Harper to troops in Afghanistan: Your deaths improves the caliber/competence of the Canadian Forces!
Well, I first came across this Tuesday at The Galloping Beaver in this post of Dave's. When I read it, the linked post from Steve V at Far and Wide and the CBC article linked I could not believe it, Harper was actually claiming that our soldiers getting killed in Afghanistan may actually be making the Canadian military a better military force. Really? I wonder just how many soldiers and families of soldiers in theater would agree with that assessment? I somehow doubt that all that many would. I also wonder just how many of the families of the dead soldiers in Afghanistan would agree with this notion and that it was for a better military that their loved ones were killed and that they should be somehow take comfort in the idea that their loved ones dying improves the overall ability of the Canadian military. If I were them I would find that insulting and disrespectful to the memory of my loved one and even an implication that my dead loved one was somehow not that good a soldier because otherwise why would their death be able to improve the ability of the military?
This was a very offensive and sick thing to say PM Harper, and it shows that you have a fundamental inability to understand the military culture/mindset as well as a willingness to prostitute the military in the service of your party for partisan political points,. A pattern you started with your very first trip to Afghanistan where you used the soldiers as props and claimed that Canada would not "cut and run" ( A direct quote and a phrase Bush and the GOP have been using to tar their opponents with for years now, yet when you said this Harper there was no one in the Parliament of Canada calling for such an act).
Then there is this idea of yours that we have not pulled our weight over the last 30-40 years in military matters. Yet you provide nothing to back this assertion up and as well you by making this claim diminish/disrespect the many peacekeeping missions that Canada was front and center for in the Cold War and our work in the first Gulf War and in the Balkins in the 90s. Somehow that doesn't count in Harper's books as pulling our weight despite the reality we are not a first world nation but a second world (developing) nation. Yes, we are at the top of that category but the blunt truth is we are not a nation that has the resources and the industrial infrastructure to be considered a true first world nation. We have never colonized other nations, we have never been an imperial/great power and the main reason our economy is as developed as it is is a direct result of being the closest neighbour to the largest economic/military power on the planet for the past 60 years now. So this idea that we have not been pulling our weight is an unsupported assertion that does nothing but throw disrespect on every soldier that took pride in the peacekeeping missions they were a part of over the last few decades. Way to show respect for the military Mr. Harper!
Then there is this notion that suddenly we are raising our international leadership profile with this mission and the dying our soldiers are doing in its service. Seeing as we are not a military power the idea that we can only show leadership through the use of military force is idiotic from the outset. It also denigrates the idea that diplomacy and other methods of leadership have equal merit to them as the use of military force, or in other words Harper places military force deployment leadership above all other forms that Canada has participated in. This just goes to show how little Harper understand the real world from his nice safe and clean ideological perspective of the world and his willingness to have Canadians suffer and die in the advancement of his beliefs regardless of how well or poorly they correlate to reality, to the history of this nation, and to the values of the citizenry of this nation. It also underscores that while he sees military deployment as the most important form of leadership that he does not understand the military culture nor the proper/best ways of applying military force.
Then we come to the "clarification" by Harper's chief media strategist/communications adviser, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen. On this one I will leave this post from Dave at The Galloping Beaver to speak for me as he does so eloquently in this post he put up today. All I will add is this is the sort of stupidity and insensitivity/ignorance of the world outside the delusions of the inner circle of the Harper camp I have come to expect. As well as the disrespect these folks have for any and all that do not share their vision of what is right/wrong and noble/evil. This is yet one more piece of evidence as to why this party under this leadership is unfit to hold office/power in this country IMHO (incidentally when I use this it stands for In My Humble Opinion, for some reason people think I mean honest instead, but all my opinions are my honest ones so that doesn't work for me) and needs to be removed from the minority they have and sent back to opposition and hopefully saner Conservatives will come to power in the CPC instead of the Straussians (for those that do not know this Leo Strauss is the political philosopher that shaped the core of the neoconservative movement and Harper and his coterie are members of the Calgary School of political thought which was also heavily influence by Strauss, which explains the similarity of world view/foreign policy between Harper and the Cheney/Bush regime) that currently controls the party.
This was a very offensive and sick thing to say PM Harper, and it shows that you have a fundamental inability to understand the military culture/mindset as well as a willingness to prostitute the military in the service of your party for partisan political points,. A pattern you started with your very first trip to Afghanistan where you used the soldiers as props and claimed that Canada would not "cut and run" ( A direct quote and a phrase Bush and the GOP have been using to tar their opponents with for years now, yet when you said this Harper there was no one in the Parliament of Canada calling for such an act).
Then there is this idea of yours that we have not pulled our weight over the last 30-40 years in military matters. Yet you provide nothing to back this assertion up and as well you by making this claim diminish/disrespect the many peacekeeping missions that Canada was front and center for in the Cold War and our work in the first Gulf War and in the Balkins in the 90s. Somehow that doesn't count in Harper's books as pulling our weight despite the reality we are not a first world nation but a second world (developing) nation. Yes, we are at the top of that category but the blunt truth is we are not a nation that has the resources and the industrial infrastructure to be considered a true first world nation. We have never colonized other nations, we have never been an imperial/great power and the main reason our economy is as developed as it is is a direct result of being the closest neighbour to the largest economic/military power on the planet for the past 60 years now. So this idea that we have not been pulling our weight is an unsupported assertion that does nothing but throw disrespect on every soldier that took pride in the peacekeeping missions they were a part of over the last few decades. Way to show respect for the military Mr. Harper!
Then there is this notion that suddenly we are raising our international leadership profile with this mission and the dying our soldiers are doing in its service. Seeing as we are not a military power the idea that we can only show leadership through the use of military force is idiotic from the outset. It also denigrates the idea that diplomacy and other methods of leadership have equal merit to them as the use of military force, or in other words Harper places military force deployment leadership above all other forms that Canada has participated in. This just goes to show how little Harper understand the real world from his nice safe and clean ideological perspective of the world and his willingness to have Canadians suffer and die in the advancement of his beliefs regardless of how well or poorly they correlate to reality, to the history of this nation, and to the values of the citizenry of this nation. It also underscores that while he sees military deployment as the most important form of leadership that he does not understand the military culture nor the proper/best ways of applying military force.
Then we come to the "clarification" by Harper's chief media strategist/communications adviser, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen. On this one I will leave this post from Dave at The Galloping Beaver to speak for me as he does so eloquently in this post he put up today. All I will add is this is the sort of stupidity and insensitivity/ignorance of the world outside the delusions of the inner circle of the Harper camp I have come to expect. As well as the disrespect these folks have for any and all that do not share their vision of what is right/wrong and noble/evil. This is yet one more piece of evidence as to why this party under this leadership is unfit to hold office/power in this country IMHO (incidentally when I use this it stands for In My Humble Opinion, for some reason people think I mean honest instead, but all my opinions are my honest ones so that doesn't work for me) and needs to be removed from the minority they have and sent back to opposition and hopefully saner Conservatives will come to power in the CPC instead of the Straussians (for those that do not know this Leo Strauss is the political philosopher that shaped the core of the neoconservative movement and Harper and his coterie are members of the Calgary School of political thought which was also heavily influence by Strauss, which explains the similarity of world view/foreign policy between Harper and the Cheney/Bush regime) that currently controls the party.
posted by Scotian | 1:35 PM
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