Signals.Cpl

NATO as an alliance steps in when asked, the British did not ask, NATO did not intervene. NATO does not have the authority to step in and force a government to accept help. Where was NATO in the FLQ crisis? Oka? In all of those situations, it was an internal problem which the Nation's involved wanted to sort out themselves, rather than handing over their sovereignty to NATO or the US. How many times did Israel ask for our help? BTW I am pretty sure Canada was involved in all of them... See UN missions in the middle east, maybe to no effect but there we were. I skimmed it over as I have other things to do that are ever so slightly more important, but those nations war there, and still are there, they have therefore fulfilled any NATO commitments, and then some.

Would that warrant an intervention by NATO because one of those nations was a NATO member?

NATO is a defensive alliance, rather than an offensive alliance at the beck and call of the US whenever they feel like launching a war of aggression. Why does it matter? We had fulfilled our responsibility as part of NATO, anything after the collapse of the Taliban is not NATO's responsibility, but we as a whole decided to make it ours. So? In both world wars Canada was ill prepared yet I don't think many would complain that Canada turned our backs on our allies. Drawing down != abandoning our allies. So? You seem a little confused... the outrage of Rwanda is in Rwanda, I'm sure they are still pissed off with the UN, and the west. The CAR had internal problems, Somalia sealed their fate, as the government was looking at the Infantry regiments in order to downsize and the CAR just waltz in to the spotlight. Explain how the US was in need.Did Iraq invade the US? Were they planning to? Did they even have the capabilities to do anything other than surrender en masse? There are significant differences between standing up for an ally, and letting said ally drag you in to a war of aggression.

Vietnam was a colonial war lost by the French, picked up by the Americans, Vietnam had nothing to do with Canada, and since the US had voluntarily involved itself in Vietnam NATO had no reason to support them. I realize you are grasping at straws here, but Vietnam was a war of aggression by the US regardless of the reasoning behind their involvement, likewise Iraq was a war of choice thus not our problem regardless of the reasoning behind it. I don't know you tell me. Why did Canada deploy troops to Afghanistan in 2003?

I don't think you understand the concept of NATO. Afghanistan stopped being our problem after we removed the Taliban from power, but the Canadian government like many other NATO governments made it our problem when they decided try their hand in Nation building. No And yet, Canada still was committed to our allies, its one thing to have poorly equipped forces ready to protect your allies, and its another thing to abandon your allies. I didn't know Rwanda was our ally. A unit had to go, Somalia just provided the unit. So in your opinion, Canada and Canadians will willingly turn our backs on an ally in need? And this "micro sampling" does not represent anything, just like Rabble does not represent the opinions of Canadians, just like Stormfront would not represent the US public opinion.

Our allies, maybe they aren't important to you, but to the rest of us they are important. Keeping the region as stable as possible, this is one of the most important reasons to Canada. How many times was there a request? I don't know if they did or did not partake in the same tempo, maybe they are just better equipped, or luck of the draw and they get less volatile AO.

And you think that they are so well guarded and spread out so far apart in that vast country of Syria to be untouchable? I think that Assad is consolidating all of his special weapon systems as he has enough problems with defection to risk giving his enemy the weapons, he is worried about handing those weapons over to his enemies rather than the west.

15 years for possessing an illegal weapon, 5 years for using said weapon in a crime... then and only then do we start discussing the actual crime, if its murder add another 20 years.

How about Saudi Arabia? I don't think it gets tougher than that, yet they have lower homicide rate than Canada. What about Poland? I don't think their laws are too lenient and they have a low homicide rate.

Yeah, sure... they have the weapons, but I doubt that they have that many.

They have a direct interest, just like we do. I understand that you don't like NATO, but thankfully most Canadians are not like you and would honour our commitment to our allies. As for protecting Jordan, it is in the best interest of the US to do so as they have worked hard to secure their allies in the Middle East so abandoning them now would just negate that hard work.

No, those above examples had a lot to do with Canada, but Canada did NOT have to interfere mainly because NATO is a defensive alliance and not an offensive alliance so Iraq and Vietnam were out... We did not have to join those wars because they were both OFFENSIVE wars of choice, and as for the Falkland's we had no reason to interfere until Britain had requested assistance... Syria is different because it is close to a NATO member and is therefore our duty to defend that NATO member should the need arise wether it is in our best interest or not to go to war we have a duty... I don't know about you, but to me my word is important, if I say I will do something it's done, in this case as long as Canada is a member of NATO and has taken the responsibility of protecting every other member we have to do so. As for the middle east being destabilized, it is in our best economic interest to limit or downright eliminate the instability. Those are the troops that Germany, Italy and France have currently deployed to Afghanistan seems to me like they are doing their part.

Special Forces could remove the Chemical weapon's threat and do what they are trained to do...train the indigenous forces to fight their own wars.

1)The support would have gone to Turkey against Greece, but I highly doubt the US would have ever let it go that far... the way I understand it was that the US was instrumental in pushing for the UN to take on the Cyprus mission in order to keep the southern Flank secure if it ever came to backing one or the other, Turkey would have been the logical one as they were the second most populous NATO member 2)Vietnam was an French war inherited but the Americans which had nothing to do with a NATO, just like our Peacekeeping missions didn't require our NATO allies to automatically assist us. 3)Falkland Islands was a British problem and they kept it a British problem. If the UK had asked for assistance from NATO it would have been a NATO problem. 4)Iraq did not attack a NATO member, NATO members attacked Iraq... big difference. Germany: 4900 France: 3300 Italy: 3800 Canada: 500

CSOR, US Army Rangers, JTF2, SAS, Delta, CJIRU, SEAL's, CBIRF and the many other units that could deal with threats in a more efficient manner than a full-scale invasion/occupation plus they are trained and equipped to deal with such situations,.

Cyprus was a very sensitive situation that I personally think was dealt with in a proper way, that one was a lose-lose situation that had the opportunity to destabilize NATO's southern flank at the hight of the Cold War. And back to the sandbox, when did NATO members refuse to help in Afghanistan?

There are other ways to deal with the situation in Syria than sending under equipped personnel.

The first two deal with NATO, and I understand your dislike for our continuous membership in NATO but until such a time as we cease to be a member attacks on our allies do have a great effect. Then there is the destabilizing the region, this affects us greatly,if we let the violence in Syria destabilize the region further there would be a drastic increase the price of oil, and thus threaten our economy as well as others.

I am using statistics from a legitimate organization, whereas you are telling me those statistics are useless because you assume China is disorganized and dishonest, until you present facts to disprove the statistics and/or support your claims I will stick to my position.

You are making an assumption, and you know what they say about assumptions right?

Depends on wether or not it proves your point, if it showed high violent crime rate and proved your argument then you would be singing a different tune. For the moment since you are not presenting much in the way of evidence to support your claims, I am sticking to the statistics.

If you have proof I would like to see it, because how it seems to me is that you can point at the US and say that harsher sentences do not reduce violent crime, and then when someone points out that harsher sentences DO reduce violent crime you state its because of bad record keeping. Anything that proves your point is right, anything that disproves your point is wrong.

You are right, look at China, lower homicide rate per 100,000 people than Canada. I think we should be happy every year that we manage to bring down the homicide rate, for a good number I would say less than the year before. We should celebrate every little victory, I don't think we can completely eliminate violent crime, but as long as we can keep lowering the rate we should be happy. I don't think it comes down to how many murders that are committed in the city, its more of where. As long as a majority of the violent crime was restricted to a specific area or a few specific locations people don't really notice the homicide rate much aside from another shooting in the news. Right now people are more worried because of such high profile locations as the Eaton Centre in which case the crimes move to the forefront because people don't feel safe because it is happening in our perceived "safe" area's.

-Turkish Air Force plane shot down http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2163281/Turkish-fighter-jet-downed-Syria-Mediterranean-Sea-Turkey-promises-determined-response.html -fighting near the Turkish border http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-syria-crisis-turkey-borderbre86i11j-20120719,0,2129252.story http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/us-syria-crisis-border-rebels-idUSBRE86I15320120719 -mass refugees out of Syria in to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan which might lead to fighting between the different ethnic groups INSIDE the camps as well as putting serious pressure on those countries, for example Jordan which has around 140,000 Syrian refugees now has to support those people with at least minimal healthcare, food, shelter and water all the while they(Jordan) is experiencing a shortage of water for themselves. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/02/us-syria-refugees-idUSBRE85106020120602 http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0705/Syrian-refugees-flood-Jordan-straining-resources http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-opens-refugee-camp-syrians-160617024.html

Born: September 19, 1986 Captured: July 27, 2002 Now lets do the math, he was 15 years and 311 days, now to you the extra 54 days might make a tremndous difference but to me they dont. You and people like you prefer to say that little shit was 15 when captured but the reality he was less than a month from 16 that...