FocusCanada Forums

.. listen for the comment about canada.

advertising their ignorance during election campains now.

darkpuppet,Oct 27 2006, 09:21 AM Wrote: .. listen for the comment about canada.

advertising their ignorance during election campains now.
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I think it was meant sarcastically.

sarcastic or not, our troops are dying for something they cant finish.

Flofocus,Oct 27 2006, 10:10 AM Wrote:sarcastic or not, our troops are dying for something they cant finish.
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And Harper's so far up GWB's ass over it we won't leave until Canada runs out of troops or Afghanistan is completely devoid of people.

Something tells me that this won't die down anytime soon. Each time a suicide bomber succeeds against UN forces, they have 10 more willing to blow themselves up. We can't compete against that level of fanatacism.

Perhaps if American cable and satelite providers carried Canadian TV networks like Canadian providers carry American networks, then American's might have a better understanding of Canadians.

And I hope it never happens, but I suspect that if terrorists took out the CN Tower then Canadians might understand Americans a little better.

It is a shame that as close as the two countries are, as much as they share in common, that there is bigotry on both sides of the border.

Its Tennessee, what do you except.

thats probably the lamest add ive seen a looooooooong time.

Flofocus,Oct 27 2006, 10:10 AM Wrote:sarcastic or not, our troops are dying for something they cant finish.
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Let's remind ourselves that Afghanistan was a NATO and UN sanctioned action.

We DO belong to NATO and the UN right? Last I checked we were.

Iraq is a different story, which is why our troops aren't there.

The problems we have in Afghanistan has just as much to do with years of neglect by our government as an extension of our pacifist Liberal public mindset.

We went from a nation with the fifth or sixth biggest navy in the world to a shadow of a yacht club. And our Air Force is as bad or worse.

And before any of you give any crap, I was in our military, I was in for three years in the mid '80s, at the time we were still using C series FN rifles that were bought during the Korean War. I was looking at a career in the military, but I could see the writing on the wall.

We let our military slide because we were spending more time and money propping up social programs and depending on the US to protect us from the Commies. And now that the Commies are gone there are people out there deluding themselves that the world is just peachy and we don't need a military, and all we need is love. We spend our days slapping each other over the back for being a caring charitable nation that is overtaxed to death and can't defend ourselves from a troop of Eagle Scouts with Swiss Army knives.

Hell, we can't even keep a lid on our own citizens that mean us harm (yes I live 10 minutes from Caledonia), what would we do if another country went up against us? We're sitting on one of the biggest supplies of oil in the world, and what could we do?

It has nothing to with the quality of the men and women that serve -- I applaud them for going in knowing that the public at large has screwed them over. You can't do surgery with a butter knife, but that's what we've given them.

If I was my grandfather (RIP) who took a bullet and grenade shrapnel in WWII, I'd be embarrassed at what our military has become. We've abandoned a lot of dedicated people.

It's no wonder Americans don't understand us -- I don't understand us. We waaaawaaawaaa and bitch about the US this and the US that, but if the s*** hit the fan we'd be hiding behind them. If I were them, I'd have a bad opinion of us too.

Sorry about the rant, this has been festering a while.

lol, your talking to a base brat, father is a captain in the air force, held a 2 year contract with the UN, and fought overseas.

Like he tells me, The US bombed the s*** out of the mountains looking for Binfawckin, now were theyre to clean it up.

Yes, its NATO, yes its UN, yes were part of both, but this is the americans mess, not ours.

Our troops are doing helluva job over there, and Im proud of them, but I would like them to come home soon. Its slowly turning into the next Iraq.

Like I said, I have every respect for our troops (as individuals), and I think it's terrible for anyone to become a casualty.

I just think that it's way to easy to blame the US entirely for the situation; we have a responsibility as a nation to uphold the treaties we have and organizations we belong to (namely NATO and the UN), and that we (as a nation) are also at fault for not being entirely prepared for the task.

Yes, there are bigots on both sides of the border, that I have absolutely no doubt. But we cannot complain on one hand about not receiving recognition for what we did to help during 911, and on the other handback out in Afghanistan, and expect to be thought highly of.

Fader,Oct 27 2006, 11:15 AM Wrote:And I hope it never happens, but I suspect that if terrorists took out the CN Tower then Canadians might understand Americans a little better.[right][snapback]213554[/snapback][/right]

I take your point, and yes we have the benefit of not having suffered that indignity.

But on the other hand neither has Canada actively worked to destabilize other countries (politically and economically) or topple governments or engage in arming factions in other countries and assasinating people in foreign countries who don't think as we do - so it's unlikely we will become a target except for perhaps our support of the U.S.

Having said all that the majority of Canadians have a much greater understanding of our US cousins then they do of us - and specifically with reference to 9/11 there was and is a high level of support here for the efforts to deal with Bin Laden - hence our 4 almost 5 years in Afghanistan.

That's what disturbed me the most about that ad ... that a politician would endorse the perpetuation of that kind of myth ... that we aren't doing our part to fight terrorism.

It's bad enough that the general population knows little or nothing about their biggest trading partner ... unacceptable that a politician running in a federal election would choose to include that clip in their ad.

It's very simple... Canadians aren't working to "spread democracy", and therefore we don't need to re-count our skyscrapers. Canadians aren't imposing their will on other countries, and therefore we haven't suffered as many casualities (yet) as the Americans for their foolhardy charges into Afghanistan and Iraq.

Call it what you will, but the only difference between the two wars (and make no mistake, Afghanistan IS a war) is that in Afghanistan the U.S. waited for UN approval. In Iraq they got impatient and saw the dollar signs... and charged headlong into the fray, looking for mobile WMD trucks and trailers that never existed.

Sure, bad things were happening in Afghanistan. However, America should have been WELL AWARE of the potential for harm considering they helped get the Taliban installed after they ousted the Russians in the 1980s! What else did they expect when they put fanatical religious hardliners in place???

So now, under the UN mandates and resolutions, we're sacrificing Canadians because the world doesn't yet resemble the geopolitical layout the Americans have in mind. At this rate, between America and Israel, we're going to have a LOT more work to do in the next 10-15 years.

I'm with ZTWSquared...

I lost a couple of friends in the WTC attacks. And I'm not sure any Canadian could think that it didn't hit close to home.

What bothers me is the constant policy in America of rule by ignorance. So much time and effort is spent to actually create ignorance to shape the population's beliefs systems.

Wether it's the GOP's policy on abstinence as the only form of sex education to their endless rhetoric on 'democracy' and 'terrorism' to convince their own people they are acting in the best interests of the region.

It's the exact same thing that got them into trouble in the first place. They spend so much time and effort pushing their own foreign policies in other people's backyards, yet they don't understand why people are pissed at them. They don't try to see or understand the whole picture, they just resort to ignorant rhetoric to make their points.

And it pisses me off that you have people vying for government that are making statements that are not only false, but even if they were made in pure jest and sarcasm, there's a good chance that the majority of people would still believe it and base their beliefs system on that nugget of misinformation.

Sure we've done the same and criticized the US, but honestly, if I can't criticize the US for making false statments about my country, i'm just bowing to their campaign of misinformation.