I don‘t like the message that Celluci is passing on, or at least how he is going about delivering it. Canada should do this, Canada should do that. Canada should, can, and will do what IT thinks is right regardless of the consequences. The people of Canada feel that we are not at risk and that we have other more important priorities.
While I am inclined to believe that we are at risk, and that we should not wait until something has happened before we act, I don‘t think the only solutions include arming ourselves to the teeth, chanting the national anthem in a cult-like manner, and going on invading other sovereign states with our MVP the United States, on their whim. We can condemn terrorist tactics, groups and individuals, we can search for them without invading other countries, we can contribute to the war on terror by trying to be the best people and country that we can be within the international community and taking care of our responsibilities at home, and ‘doing good‘ abroad. Contributing to UN interventions to prevent attrocities, peacekeeping, helping the developing world and helping other countries will help us. We can also try to strengthen internatioanl institutions such as INTERPOL, the new International Criminal Court, and also to try and improve cooperation between respective national security agencies not just between us and US, but between many others too. (I am not ignoring the funding or recruiting deficiencies of our military, just stating how else we can contribute to the war on ‘terrorism‘)
States have obligations to make sure that attacks against other nations do not originate on their soil under international customs and laws, and that‘s why we went into Afghanistan. As a nation, and as Canadians, we have an obligation to make sure ‘terrorists‘ do not operate within our own borders to attack targets at home, or anywhere else in the world, not just the US. But invading countries, upsetting populations already filled with at the very least, a strong, distrust of western countries, only helps feed their (terrorist groups) ranks. They have to get here to perpetrate their disgusting deeds, and I think that we should make that as difficult for them as possible.
Jmacca
Re: "America does not have free health care" In their defence, YES they do. If you are below a certain poverty level there is medicaide. However, there are still roughly 40 million people how make just enough to be uneligible for medicaide, but don‘t make enough to afford private health care insurance. But that is way WAY off topic. The answer to your question about how they do it is in their economy. Now it might not be the best at the moment, but they have roughly 300 million people that SPEND their money and take more credit than any other country in the world to continue to SPEND. Tax revenue for them is FAR greater than us, and many other countries in the world. That is how they do it.
Last Friday I had a short conversation with the Minister of National Defence David Pratt and his top notch Davide Price at a mess dinner here, and also heard them speak and respond to questions. They had also discussed training the reserves to deal with responding to terrorist attacks (re:NBC in particular) as it was one of the only national institutions available to do so. At least that is the way that they are looking at it.
Now although Mr. Pratt doesn‘t have military experience, he does have a strong background in parliamentary committees to know mroe about what he is talking about than many other politicians and former ministers. Mr. Price, who has been working with Mr. Pratt for a LONG time, on the contrary DOES have military experience from the reserve regiment that I am volunteering with, to the regular force as well. (If I heard him correctly - my french abilities are limited but improving but he definitely worked in the reserves, and I am 90% sure he was in the reg force.) So to quench your thirst for a ‘military politician‘, there‘s some information.
Sorry for the long post gents but I think it was worth it.
