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.
Thats a bit harsh considering all Canadians did for Americans during 7/11...looking after your citizens who were forced to land on Canadian soil...sending rescue teams to help in New York...rescuing your diplomats when they were trapped in a foreign embassy...we are not all shit heads you know!
I'll make a prediction. Relations between Canada and the States are going to get far far worse. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't based on the total disregard Canadians have for the U.S. to protect its interests. As a Canadian, this very issue has been very consuming for me as I work in both countries - and am currently looking at whether or not I simply want to pull the plug on home, family and business interests here in Canada and move south. I'm that fed up and concerned about the direction that this country is headed.
Canadians make the best beer in North America. And I find that rural Canucks are a hearty and friendly bunch. But something needs to be done about CBC. Talk about a liberal sewer...It's wall to wall lies and propaganda that rivals the old Pravda.
If someone were to start up a Radio Free Canada, he would make millions.
What'd they do, pump gas and give out free beer?
Yes, we know.
It's not likely you would have been such a long time member of FR otherwise.
Hopefully Canada will someday return to its senses.
Kinda of like the BBC, but I don't think the Canadians have to pay a TV tax to fund the CBC like the Brits do with the BBC.
The CBC like the BBC though doesn't like competiton, looking at how the Canadian government is all for al-jezeera, but mention Fox News, time for the guilliotine.
I have several family members who live in Canada. Most were pro-Clinton during that era and now are anti-Bush. What's interesting, the latest generation coming up ... at least in my experience, are far more conservative than their parents. Maybe there's hope yet ...
The true problem with Canada and the west in general is that, even if a guy like me is starving and looking really hard for a job...any job...he still won't consider a journalist position or a writing position for less than $2000 per month. So the ranks of journalists get filled with the congenital underachievers, which will include the cowards and the nihilists.
What I don't understand is how the OWNERS of the media allow the treason, either in the USA or Canada. I live in Russia where the owners of the media are shot dead if they get too far out of line (treason regarding Chechnya for instance). I sleep at night thinking that the powers that be are actually promoting leftist journalism because they don't want the population urging them to overthrow the corrupt Saudi Family and their billions going partly into the pockets of all the politicians in the west. The idea is that, if you have lefties like Petronius thinking that democracy in Iran is a *bad* thing...if you have fools who think it was a *mistake* to liberate Iraq...there will not be any real pressure to deal with the real problem in Saudi Arabia. When I say that I "sleep at night" thinking this...it means that the powers that be *could* stop the leftists if they only wanted to...if it were only in their interest.
Basically, I think that the Bush Administration is just letting FReepers blow off steam while the forces of the left are deliberately strengthened to counterbalance us and let business go on as it did before 9-11.
The problem with Ottawa is their anti-American, anti-western, hateful leftist views.
You have suggested some very complicated things and I wish I had the time to think it through. One thing, there are certainly forces acting in this world of which we haven't a clue what/who they REALLY are and what their agenda REALLY is. It reminds of what Paul said in Ephesians 6:12 (King James Version) 'For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.'
You have suggested some very complicated things and I wish I had the time to think it through. One thing, there are certainly forces acting in this world of which we haven't a clue what/who they REALLY are and what their agenda REALLY is. It reminds of what Paul said in Ephesians 6:12 (King James Version) 'For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.'
Nope. Sam Adams out of Boston. They do ONE thing right :)
It is now politically verboten to listen to Sirius satellite radio and XM satellite radio, says the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in order to protect boring Canadian radio.
Auto makers have received notice that Dudley Do-Right mounties will prosecute them for installing any satellite radios in their vehicles.
The CRTC explained that it must protect Canada’s cultural diversity and advertising revenue from the evil influences of the free market and free speech.
The brewer made a nice try, but I prefer to read my Sam Adams rather than drink him.
I like my Moosehead ice cold while sitting on a Canadian shoreline enjoying butter fried walleye and roasted duck potatoes.
I think if your ass were on the 38th parallel you might have a very different perspective. All you glib "Concord Ladies" remind me of people second guessing Hiroshima who weren't in units designated to invade Japan. Other people's lives are cheap when their preservation would give you the vapors.
This will have an enormous cost (or benefit).
1) Liberals out of power, with support limited to urban pockets.
2) Quebec separation, as the Conservatives will be in power with virtually no support in that socialist province.
I wish you would invite me for dinner, that just made my mouth water :)
I'm sure that we are not the only American Family which considers the Canadians to be French Lite. We buy nothing from Canada and will not go there for vacations.
Feel free to come up, just keep out of Quebec, where most of the anti-American sentiment is based!
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