Steve Knobbe is more interested in what Putin might do and not in the actual, unprecedented evils of the West, lead by the U.S., perpetrated on Muslim countries, as in the death by sanctions of the early and mid '90s, surely barbaric and against international law, of at least 500,000 children aged five and under.
The total wreckage of Iraq, a country in which women were equal to men in education and work opportunities, and which had excellent and free medical and educational systems, appears to appall him not in the least. After 13 years of killing and destruction of infrastructure, Afghanistan is back to the stone age, where the U.S. wanted it, and nobody remembers that under Najibullah, as well as other heads of state from mid '70s to 1986, women wore modern clothes, were educated, and could go anywhere alone. Then we have Libya and Syria.
And any country can be destroyed on the pretext of civil/humanitarian rights if it is less than perfect or has an odd-looking head of state, the real reason being the self-interest of Israel or the hegemonic ambitions of the U.S. and assorted lapdogs.
Under the rubric of "barbarism" apparently, in for a penny is in for a pound, and any alleged crime of Putin's qualifies him as a bona fide member of that rogues’ gallery. Let's hope this isn't a common way of looking at the world and that it is ignorance at the core of this moral astigmatism and lack of proportion.
As for U.S./Canada relations to which Mr. Knobbe alludes, our good neighbour to the south has no reason in the world to be less than happy as punch with a country that supplies it, by law, a set proportion of subsidized gas – until it decides it doesn't want it – and is generally supportive of its cavalier and bloody incursions into sovereign countries.
But does Knobbe really think that relationship would remain friendly were we to decide to act against the perceived interests of the U.S.?
What if Russia provided $5 billion to Mexico for the express purpose of turning it against the U.S.? No repercussions there?
That is what the U.S. has done with Ukraine to the detriment of that country: Russia will increase its peaceful and mutually profitable alliances with many other countries, including the EU. But Canada's Bombardier has lost a $5 billion contract with Russia, with perhaps more to come, because of this government's one-side intransigence and kowtowing to Obama.
Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert
