Amazingly enough the Globe & Mail actually published an article, I found to be very thoughtful.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insist that Canada is not at war with the Islamic State. The two men are trifling with a very important word. The question is, why are they doing it?
Perception management, very big in Canada. Trudeau no different then his predecessor and Stéphane Dion.... sheesh!
There are probably hundreds of definitions of what war is, given that archeological evidence shows that armed conflict predates the existence of writing and stretches back at least 10 millenniums. One frequently cited definition is that of Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, whose treatise On War was published in the 1830s. In it, he defined war as the “continuation of state policy” by “other means.” In other words, war is a political activity in which violence is used to bend the will of your enemy to accord with your own, because non-violent means just won’t work.
WAR IS THE CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY, BY OTHER MEANSWAR IS A POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN WHICH VIOLENCE IS USED TO BEND THE WILL OF YOUR ENEMY TO THAT OF YOUR OWN Those simple, clear and concise definitions of war made this article worth reading. No obfuscation. NO bullshit. Just plain talk. The kind I love.
But the argument about war in Ottawa is a semantic one that does not reflect reality. Dozens of wars are being waged around the world today that don’t fit any definition outlined by Mr. Trudeau last week when he declared “a war is something that can be won by one side or the other.” Or Mr. Dion’s definition: “two armies with respecting rules.” When it comes to terrorist extremists, he said, “you have terrorist groups that respect nothing. So we prefer to say that it’s a fight.”
Trudeau is clearly demonstrating his cold, calculating and heartless true self.At what cost Justin? At what cost?? Mr smiling, I love the earth and am so handsome Trudeau claims a war is something that can be won by one side or the other, without talking about lives lost, families destroyed, environmental destruction, resource waste or anything like that. And this man is lauded all over the place?Mr Dion is as useless as he has always been-These two lead the Canadian people? Really? I didn't vote for either idiot.
Canadian governments of both Conservative and Liberal stripes have always been reluctant to use the word “war,” except when Canada officially declared war on Germany in September, 1939. Although Canada suffered the loss of more than 500 soldiers in fighting the Chinese and North Koreans in 1950-1953, we were not fighting a “war” but engaging in what the government called a “police action.”
When about 160 Canadians were killed in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2011, that wasn’t a war either. No one in Ottawa bothered to define exactly what it was. Armed Canadian soldiers were killing or being killed by a non-state actor (the Taliban) and were supposed to treat Taliban prisoners in accordance with the laws of war, all without being in a war. That’s what the politicians (Liberal and Conservative) said. The Canadian men and women serving in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province of those years may be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
There is a patent silliness here that is partly a reflection of the bubble that is Ottawa, but is also due to an ongoing, long-standing confusion in the Canadian policy establishment as to where Canada stands in the world.
A reflection of the bubble Ottawa is? Why is Ottawa a bubble? Because it's so out of touch with reality? And Canadians? Much of that silliness has to do with marketing war, like any product, in a palatable fashion. So the masses will buy the agenda willingly.
In the John Diefenbaker years, some members of what was then the Department of External Affairs, including its minister Howard Green, decided that Canada should try to differentiate itself from the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization by becoming a world champion against nuclear proliferation. That was when Canada was acquiring nuclear weapons and endorsing NATO’s “first-strike” doctrine.
Canada lying to the populace even then. And nothing has changed. How often do we read that Canada acquired nuclear weapons in the Diefenbaker years? Not very. I thought Canada was so 'peaceful' (facetious) Many, many years ago I was that gullible. But not anymore.
In the years that followed, Canada seemed to go out of its way to act like a neutral country, despite tight economic and military ties with NATO and the United States. Championing disarmament (though with pitiful results), a “north-south” dialogue and closer ties with Russia were all window dressing. That was especially true during the last years of Pierre Trudeau’s government, when the United States insisted, successfully, on using Canadian airspace over the Mackenzie River Valley for cruise-missile testing.
Canadian's protested en masse And we had no choice and no say in that Cruise Missile testing being done in Canadian airspace.I believe the US conducted these missile tests when Brian Mulroney was the Prime Minister alsoThe link suggests Canadians did not care at the time of Mulroney's leadership- that's a lie or as the article states "Mulroney had delayed a decision on this matter for over 18 months.Canadians cared and Mulroney knew that! (I recall the '83 cruise missiles tests and they were contentious. I was young but aware, you really couldn't miss the controversy)
Part of Canada’s self-proclaimed mission to be an armed member of NATO, but nicer and more understanding of the “red menace,” was to eschew the use of the word “war” and to pretend that our soldiers, like other soldiers trained to kill and destroy to achieve state objectives, were not soldiers at war but rather “peacekeepers.” And peacekeepers don’t make war.
When we deploy our men and women in arms to some brutal civil war somewhere soon, to earn United Nations brownie points for our campaign to regain a seat on the Security Council, everyone will hope that none of them are killed. But if that were to happen, someone inside the Ottawa bubble may feel better proclaiming that the dead Canadian was not killed in a war.
Canada, fully NATO occupied. That's a fact.From Earlier: