Zuzak
GRC Report; Wed., Oct. 04, 2006
(1)
Killing Gooks:
Letter to federal political leaders archived at
http://www.willzuzak.ca/tp/
under Will
Zuzak Letters in centre column.
*****************************************************
Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
[email protected]
Bill Graham, Leader of the Opposition
[email protected]
Gilles Duceppe; Bloc Quebecois
[email protected]
Jack Layton, NDP
[email protected]
Dear
Sirs:
Forty
years ago, when I was a graduate
student at the University of British Columbia, the Vietnam War was in
full
swing. Initially, I paid little attention to the myriad of American
draft
dodgers flocking to Vancouver and the anti-war demonstrations
frequented by
“pot-smoking flower children”. But I took notice when the solution
suggested by
an American Nobel laureate in physics was to line up the protestors
against the
wall and shoot them as traitors. And when a comic strip depicted
American
soldiers bragging about “killing gooks” in Vietnam, I realized that
this was,
indeed, the case. The Vietnamese people were not humans, they were
gooks.
Fast
forward to the year 2006 with Canadian
NATO forces fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. So far, 37 Canadians
have
died. Military spokesmen boast of killing thousands of Taliban,
although it is
likely that many of these were civilians. Elaborate ceremonies in
Kandahar,
complete with wailing bagpipes, mourn Canadian soldiers departing for
Canada in
coffins. There is not even an acknowledgement of the Afghanis that have
been
killed. In Canada, mothers weep and pray for the souls of their sons.
No one
prays for the souls of the Afghanis. In the eyes of God, are the souls
of
Afghanis less important than the souls of Canadians? If we do not also
pray for
the souls of the people we have killed and recognize their humanity,
then we
are, indeed, killing gooks in Afghanistan.
So I
would ask the Canadian government
and/or the Canadian military to supply me with the names, dates of
birth/death,
places of birth/death and ethnic origin of the people that they have
killed in
Afghanistan. This will allow, at least, one Canadian to pray for their
souls.
Data
from the Internet indicates that the
ethnic composition of Afghanistan is 47% Pashtun, 25% Tajik, 11%
Uzbek/Turkmen,
9% Hazara and 8% others with several different languages spoken.
However, most
of the Pashtun are concentrated in the south in the Kandahar region;
whereas
the Tajik-Uzbek Northern Alliance is in the Kabul area. During the
Soviet
occupation in the 1980s, some 6.2 million people (85% Pashtun) sought
refugee in
Pakistan and Iran, but most have now returned. Further complicating
factors are
the Sunni/Shiite religious rivalry; biased ethnic composition of the
Afghan
military and police forces; international organized crime selling arms
in
exchange for drugs; opium comprising some 50% of the GDP.
There
is a danger that the Canadian NATO
offensive in the area could lead to civil war as has occurred in Iraq,
rather
than the peace and prosperity advertised by the military and supporters
of
Canadian involvement.
My
Email to you on May 16, 2006 stated: “I
oppose Canadian Military deployment in Afghanistan unless I can be
convinced
that the Afghani residents in the region want us there.” Sadly, I am
not at all
convinced that this is the case, despite the recent pronouncements of
President
Karzai.
Respectfully
yours
Will Zuzak; 2006-10-02
Email: [email protected]
CC: Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign
Affairs
[email protected]