JB Globe

I think this is a pretty clear example of a bigoted double-standard in dealing with terrorism. If this guy was Muslim, and his suicide notes contained references to Christians being the source of America's problems instead of references to "elites" - you can bet your house there'd be an uproar similar to the Fort Hood shooting and Christmas Day bombing. As it stands, this registered barely a blip. Which illustrates that it isn't so much what a terrorist DOES that makes him a terrorist to a certain degree, it's what ideology he subscribes to.

JBG, I originally made a comment about how it is difficult for developing nations to improve when they are still not able to make decisions for themselves due to the control of the World Bank/IMF, foreign corporations, and other bodies which make up what's termed as "Neo Colonlalism" The words I used were "uninvited house guests" You then asked how that is any different than families such as the Khadrs. I asked you to clarify, you responsded with this: The differences between the actions of individual families like the Khadrs and the Colonial/Neo-Colonial system are blatantly obvious. Since I don't believe you to be a complete idiot, I must assume you're being completely disingenuous by pretending to not know the difference. This would not be surprising considering your posting habits. But for the record, a quick summary 1 - The Khadrs are an individual family, the system of colonialism is an economic and political system. 2 - The Khadrs immigrated to Canada because Canadian law enables them to do so, the colonial system was imposed by military force and through economic force on other nations.

Exactly - he's deliberately being inflammatory to try and provoke a response from a segment of the population that will help his political position. This is exactly what radical Imams did in the wake of the Danish newspaper cartoons - they deliberately stirred up outrage in order to bring more to their flock. In that sense, Geertie isn't any better than they are, and actually has the same goal in mind - deliberately provoke a situation which closely resembles a "Clash of Civilization" so that you can rally more troops to your flag, and push the kinds of changes you want through society. Essentially, White Nationalists and Radical Islamists are two sides of the same coin - they absolutely cannot achieve their goals peacefully, because no one would subscribe to them who lives in a peaceful world - they NEED conflict in order to get things done, hence why they provoke it whenever possible by being deliberately inflammatory and coming as close to endorsing violence as legally possible.

Ever notice that all of the so-called authoritative sources on Islam that you put on a pedestal don't have any expertise in Islamic Theology? Did you ever think that the reason why no experts on Islam agree with your positions might be because they are false?

Of course, the problem with this argument is that it's simply false.

Oh whom to believe? Those scientists that publish studies on climate change in scientific journals? Or neo-con writers that take pot-shots from the pages of the National Post?

Here's the thing - to nuke Israel you'd also have to nuke the Dome of the Rock, and several million Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and anyone else living close to Israel. The Revolutionary guard is not going to kill an equal amount of Muslims and destroy the 3rd holiest site in Islam that dates from the time of Mohammed just to destroy Israel. They also realize that to nuke Israel would mean Iran would be destroyed. I know Western media loves to portray the Iranian regime as frothing-at-the-mouth fanatics, but the fact is that they're simply a brutal regime that is moving away from a religious one towards a military junta.

Regardless, the US has been a major proponent of halting the spread of nuclear weapons . . . Except when allied nations are developing them. This is why absolutely no one puts any stock in US claims that they are trying to halt the spread of the weapons for the betterment of society - people can clearly see that it's just a simple issue of maintaining US dominance. They can see that those nations that the US is not allies with that develop nukes don't get invaded.

The whole notion of Western anti-nuclear proliferation as some sort of neutral campaign to rid the world of bombs for the betterment of mankind was proven to be bunk decades ago. The fact is that the US and other countries (specifically NATO countries) haven't brought the hammer down on all the countries that have broken the non-proliferation treaty, they've only done so on the countries which they consider to be enemies. When their strategic allies develop nukes, there's little more than some PR move to save face, and a slap on the wrist. The most striking example of this is that when India developed nukes, there was some official posturing, but no talk of sanctions, then a few decades later we see the same Bush who comes out swinging against Iran's nukes, signing a nuclear technology sharing deal with India. It's become clear to the world that the West doesn't care so much about stopping proliferation, as much as it does stopping proliferation to countries it doesn't like too much. If that's the case, let's drop this whole "for the betterment of mankind" pretence and be honest about it: this is simply a power struggle to maintain Western dominance over the world. Maybe then we can start to see how our position creates the kind of climate whereby a guy like Ahmadinejad becomes the leader of Iran. After all, it's not how he knows how to run an economy, improve a health care system, or run a democratic government. The only thing he knows how to do play the "staunch defender of the homeland against American aggression" card - if we stacked the cards so he couldn't play his hand, none of us would have ever heard his name.

Let me clarify. By being heavy-handed I'm talking specifically about the recent Western adventures in Afghanistan & Iraq, and more specifically about the kind of operation we've chosen to pursue there for most of the period of engagement (put simply, the strategy has been - kill all the terrorists . . . or rather the people we define as terrorists). The troops feel that increased threat as a result of our misguided policies, but the average Western citizen doesn't feel it that much, except when it comes time to pay for those foreign excursions. Of course, I've yet to see any tangible evidence that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have made any of us any safer, they certainly serve as convenient recruitment tools for the next-gen of Al Qaeda, and thus may in fact benefit them (since it seems they can pick up and move to Pakistan when the situation in Afghanistan gets tough). So to sum it up - those heavy-handed moves to invade foreign countries put our troops in harms way, cost a lot of money, and may increase the threat for the average citizen only slightly (which of course, given that the threat is so small to begin with, still does not make it significant) - meaning that over-all, there really isn't a benefit to us being there. So, why are we still there?

If by that you mean we sometimes over-reach in our response and stir up more problems by being unnecessarily heavy-handed, than yeah - I'm aware of that.

But how far do you go to fight back? And what are you wiling to sacrifice in order to deal with the most miniscule of threats?

Of course, this isn't an all-or-nothing situation. You allocate resources to were the threats are the greatest for the most part. Meaning for example - when crime rates have been falling for over a decade, you might want to focus more on road safety ahead of a major "tough on crime" policy, as Harper is doing. Let me clarify - there aren't any campaigns on the scale of the "war on terror" in regards to road safety. How many hours do you think politicians spend dealing with road safety versus terrorism in Parliament? In North America, but even if you include all terrorist attacks in which Westerners have died, you still only get the odds of 1 in 3 million. Which is why you adjust your policies when things like 9/11 occur - you focus on things which don't cost that much but are extremely effective against preventing another attack: if I could pick one change as the most important, it would be reinforcing cockpit doors - it makes another 9/11 attack almost impossible. What you don't do is play into the hands of terrorists and bankrupt yourself (financially and morally) in the false hope of perfect security. They want you to be scared, so I figure - why give them the satisfaction? Again, you're making this out to be an all-or-nothing issue, as if I'm saying we should allocate no resources to deal with issues like people being murdered or raped by strangers. I'm not - I'm saying you deal with problems according to the threat and cost they pose to society. If you don't - you're not actually making anyone safer. case in point - you create a "war on rape" focusing on women who are raped by strangers on the street, because that's what people are scared of happening. Does the rape rate go down at all? Maybe by a small fraction. But if you focused on rape IN GENERAL and allocated more resources to combating the most common kinds of rape (and smaller amounts to less common kinds), rather than which kinds of rape scare us most, you can be sure the rate would fall A LOT more. If you think the vast majority of people who commit suicide are exercising free will, you don't understand suicide.

And apparently you think there is nothing we can do to make roads safer as well . . .

Cute, but what are you saying exactly? That there is nothing that can be done to reduce suicide numbers?

That's cold comfort when you're dead. If we invested the same kind of effort into road safety as we do into fighting terrorism, we'd save a hell of a lot more lives. But we don't, because road fatalities aren't sexy like terrorism is. We tend to over-estimate the safety of situations we're in control of (driving) and under-estimate situations we're not in control of (hence why most people are more fearful of flying than they are driving). That and it's easier for a news outlet to sell a terrorism threat story, and it's easier for politicians to whip up emotions (and votes) with one. Depends on the society, but for me personally I think the Lightning Rule applies: you only start to THINK about a global project with the scope of a "war on terror" once terrorist attacks become more of a threat than lightning strikes. And right now, the ratio is at 1:3 000 000 for terrorism, and 1:500 000 for lightning. Terrorism is a tactic, it plays on the irrational fears many of us have and uses it to greatly over-state the power of the groups who utilize it. Being terrified is an emotional state, which can exist with or without terrorism - they two are entirely different things. Of course, that is a scenario that doesn't seem likely in the near or distant future. So why bother being scared about it? We have CSIS for a reason, so we don't have to shit our collective pants about situations like this. Frankly if people in London and Mumbai can hop on the trains as soon as they re-open following a terrorist attack, what excuse do any of us have?

Al Qaeda would have to bring down 2-3 planes a week in order to kill as many Americans as motor vehicle accidents do. But no one's shitting their pants about driving to work, and there's no national campaign for road safety. Anyone who's terrified of terrorism doesn't live in a rational world. Anyone who thinks 1 attack very 10 years is unacceptable believes in a fantasy world of perfect security. Same thing with people who fear getting raped/murdered randomly walking home in the evening - the majority of the time the perp is known to the victim. And of course, Canadians are 6 times as likely to commit suicide versus being murdered - but Harper isn't vowing to get "tough on suicide" because he knows how to play to the public's irrational fears.

Explain to me how the actions of direct European colonialism and neo-colonialism are the same thing as the actions of one family of immigrants within a country. Because right now it looks like the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Now see, you could have done some actual thinking, and/or reading before making a gross assumption, but you DECIDED to act like moron and use a "hunch" to justify your belief that Haitians are lazy. For the sake of argument let's assume that your hunch is right that you couldn't find any Haitians on any job sites in Ottawa, that might have more to do with the fact over 90% of Haitians in Canada live in Quebec, than your uninformed opinion that Haitians are lazy and stupid. You shouldn't be shocked by this - when you think with your emotions and not your head, more often than not you end up looking like a fool.

Which is difficult when you have can't get rid of your (sometimes uninvited) house guests (see: The West).

Obviously - my point was that we often forget how few people pay attention to politics on a regular basis IN GENERAL, and it's not exactly a shocker that there's a large chunk of people who aren't aware of a given issue, because they're not aware of much in general. I think it's safe to assume that people who don't vote are generally less knowledgeable about specific, current political issues than people who do.

Why would we need suicide bombers when we have Wolf Blitzer?

As pointed out elsewhere, 30% of Canadians don't follow politics, don't read the news, and don't vote, so it's no surprise that 30% are unaware of the issue. All political polls begin with the "are you aware of the issue" question anyways. In fact I'm sure you've quoted poll numbers in the past from newspaper summaries of them and didn't realize that 30% of the people polled were unaware of that issue. Remember, we could do the same kind of math you did with this poll and apply it to the amount of people who voted for Harper as a percent of the population: 6.6 million Canadians voted for Harper in the last election, or 22% of all Canadians, ie - less than 1 in 4.

Posted before I saw another post that said the exact same thing, whoops.

Coyne is conservative but he's not a party-hack who drank too much Kool-Aid and takes Harper's talking points LITERALLY at face value. He understands that in some cases, it's best to oppose your guy when he's doing something really bad, in an effort to get him to change course before he brings the whole ship down with him. He also cares more about Parliamentary democracy in this country than he does Harper's own self-interest.