Myths shape views on Iraq Final Edition

• Published in: Star-phoenix (Saskatoon)
• Main Author: Steven Gibb, Gerry Klein, Les MacPherson, Sarath Peiris and Lawrence Thoner
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Saskatoon, Sask Postmedia Network Inc 23.09.2002
• Subjects: Bush, George
• ISSN: 0832-4174

That these are myths is beyond doubt. One need only ask the original inhabitants of the American plains and Canada's west whether their land was either empty or wild prior to the European expansion. Ask them whether their people were better off prehistorically or under the paternalistic peace delivered by either Sir George Arthur French (who led the newly formed NWMP from Manitoba to Fort Whoop-Up in 1874) or Wyatt Earp (a lawman in Wichita that same year). In spite of Canada's indisputably glorious military history, Canadians consistently tell pollsters they view their soldiers as peacekeepers. Americans see theirs as heavily armed, quick-witted and steely gunslingers, willing and able to bring peace through the force of arms used to vanquish evil. This position is no surprise, coming from a former governor of Texas, the state where billboards abound proclaiming that organizations such as the UN threaten American sovereignty. Bush's stance should be no surprise to anyone in Congress, considering that he leans heavily on recommendations set out in 2000 by the conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (whose directors then included Donald Rumsfeld, now defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, now Rumsfeld's deputy, Jeb Bush, Florida governor and brother of the president, Dick Cheney, now vice-president, and Dan Quayle, one of his Republican predecessors).