Singing songs of Piccadilly, Strand and Leicester Square ...

By Lorne Gunter
Monday, January 21, 2008

I'm with you and you're with me, so we are all together;

And we are marching to Islamabad, Islamabad, Islamabad;

Oh, we are marching to Islamabad, Islamabad, Hurrah!

Come on, Canada. Let's get our creative juices flowing. Now that Liberal party leader Stephane Dion has declared war on Pakistan, we're gonna need some great tunes our boys and girls in uniform can sing as they slog their way from the rolling sand dunes of the Thar Desert, through the mangrove swamps of the southern coast to the frigid peaks of the Himalayas and Hindu Kush.

There'll be pheasants over, the wide Hunza Valley; Tomorrow, just you wait and see ...

The goatsman will tend his kids. The opium will bloom again. And Rashid will go to sleep, in his own little room again.

Oh, I know the Liberals are in full backpedal over remarks Mr. Dion made in Quebec City last week that sounded an awful lot like a plan for an invasion of Pakistan. You can tell how desperate they are because they stooped to sending the unbelievable Denis Coderre out to cover his boss's tracks.

The opposition leader's office now insists: "Mr. Dion obviously did not propose any sort of military intervention. Mr. Dion believes that Canada must focus our diplomatic efforts on Pakistan in order to secure the border with Afghanistan."

OK. But what he said sure sounded a lot like a call to arms. If the Pakistanis cannot stop the Taliban from training within their boundaries and pouring into Afghanistan to attack our troops, Mr. Dion warned, "We could consider that option with the NATO forces in order to help Pakistan help us pacify Afghanistan."

Sure, sure. He didn't mean we should send the Patricia's and the Van Doos into Baluchistan. No, Mr. Dion clearly meant non-military action. Our diplomats always refer to themselves as "NATO forces" and their negotiations as "pacification."

I know Mr. Dion now insists he has "no solution" regarding Pakistan and our mission in Afghanistan. (I can already see the Tory ads featuring that gift of a quotation.) But I think Mr. Dion was really letting his inner hawk shine through in Quebec. Deep inside this mealy-mouthed, Liberal equivocator lies the heart of another Winston Churchill. "We shall fight them in the madrasas. We shall fight them on the cricket pitches. We shall fight them in the Punjab and in the tribal territories. We shall never surrender!"

It's clear to those who care to look that if the Liberals are elected at the next election, D-Day in Pakistan won't be far off.

So who among us will step up and be the Canadian Spike Jones?

When al-Qaeda says, "We ist der master race," we HEIL! HEIL! Right in bin Laden's face. Not to love Der Prophet is a great disgrace; so we HEIL! HEIL! Right in bin Laden's face.

Or Marlene Dietrich?

Underneath the prayer light at the mosque gate, darling I remember the way you used to hate. 'Twas there that you whispered tenderly, Mullah Omar, wanted me.

So maybe the wartime songs aren't going to work. But how 'bout those gung-ho Liberal campaign ads the party's clever strategists are no doubt devising as we speak to capitalize on Mr. Dion's newfound jingoism? I'm betting they reprise, with a twist, those "men with guns" ads that were so successful for them in the 2006 election.

"Stephane Dion has a plan. He wants soldiers. With guns. In Pakistan. On Pakistan's streets ... we're not making this up. Vote Liberal. And we'll be in Rawalpindi by Christmas."

Of course, Mr. Dion didn't mean we should invade a country of 170 million Muslims. But, if Stephen Harper had said the same thing while in opposition, the Liberals would have pounced on it as proof he lacked the mental sophistication to be PM.

There's no reason not to accuse Mr. Dion of the same now.

Source: National Post