrorism.”

Many thousands more have died in Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya, all in US-approved and backed conflicts.

And as for their claim to having never interfered in foreign eleciions, the recent impeachment hearings  must surely have demonstrated to anyone who listened with open ears, with facts and figures to match, that the United States year after year spent millions of of dollars to get rid of a Ukrainian  government it didn’t like, and replace it with an obedient puppet regime.

No one can be surprised that the Iraqi Parliament has asked for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from their country. The news that Canada is moving its training effort in Iraq to the neighbouring territory of Kuwait must be welcomed in the light of all these horrendous facts.

But even the Canadian Prime Minister must be close to being pushed to a place he must find untenable when the American president has responded to the  Iranian threat of retaliation for the assassination of their leading soldier, by threatening to target and destroy 52 Iranian cultural objects. Surely we cannot follow im in this ridiculous, immoral and amoral aim. Nor can we support his enraged threat, in response to the Iraqi decision to kick all foreign troops off the soil of Iraq, that he would impose the most terrible sanctions yet on the Iraqi people.  This, the threat of sanctions by a deranged president because a nation opposes foreign troops on its soil, is going way past what any Canadian leader can possibly support, or at least, I am hoping so.