myata

That may very well be so, Argus. Or, could be simply a blip in the endless play of things. Remenber, it took Europe next to a thousand years to climb out of its own dark age. One question it still does not answer, even if we presume that technical inferiority and regression is true in this place and time, is whether it gives us, as technologically superior race, the right to go to them and meddle in their affairs? Expropriate their land, depose and install governments, play one group against another, pump weapons to our proxies, and so on. And if we say that it does, based purely on technological advantage wouldn't it be like saying that might is the right? I.e. the two thousand years of our history, which may very well have been the bloodiest of all existing civilizations, we really havent' learned that much.

If crusades were "defence", then any war is. E.g Germany defending itself in WWI and II. Japan in Pearl Harbour; US in Vietnam - all nicest examples of "defence". Great analysis, Scott. And by far not the only one, no doubt. Just as you missed that not just religious wars are bad. Wars of conquest are bad. Wars of domination too. Not to mention plain meaningless wars like WWI which tool millions of lives for no reason whatsoever. At last, an honest admission.

The OP intermixes just Islam with "radical Islam" freely, depending on the author's thought of the moment. If we compare "contributions" of major religions, there's no way to ignore those unsavoury moments of our own making, so maybe before going into explorations of other peoples wrongdoings, we should cleen up our own mess first (and even more importantly, still, finally stop creating it?). If it's only "radical" part we need to talk about, why this pseudo historical and phylosphical context? There were (and are) many radical violent groups with no relation to Islam whatsoever, all should be treated in accordance with their deeds.

Didn't you, like, start with Mohammed? Just comparing "contributions to civilizations", jbg. You must have forgotten of those, somehow.

No just makes it a lot harder to take away the rights that the majority decided as being fundamental, on a whim of political situation. Which makes some really unhappy.

You mean, anything like crusades, extermination of native populations and two devastating world wars with millions of dead? Go study the subject and then enlighten us more.

I can read his (Harper's) reaction this way: he's unhappy with the Charter because it greatly limits his ability to change the social makeup of this country even if he could get his desired majority. There are freedoms and rights in it which he won't be able to take away with a single vote in the parliament. That was, without doubt, the main reason the Charter was brought in in the first place. But to someone who does not understand, and possibly, despises some of those freedoms, the very existence of this document must cause great frustration.

Speaks volumes of who Harper actually is. There's no way to tell the character (especially of a politician) with any certainty, but I have this feeling that should he ever get his craved majority, we're going to see a very different Harper.

August, the report argues that in the mission critical area, publicly owned institution is as efficient, and substantially less expensive, when the private one. If you can disprove it by a substantiated argument, feel free to do so. Just (it was written by him so it must be wrong) won't do. BTW I would agree that some non-critical care should perhaps go to private providers and carry reasonable user fees. But to experiment with already working system without any indication that it can be improved sounds like a grossly (unwise) thing to do. Also, all my (rare) personal encounters with serious health problems (i.e. hospital care) have been up to the mark. One really needs to understand how widespread those unfortunate incidents are.

Well, it won't do well for me to go into case by case analysis of election results and events on the ground. Obviously I wouldn't have enough information to substantiate any claim (although I'm not sure either how widespread are Internet cafees - could the proximity of your base be a factor?). But as a general principle, I'm very sceptical about projects that would involve imposing anything, however good it may appear to us, on other people. For the same very reason that I wouldn' t like it myself. Imagine a complete stranger barging into your home, turning it upside down, kicking out a relative who may have been nasty, but with whom you lived your whole life, and then starting rearranging things the way they think it should be, saying all the way that they're doing it for your own good. I'm not sure it'll sell, no matter how much good we do, and how much money we'll pump into it. With all the history of colonization, democratization and liberation, things always go back to the way of life which is consistent with their beliefs and traditions. The way to deal with them is to understand it (way of life, traditions) and not piss them off if they don't touch us. Afgans already had a stable govt - perhaps their first stable government in years, and also the one that originated in the land. Should it have been taught a lesson for harbouring our enemies, sure. Should it have been taken away, leaving us to manage a country we have no idea about - sounds like a very uncertain proposition.

Are you sure we're talking about same things? I couldn't find any reference to comparing public vs private in your referenced report. It only says that it costs a lot of money. Still, 2.5 times less money (per patient) than mostly private system in the US. With superior results.

This is an interesting report: Study of Canadian vs US treatment outcomes on Yahoo today. It appears that on average, the outcomes of treatment in this country is as good (and in many instances, as the report points out, even better) than in the US. No matter that it costs $7,500 vs $2,900 (i.e. 2.5 times more) in the US. Looks like an argument that public health care is more efficient (in both costs and results) than the private one.

Previous track record of installing freedom and democracy in the world. ... You mean, like starting all over, fresh and new? Did you notice that "we" are only a small fraction of the troops three (~40,000 if I recall correctly)? You mean, this one last push by ~5% of the force is going to make all the difference? Go on.

Should we take into account the previous track record before jumping on such a mission? Or just blindly trust hurray patriots who'll start scratching their heads when the whole thing turns sour, like many times before? Check your watch. It's April, 2007.

It's good to argue these questions with someone who has first hand knowledge. I respect what you're doing and wish you every luck in those tours there. That, however, in no way means that I agree with the decision to send troops there. That at least is an honest position one can respect. Really far outnumber? Vietnam and south east Asia, Middle east, most of South America. The successes seem to be limited to specific events or places that already had a tradition of democracy before (like Germany, East Europe). Only Japan does not seem to fit the pattern. Other than that it's a big question. Why can't Afgan be the same - maybe because they aren't the same as us? How much of our resources (including lives) should be spent trying to implement this uncertain proposition that a certain way of life can be transplanted onto totally foregin soil? What if it starts costing us too much? Or hurting too much? It takes enourmous leap of knowledge and courage for someone who was doing as the lord told them their whole life, to do something against their will. Or to even understand the concept of "anonymous" and "free". No matter what decorations can be set, it all comes down to what's inside. If people have no concept of electing their responsible government, the elections will be just a nice and fun distraction. Following which they'll return to the usual state of being run by a baron. How much has changed in that? That's the most serious problem with the people who plan the mission. They start with assumptions from here (elections - easy - not a rocket science) - while they should first of all try understand how people live there. Do they even have these elections anywhere on their priorities, between basic survival and finding any kind of security for their families?

Yeah, yeah we've heard all the right words before - there seems to be never ending supply of those. Just wondering if / when the walk is going to match the talk.

Of course, other examples have been far and wide apart since. From all the countless episodes of American interference in the world. Hardly the success rate one'd want to bet thousands of lives and billions, no trillions of resources on.

You mean, routinely carry an assault rifle to defend yourself from a potential attack?

Do I sense an uncertaintly here? Legitimate reason for what exactly? To fight Alcaeda, sure, but it was already happening before 9/11. To respond in force after the 9/11 attack. Certainly. To invade and occupy whole country? I don't know. What if, X years ago, a contras (who were BTW trained and financed by US) blew up a building or a plant with similar number of casualties (maybe they did - who knows? Pinochet did murder more than 3000 innocent civilians), would that be a legitimate reason to declare a war on the US and invade it? In any case, it's beyond the point. Whether legitimate or not (lawyers can decide that), does this strategy stand a chance of success, in the long run? This comes down essentially to the assumption that our democratic system can be transplanted onto the foreign soil and after a while would be able to sustain itself. I simply don't see any indication that it can be the case. And if does prove to be wrong, we'd have to pull out at some point, and maybe not so remote in time. And then, what? For the rest, I'll have to address you back to my earlier post. 45% voters in Canada vs 95% in Afganistan is not the same thing. A warlord comes to his serfs and tells them "vote for me". That's your 95%. You're under wrong assumption that this word, "election" somehow has a magical universal meaning. It does not. Election is nothing without first of all, population that understand the meaning of it, and secondly, all the other institutions that support a functioning democracy.

Again, and those famed benefits (of freedom - to carry couple of loaded automatic handguns or an assault rifle, etc) are?

Well, I'm not sure that argument (it could happen anywhere so it's just sad and nothing can be done, etc) actually holds water. There're two major contributors in this kind of crime: 1) someone gone off the track, completely and for good; and 2) a gun (especially, high power high volume automatic killing gun). While #1 is pretty much universal (i.e. indeed can happen anywhere, although it can be argued that perhaps, the incidence per capita would be a bit higher in the places with little or no social net and highly stressed life), readily available #2 is what makes all the difference. Other than US and very few other places, guns wouldn't be a common notion of everyday life. So, a psycho could go for a knife, or hand tool etc and injure one, two, several people. With an assault gun, death toll increases by order of magnitude. Add to it that with trivial availability of guns, so many trivial crimes (mugging, robbery, etc) will end up in death or serious injury. But what's on the upside? How does one benefit from being able to carry a gun, if any criminal can (and will, in all likelihood) do the same?

The post is too long to reply line by line. Let's just say that like many before, you're bringing up this assumption that you (we, West, whoever) are entitled to "create things that do not have any tradtion" in other countries, that never asked you to do that for them. Why do you believe that this assumption has any merit, other than the merit of force (because I can)?

Correct. Canada is a member of Nato. And Nato has obligation to act if its member is under attack. And trigger happy US chose the full blown invasion as a retribution. So we end up brigning democracy and so on. Although many questions still remain unanswered. E.g, if harbouring (not even directly sponsoring) a group that conspires and executes attacks against other countries should be equivalent to a declaration of war, maybe US itself should be invaded for all the uncounted instances when it did the same (Chile, Nicaragua ....)?

I.e., ahead - to the past? Perhaps you can see a pattern in your post . All places mentioned are their places. Maybe, you simply shouldn't be there if that's not what they want? Even if you could prove that, it still won't give you the right to barge into their land and go around arranging things to your liking. You're free to enjoy your superiority from the comfort of your chair. But if you decide to go ahead civilizing them in their own land, who can guarantee that it'll go by your script and your rules of engagement? How long will the "denial" last? And what will happen afterwards? This is by far not the first civilizing thrust Afgans have seen even in this century.

That won't change them one bit, but would definitely turn us into something we believe we have left in the past. Besides, it was already tried in the past, with questionnable effect. You nailed it right on, the real question is, if and why we want to be there (in Afganistan, Iraq and so on)? However, too many statements you make are taken on pure assumption. What is legitimate government of a country invaded and occupied by foreign troops? If a government is a legitimate one (in the full sense of the word), wouldn't it imply that it should able to at least maintain basic security in the country on its own, without massive foreign support? What is the meaning of election in a place which does not have any tradition of electing its government? And so on.. No I suggest first of all trying to understand where and why you're going, then what are you trying you to achieve there, and finally how you're going to do it so that it actually stands a chance of success.