Just curious, why do French-Canadians flock to Wildwood, NJ? There are a ton of beaches that are much closer, but WW becomes little Québec every summer.
are we supposed to sit back while a terror group rapes and pillages entire villages? a group who kidnaps women and forces them to act as wives (i.e. prostitutes) for young men of this group? a group who totally strips the rights away from everyone who is not as radical as them? a group that beheads everyday people with no remorse? i don’t see how we can BE Canadian and stand for humanism globally without taking the fight to those who believe in the opposite of humanism.
if you look back in Canadian history, Canadians are known for fighting in the name of humanism. this is why we didn’t join the U.S. in Iraq in 2003 and why we did in 1991 when Kuwait was taken and a humanitarian crisis was likely to ensue. this is also why we didn’t partake in the Vietnam war (both North and South had a poor humanist record so no victory could be had) but did partake in the Korean war (one of our borderline wars and one that i think solidified our yes/no war choices, but democratic leaning S. Korean population as well as any Westerners would likely be killed if they didn’t join China’s vision of communism). we don’t fight terror to protect our own people, we fight terror to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
the bottom line is that terrorists are stupid. why would you attack the only western country in which it is relatively easy to develop terrorism? if you coerce Canada to further militarize itself, where are you going to homegrow terrorism and take the war to the West? terrible planning on their part and clearly the work of extreme amateurs, who like some have stated, merely have a death wish and have no grand plan. osama bin laden would be very displeased.
Look, people who are born and raised in Canada, adopt some religion, become “radicalized”, and then shoot a bunch of random people are total losers. They do this because they want to feel relevant, not because they are serving some rational political cause. Thus all forms of logical justification of these actions is meaningless. The explanation is that loser scumbags are being loser scumbags.
Anyway… I think most US or similarly aligned people will agree that ISIS should be wiped out. However, they do not want the US to commit more resources to a ground war. The Iraq war is unpopular largely because the US spent billions and billions of dollars on the occupation. Any other kind of military commitment will evoke the same sentiment.
I would like to extend that point to significant portion of ISIS terrorists. Many of them are not even born in Syria, Iraq or even the Middle East for that matter.
I agree that christian Westerners that convert to islamist terrorism, like these two loosers yesterday, are really the lowest among the scum.
Anyone who converts voluntarily is always going to be “more loyal than the King.”
A missionary once bit my ear off talking about “cultural Christians” (just happen to be born Christian and absorb the culture via osmosis, casually) vs “real Christians” (believe in Christ is THE way.) I imagine the same applies to Islam.
Anyway, the philosophy and actions of ISIS are simply indefensible. They need to be destroyed like the Mongols destroyed the Assassins.
Did you see our options? I’ve learned in politics a long time ago that you vote for the least worst party because there is no good party. At least voting gives you a right to bitch for 4 years. I’m on the right economically.
But, due to a myriad of reasons (which will take me a good hour to type), it will be ABH (anyone but Harper) in October 2015.
It’s the opposite. They know exactly what they are doing: polarize society. When one extreme gets riled up, it wakes up the other extreme that gets just as riled up.
Unfortunately, we’re playing right into their game.
You’re comparing wars against soldiers/governments/countries to a war with fanatics scattered among civilian populations among many countries. I don’t blame you, you aren’t the only one thinking conventional war methods will work.
The Middle East is different. A lot different. You have to be from the region to understand.
We had the perfect man to defeat ISIS. He would have been more efficient than any means we are currently using. Ironically, the West was safer with him in power than after his departure despite what we were told. His name was Saddam. ISIS wouldn’t have dared. Iran wouldn’t be running the show. Saddam was the lesser of two evils.
The reason I bring up Saddam is not to bring back the past, but to show that when we meddle in other regions and think we know what we’re doing we end up with a worse alternative. It’s ISIS today. Another group will pick up the torch tomorrow. It can even be someone we consider an ally today. It’s a dead end.
I was against the Iraq War in 2003, I do think that a concerted front against ISIS is necessary, and fortunately, most of the US’s allies agree.
I also agree with MikeLikesAnalysis that it is strategically dumb for a terrorist network to alienate Canada, which is why I made my comment about bad strategy earlier in this thread. Both as a place to grow terrorists to send into the US and as a country allied who can be relied upon to urge the US to restrain itself, it just doesn’t make strategic sense for terrorists to get Canadians friendlier to the idea of getting more actively involved in that fight.
My suspicion is that the networks were trying to brew terrorists for US operations, but a few couldn’t wait or contain themselves and started shooting themselves off too early.
I don’t like the term Quebecois. It’s like how people call the Ivory Coast Cote d’Ivoire now. We don’t pronounce most names of countries as you would in the native tongue, e.g. Japan or Mexico. Only for some French names do they insist that we use the French pronounciation. For some strange reason, though, this doesn’t apply to native French things. We only pronounce Paris correct ironically.
