I like your point of view LFP. While none of us want Canadian troops to come to harm, we do not all support the kind of blind faith encouraged by nationalist allegiance to a flag.

I really resent the the kind of emotional blackmail exerted by jingoists on the right, centre and often left. "If don't have blind faith in your country then you must be against your fellow citizens" What nonsense.

Due to the overt jingoism south of the border there is a constant pressure to be more patriotic about Canada. I think we should resist this way of thinking.

I value ideas, and I have loyalty to family, friends and those who's views I respect, but I don't support blind allegiance to a geopolitical region (after all I have moved continents).

I remember flying from Assam to Delhi, via Calcutta. From the aircraft we should have been able to see Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The Himalayas were constantly visible and I remember staring out of the window trying to spot the famous peaks...Kanchenjunga, Everest/Lhotse, Annapurna etc. The thing that really struck me was that the mountains provided a perspective on just how thin the atmosphere is. The tops of those mountains were in the "death zone".

At about 9000 m we were just above the tops of the adjacent giants, yet we were above the livable atmosphere and the geopolitical boundaries were invisible.

People get too wrapped up in their small circles of experience. It would benefit us all to take a step back now and again and realise just how insiginificant countries are.
Quaker | 12.21.06 - 10:10 am | #

What shocks this Editor is that obviously the hype and fervour generated by our government on this so-called patriotic war in Afghanistan has had this kind of effect on some Canadians like this hockey coach. I did not think this was possible. It harkens of blind faith and my country right or wrong. Terrifying.
LFP Editor | Homepage | 12.21.06 - 10:45 am | #

What every Canadian needs to do is read or listen to a survivor of one of the trade center towers. Make sure that it's someone that pushed and shoved their way down 80-90 floors, while watching agonized humans splatter on the pavement below. Many of those in wheel chairs, or otherwise burdened, were assisted by good Samaritans, and often they both died.

If any of us think that our troops are in the wrong place after this barbarian attack, they need to hear a personal story of someone who witnessed and heard the death and human suffering of innocents that day. Those who survived will not heal easily. Those of us who think that Canadians should not respond to this sort of butchery should give their bloody fat heads a good shake. We are not a nation of wimps....yet! Too often what I read and hear comes from the minds of the academic thinkers, not nation leaders.

Historically the academic thinkers and social theorists are the first ones to lie in a heap in front of a blood spattered wall. Maybe in that last second they had a change of mind.
methinks | 12.22.06 - 5:41 pm | #

Great thinking????

So lets kill a couple of hundred Canadian soldiers???

Use you brains, look how well Vietnam & Korea went. The USA hasn't won a war since the Civil War.

Now this idiot wants to hitch our wagon to another US blunder?
Anonymous | 12.27.06 - 6:03 pm | #

The Iraq situation confuses the issue Anon. Different horses.

Al Queda murdered Canadian civilians as well as innocent people from many other western nations. Al Queda and the Afghanistan/Taliban government were one and the same at the time. They'll be back for another go if left to regain control af the Afghanistan Government again.
methinks | 12.27.06 - 9:56 pm | #

I have a bet going with Blair that within the next couple of years we will be having peace talks with the Taliban and /or Afghan Taliban coalition. Mark my words this too will pass. Surprisingly we will then spin the fact that indeed there is indeed a moderate Taliban influence/faction! See my previous post;
http://www.kimrichter.com/Blog/2...fers- olive.html
LFP Editor | Homepage | 12.27.06 - 10:19 pm | #

LFP: You can't negotiate from a weak position. I hope the same as you, because you'd have to daft to wantwar for the sake of it.

Korea was a hell of a war, and the loss of life was thought to be unnecessary by many. Without a Healthy South Korean buffer today, gosh knows what that little North Korean Putz would hold over vour heads today. If we had been on the run when negotiating at the close of that war, forget gatting a favourable settlement.
methinks | 12.28.06 - 9:40 pm | #