There is no such thing as a UN soldier

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.

The enemy of your enemy is still your enemy, you crazy Yankee dumbasses

There's a new reason for Canadians to be happy they never sent our "peacekeeping" forces into Iraq.

In a move straight out of Orwell's 1984, the USA has started arming Sunni insurgent groups that have turned on Al Queda in Iraq. These are the same Sunni groups that blow up American soldiers with improvised explosive devices, kill hundreds of civilians with suicide bombings in crowded markets and drill holes in the back of their prisoners with power tools. The Sunni militias haven't stopped doing these things, mind you - they've just trained their guns on the other bad guys for the moment.

As John Stewart says on the Daily Show, this plan is so crazy that... well, it's just so freaking crazy.

Peace? Oh right, that... Uh, yeah, not happening

The latest suicide bombing in Baghdad only reminds us (as if we needed a reminder since, um, the day before) that peace will not be coming to the Middle East soon. In fact, it's probably not coming, ever.

It's probably hard for most Canadians to truly understand what is going on in that dusty part of the world. If the USA ever invaded Canada, it's unlikely that we would express our hatred of the invader by targeting Kitsilano High School students with mortar fire or sending trucks filled with ammonium nitrate into Granville Island.

The Middle East is a different kind of place. As Forest Gump once said of another nation that had the bad luck to attract the attention of the Pentagon, "It's this whole other country."

Militants and fanatics in the Middle East have demonstrated time and again that they can literally explode any semblance of security in the time it takes to click a detonator with one's thumb.

Given the number of failed and failing states in the region, and the growing number of men (and the odd grandmother) from the tip of North Africa to the steppes of Central Asia willing to blow themselves up for the cause, it seems unlikely that this will decrease. In my lifetime at least, the mathematics seem to indicate the opposite.