Why They Hate Us
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, addressing the Australian parliament yesterday, explains:
“If we abandon our fellow human beings to lives of poverty, brutality and ignorance, in today’s global village their misery will eventually and inevitably become our own.”
OK. A bunch of well-heeled, educated Saudis hijacked airliners and flew them into our buildings because we had abandoned our fellow human beings to lives of poverty, brutality and ignorance, in today’s global village.
Let’s move past the warmed-over “why they hate us” bullshit in Harper’s statement, a shocking insult though it may be on our national day of mourning, and examine his statement on its merits.
It doesn’t sound like Harper’s spent much time overseas. If he had, he’d quickly learn the ones abandoning their fellow human beings to lives of poverty, brutality and ignorance are not us. They are fellow inhabitants of their own quarters of the global village.
Americans, Brits, Australians and even Europeans have been heavily engaged in trying to raise the standard of living in the Third World since World War II. Not only for the best of reasons … self-interest … but also out of pure, idealistic altruism.
I know, I grew up there. My father built power plants, water treatment facilities and factories in Indonesia, East Pakistan, Thailand and Turkey. He didn’t do it out of altruism. He did it for money and because he loved the work. He loved to design and build beautiful, functional things. Millions of people live better today because of his efforts in five nations … I’m including the United States, also the beneficiary of my father’s engineering work. He’s no Mother Teresa. But there are thousands upon thousands out there like him, who have devoted their lives to making this world a better place.
I went to school with the children of businessmen who were investing in factories, building things, much of their work financed by the heavily U.S.-subsidized World Bank. Or their fathers worked for organizations such as heavily U.S.-subsidized United Nations, USAID and the Ford Foundation. (The fathers of many of the kids I went to school with were engaged in trying to keep communism enslaving Southeast Asia and the world. They were only partially successful. But that’s another issue).
I knew Indians and Dutchmen and Chinese and Germans and Sri Lankans and even Canadians whose fathers worked for some of those altruistic organizations, trying to do good works. There was not an Arab among them, not one, though at that point, in the mid-1970s, the Arabs already had more money than Allah and were embarrassing themselves from Harrods to the fleshpots of Bangkok. That’s changed somewhat. I understand the Arabs are big on building Wahabi mosques in Islamically underdeveloped countries these days, including the United States.
Osama bin Laden made it pretty clear why he and his “martyrs” attacked us. It wasn’t because of Third World wretchedness of the sort my father had spent his career combatting. It was because we are infidels, and we had set our vile combat boots on his sacred sand to defend it from another Arab, Saddam Hussein. Also, though Osama would never admit it, he attacked us because we are better than him. An abomination. Pork-eating, alcohol-swilling Christian dogs and even Jews who are actually able to accomplish things in this world, rather than live off it like parasites. When the Word was dictated to Mohammed, this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
I thought Stephen Harper already got this. He’s supposed to be a pro-American, conservative, reform-minded, pro-business Canadian. Anyway, he said some other things I have no argument with:
“The buildings may have been American, but the targets were every one of us: Every country and every person who chooses tolerance over hatred, pluralism over extremism, democracy over tyranny.”
Canadians have sacrificed much in the world, fighting well above their weight in World Wars I & II, Korea, now in Afghanistan. But if Harper is concerned about our fellow human beings and their lives of poverty, brutality and ignorance in today’s global village, and whether their misery will inevitably become our own, he may want to join the French, the Germans, the Spanish and other concerned global citizens and send a few battalions to Iraq to help out their old friends the Yanks, Brits and Aussies. Our fellow human beings in Iraq are struggling with a great deal of poverty, brutality and ignorance … misery that could eventually and inevitably become everyone’s. I also don’t think the risk of poverty, brutality and ignorance in Afghanistan will be over by 2009.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:57 am on Wednesday, September 12, 2007
29 Responses to “Why They Hate Us”
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September 12th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Jules,
Word, Bro. Word.
What have the Arabs given to the world but blood and misery? Where are the great Arab works of art? The Arab Architects? The great Arab Statesmen? Where the many Arab foreign aid programs? Where are the Arab Engineers? The Arab Aircraft designers? The Car designers? The Space Program?
Parasites indeed. They do not create because they find it easier to pay others to do that for them. They cannot even pull their own oil out of their own ground. They have to have foreign companies design the equipment, build the facilities, pump the oil and even refine it for them.
Respects,
September 12th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Eliot Spitzer said something similar yesterday at the Ground Zero ceremony. I wanted to smash him in the face more than I’ve ever wanted to do violence to a politician in my entire life.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I guess this means south Florida should be bracing for waves of Haitian suicide bombers, right? Since its all about the poverty, right?
September 12th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Agreed. Completely. However, as an American currently living in Ottawa, I see Harper’s stmt much differently. He leads a minority government and is under great pressure from the endemically anti-American, pacifist Canadian center, whom he is courting for enough votes to pull a majority in the next election, to say all the politically correct things that one expects these aphasiacs to demand.
He is at heart a Reagan-esque conservative/libertarian. However, that’s a politically suicidal ideology in Canada. We should, therefore, consider his statements in the context of his current political struggle.
BTW, let’s recall what John Howard said to the Canadian Parliament when he visited Ottawa last year. The Australian Prime Minister, in possession of a hefty mandate to rule his country, mounted the podium and proceeded to lecture the Canadian legislators that they should thank God that America is the prevailing power in the currently unipolar world instead of constantly sniping and hectoring us like petulant adolescents. If Harper had such a commanding political position he would say the same thing.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Jule’s Lays A Smack Down, Eh?
A must-read on this day after our ‘leaders’ went lint searching in their navels Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, addressing the Australian parliament yesterday, explains: Harper said that the 9/11 terrorist attacks showed that “if we abandon…
September 12th, 2007 at 9:31 am
“An abomination. Pork-eating, alcohol-swilling Christian dogs and even Jews who are actually able to accomplish things in this world, rather than live off it like parasites.”
Brought a tear to my eye, that did.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Canada has declined from the robust, virile nation it was in the first half of the 20th century to a socialist/pacifist backwater where political correctness rules in all matters and commonsense is just a memory. It’s health care system rivals Britain’s in its inefficiency and ability to absorb tremendous amounts of the nation’s wealth. If the Canadian military wants to transport men and personnel somewhere in the rest of the world, it must beg for help from the U.S. or charter commercial carriers. Canadians are now an envious people on the sidelines who still persist in deluding themselves with the belief the rest of the world has the slightest interest in their pronouncements on any global issue.
September 12th, 2007 at 10:05 am
With all due respect, gimme a break. In the course of a magnificently ardent speech championing the notion of Anglosphere and the brotherhood of Canada, Australia and the United States, Harper - the most ideologically conservative and pro-American prime minster in living memory - said the word “poverty.” And for this he’s reviled as a panty-waist?
For that’s what this all must be about - his use of the word “poverty.” What else in the highlighted statement was objectionable? “[I]f we abandon our fellow human beings to lives of poverty, brutality and ignorance, in today’s global village their misery will eventually and inevitably become our own.” Redact poverty; the rest of the statement is the core premise of the neoconservative vision in the mid-east. Right? If the purpose of Iraqi intervention wasn’t oil, or American hegemony, it was to undermine the cause of Islamofascism by clearing the swamp of despotism and hatred through the introduction of democracy. It was, in other words, to confront the brutality and ignorance that results - so the neoconservative theory goes - in Islamofascist terrorism across the globe.
Are we really so sensitive, then, about the role of poverty in the perpetuation of terror? None would argue, I should think, that democratization must involve some degree of economic progress. I don’t suggest that Harper was making such an argument - I concede that the plain meaning of his statement was that poverty was a “root cause” of terrorism, although I note for the record that no such phrase appears in the Prime Minister’s speech.
(Incidentally, it’s telling that Mr. Crittenden relies on press reports of the PM’s speech, rather than on the full text, which is available here.)
But it can’t really be that the mere suggestion of poverty turns one of this war’s most ardent champions - a man whose commitment to Afghanistan, incidentally, is restrained only by that pesky obstacle that is parliamentary democracy, and who quite clearly would renew Canada’s commitment if he had a majority with which to do so - it can’t really be that this one word turns him into a subject of such derision.
On a personal note, I can’t tell you how dispiriting it is, as a Canadian defender of the United States, to see every Canadian’s prejudice regarding the myopia and ill-understanding of Canada by Americans confirmed in such a prominent way by such a prominent figure.
September 12th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Jules, I don’t know where you read “Harper said that the 9/11 terrorist attacks showed that” — there’s no link. But that’s not quite what I heard him say. He mentioned the 9/11 attacks, then the casualties Canada had suffered in Afghanistan, 70 dead soldiers, a dead diplomat and a carpenter who was simply helping build a school for children.
He then went on to say “The cause is noble and necessary…. if we abandon our fellow human beings to lives of poverty, brutality and ignorance, their misery will inevitably become our own”
This was primarily an argument for continuing all aspects of the mission in Afghanistan, and, obviously, aimed for domestic consumption.
As for 9/11, I’d say brutality and ignorance had a great deal to do with that; granted, not poverty. But the brutality of the Saudi and Egyptian governments that the west has backed for decades as part of a Faustian Cold War bargain, and the ignorance — and brutality — spread by the Madrassas all contributed to 9/11.
And one can’t but look at Afghanistan — as Harper has — and think of poverty and be concerned at the potential the country has as a terrorist recruiting ground.
“Too bad he wants Canada’s troops out of there by 2009.”
This I know is simply not correct. In Canada’s parliamentary system of government, parliament has to approve the deployment. Harper has a minority parliament — i.e. he has more seats than any other party, but he has a minority of all the seats. He therefore governs, but must get one or more opposition parties to back every single major bill he wishes to pass.
Harper’s said he wants to extend the deadline, but no opposition party supports this. Some of us believe it will be the issue he attempts to win the next election on to gain a majority.
I have to say that it’s pretty sad to see a New York Times style attack on Harper.
Cutting out his preceding words, and quoting some anonymous source characterizing his remarks as “Harper said that the 9/11 terrorist attacks…”
Ignoring the rest of his speech where he clearly — Bush and Howard style — noted that the terrorists they attacked “freedom and democracy” — that formulation of freedom is not a formulation a whinging leftist puts forth. Indeed, it’s one they scorn.
Fair enough. Bash Harper for one word. “Poverty”.
And smear him with the statement that he wants to withdraw Canada’s troops.
Witness the result.
The western country that’s lost more troops than anyone except the UK and the USA in the War on Terror gets sneered at by your commenters, people like Banjo. (And Banjo, for what it’s worth I agree with you on Medicare. As for transport, Harper just spent around $5bn on strategic airlift capacity. That’s something Harper rectified after years of Liberal cuts to the defense budget. And the sneering “Canadians are now an envious people on the sidelines” isn’t borne out by the country’s losses in Afghanistan. But whatever makes you happy. I’m just grateful most Americans aren’t like you, for if they were, I’d be awfully tempted to pull out of Afghanistan).
I enjoy your blog for I know this isn’t normally the kind of writing you do. But I have to say, it irked me enough to register to comment for the first time. A good result, in that narrow sense I suppose.
Regards,
Holmwood
September 12th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Hmm. Reading the transcript (thanks David Mader), it appears I may have scored an own goal in my post above. I didn’t hear Harper say “As 9/11 showed”, but it’s there in the transcript. And for whatever reason, CTV’s server not only won’t let you fast forward or rewind, it seems to be on its knees at the moment.
I agree, material poverty doesn’t fit as a significant reason for 9/11.
I apologize for calling it a NY Times style attack, given what the transcript shows. I still think it’s way off base, and unfair, simply because the entire speech reads so radically different from the single word you’ve chosen to attack.
I still think it’s a gross distortion to say “Harper wants the troops out”.
Holmwood
September 12th, 2007 at 10:58 am
As another Canadian visiting today may I add my support for the previous comments from others here. This knee-jerk posting comes periously close to falling within the ‘ugly American’ category.
You are truly picking on the wrong guy here. Harper is the one Canadian politician who actually tries to understand the US, and attempts to be ‘balanced’.. The rest of the crew here would really make your head spin. This whole country is built on a bedrock of snide anti- Americanism, and Harper is very much the exception and not the rule.
Don’t pick on your ‘friends’. It’s not as if you had a surfeit of them and could afford to annoy some just for giggles. At the very least try to learn something about the country you intend to criticise before opening fire. Prevents that unpleasant collateral damage, don’t you know.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:03 am
“He is at heart a Reagan-esque conservative/libertarian. However, that’s a politically suicidal ideology in Canada. We should, therefore, consider his statements in the context of his current political struggle.”
That may be true. But Stephen Harper got elected the first time because so many in were sick of his predecessor(s) and their policies, Paul Martin’s corruption and Chrétien’s general contempt for the US, primarily George Bush, but contempt in general.
If Harper is saying things primarily to appease conventional Canadian liberalism and thereby keep himself in power, he is not remaining true to his principles.
His statement in Australia (first quoted above) is weak and limp and appeasement oriented. It does not command respect.
And it doesn’t match the position of the Australian PM John Howard who takes a lot of heat from his own “appeasement” contingent in his government’s strong statements against Radical Islam and the inroads it would make into Australian governance.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:22 am
You Canadians better listen up.
Many in your large and growing contingent of Muslims will very likely again attempt to substitute Shari’a law within their communities for conventional Canadian law.
Starting with areas of marriage & “family law” and moving out from there.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:37 am
“But the brutality of the Saudi and Egyptian governments that the west has backed for decades as part of a Faustian Cold War bargain, and the ignorance — and brutality — spread by the Madrassas all contributed to 9/11.”
The Saudi (Osama) and the Egyptian (al Zawahiri) who are generally ascribed the operational genesis and responsibility for 911 may mention but don’t overly emphasize “the west’s” support for their respective former governments in their litany of complaints outlined in various fatwas.
They do mention often getting the infidel out of “Muslim lands”, which is ironic in that they themselves have been exiled from their respective “Muslin lands”.
And their former governments (both individuals, of course, now completely exiled and/or stripped of citizenship) are as much if not more their personal targets for takeover and spread of the Ummah than is the United States.
One of al Zawahiri’s first arrests (if not the first) was for the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
As for the perpetrators of 911, several of the main actors weren’t even described as “radicalized” until they met up under the direction of Mohammed Atta at that radical mosque in Hamburg, Germany.
It’s overly simplistic to say any involvement or “backing” of the US over the decades for SA and Egypt is a core cause of 911.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
@tanstaafl, Much though I admire your name — and even more its genesis —
Does that sound any better when foreigners say that to you? Didn’t think so. Now imagine someone 10 times your size saying it to you. Many of us — indeed everyone posting here, (and nearly everyone looking here) I’d venture to guess — are very well aware of the dangers in which Canada finds itself.
Indeed. Which is why I mentioned the Madrassas.
“the ignorance — and brutality — spread by the Madrassas [and, yes, subsequently the mosques] all contributed to 9/11.”
As did the brutality of the governments of Egypt and Saudi.
Or do you truly argue, tanstaafl, that we should be happy with the way the Saudis and Egyptians are running things? That dictatorship and brutal repression don’t breed terror?
I agree. Which is why I didn’t say it. Absolutely the brutality of the governments and the viciousness of the Madrassas are core factors, however.
And the terrorists didn’t primarily choose the West because we had backed their governments (or at least that wasn’t a big reason in their thinking); they chose the west because it was an open and free society. To them, a soft target, and easy to hate.
It’s impossible to tell whether or not we could have been successful in the 1990’s with a more aggressive approach to democracy in the Middle East, coupled with a more robust military response to terror. I can’t help but think we started fighting this war awfully late. And that this would have helped.
In that sense, yes, I am concerned about western backing for those regimes once the Cold War was over. Had the regimes not existed, and the madrassas not spewed their poison, it’s considerably more likely that 9/11 would not have occurred.
But please don’t try and interpret my words (or, for that matter, Stephen Harper’s words) as implying our actions caused 9/11 to happen, or that it was simply Ron Paul style “blowback”. That’s close to the antithesis of what I’m saying.
As for
Did you read the speech? Or did you take the same attitude the New York Times takes, namely to focus in on a snippet and spin that?
I cannot believe that anyone who read that speech would dismiss it in the way you have. The very specific invocations of freedom and not just a “just cause” but a “noble cause” all align very strongly with what Bush, Blair, and Howard have said over the years, and are things I’ve never heard from the left.
Best,
Holmwood
September 12th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
The House of Saud didn’t set itself up in the early decades of the 20th century and proceed to elaborate a monstrously convoluted layer of controls (not to mention spawning thousands of wastral inbred princes and princesses over the years )…suppress its huge population of shi’ites and any notion of “power sharing”…and have multi characters, some backing the madrassas/Wahhabis/ & followers of al zawahiri’s hero, Sayyat Qutb (”the weirdo”) some more enlightened and not backing madrassa inspired radicalism…
…because it has, generally, been involved in non hostile relations with the US…
It’s true that oil development would likely not have taken place (or at least been substantially delayed) without “western” manpower and expertise.
But today’s (paranoid) Saudi Arabian princes and their ancestors are responsible for their own predicaments, not “the west”.
As for Egypt, “the home of the Muslim Brotherhood”, it has its own hands full with would be domestic takeover.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
“you Canadians better listen up” is not said with any sense of chastisement or superiority (no matter how it might register on the eyes or the ears :-))
It’s a topic I was more involved in maybe 3 years ago when the “sharia’ists” in Canada were attempting to work their magic on Canadian law.
And their initiative (that time) was repulsed.
But I believe it is the nature of Radical Islam to insert itself into the cultures it infests, and, like a virus, take over their societal mechanisms.
That was the impetus for my statement, not condensation, since we have the same phenomenon pressing here.
(no, I didn’t read all of S. Harper’s speech…(I do not, literally “cannot” read whole speeches by politicians in their entirety) I will tell you that, listening to him while he was first running and applauding that Canadians were ready for a change, Stephen Harper did not impress me particularly.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
“But the brutality of the Saudi and Egyptian governments that the west has backed for decades as part of a Faustian Cold War bargain…”
Yes, true, and fair enough. Guilty as charged. I would also submit that given the realities of the time, that was the bad choice, the other one was worse, and there was no good choice.
The worse choice consisted of leaving the then “non-aligned world” to the tender mercies of the radical egalitarian gulags and mass graves crowd, not to mention allowing the free world’s oil supply to be controlled by the unfree world.
I would also point out that this was a bipartisan bargain until at least 1972, when half of us sold out to the siren song of moral equivalence.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
“condensation”
or even condescension :)
September 12th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Your comment “Too bad he wants Canada’s troops out of there by 2009″ is wrong.
Prime Minister Harper has committed our troops to Afghanistan until 2009. He wants the support of Parliament before committing the troops beyond that time. He is actively promoting the need for Canada’s involvement in the Afghan mission.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
“Had the regimes not existed, and the madrassas not spewed their poison, it’s considerably more likely that 9/11 would not have occurred.”
As for madrassas and their proliferation in Pakistan and financed by YOURS AND MY GASOLINE PURCHASES enabling the hateful elements in Saudi Arabia to build them and pipe in hate speech live into radical mosques in Great Britain…this is part of the phenomenon of worldwide jihad.
A more precise statement would be “had the Internet not existed” the coordination and communication necessary for “terrorist” acts worldwide (911 one among them) the ideology of hate could not be so easily disseminated.
September 12th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
And sometimes, conservatives don’t get it, either
Very early this morning, I wrote a post about Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and his comments on the 6th anniversary of 9-11 in which he essentially stated that all we had to have done prior to 9-11 in order to prevent the attacks was to have shown …
September 12th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
“I cannot believe that anyone who read that speech would dismiss it in the way you have.”
I didn’t dismiss the speech.
I dismissed the line quoted above.
It’s something Ken Livingstone (the wimp Mayor of London) might say, both as a function of his character and an attempt to appease a growing element of British society.
It’s what Radical Islam LOVES to hear a politician say, in Australia, in Canada, in Britain, in the US, anywhere.
And I’m sick of hearing that sentiment by allegedly sentient beings.
I, personally, can’t address “grievance & poverty” of some 90 years of the House of Saud inbreeding. I don’t think the House of Saud would have been interested or paid attention to decades of “democratic” encouragement by the US.
They’re getting a little scared, though. Making noises these days about greater rights for their huge shi’ite population which has, mostly, been left out of the process for the duration.
(adios for now, be back later)
September 12th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I suspect, and maybe even hope a little, that the anti-Americanism in Canada is merely the bad habit of Canada too often defining itself as not-America rather than as Canada. I love the country and the people and dread any rifts opening up between us.
That said, wanting to tread the path of peace and understanding is not enough anymore. The enemy has set the terms of war, which is convert to Islam or die. There’s no middle ground, and no possibility of negotiation. I no longer care why they hate us. It’s a simple fact that they do, and we’d better be prepared to do what’s necessary to defend ourselves.
For the record, the Christian idea of “turning the other cheek” is the most misunderstood tenet the modern-day church has. Turning the other cheek means forgiving your enemy and understanding him, yes. It does not mean lying down like a doormat and allowing him to stomp all over you.
September 13th, 2007 at 12:42 am
@RebeccaH Rifts are inevitable. Indeed they’ve already happened. Bush’s line right after 9/11 to Blair “America has no truer, closer friend” was seen in Canada as sending a clear signal, for good or ill. Canada’s then Liberal government’s rather pathetic response to Iraq likewise sent a signal. The decision by the Bush administration to require passports for Canadians was yet a third. I’m sure we’ll still be good neighbors, but the passport thing is a pretty big deal, psychologically. America is now definitely a very foreign country to us. (Yes, I grasp the security arguments; and certainly the US has a right to do whatever it wishes).
I certainly agree with you; knee-jerk anti-Americanism in Canada is pathetic. You’re largely right about the source, but I’d add this.
There are quite a few Americans in the US who seem, objectively, to hate the US. I think when you have a significant group of people saying that, it can be all-too easy for those outside the country to pick up on that and internalize it.
I agree whole-heartedly with the rest of what you’ve said. There are few, if any, countries on the planet earth that I’d rather have as a neighbor than the US.
@Vanguard - I agree completely. It was the least bad choice.
@tanstaafl — I’ll repeat. Neither Harper nor I blame “the west” for 9/11. I do most certainly blame the madrassas, and the extremist spreaders of hate. Yes, as you note, we financed it with oil money, and we backed those governments as the least bad choice. As for the idea that the Internet is more responsible than the Madrassas, nope, sorry, you’ve lost me there.
An interesting discussion. I’m glad most didn’t continue with the tone of Banjo. Best to all,
-Holmwood
September 13th, 2007 at 1:54 am
Holmwood, while I understand how requiring passports may be negatively perceived by Canadians, when one considers how Canada is used as an entry point for terrorists, not to mention Canada’s acceptance of known terrorists, perhaps the problem isn’t with the U.S. The only thing I don’t understand is why we haven’t required the same of Mexico.
The problem with using poverty as a talking point when speaking about terrorism is that it is demonstrably wrong and is used by the antis a false cause for “why they hate us,” which question, by the way, I think is the most childish response to multiple acts of war conceivable.
September 13th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Holmwood:
I’m an American and have lived in Canada for long periods twice. It wouldn’t ever occur to me as an American that I have any right to cross from the US into Canada without presenting a passport. The Canadians seem to have a childish belief that they should be able to avail themselves of the US to escape the extortionate prices in Canadian retail and to have a sunny winter holiday without producing a passport. That’s bizarre. I don’t care if it’s psychological; it’s pathology.
Regarding the American US-haters, writers as disparate as Orwell and Hayek explored this phenomena in the ’40s regarding Britain. It’s both the product of a nation with a secure identity and also a profound left-wing pathology.
Canadian anti-Americanism has a long history dating to the American Revolution and the royalist/republican split in British North America. (Perhaps you’ve read Jack Granatstein’s “Yankee Go Home?”) It has absolutely no link to domestic malcontents in the US. Canadians can rationalize it all they want; it comes down to tremendous insecurity with Canadian identity (or the vacuum therefof.)
BTW, most Canadian malcontents emigrate to the US in their 20s. In that fashion, Canada and Mexico have a lot socially in common. I would welcome a concerted joint Canadian/American effort encouraging lefties in the US to emigrate northward. We’d all be much happier on both sides of the border. And they’d get a rude awakening to the reality of social democracy.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Bet I am the only one who went to PH Canberra to see the man deliver a classy speech. I have Canadian family connections, and friends, going back 40 years, visit regularly and follow Canadian affairs keenly). More than any conservative leader, Harper must mouth some platitudes, and speak some French, to play to the folks at home. He is a minority PM, hanging on in a once great land where PC now reigns in most places, and shows little signs of abatement. Better SH than some lib freako, and who knows?? -he might win a majority and even democratise the Senate… a point which he deftly raised for the home crowd, comparing the elected Oz Senate with the Canadian Club for retired or released liberals
We should note that both President Bush and PM Howard, neither particularly leftish, have been seen recently to light a candle (non-CO2 emitting type) at the altar of climate change, knowing that they have to play the silly political game
Doesn’t mean they believe the crap!!!!
September 14th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
@tanstaafl — I’ll repeat. Neither Harper nor I blame “the west” for 9/11. I do most certainly blame the madrassas, and the extremist spreaders of hate. Yes, as you note, we financed it with oil money, and we backed those governments as the least bad choice. As for the idea that the Internet is more responsible than the Madrassas, nope, sorry, you’ve lost me there.
You’re right, holmwood, you and I aren’t understanding each other too well.
From your writing (earlier), I picked up the “…if only this or that or the other had been done differently (e.g., IF the US had encouraged democracy sooner amongst the Saudi MONARCHY”) then x, y and z (e.g. the attacks of september 11) might not have happened”….sentiment.
For 6 years, I’ve been reading such kinds of “if/then” speculation.
Which I view as excuse making for the “terrorist” element which laughs all the way to the bank when infidels try to “understand and make excuses for the angst”.
Western excuse makers are the best friends “terrorism” has.
“Yes, as you note, we financed it with oil money…”
“It ?” Anyway, I didn’t say that. What I said is that YOURS and MY real time purchases of gasoline enable the “madrassa building/hate spewing element” within Saudi society to continue to do that stuff, AS WE SPEAK.
As for “the Internet”, this kind of modern day communication has been absolutely essential to enabling the spread of hate filled jihadist teachings, coordination of attacks, recruitment, the whole 9 yards.
Without “the Internet” and the proliferation of sites (usually in Arabic), jihadism/madrassa teachings whatever would not be able to be even 1/10 as prolific as they have become.
As for the plan for jihad in North America (y compris CANADA) you may be interested in this piece as to the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/DN-dreher_09edi.ART.State.Edition1.4235f88.html