The Liberal smear campaign against our troops, aided by the media

Talk about burying the lede: you had to read all the way to the end of this Canadian Press story last week to find the true news out of Michael Ignatieff's press conference on Parliament Hill: he wants the House of Commons to resume quickly so his MPs can investigate "the conduct of our troops in the field".

Ignatieff didn't say he wants to investigate the conduct of politicians like Stephen Harper or Peter MacKay, or diplomats like Richard Colvin and his superiors. He didn't even say he wants to investigate the military brass, generals like Walter Natynczyk and Rick Hillier. No, he wants to investigate whether "our troops in the field" committed war crimes.

It wasn't a flippant comment. "This is really serious stuff," he said.

Not the recession, nor the deficit, nor Senate reform, nor justice bills -- none of these are his top priority. He wants Parliament back so he can publicly inquire as to whether or not Canadian Forces troops are criminals.

That is astounding.

But it is even more astounding how under-reported his calumny has been.

There is a pattern here: the Liberal Party slanders our troops, and the slander goes unexamined by the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

Is it a function of the gallery's own antipathy towards the military, and anything associated with the war on terror? Or is it just run-of-the-mill leniency for the Liberals, the partisan favourite of the gallery?

Take Suhana Meharchand's interview yesterday with John McCallum, the former Liberal Defence Minister:

That is amazing. A former defence minister says:

the fact they may have been committing war crimes, handing over detainees knowing that they were very likely to be tortured, that is a war crime. And the fact that they're covering it up, I think many Canadians do care about those things...

For someone who sometimes slurs his words, McCallum was being crystal clear. He said the phrase "war crimes" twice, "torture", "covering it up", etc.

Who is doing all of these atrocious things? Who is handing over Taliban terrorists to be tortured? Is Peter MacKay out there in the dust of Afghanistan, doing the hand-over? Is Stephen Harper? Of course not -- it is our rank and file Canadian Forces. There is no other possible interpretation to McCallum's words. They fit perfectly with Ignatieff's own from last Friday.

But instead of jumping on McCallum's outrageous accusations, Suhana Meharchand calls that a distraction:

I don't want to go there in this interview.

Well, isn't that lucky for McCallum! He quickly claims he meant the "government", not the troops, and that was enough for Meharchand. A quick scoff, and then he was off the hook:

Yeah, I'm having a hard time with that, but I don't want to go there right now.

When will be a good time for someone go there?

This isn't a gaffe, it's a strategy. The Liberals are using our troops as cannon fodder against the Conservatives. To score some partisan points, they're actually accusing our soldiers of being war criminals. Again and again.

Here's Ujjal Dosanjh specifically calling the Canadian Forces morally weak:

Here's Liberal spin-doctor Warren Kinsella on a panel late last year comparing things to Abu Ghraib:

And here's Kinsella disagreeing with Tory Tim Powers and CTV's Tom Clark, when they insist there's no comparison:

He actually said "we don't know that", twice. You can see the full transcript here. Liberals demand that terrorist like Omar Khadr be treated as innocent until proven guilty. No such courtesies for our Canadian troops.

I'm with Tom Flanagan on this one. There is no need for the Conservatives to run and hide from the detainee issue. Let the country watch Ignatieff make a name for himself, on the backs of Canadian troops both dead and alive. Give the Liberals and the NDP and the Bloc all the goddamned rope they want on this one. Let them stretch their legs a bit. We've heard "Abu Ghraib"; who will be the first to make a Nazi comparison? Kinsella? Dosanjh? That sounds more like something Mark Holland might do. Let 'er rip.

And while Ignatieff basks in the applause of the press gallery and his Facebook friends, let the rest of the country -- severely normal Canadians, Canadians who might actually know a soldier, or a soldier's family -- watch in disgust.

There was once a time, not very long ago, when being a proud Canadian and being a Liberal were pretty close to synonymous. The Liberals had co-opted all of the symbols of nationalism. And despite his many flaws, everyone knew that Stephane Dion loved Canada.

How different things are today. Out of power, the left has turned against Canada, showing themselves to be fair weather friends. They profess embarrassment about being Canadian, or more bluntly claim that the entire country is slipping away. It's Stephen Harper who now sounds the themes of patriotism and optimism, and the Liberals who look eager to put us down, denouncing Canada not just at home but abroad at forums like the Copenhagen conference, and positively cheering when China's dictator insults us. Instead of opposing Canada's government, they're starting to oppose Canada itself.

I think the Prime Minister's Office is shy about the detainees issue; perhaps they, too, are listening too much to the echo chamber of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

The issue of the economy is already owned by the Conservatives. If the Liberals want to make the moral conduct of our troops their issue, I say bring it on. In a sour, arrogant, fake, scowling, pompous absentee tourist named Michael Ignatieff, they couldn't find a more fitting spokesman for their anti-Canada message.

The Liberals think our soldiers are war criminals. The Conservatives think our soldiers are war heroes.

Which side are you on?