Aug
28
2007
Doublethink is alive and well around the world.
Canadians and Europeans surveyed in a recent poll strongly support sending United Nations peacekeepers to Iraq to oversee its democratic transition. 58 per cent of Canadians supported the idea (likely a lot less if they’d bothered surveying only the west coast, but whatever)- not exactly wholehearted support, but startling, given that our strained army has its hands full just keeping southern Afghanistan somewhat free of heroin-smuggling, RPG-toting jihadis… and Canadian politicians have thus far had the good sense to keep us the heck away from Baghdad.
The European’s much stronger support is even more eyebrow-raising, given that the UK is in the process of cutting its current troop levels in Iraq, the Italians got out long ago, and the French and Germans opposed armed intervention in Iraq from the get-go.
Just where do the people who took part in the survey think these UN peacekeepers are going to come from: China? Brazil? Cobra Island?
Pollsters, next time, try asking this question: do you support sending soldiers from your country to Iraq – knowing full well that by doing so, your soldiers will become the new priority target for every trigger-happy idiot with a Koran and an AK-74?
This poll is sooooo 2003.
Aug
28
2007
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…
If everyone in the world could choose to live in a faraway land of peace and harmony, without want of coin or freedom, the Scandinavian countries would be the repository of the world’s huddled masses.
As it is, Canada sometimes seems to be the second home to far too many geriatric killers, terrorists and corrupt tycoons. Fair or not, the case of Laibar Singh has brought our nation’s system of immigration under the microscope once again.
Immigration has been good to Canada (even if it wasn’t at all a good thing for its germ-decimated First Nations prior to Confederation). As ever, our citizens must try to sort out people whose own nations have failed to provide for them and those who just need a place to crash where they won’t have to pay for their sins.
Control of borders is hardly a modern concept. Indigenous peoples all over the world had rules about outsiders passing through their territory without permission – often a breach punishable by death.
The No One Is Illegal movement out of Vancouver therefore seems not well thought-out, not to mention probably counter-productive: if national governments have no legitimate control over their own borders or the resources found therein, then by default our North American territory becomes just one big playground for the people with the biggest guns and the most gold – that is, the people to our south whose elected leader has a distinctive Texas twang in his speech.
No one is illegal? Are you sure you won’t reconsider?