Margaret Wente is one of Canada's leading columnists. As a writer for The Globe and Mail, she provokes heated debate with her views on issues from health care to education and politics.
Earlier, she discussed the extent of the carnage in Iraq as revealed by the latest batch of war documents from WikiLeaks, the online whistle-blower. In her latest column, Ms. Wente described her own transition from "liberal interventionist" on Iraq to believing that "we can't rescue people from themselves."
Click below to see the full transcript. Here are a few highlights from the discussion:
Question from Neocynic: "To what extent do you hold the media responsible for failing to bring to the public's attention the reality of the huge loss in life arising due to our 'interventions' as disclosed by Wikileaks?"
Answer from Margaret Wente: "The media to a large extent stopped covering the carnage in Iraq several years ago. There were several reasons. It was Iraqi vs Iraqi; and journalists could no longer operate there. Also, the invasion unleashed the violence, but as I said earlier, the inevitable fall of Saddam would have unleashed the violence anyway."
Question from a Globe editor: "Margaret, a lot of globeandmail.com readers were confused or offended by your reference to "liberal" intervention. Can you explain why you described the war, and yourself, this way?"
Answer from Margaret Wente: " 'Liberal interventionism' is a standard term referring to the doctrine that says military intervention can sometimes be justified on humanitarian grounds, rather than pure self-interest. It perfectly describes why most Canadians supported our role in Afghanistan."