Canadian Parliament debates action against ISIS/ISIL

[cbrunny]

Support is a mile wide and an inch deep. Polls I've seen seem to show it's under a majority for anything approaching strong support (45-46%).

We have no business sending those flying deathtraps to the Middle East so that the Conservative Party and it's leader can swing their metaphorical dicks over their shoulders while hoping to reap some political 'points' out of this.

Source please. Because this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mps...with-polls-suggesting-broad-support-1.2788540

While MPs debate what kind of role Canada should play in the fight against ISIS, polls suggests a majority of Canadians are supportive of the country joining the United States and its coalition partners in a combat mission against the Islamic militants.

The polls also suggest a majority consider the fighters known as ISIS to be a direct or serious threat to Canada's interests.

...

The most recent poll numbers, from an Ipsos Reid poll for Global News on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, found 64 per cent of Canadians were somewhat or strongly supportive of a Canadian participation that included air strikes. The remaining 36 per cent were opposed, but just 16 per cent strongly — compared to 29 per cent who strongly supported a more intense role.

This is in line with what other surveys have shown over the last month. Polls conducted in the first half of September showed a majority supportive of Canada sending military advisers to Iraq in an initial 30-day mission the government is extending.

 

[cbrunny]

.

I'm not going to try to deny my partisanship (though I have voted for all three major parties at one point or another) but at least I am wearing it. Your entire post reeks of typical liberal bs. "Let's all hug each other and then conflict will go away." Or perhaps more adequately "if we hide, no one will find us." Not to mention the IS-apologist sentiment.

It's ignorance beyond ignorance.

The human rights argument simply doesn't need to be made - it is self evident. Canada is in this fight because Canada is a player on the international stage, period. Our roles in these conflicts have traditionally been peacekeeping, yes, but how can you keep peace when there is no peace? Granted we are not the USA, but we are also not trying to be. Our efforts are relatively modest because that's what we can do reasonably. This is an international effort, not a "Hey guys, Canada gots this, y'all go back to bed."

Blaming America for ISIS is akin to "yeah? Well he started it!" I think it would be nice if we could leave the schoolyard bullshit to the schoolyard and actually do something to help keep people's heads attached to their necks, or people out of the mass execution ranges, or perhaps stop a genocide or two, maybe stop some mass raping of women. That'd be swell.

Voluntarily sitting on the sidelines of this conflict is shameful. I'm legitimately embarrassed that fellow Canadians actually oppose intervening.

EDIT:

As for "why airstrikes and not boots on ground?" - In case it isn't obvious, bombing from planes is much safer than sending boots on the ground and can be an effective first step in weakening the ISIS defenses. It would be stupid not to take out military assets from the sky and just send in troops to fight those military assets head on instead. That's literally why military planes and missiles were invented in the first place. Where the conflict goes from that point forward remains to be seen, as it will depend on many different factors including the relative success of air strikes.

 

[bshole]

ROFLMFAO!!! Seriously dude that is totally fucked up.

Just so you know the people you are fighting for (the kurdish PKK) have been branded as a terrorist group by Turkey. So.... when you get done with ISIS, do you then start bombing the PKK? Lets face it, the entire region is a target rich environment. You can bomb forever and there will always be new targets.What is your end game in all of this? Kill 50,000 and call it day? 100,000? We killed 200,000 in Iraq and accomplished what? Perhaps we need body counts in the millions?

Tell me, is it terrorism when you drop bombs against people who absolutely have no way to fight back?

https://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Demonstrators attacked a Turkish consulate in Austria Monday night as they protested against Turkey’s lack of support for Kurdish fighters in the besieged Syrian town of Kobani.

Masked protestors hurled stones through the windows of the consulate in Bregenz, western Austria.

Up to 50 demonstrators had gathered to protest, chanting slogans of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK. The party is recognized as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU and the U.S.

No consular staff were present in the building and the protest was dispersed by police.

Around Turkey, protests against Turkey’s refusal to intervene militarily in Kobani or supply Kurdish defenders with weapons also took place Monday and Tuesday.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/turkey/145748/protestors-attack-turkish-consulate-in-austria

 

[moonbogg]

Canada to send in horses.

 

[Whiskey16]

Your entire post reeks of typical liberal bs. "Let's all hug each other and then conflict will go away." Or perhaps more adequately "if we hide, no one will find us." Not to mention the IS-apologist sentiment.

You enjoy lying through your teeth? I never said any such thing, rather than engaging with rational to the points I made, you ignore much of it, and are repeating, nearly verbatim, the CPC talking points.

Rather than your expression of full cogitative dissonance of the LPC "hiding" and "non-militarism," here are what some prominent Liberals are saying:

Rae wrote in the Globe and Mail that, "This is not about 'peace' versus 'war.' This is about something different — the collective capacity of governments and international institutions to deal effectively with perpetrators of violence.”

..

In the words of another Liberal grandee — former senator and retired general Romeo Dallaire — air strikes won't do the job.
"There's no way you will destroy that enemy without boots on the ground," Dallaire told the CBC.

..

And yet another senior Liberal — former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy — put it even more simply. The fighters of ISIS, he said, "have to be whacked, and whacked good."

..

But that's not all Fowler said. What Mulcair did not mention was that Fowler's complaint was not that military action was futile, but that the no-boots campaign proposed was wholly insufficient. In fact, Fowler's article was a searing denunciation of Western reluctance to "do the nasty."

"Suddenly," Fowler wrote Oct. 3, "full of righteous indignation and disgust, we've thrown together another abstract, not very cohesive, not very committed coalition."

The failure to put boots on the ground, Fowler said, means that the allies "will fail in our arm's-length attempts to safely confront and effectively limit the predations of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State because we do not have the will — the necessary stuff — to prevail ... We seem incapable of making the case, even to ourselves, that if these guys really represent a threat to our way of life, then it behooves us to do the nasty necessary to eradicate that threat."
Ouch.

By Fowler's account, and by Dallaire's, and by retired general Lewis Mackenzie's, and by those of many other well-informed pessimists, the debate over six Canadian warplanes is almost beside the point. Not politically — because being a free-rider really does have consequences — but militarily. No amount of planes, they say, will win this kind of war.

My position was clear, Canada should have no military role in a fight where the main foreign instigators for this mess (the USA, Britain, Australia, etc.) have no nerve to do a job more effectively by placing 'boots on the ground' to remove and possibly defeat an embedded and entrenched military that is already holding the ground.

It's ignorance beyond ignorance.

I'm not espousing ignorant and bombastic tokenism, for an aerial campaign to magically win a ground war.

It would be stupid not to take out military assets from the sky and just send in troops to fight those military assets head on instead.

Making crap up? Not a soul is saying soldiers without airsupport.

As for "why airstrikes and not boots on ground?" - In case it isn't obvious, bombing from planes is much safer than sending boots on the ground and can be an effective first step in weakening the ISIS defenses.

A first step? Soldiers next? Why not now to do a job with fortitude? A half measure of airstrikes along to support unknown quantities on the ground

• Kurds to only hold their existing territory? Will our NATO ally Turkey support this?
• The Syrian Army to retake its land?
• The Shiah Iraqi Army to conquer Iraqi Sunni territory in its civil war?)

Your simple take is to ignore full examination of this conflict, failing to play it out for what ends may be returned, and the fantasy of token airstrikes to do any sufficient job. Kurbani has fallen, weeks after US airstrikes began.

This mission for planes to Iraq and Syria is a fools errand. Bravado of tokenism to simply wave a dick around and celebrate in chickenhawk grandeur for 'doing something.'

 

[werepossum]

Iraqis, you ignorant and genocidal twit?

I have the decency and civilised intelligence to not prejudicially condemn to death an entire population.

To answer your question, yes, the vast majority of Muslims in this world are decent, respectful, and honourable human beings, and equally share my distaste and condemn those such as IS. I both sympathise, and as a Jew, empathise with the extremely violent hatred they may face from the repugnant likes of you.

Now, Zorkorist, as only a miniscule portion of those you entirely condemn, you are a vile extremist, and let's have faith in this community for a swift and enforcing hand from above to put you in your well deserved place. Too much of this membership continue to feel freedom to incite extreme hatred and genocide.

Now go off, and soak up more of Anders Breivik's manifesto while you jerk off to the massacring deaths the likes of him, you, and IS dream for.

The vast majority of Americans had zero problem with Muslims prior to 9-11. We didn't even have much concept of them (except for those of us who follow foreign affairs to some degree) other than the local family running a convenience store or other small business, or perhaps one or two Muslims met locally. After 9-11, we became, um, somewhat less tolerant. Now we pay attention.

You enjoy lying through your teeth? I never said any such thing, rather than engaging with rational to the points I made, you ignore much of it, and are repeating, nearly verbatim, the CPC talking points.

Rather than your expression of full cogitative dissonance of the LPC "hiding" and "non-militarism," here are what some prominent Liberals are saying:

My position was clear, Canada should have no military role in a fight where the main foreign instigators for this mess (the USA, Britain, Australia, etc.) have no nerve to do a job more effectively by placing 'boots on the ground' to remove and possibly defeat an embedded and entrenched military that is already holding the ground.

I'm not espousing ignorant and bombastic tokenism, for an aerial campaign to magically win a ground war.

Making crap up? Not a soul is saying soldiers without airsupport.

A first step? Soldiers next? Why not now to do a job with fortitude? A half measure of airstrikes along to support unknown quantities on the ground

• Kurds to only hold their existing territory? Will our NATO ally Turkey support this?
• The Syrian Army to retake its land?
• The Shiah Iraqi Army to conquer Iraqi Sunni territory in its civil war?)

Your simple take is to ignore full examination of this conflict, failing to play it out for what ends may be returned, and the fantasy of token airstrikes to do any sufficient job. Kurbani has fallen, weeks after US airstrikes began.

This mission for planes to Iraq and Syria is a fools errand. Bravado of tokenism to simply wave a dick around and celebrate in chickenhawk grandeur for 'doing something.'

You don't see even a teensy bit of difference between the Shi'i-led Iraqi government's army and the Sunnis who are beheading men, women and even children for the crime of worshiping slightly differently?

As for me, I'm in favor of ARC LIGHTs wherever ISIS forces advance or even congregate. Hard to dismiss those as "token airstrikes". I'm even in favor of boots on the ground IF needed to wipe out this abomination. Somehow I doubt you'll be in favor of those either. Your objection isn't really that we're doing too little, your objection is that we're doing anything.

 

[Fern]

-snip-
??? The UK only had voted in their House of Commons last week. Australia has just got around to it. Only a few weeks of action by the USA and have any of your representative houses voted on action? Quite the flippant comment by you, Fern.

Flippant?

We've been bombing for a while and this has long been discussed.

Obama made an announcement about the 'coalition' over a month ago.

Our system of govt is different then yours. It's up to our President to make a request of Congress to vote on it. He has not done so. As I said many times I believe this is purely for political purposes. Obama and the Democrat, in particular, do not want to vote on this before our mid-term elections.

This lack of a vote is even now causing us problems. Without the vote of Congress we cannot bring charges of treason against US citizens who are helping ISIS. The head of the FBI said yesterday that they had identified 4 (IIRC?) US citizens helping ISIS and that they intend to let them back into the county and just 'monitor' them.

Fern

 

[Fern]

-snip-
Tell me, is it terrorism when you drop bombs against people who absolutely have no way to fight back?

No, that's what's known as a 'military advantage'.

Fern

 

[Whiskey16]

Flippant?

Why should you have expected Canada to militarily act in a quicker manner when no assets are based in that region for a combat mission that is a direct symptom of an illegal war aggression that Canada clearly stayed away from?

We've been bombing for a while and this has long been discussed.

The first minor actions were in Iraq by the USA were in August, and then two weeks ago in Syria.

Our system of govt is different then yours. It's up to our President to make a request of Congress to vote on it. He has not done so.

In these terms, no different than ours, as the government has no obligation to present a debate and then vote in the House of Commons for military action... This is simply done as a courtesy the Canadian public and to consult their Members of Parliament.

Here was your flippant remark, Fern:

Why is Canada just now getting around to this?

Does news travel slow up there or is their legislative calendar that busy?

Your government hasn't even got around to consulting your elected representatives, and yet you have the nerve to critique Canada's legislative tardiness? You deserved a call-out on that.

Can you comment upon what this mission is and what it may accomplish?

What do airstrikes do? Upon multiple parties, who are they to support? What is the end game?

 

[Fern]

Why should you have expected Canada to militarily act in a quicker manner when no assets are based in that region for a combat mission that is a direct symptom of an illegal war aggression that Canada clearly stayed away from?

First, I wasn't talking about military action, just voting.

As I said, Obama spoke of the military coalition over a month ago.

Here was your flippant remark, Fern:

Your government hasn't even got around to consulting your elected representatives, and yet you have the nerve to critique Canada's legislative tardiness? You deserved a call-out on that.

Shrug, still seems late to me.

Can you comment upon what this mission is and what it may accomplish?

What this mission is? Yeah, it's 'simply' air strikes. However, in spite of Obama's claim I do believe there are 'boots on the ground' to help coordinate.

What will it accomplish? Not much. I think it will be largely ineffective. Some Toyota pickups with machine guns bolted to the bed will get blown up, and maybe an ISIS fighter here-n-there. Obama wanted to ignore ISIL, well did ignore them, until the polls forced him to act. His response was 'as little as possible'. This whole issue goes against his "AQ is defeated and on the run' thingy so he was, or is, in denial.

I also think Obama greatly aided making these air strikes as ineffective as possible by announcing them a couple of weeks (IIRC) before actually commencing. I've heard reports from Syrian refugees crossing into Turkey claiming that upon Obama's remarks ISIS fighters abandoned their bases and moved into homes with the locals etc.

What do airstrikes do? Upon multiple parties, who are they to support? What is the end game?

Again the air strikes do little to affect ISIS. Worse, a negative side effect is that as we bomb ISIS positions Assad redeploys any of his forces from that area of ISIS and moves them to attack the FSA. I.e., we're getting outplayed in a 'chess match' and inadvertently helping Assad against the forces that the US govt actually supports.

End game? I think Obama's real end game is to slow play this til he's out of office and dump it on someone else. He so desperately doesn't want his legacy to be war. I think he wanted to be seen as Clinton II, however Bill was enormously lucky with the hand he was dealt. Peace dividend and what not (Wintel/internet etc).

If the end game as advertised is to destroy ISIS then this slow start ensures a long slog; a very long slog. I suspect it may shift to 'contain'. However, that, IMO, would be a never ending task.

I don't like trying to fight a war half-assed. I've never seen it work out well. And for that reason, were I Canada I would consider sitting this out at this time.

Fern

 

[Whiskey16]

Thank you, Fern, a good post. I agree with your assessment.

 

[master_shake_]

meh...

what the hell is canada gonna do? honestly.

 

[Victorian Gray]

meh...

what the hell is canada gonna do? honestly.

Try and keep the 6 planes that we're sending from falling apart?

 

[JumBie]

And once again the nimrods in the Canadian parliament vote to help the USA and allies airstrike the shit out of "ISIS targets". Way to go Canada, 13 years go by and you still never learn. Following the USA into any war is just bad news. Now what? We waste tax payers money to go and bomb the shit out of civilians and accomplish next to nothing? Some democracy this is, you want to spend our money for war? How about instead of those MP's sitting their fat asses in the House of Commons voting for how they should spend our money, you let the Canadian citizens decide what we want to do.

 

[Victorian Gray]

And once again the nimrods in the Canadian parliament vote to help the USA and allies airstrike the shit out of "ISIS targets". Way to go Canada, 13 years go by and you still never learn. Following the USA into any war is just bad news. Now what? We waste tax payers money to go and bomb the shit out of civilians and accomplish next to nothing? Some democracy this is, you want to spend our money for war? How about instead of those MP's sitting their fat asses in the House of Commons voting for how they should spend our money, you let the Canadian citizens decide what we want to do.

You might want to be just a bit more specific regarding this vote because both the opposition parties voted against the Harper Conservatives on this.

 

[JumBie]

You might want to be just a bit more specific regarding this vote because both the opposition parties voted against the Harper Conservatives on this.

http://www.citynews.ca/2014/10/07/house-of-commons-gives-green-light-to-combat-mission-in-iraq/

Conservatives won 157-134.

I am just angry at the conservatives tbh.

 

[Imp]

ISIS about to take another town in Syria despite air strikes?

Lovely war... I especially like the part about where the munitions and financial support used by the enemy came from.

 

[bshole]

You don't see even a teensy bit of difference between the Shi'i-led Iraqi government's army and the Sunnis who are beheading men, women and even children for the crime of worshiping slightly differently?

I don't. I guess your eyes are better than mine. The "good" Shia government burning Sunnis to death..... yes thats ok...... lets back them up!

I say let these people fight amongst themselves. Not our business. If they attack us, then it becomes our business.

Iraqi forces have illegally executed at least 255 Sunni prisoners in the past month, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).


The group said it found evidence of summary killings by the Iraqi army and militias affiliated with the government since 9 June.

In nearly all cases, soldiers, police or Shia militia members shot the prisoners dead, but in one case dozens of prisoners were reportedly set on fire and in another, grenades were thrown into locked cells.

Five massacres were documented in Mosul and Tal Afar, in northern Nineveh province, in Baaquba and Jumarkhe, in Diyala, and in Rawa in Anbar province.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...s-in-revenge-for-isis-atrocities-9601952.html

 

[Sinsear]

Welcome aboard Canada. Your politicians made the right choice.

 

[Sonikku]

What's our 'dog' then?

Military contractors gotta eat too.

 

[cabri]

Thought about dropping loaves of Canadian bacon on the unsuspecting Muslims.

Instead of cluster bombs with munitions, cluster bombs w/diced ham.()

 

[Victorian Gray]

Military contractors gotta eat too.

The Harper govt. doesn't actually spend money on our military. They just talk about how much they support it and put out a lot of political commercials about the War of 1812.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Welcome aboard Canada. Your politicians made the right choice.

No, no the party that voted in favour did not make the correct choice.

 

[Zorkorist]

Huh...

Funny this thread on P&N, and the news of the Canadian Parliament Killer.

-John

 

[Victorian Gray]

Huh...

Funny this thread on P&N, and the news of the Canadian Parliament Killer.

-John

Funny?