推翻萨达姆政权绝不仅仅因为它是否有WMD，而在于它确实构成了对地区和世界和平的严重威胁。它先是侵略伊朗，并使用了化学武器，八年的战争，劳民伤财而一无所获；转而侵略弱小的科威特，偷鸡不成反蚀一把米；它残酷镇压本国的什叶派穆斯林和库尔德人，并用化学武器对付自己的人民。这些罪行中的任何一个都足以将它送上绞架，都是推翻它的充分理由。第一次海湾战争后国际社会给了它一次机会，但事实证明它毫无悔改之意，仍然声称科威特是它的领土，并反复拒绝联合国武器核查小组的检查，每次都是在美国调兵遣将之后才屈服，过后又故伎重演，这种猫捉老鼠的游戏要玩到什么时候？如果对此一意姑息，不尽早将其一举推翻，只会祸患无穷，国际社会及伊拉克人民都将会为此付出更加惨重的代价。

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛In Australia, Britain and the United States, belonging to or attempting to raise funds for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) -- better known as the Tamil Tigers -- can lead to arrest or imprisonment. Given the track record of this vicious terrorist group, that makes sense. But while other countries have banned the LTTE outright, Ottawa turns a blind eye. Our government bars known Tigers from entering Canada and freezes the group's assets when officials stumble on them. But more than three years after the passage of the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, the governing Liberals still refuse to place the LTTE on Canada's official list of banned terrorist groups.

Ottawa's failure to act cannot stem from ignorance. Until a recent shaky ceasefire took effect, the Tigers' two-decade long war with the Sri Lankan government had led to 60,000 deaths, many from LTTE terror bombings and ambushes. World leaders in suicide bombings, the Tigers are known for targetting civilians -- particularly women and children. And they press-gang children into doing much of their fiercest fighting: The LTTE's "Leopard Brigade" contains as many as 3,000 seven- to 14-year-olds who were taken from their parents as toddlers and fed a steady diet of anti-government propaganda and nihilism.

To fund all this, the LTTE extorts money from the Tamil diaspora in over 50 countries, including Canada, threatening to torture or kill loved ones back home if Tamil immigrants don't pay up. They are also notorious for drug-running and people-smuggling.

The LTTE is particularly active within the Tamil communities in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Just this week, the National Post revealed that Canadian and U.S. authorities had broken up a major Tiger-run smuggling ring that had sought to sneak Tiger agents and fundraisers into Canada via Bangkok, Mexico City and the United States.

Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, explained Monday that to outlaw the Tigers now would derail a heretofore-unknown Canadian-Norwegian initiative to broker peace between the Tamils and Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese. But the Liberals' ambivalence toward the Tigers predates any secret Ottawa-Oslo treaty negotiations. In 2000, against the strong objections of the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, then-finance minister Paul Martin, then-international co-operation minister Maria Minna and several other government MPs attended a Toronto fundraising event for the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT) -- an organization identified by the U.S. government as a front for the LTTE. The reason was obvious: Courting the support of a vote-rich ethnic community was more important than worrying about which elements of it the Liberals were rubbing shoulders with.
To his credit, And before he left the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo yesterday, Mr. Martin himself met with three Tamil parliamentarians affiliated with the Tigers, two of whom were denied visas to enter Canada last year.

Until 2002, the Liberals clung to the notion that the Islamic extremists of Hezbollah were not terrorists, either. It took nearly six months of public and parliamentary pressure to convince the government to do what would have come naturally to anyone not trawling for votes in ethnic communities. Given that the Liberals seem even more entrenched in their sentiments toward the Tigers, convincing them to outlaw the LTTE could prove an even tougher battle. But sooner or later, Mr. Martin must surely recognize that a few extra votes don't merit cozying up to the friends of terrorists.
National Post January 18, 2005更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net