To the Editor:

Eric Sayers and Leith Coghlin have bought into everything they were sold about Iraq. They said Canadians should’ve supported the U.S. in Iraq along with those 34 other countries, but as an intelligent Canadian with a conscience, I’m forced to disagree.

It sounds wonderful that “more than three quarters of the [Iraqi] population” voted to approve the new constitution, but only 63 per cent of eligible voters actually voted, and less than 50 per cent actually support it. And allegations of fraud during the vote aren’t far fetched. In some areas, 99 per cent of the vote was “yes.” Hardly democratic if you ask me.

Which brings me to the standard of democracy we hold so high. In actuality, the U.S. is a plutocracy, not a democracy. In a democratic society the people have the power; in the U.S. that power has been usurped and twisted to suit the needs of a few. Isn’t it odd the country is run by a man who actually lost in his first election?

So it makes you wonder how this “democracy” can be trusted to force the rule of the people upon a foreign land, doesn’t it? I think it’s fair to say that more than a few Canadians agree with the 157 other countries in the world that didn’t join the U.S. in Iraq.

Indeed the U.S. and Canada are “works in progress.” Funny how arrogant we are, to believe that we have the insight necessary to influence other nations, yet when we look in the mirror we can’t help but avert our eyes — assuming we even bother to look in the mirror in the first place.

Travis Brooke-Bisschop

Medical Science III