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Elizabeth May is no longer the leader of the Green Party of Canada.
She remains a Member of Parliament, one of three Green MPs.
ken h
> A Hard Morning!
>
> It is not possible to write a cheery “Good Sunday Morning” after the multiple
> tragedies of this week. As a country, we are in mourning with deep pockets of
> grief in ever widening circles around each victim. We grieve with increasing
> intensity as we learn more of the individual lives cut short by the missile
> strike against a civilian airliner.
>
> We know who was innocent. Every life lost on the ill-fated Ukrainian Airlines
> flight was innocent, from the Ukrainian flight attendants to the
> Canadian-Iranian newlyweds, to the brilliant graduate students heading back
> to Canada, to the babies.
>
> It is harder to know who was individually guilty, but many decisions led to
> this tragedy.
>
> The proximate causes start with President Trump’s reckless decision to
> assassinate General Qassem Soleimani. In our media, I have heard it compared
> with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that led to the First World War.
> That comparison struck me as false from the outset. This was no rogue
> element, no individual radical with a hand gun as the Bosnian separatist who
> killed Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. This was the President of the United
> States, a man with access to the most powerful and deadly of military
> arsenals, launching a drone to kill. Whether General Qassem Soleimani was a
> nice man or a deadly murderer himself is irrelevant in international law.
> When the West found it convenient to enlist his help in the fight against
> Daesh (ISIS), he was a U.S. ally. The question is not, as a disturbingly
> large number of Canadian commentators would have it (Conrad Black “the world
> is a better place without him” and John Robson “killing Soleimani was a
> no-brainer” among others) was he a terrible human being? The question is: did
> the US government have a legally defensible rationale for a deliberate
> murder? Was it legal under US law, a question with which the US Congress is
> now grappling? Was it legal under international law?
>
> To be legal under the United Nations Charter, there would have had to be
> proof of an imminent threat, that the actions were necessary and
> proportionate. That test may still be met by evidence which - at this point -
> no one has seen. I am grateful, at least, that Canada has not taken an
> official view on the legality of the assassination.
>
> The wide support for an extra-judicial targeted assassination of a foreign
> country’s official because he was “bad” is beyond dangerous. We can all think
> of brutal killers and dictators and dangerous people globally. Some of them
> lead countries with which the US is on cozy terms. But any international
> stability requires respect for international law.
>
> The assassination of General Soleimani was at least reckless. What were
> Trump’s motivations? It is premature to insist the president did not have
> valid security intelligence to justify his actions. But it is also naïve to
> dismiss the domestic political scene – the pending impeachment and the fall
> election -- as factors. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that
> Trump was influenced to assassinate Soleimani to secure support from his
> Republican allies in the Senate. Senator Lindsay Graham appears to have been
> the only, or at least one of a handful, of people briefed in advance. (Link
> <https://www.sgigreenparty.ca/r?u=hbWbb6h_eVsBkO4URV_30yaAgj64Nc7LSbbqKXvnZtwdrf0cwRQVk8Y4pIdZjXMzb1dTKPePMkKqEO6WVsrayAcsf-Qu29ZM9Nliz8Y2NM2UZAxhxd_v7vlQwOFyDZ6fal3nNs6KacZQBw0ll3Ierw&e=68982daf9ed2ea5ac27e72ccce251be2&utm_source=saanichgulfislandsgreenpartyca&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=gsm_20200108&n=1>)
>
> Iranian reaction to the assassination in the form of very targeted missile
> strikes on the US base in Iraq was deemed “proportionate” and careful by most
> commentators. And just as Trump was tweeting out “all is well” and that no
> American military had been killed in that missile strike, the Iranian ground
> to air missile was launched – by mistake – killing all on board Ukraine
> International Airlines flight 752.
>
> The Iranian regime is also brutal and anti-democratic. Nevertheless, it had
> been honouring the agreement with the U.S. negotiated under former President
> Obama’s administration. That agreement was a significant step toward security
> in the region. In May 2018, Trump denounced the deal and launched new
> economic sanctions against Iran. Many other world leaders urged the US to
> re-engage. France’s Emmanuel Macron has been one of the strongest advocates
> globally to rescue the deal after Trump’s pull out. Just months ago, in
> September 2019, France went so far as to be brokering direct talks with
> Tehran offering a $15 billion bail-out package to compensate for economic
> losses due to US sanctions, so long as Iran honored the deal and its nuclear
> inspections. (Link
> <https://www.sgigreenparty.ca/r?u=FECXgvVBAH18GBWRCy8D9TxiJHR_qe-cvAEDYaeIKXZMcHGJKEFTHEeAhWWgvSLDrvx1EkP9yH7S3WaFQmFmZ8Z6-UO_sGrywLD03wKGAf3OPbka9u_RmVZ6Bzhb28Os&e=68982daf9ed2ea5ac27e72ccce251be2&utm_source=saanichgulfislandsgreenpartyca&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=gsm_20200108&n=2>)
>
> The possibility that Iran could be induced to maintain the deal was crushed
> following Soleimani’s assassination. Within days, Tehran announced it would
> fully withdraw from compliance, over the pleas of Germany, the UK and France.
> (Link
> <https://www.sgigreenparty.ca/r?u=Po9_7fe3x4fOY6l6R7zOdbudRn0Jak4tS1VYfmDj4eUC8IWLz7hnFIcsrD1vo7kBuCNkC_OGefhxqbpSw6tof3-owiXdlHjohnGbpnXaJJxwNgzqufCe3K2pdIMGjr-97cDaDvdaemDuaoonTe4loWAp5TDF8xIZm4mTsOAx3sovvDyluoILsOZ0jnW8b0NC&e=68982daf9ed2ea5ac27e72ccce251be2&utm_source=saanichgulfislandsgreenpartyca&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=gsm_20200108&n=3>)
>
> Clearly, actions by Trump have been destabilizing in the region. The
> assassination of General Soleimani worsened the situation. And the
> consequences are beyond tragic.
>
> No question that the Iranian government has committed an outrageous act. It
> has acknowledged responsibility for the horrific crash that killed so many
> people. That accident would not have happened if Trump had not launched the
> drone to kill Soleimani. To call it “human error” seems an understatement.
>
> Yet, it is human error. It is human error to build up vast killing machines
> and think that in times of heightened fear mistakes will not happen. The
> people who bear the blame for this disaster are many. And they are not all in
> one country.
>
> For now, I want to share my gratitude to Justin Trudeau for representing who
> we are as a country, in this moment of grief. I appreciate that officials
> from Foreign Affairs and our department of defence have taken the time to
> brief me and other opposition party MPs. I appreciate a personal phone call
> from the prime minister with one focus. Now is the time to do all we can to
> support those who lost loved ones. Light a candle. Attend a vigil.
>
> Let us each do whatever we can to extend our love to those whose friends and
> family members died so tragically in the grip of the reckless actions of
> powerful men.
>
> Love and peace,
>
> Elizabeth
>
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