Posted on 08/06/2005 2:35:46 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
Harvey M. Sapolsky, who directs the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told some unpleasant home truths to Canadians last month in a full-page article published in the National Post. There has been little response to it, either officially or editorially, and that is significant.
"Canada is a security risk to the United States," wrote Sapolsky. "Anti-Americanism is the unstated essence of the modern Canadian identity." But there are reasons for this. After the Second World War, when Canada's historic British connection began to decline, "the threat of being absorbed, not by a conquering but by a thriving America, was real." The Canadian who succeeded in then U.S. became a "Canadian idol." Canadians came to care as much about American politics as they cared about their own.
To secure a national identity, Canada took over its own constitution. It adopted a Charter of Rights of Freedoms like the American Bill of Rights. "But a constitution does not a country make," and in the end the only thing that came to distinguish Canada was universal health care. That's why "Canada reveres its problem-laden system."
Meanwhile, Canada largely disbanded its armed forces. It had virtually deserted its NATO obligations long before the Berlin Wall came down. It "briefly sought an international reputation in peacekeeping, but greatly tempered this initiative after disastrous experiences in Somalia, where its troops misbehaved, and in Rwanda, where its leadership was ignored. Today, Canada spends only about 1 percent of its GDP on national defense."
"Canadian politicians learned that opposing American foreign policy was popular at home and carried little risk to Canada of American retaliation." So Canada provided a refuge for American draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. Its contribution to the Gulf War was "token" and it hasn't joined the Iraq War at all. While such things might have "annoyed" senior American bureaucrats, they were understandable, and "no one much cared what Canada said or did."
Yet in other respects, the U.S. should definitely care, he said. For instance, the Ottawa Treaty Banning Land Mines has been actively promoted by Canada because the devices can injure civilians. The U.S. won't sign it because such mines are essential to protect U.S. troops in hostile foreign locations.
Similarly, Canada vigorously promotes the International Criminal Court to prosecute the perpetrators of the evils done in Rwanda and Bosnia. President Clinton refused to send it to the Senate because he saw that the treaty could be used to prosecute American peacekeepers.
These treaties "intentionally undermine America's military equities" and "seem to represent a deeper and more dangerous decision by Canada's foreign-policy establishment to lead the international effort to hobble the American military."
This attitude should concern Americans greatly because Canadian and American forces are vastly intertwined in continental defense. On occasion, Canadian officers command American troops. Canadian plants produce American military vehicles. Sometimes, Canadian ships sail as part of American fleets.
Therefore, Americans "should not tolerate Canada seeking a leading role in the global coalition to thwart American power needed to protect U.S. citizens and interests. Canada has given up on warfare; it can afford to, though the U.S. cannot."
The final straw was the Martin government's decision last spring not to participate in the U.S. ballistic missile defense program. This shows that the time has come for Americans "to give Canada some attention and a bit of a warning."
"Canada is easy to squeeze. Military trade preferences for Canada should end. The tag-along trips and combat observation opportunities should stop." These might be "small steps," but if Canada "continues its international meddling at our expense and forgets its geography" further steps involving "even greater costs for Canada" should be taken. Canada should be made to "know where its economic prosperity originates."
Two points about this article need be noted. For one, it's more than a mere opinion piece. Coming from MIT's security studies group, it will be semi-official, one stage below a formal diplomatic warning. The fact that Ottawa has not yet not prompted some Canadian academic to respond to it is likewise significant.
The second point is this: To a degree probably unrealized in Washington – and Ottawa too, for that matter – two Canadas have long been developing – one centered in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, the other in the West. The bizarre antics of the former have become so offensive to the latter that discussions of some form of separation have become commonplace among responsible people, particularly in Calgary. In deciding how to respond to this Canadian phenomenon, Americans might bear this in mind.
Ted Byfield published a weekly news magazine in western Canada for 30 years and is now general editor of "The Christians," a 12-volume history of Christianity.
BC would make a good 51st state.
I got my MBA from the University of Toronto in 1991. But the leftist attitude so permeated the city at that time that I wanted to leave, never to return...even though I did not really understand that the bad attitude was "leftist." I did not really understand that it was anti-American in Toronto so much as anti-white-male. I live in Moscow, Russia now. This is a pro-American environment and a pro-male environment. I consider both of these as essential elements that Toronto did not have.
I was thinking Alberta.
Unfortunately, BC is like the American left coast. It can be as leftist as Toronto. It is, in fact, the lesbian capital of the world. The conservative west in Canada includes only the interior of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan and maybe Manitoba. I would love to see these provinces try to secede from Canada as a warning to Ottawa to get with the program. The Maritime Provinces...unfortunately...are also more left wing than necessary. They are pro-American only in the sense that they would be pro-Hillary. My sister lives in Newfoundland and she was totally shocked and befuddled when I told her last October that I was voting for George Bush. I then learned that, in eastern Canada, she had never heard anything from the media but negatives about the President, Iraq, etc. She had never been given a chance to form an alternative opinion.
very true!
Here in Florida we get an invasion of Canadians late in the fall and they stay till after Easter.
Though they are kinda cheap because their dollar is worth about 80% of our dollar and they can't buy as much and they tip poorly, they for the most part are really pleasant.
That is except for the french canadians. They smell and are way snotty. Cheap is a way of life as is rudness.I'd rather have illegal Guatamalans that work,mind their own business and are polite as can be then have legal french canadians.
Lipstick or butch? We need to make an informed decision.
Coming from MIT's security studies group, it [the article] will be semi-official.... Which is almost as bad as being on "double-secret probation."
So Canada provided a refuge for American draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. Much like Northern states once provided a refuge for slaves. Conscription and slavery: the difference is...?
This shows that the time has come for Americans "to give Canada some attention and a bit of a warning." Damn! Just as I was getting pumped for our invasion of Iran.
Ted Byfield published a weekly news magazine... And judging from the ideas expressed in these articles, he & Sapolsky cook a wicked batch of meth.
My bad, it seems that, apart from that Lesbian Capital thing, BC would not make a good state after all.
Canadians, including most of the so-called conservatives, believe that the only thing that can be done to solve their very serious problems is to rob their neighbours to pay themselves. Well, not the only thing; they'd like to make everything either forbidden or compulsory.
Eastern Canada is a ringside seat at a train wreck. But all the Americans need to do about it is refuse to equip our military (so-called) and, when the terrorists do come and blow up Toronto, decline to come and help them rebuild the city, or bail out their medical personnel who can't handle a normal summer weekend much less a disaster. Just politely tell them that you understood nobody would ever attack Canada because they supported the people who had just blown them up, and you have already committed all your resources.
The Canadian atrocities this article cites are truly numbing. Promoting a treaty to ban land mines? How dare they! And an International Criminal Court? How would Kissinger travel abroad?
Interesting observations.
I'm learning to speak Canadian. We're going to be hip deep in Canucks around here pretty soon.
I used to listen quite regularly to Radio Canada on shortwave, (even though I'm in the greater
Montreal broadcasting area, including 3 tv channels on cable), and you'd be hard pressed not to tell the
difference between a CNN radio newsbreak during the day, and what RCI used to run at 6PM Eastern Time.
Okay, the Canadian accents may give it away, but story, the spin, etc., was indistinguishable from any LSM broadcast.
In other words, the NYSlimes set the agenda.
You want to ad another Washington State or Oregon???
No it wouldn't.
Of course it would give us land communication with Alaska.
But it's a liberal cesspool.
Alberta has oil and a better political culture.
British Columbia could agree to be a territory until they clean up their act.
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