Editor:
There is a link on MP Mark Warawa's web site that solicits words of commendation to the Canadian troops and I agree with Mark Warawa that citizens who put their lives on the line in defense of their country ought to be commended.
In Libya the Canadian troops are not putting themselves in harm's way; they are safely flying over a country that has seemingly no ability to shoot them down. Whether or not we should be in Libya, or for that matter Afghanistan, is a discussion with the politicians not with the troops; that is not the reason for this letter.
This is a letter of commendation to the Libyan troops, who after nearly six months of facing the military power of NATO, an organization created to fight against the might of the former Soviet Union, are still defending their homeland. Forty-two countries came, under the authorization of the United Nations, on a quick humanitarian mission that was expected to be over in a few days, a week at most. A country of six million people facing the technological might of the west and have yet to be defeated.
The chance of the Libyan troops fighting off the NATO war machine is as close to impossible as anything can be in this world; still they struggle on against the impossible odds. There are many heroic tales of soldiers fighting that last losing battle and these stories are told in schools, movies, books and poems; the defence of Libya could become another of these. Sadly, once NATO succeeds we will have another failed state in the Middle East like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Erik Simonsen, Aldergrove