Canada crippled by dishonest pacifism

[Bograt]

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Calgary/Ian_Robinson/2004/10/31/pf-694032.html

Sun, October 31, 2004

Canada crippled by dishonest pacifism

By Ian Robinson

Lies are not always a bad thing.

They hold together everything from marriages to sanity, careers to nations.

"Do you think she's pretty?"

The truthful answer to this question, when posed by a wife, is not a good thing. The truthful answer might well be:

"Pretty? Dear God. That woman is so beautiful, sexy and desirable that if she was to so much as hint to me that she would be mine, I would abandon you and our offspring to struggle in poverty while I pillaged the children's college funds to try to purchase her favour with shiny trinkets."

So you lie. If you've been married for a while, you know the best lie isn't: "No, I do not think she's pretty."

The lie that really gets you off the hook is: "Who? What?" -- delivered with a slightly distracted look.

Perhaps the most famous of the marriage-saving lies: "Of course I believe you ... Dar'."

Who among us could bear to live another day if we didn't lie to ourselves?

Guys without friends think of themselves as romantic loners instead of guys without friends. And the romantic loners who tip the scales at better than 250 lb. are "big-boned romantic loners" instead of "fat guys without friends."

And nobody who has been gainfully employed for longer than seven days has managed to last that long without lying.

"No sir! I wouldn't mind wearing that paper hat and coming home every night smelling like french fries cooked in boiling hydrogenated fats."

"Wow! A 'sales associate vest' made entirely from polyester with the word 'Quality' on the back? Cool."

Lies also hold together nations. But this is where the lies start to do real damage. These aren't polite fictions that get us through the day. These are lies that kill.

The biggest Canadian lie in circulation currently is that, as a nation, we care about the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces.

We don't.

If we did, we would ensure that they were armed with proven gear and a clear mission in keeping with their role as warriors.

If we cared, we wouldn't keep electing Liberal governments that treat the military like a mad aunt chained in the attic. You inherited her, she's family, you'll keep her fed and clothed -- barely -- but you don't invite her down to take dinner with the family.

We blow a billion at Tony's House of Leaky Submersibles, not because they're needed, but because the Liberal government, uncomfortable with global realities that require a moral nation to take its place shoulder-to-shoulder with its allies, lacks the fortitude to see its sons and daughters coming home from foreign climes in body bags.

In a war against al-Qaida, sailors are among the least likely to die. Unless, of course, you bought used submarines from Tony Blair.

When a Canadian soldier, sailor or airman dies, politicians trot out the platitudes, the flag-draped coffins are off-loaded from one of our few airworthy planes, and our phoney compassion is buried with them.

Canada has become a nation crippled by a dishonest pacifism. Rather than announce we're wimps, we pretend in the councils of the powerful that we'll send our soldiers to fight ... but only if the stars are aligned just so.

We'll send "peacekeepers," an abominable word that denies the reality that it is only the application of brute and vicious force in the disordered and deadly precincts of the world that can ensure peace.

If you read the commentary in the powerful eastern media or listen to our politicians, it becomes clear that Canadians want social workers with guns they'll never use, not warriors.

So let's decide. If we want warriors, then let's create an Armed Forces that can fight, anywhere, anytime to fulfil our obligations to our allies, to history, to ourselves. If not, then let us quit pretending.

Lay our soldiers off.

Find out if any other nation is as dumb as we are, and see if we can't unload our used equipment on them. Keep a couple of hundred guys in red tunics and bearskin hats around to march on Parliament Hill to be inspected by visiting heads of state.

We wouldn't even need soldiers for that.

We could hire drama students on summer vacation.

If we disband our Armed Forces quietly enough who knows?

Maybe our allies won't even notice.

I'm pretty sure the Liberals and huge chunks of the public wouldn't.

 

[Bograt]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1099087809588&call_pageid=null

Canada's military lacks focus, funds


STAR EDITORIAL

Canadians were shocked to see the submarine HMCS Chicoutimi rolling helpless this month in the stormy North Atlantic, crippled by a fatal fire.

They shouldn't have been.

Just last year, an antique Sea King helicopter crashed on the deck of the vintage destroyer HMCS Iroquois. During Canada's peacekeeping airlift to East Timor in 1999, a defective Hercules transport was forced back to base by mechanical failures â ” three times. In 2000, the skipper of an American cargo ship held $223 million worth of Canadian military equipment at sea for six weeks, in a contract dispute. Lacking transport, Ottawa had hired the ship to bring the materiel home from a peacekeeping mission. Our navy had to board the ship.

These fiascos are reminders that the sadly rundown Canadian Forces lack the personnel, funding and equipment to defend our interests in a post-9/11 world where American "pre-emptive" wars, Rwanda type massacres, regional instability and terror are ugly realities.

In recent years, the forces have been busier than at any time in the past half-century. Today, more than 1,600 Canadian troops are serving abroad in Afghanistan and the Arabian Gulf, in the Balkans, in the Middle East and in Africa. The pressure isn't likely to abate any time soon.

Prime Minister Paul Martin promised in the throne speech earlier this month to invest more in the military. He has ordered Defence Minister Bill Graham to develop a new defence policy statement early next year, soon after Ottawa unveils a fresh foreign policy. Regrettably, the defence review will take place largely behind closed doors, to satisfy secrecy-loving bureaucrats who fear public "meddling" in this area. Taxpayers would be better served by a full public consultation and debate. Instead, Parliament will be called on to give Ottawa's plans close scrutiny.

For his part, Martin seems to understand that the Canadian Forces' chief duties are the defence of Canada, the defence of North America in co-operation with the United States, and contributing to global security.

Canada has earmarked $8 billion to bolster continental security after 9/11, and rightly so. Osama bin Laden has named this country as a target.

At the same time, the Canadian Forces must be sufficiently "robust" to comfort our American allies that we are doing what we can to prevent attacks on them from here. That can only enhance our sovereignty. We must maintain sufficient modern warplanes, warships and surveillance aircraft to help secure approaches to this continent. We must be able to project credible force over large distances.

Ottawa is also looking, rightly, to expand Canada/U.S. air defence co-operation to include the navy and cross-border assistance. And to join the U.S. missile defence system.

Further afield, the Canadian Forces must be equipped to mobilize rapidly deployable battle groups with lethal firepower to trouble spots overseas. While our forces need not be huge, they must be high-value.

The "Canadian difference" that Martin intends to make means helping the United Nations support democracy, keep the peace, shore up weak states, thwart genocide, promote development and battle disease. These roles contribute to global stability. Characteristically, they involve the army, airlift and generous aid. Most Canadians strongly support them.

While Canada has one of the world's 20 strongest military forces, it is nowhere as strong as it should be, given our national interests, the endless calls on Canadian troops to serve in places like Afghanistan, the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia and East Timor, and the size of our economy.

We must spend more than the $13.3 billion we do now, refit warships, aircraft and armour, and boost our military beyond the 60,000 mark, and our effective army strength past 15,000. Since 2000, Ottawa has added $2 billion to the base budget. And Martin plans to spend $7 billion on major equipment like the Sikorsky H-92 helicopters, naval supply ships and search-and-rescue aircraft. He has also pledged 5,000 more regulars and 3,000 reservists. It's a welcome start, but not more than that.

Parliamentary committees have urged a base budget in the $18 billion-plus range, just to offset past cuts and to support current missions. We could easily spend $24 billion a year and field 80,000 personnel, and still lag far behind most of our North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in relative spending terms. When inflation is taken into account, we spend less today than a decade ago.

Can Ottawa spend smarter? Yes, definitely. We can replace Cold War-era destroyers and tanks, close some military bases and thin out the military bureaucracy, while making better use of the cost-efficient reserves.

But we must also spend more. So far, Martin has shrunk from doing that. Yet Canada's relations with the U.S., the U.N. and key allies hang in the balance. Ultimately, so does our sovereignty.


Mayby the media is beginning to learn?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

While Canada has one of the world's 20 strongest military forces,

Is this true?

 

[Cloud Cover]

Is this true?

And if it is, by what standard is strength measured?

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Top twenty?

Let's see, off the top of my head, and in no particular order:  USA, Russia, Germany, France, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Ukraine, China, both North and South Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Israel, Egypt, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia, arguably Australia, India, Pakistan, is that twenty yet?

Nope, we're not in the top twenty.

 

[Slim]

  Canada crippled by dishonest pacifism

I can hardly believe that a Canadian journalist wrote that. Its about f#ckin time though!

To be able to accept peace an army must train for war...There is no other way.

Slim

 

[Spr.Earl]

And if it is, by what standard is strength measured?

Results i.e Completed Task's?
Quality of Personal?
Limited Collateral Damage? (to our selves,   :blotto:   )

All joking a aside,it may be the professionalism of all our Memeber's,from all 3 Services

 

[Sh0rtbUs]

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fig_cap

Nope..I dont see us anywheres there.

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ca/Military

Wow, Our Armed Forces Growth is -29%....kinda scary

 

[loyalcana]

The closest is this one.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mil_exp_dol_fig

 

[meni0n]

Don't worry, US military growth is -37%

 

[RCD]

To the Liberals we are still to big

 

[Slim]

The only thing that a government in general, and the Liberals specifically care about is staying in power. That does not include boosting the service, because the average Canadian couldn't really give a shit if we have an army or not, but for god sake, don't take away their f@cking health care!

 

[zerhash]

Grrrr
angry.... Zerhash SMASH!!!


skre\/\/ IT!! I say we just invade another country! thatll show all the reporters and ill informed public.
im sure we can find a good use for the liberals too! strap em to the front of our tanks

 

[zerhash]

im sorry~! just got a little angry there... thats all
just a little angry...

 

[camochick]

Hey, i had someone tell me the other day that canada doesnt even need a military. Stupid people. They think that if the government spends some money on the military we will turn into the U.S.. Yeah like that will happen anytime soon.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Look at the spin in this article:
  http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/12/01/bush-foreign-policy041201.html      

U.S. President George W. Bush suggested Canada should take a more active role in his "war on terrorism" in a speech he gave in Halifax on Wednesday.

He said Bush acknowledged during his visit how much Canada's military has done to keep the peace in Afghanistan over the past two years. That's where Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization was sheltered by the country's Taliban leadership at the time it planned and carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
                                                                                                                               

Is this the dishonest pacifism supposedly shared by the majority of Canadians or blatant media bias?   Didn't PM Paul Martin say several times today "we" are at "war" with terrorism? Is ISAF really peacekeeping?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

In my mind, simplistically, peacekeeping is inserting ourselves between two or more warring factions and keeping them apart. That's not what I was doing for six months over there. Nor did I see any evidence of anybody else doing that.

 

[Cloud Cover]

That's what I thought. Why can't they see that? The answer is in the title of the thread.

 

[Slim]

At work we have a rather stupid little dog that, in order to hide after getting itself into some form of sh*t or other, will walk up to a bush and stick its head in, leaving the body and tail in full view of everyone...The dog then believes that it is safe from diiscovery!

That dog reminds me of the average Canadian...Except that the dog is probably smarter and has more common sense than most of us here in our spoiled little paradise.

Mark my words...Its coming!

Slim

 

[Spr.Earl]

Yes,Slim the average Canadian does need a reality check even our Politicians.
If they received it I think we would see drastic changes in the Forces.