Teddy Ballgame

- Black Dog ... 1/ I would but you sound like the type around whom it would be unsafe to drop the soap ... 2/ As I wrote in the previous post, it was an interview with Canada's foremost military historian Jack Granastein, someone who has obviously forgotten more about our military history and policy making than you will ever know, it was copied verbatim from a CP release and what is your point about it or do you prefer just to keep your ignorance covered up by ignoring it? ... 3/ you can't even spell "irrelevant" let alone appreciate that even if something works out to one's advantage by fluke it is always "relevant" and telling to examine the reasons for policy choices and only a moron would claim that reason is irrelevant ... 4/ this is a matter of opinion and obviously we profoundly disagree about it ... you take the view that being the military welfare bum of the entire NATO alliance, forcing the US and other allies to shoulder what should be our fair share of the cost of defending our sovereignty and our western liberal values and those nations who share said values is AN HONOURABLE THING while I believe that we must bear our share of the burden of defending and promoting western liberal values ... I guess for you lefties, anything to do with "welfare" and sponging off others is a good thing, eh? Not for me.

PARTIAL TEXT OF GRANASTEIN'S REMARKS FROM MARCH 2005: Leadership failure behind Que. anti-military, anti-U.S. feelings: Granatstein Fri Mar 4, 2005, 4:31 PM ET STEPHEN THORNE OTTAWA (CP) - A lack of federal leadership has given Quebec's anti-American and anti-military feelings too much sway in Canadian policy and decision-making, one of the country's top historians said Friday. They are two factors about which Canadians do not talk - a deep-rooted anti-Americanism, especially in Quebec, and the province's role in shaping defence policy over successive prime ministers, said Jack Granatstein. Prime Minister Paul Martin has done nothing to counter the feelings or educate Canadians on defence or other issues confronting the two countries, Granatstein told the Conference of Defence Associations annual meeting. "The Liberals, in fact, have more than their share of anti-Americans." Quebec politics is the primary reason the Canadian Forces have been allowed to decay over the last 20 years; it's the major reason Ottawa opted out of U.S. ballistic missile defence; and it's the main reason promised military spending increases will never materialize, he told a defence conference. "By the time of the Iraq (news - web sites) War in 2003, Quebec opinion was the most hostile to the United States and hostile to President (George W.) Bush . . . in Canada," said the author and retired professor. "Suspicion and fear of the United States has had and is having a calamitous effect on Canadian defence and the Canadian Forces." Granatstein said his opinions are not a matter of anti-Quebec feeling but a clear reflection of poll results and a history that included a conscription crisis and an anglophone army that discriminated against French Canadians. "Quebec also has a long history of anti-imperialism, first against the British, now against the United States," he said. "Opinion polls demonstrate consistently that Quebec is the least supportive region in Canada when it comes to having the government take steps to fix the Canadian Forces." Granatstein said Quebec's opposition to military spending is not limited to the man in the street. Four prime ministers from Quebec in the last 40 years - Trudeau, Mulroney, Chretien and Martin - "slashed the Canadian Forces to the cheers of Quebec MPs and voters." Martin's government has promised $12.8 billion in new defence spending over the next five years, but most of it is slated to come in years four and five. With a minority and Liberal belief that Quebec is the only place in which they can make electoral gains, Granatstein said it's unlikely defence will get any real help beyond the "pittance" of $500 million allotted this year. "The same attitudinal problems affect and shape the ballistic missile defence issue, which was opposed sharply by the Quebec Liberal caucus and by the Quebec Liberal women's caucus," he said. Likewise, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper "wobbled" on the issue because he feared consequences in Quebec, as did the New Democrats, said Granatstein. All of the parties are trying to crack or keep Quebec by opposing missile defence and most are openly anti-American and anti-military, he said. "What is lacking is leadership - leadership from the prime minister," he said. "We desperately need political leadership." It should be no surprise that most Canadians turned against ballistic missile defence, given "the total absence of leadership by the prime minister and his ministers" and their lack of effort to "counter the lies and misrepresentations" about the program, he added. Canada needs a prime minister, regardless of political stripe, language or province of origin, who will educate Canadians and "talk more about national interests and less about values - squishy values." It needs a prime minister who will "argue against pernicious, mindless anti-Americanism and especially to work at persuading francophones that their interests, like all Canadians' national interests, will be better served by a robust Canadian Forces that can protect Canada's friends, Canadian sovereignty and the Canadian people in a dangerous world."

- Shady - While I agree that each of the four reasons you posited for our shirking of our global responsibilities and our abandonment of our traditional allies the US and the UK played a part in the decision to stay out of iraq, I submit that you omitted the most important reason of them all. - For more than six months before the March 2003 Co-alition strike agaisnt Saddam Insane and his murdurous thugs who had enslaved, impoverished, tortured, exhiled and otherwise tormented the more than 80% of Iraqis who weren't part of the ruling Sunni tribe for some 35 years then PM Jean Chretien talked a tough game insofar as the need to topple Saddam and gave Bush and Blair the impression that he would be on side in their mission. As well, number two Liberal and PM In Waiting - Captain Panama Paul Dithers - didn't even dither on this issue and was part of the substantial minority and quite possibly even a slight majority at the time in the Liberal caucus who favoured going into Iraq to topple Saddam. - However, there was one small problem to consider. While February and March 2003 polling showed that a slight majority of Canadians (55-60%) in TROC favoured us joining our traditional allies in the Iraq incursion, opposition to such a venture was overwhelming in socialist, pacifist, isolationist Quebec, running somewhere between 75-80%. Just five weeks away there would be a provincial election in Quebec and the Liberal leader Jean Charest was running neck and neck with the separatist PQ leader Bernard Landry. The election was considered to be too close to call at that point. - Jean Chretien - who, unlike Bush, is a true moron who speaks neither official language, looks like the driver of the getaway car, became PM by seniority in kissing ass and climbing the greasy Liberal poll rather than by any discernible merit, and who is unknown to ever have had a single original or creative or important thought or idea in his more than forty years on The Hill - managed always to reduce every issue to the lowest common political denominator rather than to consider the big picture in the long term. Accordingly, he determined that joining our US, UK, Austrailian and other allies in ridding the ME of its most unstable and dangerous and threatening tyrant might very well cost his Liberal counterpart in Quebec the provincial election. Faced with the choice of doing what was principled and important over the long term in the grand scheme of things and doing what was popular and expedient and good for the Liberal Party in Quebec in the short term, this was a slam dunk decision. - Afterwards, Chretien and his closest advisers came up with various ex post facto bullshit spins to con the rubes and to arm the usual left-lib suspects with rationales for why Canada did its sudden about face regarding Saddam. The funniest one was probably that Canada was not really a sovereign country where foreign policy and military operations were concerned but merely a handmaiden of the UN and would take its direction from that thoroughly corrupted and discredited club for Saddam, Mugabe, Arafat and other dictators. This meant, according to Chretien, that Canada would stand by at the ready and would respond to a UN call to invade Iraq when the UN decided that Saddam had violated enough UN resolutions for long enough. - Of course, as our only post Korea distinguished general Lewis McKenzie noted in an op-ed piece in the Globe at that time, it was well known by all that the UN would never actually stand up and hold Saddam to account for his continuing violations of numerous UN resolutions and his ignoring of the other obligations he signed on to fulfill after The Gulf War. (As we now know, one of the reasons for the UN's extraordinary tolerance of Saddam was the millions of US dollars in personal fortunes being made by various UN officials and their families and relatives in the Oil-For-Food scam known by the Iraqis as the Oil-For-Palaces program.) - But let us be very clear on the major reason for Chretien's sudden change of mind. It was all about pandering to Quebec as the petty petit parish pump politican that Chretien has always been. It had nothing to do with principle. If I had more time, I would dig up for you a brilliant article by Caanda's leading military historian Professor Granstein castigating Chretien and the Liberals for allowing petty local politics, especially Quebec politics, to determine our foreign and military policy. I think I'll look for it now.

- I enjoyed scanning this lengthy thread of mainly Bushwhacking including the usual left-lib crowd's use of anything even, as in this case, racism and protectionism, to make phony political hay at the expense of the president and the republicans in this mid term elections year. - However, the devious Democrats' Dubai Ports political ploy says more about their own moral and policy bankruptcy and stop at nothing political opportunism as well as their cynical estimate of the American people as a bunch of simplistic know nothing morons easily conned by sophistry than it does about a president who, unlike his predecessor Zipper Billy Clinton, actually has values and vision and will not pander to racism and protectionism. - While I haven't the time today to cut through all the misinformation that has been perpetrated here by the usual Bush bashing suspects, the Globe and Mail's editorial this morning explains and debunks this phony Dubai Ports' issue concisely and correctly. Here it is: Ports in a storm U.S. politicians are raising a ruckus because Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates, is set to take over terminal operations of major ports on the U.S. East Coast. Critics of the deal, which is part of a £3.9-billion ($8-billion Canadian) purchase of British ports operator Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., cite security concerns for their opposition. Yet it is obvious that this has little to do with genuine security issues and everything to do with an uglier side of the American reality since the events of 9/11. The real problem with the company is that it is Arab-owned; and it has become a political football inflated with the foul air of protectionism and bigotry. Dubai Ports World is a respected operator or partner in dozens of port facilities covering every continent and including such shipping centres as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Southampton, Antwerp, Buenos Aires and Vancouver. Its U.S. holdings already include terminals in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Newark, whose security has suddenly become so paramount to U.S. state and federal politicians. Yet the company's acquisition of the international ports business of U.S. freight giant CSX in 2004 did not raise a murmur. The takeover of rival P&O will enable the company to consolidate its position in North America and boost its share of the world market. But it would control none of the ports, bear no responsibility for port security or even have a say in the selection of the work force at most of its facilities. In most cases, it would be just one of several international groups with a commercial stake in the port. This is a fact of life in the shipping trade, which has long been globalized and multinational. It would be extremely damaging for Washington to signal to the world that certain foreign companies are less welcome than others simply because they have Arab ownership. And in this case, it would embarrass the United Arab Emirates, a steadfast ally in a region where the United States needs all the help it can get. The fact that some terrorists have used Dubai as a transit point or that nuclear contraband was shipped through the port has everything to do with security (which has been considerably beefed up thanks to U.S.-prompted initiatives) and nothing to do with the manager of the container terminals. Nevertheless, the Dubai company is well aware of American sensibilities. Eager to assuage any concerns, it has agreed to yet another investigation of the possible security risks posed by the P&O deal, after passing an earlier review by U.S. intelligence agencies. It had previously acquiesced to certain restrictions on its business operations. These include placing all the U.S. operations in a separate business unit that would not be controlled from Dubai. Management of the ports would be in the hands of U.S. citizens and security would be solely the responsibility of local port authorities, federal customs agents, the Coast Guard and various police forces, as has always been the case. That should be enough to allay the concerns of any reasonable U.S. legislators. There are plenty of reasons to be worried about the security of North American ports, which have long been considered vulnerable to terrorism. But ownership of the terminals is not one of them, particularly when the company in question is regarded throughout the shipping world as thoroughly reputable and reliable. Those who still oppose the deal are simply playing a parochial political card that may resonate with an uninformed public but does considerable harm both to the U.S. image among moderate Arabs and to the cause of globalization.

- If one examines carefully the most recent platforms of the US Democratic Party (for the 2004 election) and the Canadian Conservative Party (for the 2006 election), there is little doubt that our CPC would be at least slightly leftward of the Democrats. - Our CPC explicitly endorses a one tier socialized health care system and implicitly endorses much more generous welfare and unemployment and public pension benefits, a significantly higher level of taxation and greater level of government intervention in the economy, many more and much better paid, perked and pensioned public servants, and a much less robust defence capablity and aggressive military posture than Americans would ever let the Democrats try to foist on them. And this doesn't even take into consideration such hot button issues as same sex marriage, decriminaliztion of marijuana, the abolition of capital punishment, official multi-culturalism, the world's most permissive immigration and refugee systems, etc., etc. - Hopefully, some of these more extreme left wing approaches and concomittant harebrained policies will be gradually modified and moderated over time after the CPC forms a majority government about two years from now and as it succeeds in forging what will amount to a new progressive conservative style co-alition to replace the now financially, morally and politically bankrupt Liberal co-alition. - But for now, the CPC is officially to the left of both US parties, even Hysterical Harridan Hillary's misguided Democrats.