Posted on 06/16/2004 6:23:25 PM PDT by wagglebee
A new Web site, launched by the Canadian Embassy in Washington, blames rampant Canadian anti-Americanism on "urban legends".
Even in the face of anti-American shots by party leaders in last night’s first English federal election TV debate, CanadianAlly.com boasts about Canada’s "huge contribution to the war on terrorism". Canada, of course, sat it out on the sidelines when America and the coalition went to war against Saddam Hussein.
"Canada is better being under the United Nations than being under the Star Spangled Banner," Canadian Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe said last night.
In a debate where Prime Minister Paul Martin continued to attack Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for being too pro-American, Martin blasted Harper for writing a letter to the editor "apologizing because we didn’t go to war" and for doing it in the Wall Street Journal, "a foreign newspaper".
Specifically designed to capture an American audience, CanadianAlly.com is both bought and paid for by the Canadian Embassy--the Canadian Government.
Listed among Canada’s "huge contribution to the war on terrorism" are "18 warships" and "11,000 troops that have been dispatched overseas since 2001.
Since the troops dispatched have been rotated over three years and considering that there have never been 11,000 troops on the ground at the same time, the figure while not exactly a whopper is seriously misleading.
Canada did dispatch 5 ships with 1,200 troops to Afghanistan.
"Since Osama bin Laden didn’t have submarines, they weren’t much use," military expert and Espirt de Corps publisher Scott Taylor told Canadafreepress.com.
Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Robertson, creator of CanadianAlly.com, listed as the embassy’s Counsellor Military-Media Affairs, is on the Canadian government payroll.
The site shows the thin skin of the Canadian Government with a "Myth Buster" section, in which visitors are reminded, among other things, that the massive blackout of last August did not originate in Canada, in a roundabout way of saying it was all the Americans’ fault.
"There is a lot of misinformation out there," according to Lt. Col. Robertson.
The election-bound Canadian Government is still touchy about news media accounts that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers came through Canada.
While no hijackers came through Canada, there is no mention of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien saving so-called "Canadian charity worker" Ahmed Said Khadr from a Pakistani prison where he was nabbed for plotting terrorist escapes. Neither is there any reference to Prime Minister Paul Martin speaking out in support of members of the Khadr family when they returned to Toronto for medical assistance. Family members who openly admitted to having close ties to bin Laden were entitled to their opinions as Canadian citizens as far as Martin was concerned.
Unveiled last month, after several months of no updating CanadianAlly.com is targeting Washington, D.C. bigwigs, all the way from the policy wonks on Capitol Hill to the think tanks and political commentators most often quoted by the U.S. media.
Marketing efforts for the site have been feverish with the recent distribution of pens, Thermos mugs and desk clocks emblazoned with the site’s domain name.
According to Lt. Col. Robertson "thousands" have already clicked on to the site.
The site’s main mission is to convince Americans that despite recent disagreements, Canada is fully committed to the war on terrorism and the protection of North America.
Tell it to Prime Minister Paul Martin and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe.
Canada has basked in the knowledge that America will always be there, and that's fine; but there comes a point in time where as Bush said: "You are either with us, or you are against us."
'... there comes a point in time where as Bush said: "You are either with us, or you are against us."'
Since we have contributed to the WOT, I guess that answers the above question.
Can you explain what you mean by that? I know a lot of Canadians are behind America, but the Prime Minister doesn't really seem to care.
I didn't realize your comment was directed at the Prime Minister. Also, I wouldn't worry about him as he will be out of power after June 28.
I do a lot of business with Canadians, all of your countrymen who I have met are great people. I just don't understand why your country keeps electing socialist; oh yeah we had Bubba for eight grueling years, enough said. I hope your right about the vote later this month.
Canada better HOPE we will always be there. However, the world should really think about what a massive terror strike on the US might produce, and what the world would look like afterwards, and what their own economies would look like.
The "world" is playing coy saying the war on terror is OK but the war on Iraq is not. They just don't have the courage to stand beside us in Iraq.
We Americans should keep a little history in mind, when talking about our allies reluctance to go to war in Iraq. The Western Democracies don't move to war easily. Frankly, because war is something good people, in control of their governments, don't desire.
Remember:
Britain and her Dominions (Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa et al) stood alone against Hitler from France's collapse through Pearl Harbor. The good old U.S.A. helped out with arms and some semi-coverts in China but we were essentially on the sidelines from September 1939 through December 1941.
In 1956, our allies France, the UK and Israel went to war against Egypt for seizing and nationalizing the British/French Suez Canal (the equivilent of their Panama Canal) and we actively opposed them, perhaps rightly.
No doubt Anti-Americanism is in vogue. But never forget it is not Iraq. The Euro Left went to war in the Balkins with no more cause or authority than Iraq. The USA is the leading alternative, globally, to Euro style socialism. Remember William Buckley Jr's instruction .. the Left has no enemies on the Left.
Anti-Americanism is really the second place socialist leading the rest of the global failures in opposing their superior alternative and therefore, threat. So anti-Americanism aka anti-capitalism is also in vogue with reformed and unreformed communists - Chicoms; state fascists - Baathists; state populists - Peronists; and state mafias - the French Center Right Coalition and Kofi's UN). Socialism's only alternative is Democratic Capitalism - led by the US Republican Party, the British, Aussie and Canadian Conservatives and Japan's Liberals, with kindred spirits on the Right in Spain, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Denmark and elsewhere. The US Democrats, the British Labour Party, the German Christian Democrats and maybe even elements within Putin's Russian Orthodox Nationalists are torn between the two.
The war in Iraq is merely an opportunity to wage opposition to and undermine our alternative Democratic Capitalism to their socialism.
1939 - 1980 was the world conceived by FDR and Churchill.
1980 - the present is the world conceived by Reagan and Thatcher.
Chirac-Annan Mafias, Euro Left Intellectuals, obsolete 2nd & 3rd World Leftist intellectuals and Pols, and Islamofacist Neanderthals not withstanding.
Cheers
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