Cheney Time!
They love the war, those conservatives. That's actually both conservatives and Conservatives - as a species and a party, conservatives are all in for blood sport. Of course, like rightist lizard Dick Cheney (former Vice-War Monger of the US), most of them were too flat out cowardly to put their own sorry butts on the line. Not to disparage those (of us) who did not serve, but if you got five Vietnam deferments, try not to sound so much like John Wayne (who used his star status to duck out of WWII).
Speaking of sorry butts, Stephen Harper - our home-grown Cheney - is extending Canada's "mission" against ISIL. I put "mission" in quotes because what really is the mission? To protect Canadians? Try telling that to the brave Canadians who have been serving a combat mission on the ground in Iraq when the mission was sold to Canadians as an advisor role. Those Canadians are distinctly less safe, and their safety will be increasingly in jeopardy over the course of the next year. Certainly Sargent Andrew Joseph Doiron paid the full measure of his devotion on this mission.
Which begs the question: what are they going for? Are they fighting or advising? Already, with a force of around 1000, they are too many to advise and too few to fight. What are the goals they are trying to achieve? The text of the new authorization starts out badly, calling ISIL a "terrorist group." As we've reviewed here, they are anything but "terrorists." They scary and murderous and mean and criminal, but they are not terrorists. Their intent and achievements are in the field of nation-building. And despite the attempts of two failed states and lots of American and Canadian firepower, they are building that Islamic state.
Which is a bad thing, but not something that counter-terrorist tactics will do anything to stop. We should be looking for solutions. ISIL/ISIS is a humanitarian disaster and a fascistic dictatorial religious nuthouse nightmare. But the bombing and the thousand Canadians are not the solution.
Harper seems to take naturally to Cheney tactics. Part of the American Bushista Junta was to keep the country on a permanent war footing, bot frightened of terrorists and puff-chested warmongers at the same time. Harper is doing the same with Canadians. Lots of war, lots of terror. The new terror law he just passed is classic Cheney - curtailed freedoms and enhanced police powers.
My greatest fear during the dismantling of American democracy, ongoing since 2001, is that the same thing would inevitably happen to us up here in Canada. Welcome to Harper world. War, terror, a news blackout, climate and science denial - this guy's got it all.
Can Canadians do what Americans haven't had the guts to do? Can Canadians take back Canada?
Stay tuned.
Speaking of sorry butts, Stephen Harper - our home-grown Cheney - is extending Canada's "mission" against ISIL. I put "mission" in quotes because what really is the mission? To protect Canadians? Try telling that to the brave Canadians who have been serving a combat mission on the ground in Iraq when the mission was sold to Canadians as an advisor role. Those Canadians are distinctly less safe, and their safety will be increasingly in jeopardy over the course of the next year. Certainly Sargent Andrew Joseph Doiron paid the full measure of his devotion on this mission.
Which begs the question: what are they going for? Are they fighting or advising? Already, with a force of around 1000, they are too many to advise and too few to fight. What are the goals they are trying to achieve? The text of the new authorization starts out badly, calling ISIL a "terrorist group." As we've reviewed here, they are anything but "terrorists." They scary and murderous and mean and criminal, but they are not terrorists. Their intent and achievements are in the field of nation-building. And despite the attempts of two failed states and lots of American and Canadian firepower, they are building that Islamic state.
Which is a bad thing, but not something that counter-terrorist tactics will do anything to stop. We should be looking for solutions. ISIL/ISIS is a humanitarian disaster and a fascistic dictatorial religious nuthouse nightmare. But the bombing and the thousand Canadians are not the solution.
Harper seems to take naturally to Cheney tactics. Part of the American Bushista Junta was to keep the country on a permanent war footing, bot frightened of terrorists and puff-chested warmongers at the same time. Harper is doing the same with Canadians. Lots of war, lots of terror. The new terror law he just passed is classic Cheney - curtailed freedoms and enhanced police powers.
My greatest fear during the dismantling of American democracy, ongoing since 2001, is that the same thing would inevitably happen to us up here in Canada. Welcome to Harper world. War, terror, a news blackout, climate and science denial - this guy's got it all.
Can Canadians do what Americans haven't had the guts to do? Can Canadians take back Canada?
Stay tuned.
posted by fiduciary at 3:51 PM
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