Harper joins U.S. in Iraq, with support of Liberals

Cool picture Unionist. Do they have a Church in Montreal? Maybe we could sing hymns like "Onward Christian Soldiers".

Got a reply from Thibbdeau on Twitter, she said she wasn't shilling for Libs, "Trudeau was here for another interview". How funny is that?   Oh, another interveiw for no reason, oh, OK, that's much better.

Arthur Cramer wrote:

You are so flippant. I told you, when did you ever have to expalin to someone why you were sending their spouse off to die, like I actually did. This isn't some kind of movie like they made in the 40s. This is real. We are being asked to sacrifice our National Treasure and our youth so that the Saudis and the rest of them can hold on to their blood stained oil treasure. It has to stop and it stops now. Its up to them to clean this up; it isn't up to Canada. I say it again. You seem quite prepared to watch young men and women go off to war for NOTHING, but I don't. Thats really big talk from someone who doesn't have it in them to step up and do the right thing. Spare me, you haven't the right.

Regardless of whether or not you are right about this particular situation it is offensive that on a political commentary board you would attack people individually on their right to an opinion based on their willingness to go to war.

Unionist wrote:

Thomas Walkom:... Mulcair made that clear Tuesday night in a Commons debate.

Few noticed, so he announced it again Wednesday.

[/quote]

 Best line in journalism for the month. 

Tom Tomorrow's latest cartoon is about the U.S. but I think it applies in Canada as well.

terrytowel wrote:

Craig Oliver brought up a good point on Question Period wondering why the other countries in the Middle East stepping up to the plate first? As those countries are the ones most affected.

NATO has installed itself as the world's police force so NATO countries like the US, the UK, France, Germany, Canada, etc., are not about to allow countries like Saudi Arabia to weaken NATO's role as global cop. And if Saudi Arabia started bombing Syria and Iraq, Syria, and Iran might retaliate which could start a regional conflict that could even bring in other countries. If the Security Council wanted to they could encourage Middle Eastern countries to act unilaterally to deal with their region's problems. For good reason the Security Council has not done so.

Greedy white men representing the U.S., Europe, and Canada have created a chaotic international political system. How the world could establish an international political system based on peace, democracy, and equity is not clear. The citizens of the U.S., Europe, and Canada should support democratizing our international political system but due to xenophobia that doesn't seem likely to happen.

That being said, our current world order should confront and engage violent groups like ISIS.

JKR wrote in part:

"That being said, our current world order should confront and engage violent groups like ISIS."

So lets fight wars all over the world because a bunch of lunatics beheaded two Americans?

That's not an image that anyone should see Paladin. A number of people, women especially, would be traumatized. Suffice it to say, we know atrocities are being committed.

I should have checked the thread, your description, before viewing the image. Had I done so I would not have looked. I'll store that image in my memory along with the picture of the body of a Sierra Leone woman, raped, murdered, left in a ditch, being eaten by feral dogs. Goes back to my early years as a journalist. 20 years that image has haunted me. Now it has a friend.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/charlie-rangel-war-tax_n_5863964.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular Bravo; I wish a MP would introduce this kind of a bill in the House. Maybe people who are Trudeaubots on this forum would bel less pro-war if they new their Grad sons/daughters/nieces/nephews/sons-daughters of friends would be going to fight. Maybe we'd be woriried about Social Spending instead of War spending. Rangel proves without a doubt that Vets "get it". People with no Service who call for War where they don't want to participate, don't.

Not everyone who thinks Da'ash should be stopped is a Trudeau supporter. Not everyone who cares about the slaughter just started noticing when a couple Americans were beheaded.

Unionist wrote:

[b]Billions.[/b]

Nice sarcasm. So thousands of dead Gazans are a crime against humanity, and thousands of dead Syrians are a laughable rounding error. Maybe my family shouldn't have fled in '48; then progressives would give a shit whether they die.

MegB wrote:

That's not an image that anyone should see Paladin. A number of people, women especially, would be traumatized. Suffice it to say, we know atrocities are being committed.

I should have checked the thread, your description, before viewing the image. Had I done so I would not have looked. I'll store that image in my memory along with the picture of the body of a Sierra Leone woman, raped, murdered, left in a ditch, being eaten by feral dogs. Goes back to my early years as a journalist. 20 years that image has haunted me. Now it has a friend.

 

Sorry Meg, I can only apologize for that image disturbing you like that. I should have left it at a graphic description or even less.

cco wrote:

Nice sarcasm. So thousands of dead Gazans are a crime against humanity, and thousands of dead Syrians are a laughable rounding error. Maybe my family shouldn't have fled in '48; then progressives would give a shit whether they die.

Bias at it's best (worst).

CCO, Thousands of brutally murdered men women and children is just propaganda. It would be different if they belonged to a union though.

Unionist wrote:

Are you recommending Western intervention, in the absence of a U.N.-led initiative to save some Syrians or Iraqis or whatever?

To save the Syrians, and Iraqis, and "whatevers", from the Da'ash, whose avowed creed is slavery, torture, and global imperialism. Yes. I'm also recommending the West [i]stop fucking giving them weapons to begin with[/i]. It's possible to simultaneously condemn one and support the other.

Quote:

That's really what this thread is about. My mockery of Paladin is merely this: those who spread fearmongering propaganda about Islamic atrocities in order to justify Canadian aggression abroad deserve much more than mockery - but I'll confine myself to that, lest I be accused of being a "100% pacifist". We should be very wary of those who only demonize whoever Harper and Obama are demonizing that particular week.

Do I fall into that category? I can't speak for Paladin and have no idea what's in his head. I don't know whether he supported the original invasion of Iraq, or Libya, or arming Syrian terror groups to begin with. He can speak for himself. Pondering can speak for herself. It is possible, on occasion, to be right for the wrong reasons.

Quote:

I note that Bashar Al-Assad has welcomed the U.S. air strikes within Syria. Do you? Answer, please.

Yes.

Quote:

ETA: Just in case you haven't seen the news, here you go:

[url=http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/09/russia-condemns-us-airstrikes-on-i... Condemns U.S. Airstrikes on ISIS and al-Qaeda; Assad Approves[/url]

Let me know what you think of the U.S.-Syrian struggle against terrorism.

It would be a whole lot easier if the US hadn't armed any of these groups to begin with. It would be even easier if there had been no Iraq war. And the supposed "Free Syrian Army" Obama is arming right now will be the next group America's bombing, a year or five or ten down the line.

I'm still not willing to sacrifice my family to Khmer Rouge-level slaughter to prove some kind of larger geopolitical point that anyone with an iota of sense already knew: that the Iraq war was a terrible idea and a crime against humanity. America's crimes against humanity don't somehow justify the Da'ash's. Saudi and Qatari guns and bombs are no healthier or more "authentic" for the Levant than American ones.

I try to stick with judging them by their works. Then I never have to feel like Saudi Arabia is "on my side".

Paladin1 wrote:

I have no idea what happened in Libya save for a failed rescue mission in the 80s or 90s and I guess canadian jets were a part of some air campaign there very recently.

[b]*facepalm*[/b]

So it's all well and good to oppose the Holocaust, so long as no military force is used to prevent it?

Unionist wrote:

So cco, I didn't get your answer. Do you support our boys going to Iraq, Syria, wherever? This is not a complicated question. It's already happening. We need to take a stand.

I got it. Are you opposed to Canada having gotten involved in the war against the Nazi?  Should my father have stayed home?

Pondering wrote:

Unionist wrote:

So cco, I didn't get your answer. Do you support our boys going to Iraq, Syria, wherever? This is not a complicated question. It's already happening. We need to take a stand.

I got it. Are you opposed to Canada having gotten involved in the war against the Nazi?  Should my father have stayed home?

You are trying to conlfate two completely different things and then thinking Unionist is going to answer you; he probably won't, I will. Apples and Oranges "Pondering". By the way, Unionist is Jeiwsh. I don't think it would be very smart to challenge him, or me, another Jew, on whether we thought the Allies should have fought Hitler. But nice try.

Unionist wrote:

But we are in a new era, where there is supposedly a world body which opposes aggression and violations of human rights. If the U.S. and Canada and Britain and France act unilaterally to kill their enemies (always on the pretext of saving your relatives or mine), then progressive people must condemn them. Why? Because they kill their enemies. One day they're bad people, another day they're good innocent people.

The UN rubber-stamped the Libya invasion. Did that make it a good thing? Resolutions condemning Israel are always vetoed. Does that give Israel an imprimateur of legitimacy? A world body whose veto-wielding members are the US, UK, France, Russia, and China is unlikely to be a bulwark against imperialism. And the US could very likely get through a resolution endorsing a war against Da'ash in Iraq only. Russia is only condemning the fact the US isn't coordinating with Assad. Would that make the air strikes acceptable in your book?

Quote:

The world can't function that way. Nor can we excuse someone who deplores the stoning of some woman in Afghanistan by the Taliban, while justifying the mass murder of Afghan civilians by foreign invaders.

Where in this thread have I ever argued for the war in Afghanistan? You're arguing with an imaginary opponent who believes in the white man's burden and "civilizing the barbarians".

Quote:

So cco, I didn't get your answer.

Yes, you did. Explicitly. Though you phrased the question slightly differently.:

cco wrote:

Unionist wrote:

I note that Bashar Al-Assad has welcomed the U.S. air strikes within Syria. Do you? Answer, please.

Yes.

Unionist wrote:

Fuck. This is Anti-Imperialism 101. But like many other courses, it has to be re-taken every single time there's a slight change in the world situation. Because we have no powerful means of information and truth, like the imperialists do.

I didn't get [i]your[/i] answer. What should be done to stop imperialism? (Any definition of imperialism that doesn't include Da'ash is worthless. Or do they just count as "the resistance"?) All military force of any kind is apparently only furthering Western imperialism, which is clearly inferior to the Da'ash variety, so that's out. Guess we just sit back, go to the occasional protest march, and cluck our tongues at the mutilated corpses.

Arthur Cramer wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Unionist wrote:

So cco, I didn't get your answer. Do you support our boys going to Iraq, Syria, wherever? This is not a complicated question. It's already happening. We need to take a stand.

I got it. Are you opposed to Canada having gotten involved in the war against the Nazi?  Should my father have stayed home?

You are trying to conlfate two completely different things and then thinking Unionist is going to answer you; he probably won't, I will. Apples and Oranges "Pondering". By the way, Unionist is Jeiwsh. I don't think it would be very smart to challenge him, or me, another Jew, on whether we thought the Allies should have fought Hitler. But nice try.

Then my comment is all the more appropriate. cco has relatives in Syria. ISIS seems intent on working it's way across the Mid East much as Hitler was determined to work his way across Europe.

So what if the Nazi threatened our allies and this war supposedly doesn't. That doesn't make the people being slaughtered any the less human. The Nazi wouldn't have stopped at Europe and ISIS won't stop with conquering the Mid East. It's a world wide threat and the mid east does have nuclear weapons which would fall into the hands of ISIS if they succeeded in their goal.