The Iraq War

[Sionnach Glic]

Exactly.

[Lt. Staplic]

unless you're both in quicksand and the only way out is to cooperate.

[Mikey]

KM - yes, you make perfect sense. Exactly what I was trying to say.

And yes, we (and any other nation) has to take care of itself, but "No man is an island (John Donne.)" Nothing exists in a vacuum; we might be in a poorer position to help globally if unstable internally, but the reverse is also true - we might be in a poorer position to stabilize ourselves if in an unstable larger world.

[KuvahMagh]

KM - yes, you make perfect sense. Exactly what I was trying to say.

Yeah I figered Americans would, I was mostly worried that some wack job Canadian might see my location and raise hell over the fact that Canada's first ever military mission, other than saving all of the fuzzie wuzzies from the Great Depression, was in 1956 with UNEF. There is an alarming many who try and hold onto the idea that Canadians were always Peace Keepers and it pisses me off.

Case in Point, other than the Royal Military College, there is only ONE University in all of Canada that has a Military History Course in its History Program. You can Graduate University as a History Major without taking a SINGLE Canadian History Course. The average High School Student will spend roughly 2-3 weeks dealing with the War of 1812, Boer War, WW1, WW2, Korea depending on the Year, Tops, maybe 4 if they have a good Teacher.

That's why they don't like Afghanistan very much, they don't believe our Military should be involved in Combat, they should be helping the fuzzie wuzzies by bringing Peace and Love to the World...

[Tsukiyumi]

Care Bear Stare!!!


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[KuvahMagh]

Care Bear Stare!!!


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Pretty much lol

[Lt. Staplic]

Quit complaining your governments to lovey dovey, during the 20's they were helping the stream of illegal liquor runnig through the US, so their expert cons, you just have to convince them to do it in Iraq/Afganistan!
lol

[Mikey]

Canada's first ever military mission, other than saving all of the fuzzie wuzzies from the Great Depression, was in 1956 with UNEF.

What about the Devil's Brigade in (I think) 1944? Canadians comprised nearly half.

[KuvahMagh]

Canada's first ever military mission, other than saving all of the fuzzie wuzzies from the Great Depression, was in 1956 with UNEF.

What about the Devil's Brigade in (I think) 1944? Canadians comprised nearly half.

Thats what I mean, Canadians have this view that we didn't deploy until the Suez Crisis when we went to War in 1812, again in South Africa, we were in WW1 & WW2 before America & again in Korea. We sat out Vietnam but had no quams what so ever about making money off of it like we were there.

As to the FSSF (Devil's Brigade) the general amounts varied IIRC but it was a joint Unit between Canada & America. For anyone interested in the Units history, the Movie is not very true I would advise reading 'A Perfect Hell' by John Nadler. It started out in '42 though. I know the book's description talks about Canada but most of the interviews with the Soldiers are from American Soldiers. Many of the Canadians in the Unit eventually settled in America after the War though. Its a pretty fair and balanced look at the Unit from its training in Montana through to their end.

[Captain Seafort]

Thats what I mean, Canadians have this view that we didn't deploy until the Suez Crisis

If nothing else, haven't these jokers ever heard of Vimy?

[KuvahMagh]

They like to believe that we were always peacekeepers and thats all we ever should be.We are supposed to be friendly, polite, gentle, basically we only deploy to save those that the evil american empire failed to kill. For a long time it was political suicide to spend any money on new equipment, this has been painfully demonstrated by the Sea King which for those of you who don't know has earned itself a nice little song from the people who had to keep flying them.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/11-21-2002-30759.asp

There is even a link to the song being sung.

Combat Uniforms remained largely unchanged from Korea/Vietnam era, pay raises were pretty much unheard of through the 80s, the first real one being when Chretien took Office, it would be his last real bone to the Military though.

But after all America will protect us, that's what the pieces of paper say. I have no doubt they will protect us, their National Interests dictate that no threat be allowed to originate or hold part of North America. So they will protect us, the question most Canadians forget to ask themselves is do we want them forcing that protection onto us and making us a vassal state or do we want to be able to protect ourselves with only their assistance.

[Mikey]

I, for one, would rather have you protect yourself. Not that I begrudge assisting a continental neighbor; rather, I'd rather not be in a position in which the more right-of-aisle minds in this country could interpret that assistance as an invitation to enforce policy or whims on another sovereign nation.

[KuvahMagh]

I, for one, would rather have you protect yourself. Not that I begrudge assisting a continental neighbor; rather, I'd rather not be in a position in which the more right-of-aisle minds in this country could interpret that assistance as an invitation to enforce policy or whims on another sovereign nation.

Exactly, there is a lot of anti-americanism here, I admit to taking part in it more than I should, but the Country needs to wake up and realize that deliberatly pissing off the American Government is only hurting us in the long run. Realistically we will never spend the same amount that America does on Defence and we don't need to. What we do need is the ability to project a reasonably sized Force around the world on short notice on our own. Hell to be able to deploy something inside of our own Country during a disaster/attack would be nice.

[Mikey]

It's part of the mindset of the right-of-the-aisle set. As we mentioned, it's far too easy to fall into the fallacy of "we do stuff for you, so we should have the right to impose our will upon you." Of course, it's unreasonable to expect Canada to spend the same on defense as the US; even a similar % of GNP would be a smaller number. But the surest way to harness and overcome some of that anti-American sentiment would be to generate some degree of independence.

Of course, there has definitely been a Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, etc.; maybe you guys should advertise that more.

[KuvahMagh]

It won't change, People know we are there they just don't want us to be, though the situation is changing. People are generally supporting the troops alot more than they used to. That will only last until we pull out then they will be pushed to the side once again.