Unhelpful

Donald Rumsfeld, the American Secretary of Defense, isn’t pleased with Iran. Apparently, weapons from Iran have been found in Iraq. The weapons are “clearly” and “unambiguously” from Iran, although he did not describe them or say how many have been found during his press conference yesterday.

Iran is being “unhelpful”, according to Rumsfeld: “That’s a big border and it’s notably unhelpful for the Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to cross the border.”

This isn’t just a problem for Iraq, in Rumsfeld’s words:

It’s a problem for the Iraqi government. It’s a problem for the coalition forces. It’s a problem for the international community. And ultimately it’s a problem for Iran.

This past weekend, two more people were killed in shootings in Toronto, the latest in a wave of gun violence that threatens Toronto’s reputation as one of the safest cities in North America. The shootings are attributed to gang violence and enabled by the proliferation of handguns that are being smuggled across the Canada-US border. Premier McGuinty: “I phoned (Toronto Police Chief Bill) Blair last week when this flared up and he told me that easily half of the guns on Toronto streets come from south of the border.”

Mr. Rumsfeld, this is a problem for Toronto. It’s a problem for Canada. And ultimately it’s a problem for the United States. So please solve that problem for us. Or shut the heck up about Iran.

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It would be negatively nationalistic of me to point out that when it comes to illegal smuggling, America’s biggest problem is Canadian marijuana, designed to make you happy, dopey and hungry, while Canada’s biggest problem is American handguns, designed to kill people. So I won’t.