Canada’s Contribution To the World

***Revised post!!***

As we closer to remembrance day, I received a version of this story in an Email and thought it was relevant.  It still is but as one comment came in it goes back to the friendly fire incident when we lost the 4 soldiers from the Pats.  So I did as suggested and found the original article.  We’ve been supporting the Afghan mission for almost 7 years pulling more than our weight in NATO – why is it that some countries won’t let their soldiers out of their bases lest they be in harms way.

The country the world forgot – again

By Kevin Myers

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 21/04/2002

UNTIL the deaths last week of four Canadian soldiers accidentally killed by a US warplane in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops were deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will now bury its dead, just as the rest of the world as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.

It seems that Canada’s historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price which Canada pays for sharing the North American Continent with the US, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: it seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10 per cent of Canada’s entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the “British”. The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world.

The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign which the US had clearly not participated – a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and film-makers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality – unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer British. It is as if in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakeably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves – and are unheard by anyone else – that 1 per cent of the world’s population has provided 10 per cent of the world’s peace-keeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peace-keepers on earth – in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peace-keeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement which has entered the popular non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace – a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the US knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost.

This weekend four shrouds, red with blood and maple leaf, head homewards; and four more grieving Canadian families know that cost all too tragically well.

Canada

Lest we forget.

Fox Program Red Eye – The Ugliest Americans

Canada has just suffered the loss of 4 more soldiers in Afghanistan and they will be repatirated today and travel the Highway of Heros.  So we now have to put up with ugly stupid Americans who have demonstrated why they are hated around the world.  The Fox program Red Eye chose to mock Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan not even knowing that we have been there from the beginning of this mission.  We are one of the few countries that answered the call for combat troops who would engage in combat and these idiot Americans have no understanding of their neighbour to the north.  They have no concept of the importance that Canada is to the success and prosperity of America.  After 7 years of conflict, most of the equipment is wearing out, um, I seem to remember reading about the US having equipment problems having a large percentage of its equipment worn out sitting awaiting action in Iraq.

See for yourself:

In this video, these people demonstrate how narrow minded and ill-informed they are about anything outside their borders.  They represent the last 8 years where America damaged its standing in the world.  No longer could America legitimately claim that they believe in freedom, liberty and integrity.  They set up the Guantánamo Bay detention where they were sheltered from their own laws and conducted torture and numerous human rights violations.   There was no due process – so much for the fair minded America.

The current world financial crisis can be laid at the feet of greedy people who ignored what few rules there were and managed to bring down the worlds economies. 

We can hope that theirs is a radical minority viewpoint.  If it is mainstream then America will have to continue to bully the worlds countries and use military force to impose its will.  We all know this works, just look at Iraq.

Their comments are disgusting and they would call for an invasion should someone else say things like that about America, oh wait they did call for an invasion of Canada and those silly Canadians.

We’ve developed our own ways to show respect to troops.

One of the things I look forward to each November 11th is at the end of the ceremony at the National War Memorial.  It is something that was started by we the people and it wasn’t scripted.  What moves me so much is the placing of the individual poppies on the tomb of our unknown soldier.  It has become a tradition that was not a part of the program setup by the organizers of the ceremonies.  It is a heartfelt show of respect for our veterans and war dead and a way of saying “thank you for our freedom”.

People put their poppies on the tomb of the unknown soldier

A new tradition has evolved with the loss of our service personnel in the Afghanistan action.  To date we have lost 97 lives to this war.  Originally, our government tried to keep the repatriation ceremony private similar to what happens in the U.S.  Again, ordinary people wouldn’t accept this.  Through their actions a stretch of the 401 from Trenton (where they arrive home from Afghanistan) to Toronto was renamed the highway of heros.

Signage on the 401 - Highway of Heros

People who live along this stretch of highway now stand on the overpasses and pay their tribute and respect to the hearses bearing the bodies of our fallen soldiers who are transported to Toronto upon their repatriation to Canada before their bodies are returned to the families.

The People Salute a Fallen Hero

This a an action by the people paying their respect for those who paid the ultimate price while serving Canada.

Things have changed a lot since I was in the military.  Back then we were underfunded, undermanned and greatly overworked.  My first unit had 176 active personnel with the same responsibilities of a regiment of 1,100, we were our own re enforcements in the event of NATO/Soviet hostilities.  Some of our equipment was older than the soldiers that used it.   Now we have some of the best equipment available and adequate staffing to carry out their mission.  What’s needed now is for the other NATO countries to step up and do their share to help resolve threat from Afghanistan.  Only then can we resolve the Taliban issue and maybe curtail the drug problems through helping their economy flourish.

What are the long term effects of the current world crisis?

 You can sense that something isn’t right.  Something is changing and not for the better.   If you look at the world today you get snippets of what is happening, but is it a trend? 

 Economic recovery will very much depend upon a positive attitude in the consumers and investors around the world.  Almost everything we hear nowadays is anything but good news.  The Financial Sector in a majority of countries is corrupted and virtually bankrupt.  The leaders of many companies have run their companies into the ground trying to maximize their personal wealth through salary, bonuses and equity.  Their remuneration is obscene and totally unwarranted.  They have not added value to their companies, they have destroyed them and now it is the taxpayers (their former clients) who are being tasked with bailing them out.  It’s too bad that we are rewarding bad performance and not allowing companies that deserve to fail to do just that.

In North America, we have an Automobile Sector that blew it and made all the wrong decisions.  They misread the trends and developments and actually reversed themselves in areas where they were being innovative and getting it right.  The best example is the GM EV1 which was revolutionary and a good start to getting off the carbon trail.  I equate it to the Avro Arrow which was the best fighter bomber of its day never to have been built.  In both cases the products were destroyed to try and move the clock back.  We had quality issues which have for the most part been addressed.  I remember my first Japanese car – it was a piece of junk but then they got it right in subsequent years to where they were tops in quality and it took the big three awhile to finally catch up but we still have the perception that the quality isn’t there.  Recent surveys have shown that many of the vehicles from the North American manufacturers are better than their Japanese counterparts.  The Big 3 screwed up and we are being forced to try and save them – the jury is still out on that front. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People are angry with having to bail out the financial institutions around the world and they don’t see any change in behaviour or method of operation.  Maybe China’s solution would smarten them up – look at the Milk crisis and the main perpetrators have gone to jail for a long time or have been sentence to death.  Sounds like a deterrent to me.

Robberies and violence seem to be on the upswing.   People are losing hope and are getting desperate and doing what they can to survive or thrive.  Can this be the start of a trend that could lead to anarchy?  A Russian scholar says “There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010,” Igor Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.  Will there be a lot of social unrest?  There was during the Great Depression so it is quite plausible for the same to happen in modern times.  How far it goes will depend upon the levels of hope or despair we get to in the future.

If the ones who helped create this situation don’t change their ways we can expect a push back by the investors and consumers who are needed to right the ship. 

I despair for the lack of will on the part of governments to correct the causes of the problems in concert with their efforts to reverse the effects of the downturn in the economy.  It is just going to get worse but the creators of the problems are sitting pretty with their bonuses and offshore bank accounts.  They won’t even face paying the taxes that will pay the final tab on this problem.

The Financial Crisis

This is a very troubling time.  The biggest question may be, Why? 

The situation the world finds itself in can be traced back to a fundalmental greed.  People found ways of skirting rules, removing rules, or ignoring rules to maximize obscene profits for doing nothing of value.  They will, of course, get away with it.  You don’t hear the United States saying that they created and allowed the environment where “hotshots” made billions off the backs of the investor community with no regard for the risk and impact their actions had on the world economies and people.  It’s too bad that they will be able to keep their ill gotten gains with impunity, seizure of all their assets and a life in prison would be more appropriate for these greedy scum sucking bastards.

So how does the world recover?  We in effect print money and charge next to nothing for borrowing it.  Now we run into a mindset that doesn’t want to take any “risk” and refuses to conduct normal business.  We have all been psyched out of common sense.  Commerce needs to continue but everyone is afraid that the big bad wolf is still at the door and maybe it is.

Bailouts have been provided to business in many cases yet they use this money as if nothing has changed.  Companies are flirting with bankruptcy yet continue the practices that got them there in the first place.  It isn’t business as usual people.  How do we get through to these people that they aren’t exempt from having to deal with less.   I can’t think of any examples of people that deserve “bonuses” because they are the ones that got us there in the first place.

It is going to get a lot worse before it get better.  It may take a “revolution” to set things on the proper path and we can hope that it doesn’t involve violence.