Gord’s Update on the World

Here are few comments on the state of the world as seen by yours truly.

The war on ISIL

The government wants to extend and expand the war against the Islamic State and are now stating that anyone who opposes their position “lacks Canadian values”.  That’s a pretty blatant saying to the ones of who have served in the military of Canada and who do, in fact, oppose their view of this war.  To extend the war was probably not a surprise.  But the thing that bothers me is the expansion of the war into Syria.  Imagine if you will that some other country, in what they think is a legitimate cause, were to bomb Canada.  Would we not now believe that we were at war with that country?  Would we not expect our country to declare war on that other nation?  Would we not go to the United Nations and demand that they take action on the premise that the other country had broken international law?  So what makes us think that we are now above international law?  Should Syria now take action against us in some form or another, we would have nobody to blame but ourselves.

It surprises me that so many Canadians are, supposedly, behind this extension, or at least the government tells us so.  The assertion is somewhat borne out by the letters in the local paper.  But I wonder how many of these people have served in the military?  How many of these people have ever been in a war zone?  How many of these people know how much devastation one of the so-called “smart bombs” can cause?  How much collateral damage a 500 or 1000 pound can cause?  It all sounds so easy . . . smart bombs, precisely laid, hitting only the targeted people or things.  I wonder?  My memories of war are the two little boys I played with as a youngster in England after World War 2.  Of the three of us, we had three good eyes, and I had two of them.  The other three eyes had been destroyed by bomb blast.  Collateral damage indeed.

This Year’s Election

This year’s federal election, should it actually be held, is already being fought by all of the parties.  I say “if it is actually held” because technically, by ignoring their own law, the governing party could delay the election until the five year mark, which would be May 2016.  However, let us assume that the election is held as promised.  I see that the government is already trying to “buy” the election by timing the introduction of an expanded family daycare allowance to start three months before the election.  Isn’t this something the Reform/Conservative parties argued against a few years ago?

US Politics

Man, if we think politics is bad in Canada, we only have to look to the US.  The most recent indecent act must be the letter that 47 Republican senators signed and sent to Iran saying that any agreement reached on nuclear control in that country could or would be torn up after the Republicans win the next election.  Boy, you talk about hubris.  Several countries, not just the US, have been working on such an agreement for years, and now the rug has just been pulled out from under them in one dumb move.  The Republicans who signed the letter don’t even know what the final agreement will look like.  They have given Iran just cause to complain and to blame the US for failure to reach agreement.  It has to be the biggest propaganda coup that Iran has ever been presented on a silver platter.  Not only that, but it makes every other country wonder if any agreement with the US is worth anything.