Angry in the Great White North

Michael Ignatieff must have extra indignity on his Cheeri-Os this morning:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's accusation that the Liberals care more about Taliban prisoners than Canadian troops has hurt Canada's reputation and put soldiers' lives at risk, Liberal MPs said Thursday.

"It's clear that this is a prime minister who thinks that no attack is beneath him, no shot is too cheap and no smear is too unbecoming," Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff charged during question period.

"If the prime minister really cared about the troops, really cared about human rights, really cared about the success of the Afghan mission, he would replace his incompetent [defence] minister."

Ignatieff said Harper, who was not in the House of Commons Thursday, was jeopardizing Canada's international reputation by "putting into question Canada's duty to uphold the Geneva Convention."

Right. Upholding the Geneva Convention.

Do you get the feeling that Michael Ignatieff loses a lot of sleep over the Geneva Convention?

Ignatieff said it would have been too early to push for a ceasefire last week because "it was very important for Israel to send Hezbollah a very clear message" that kidnapping soldiers and firing rockets on Israel will not be tolerated.

"A ceasefire on the Israeli side becomes logical for Israel when it has achieved its military objectives and when it reaches the point of diminishing returns, and that is the point we've reached now," he explained.

He was asked if a turning point came when Israel bombed the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday, with 54 civilian deaths, 37 of them children.

"It wasn't Qana," replied Ignatieff, formerly head of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. "Qana was, frankly, inevitable, in a situation in which you have rocket-launchers within 100 yards of a civilian population. This is the nature of the war that's going on.

"This is the kind of dirty war you're in when you have to do this and I'm not losing sleep about that."

Of course, Ignatieff apologized for that remark, but did not think it was necessary to abort his leadership bid and thus the possibilty of becoming prime minister one day.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor apologized for being mistaken in telling the House that the Red Cross was obligated to keep Canada informed about the whereabouts of Taliban prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities. Yet Ignatieff thinks it should cost O'Connor his job.

I guess some apologies are better than others.

Maybe that's true. Maybe the minister should resign. But it's hard to take that suggestion seriously when it comes from Michael Ignatieff.