Know the enemy.
The report by Liberal John Manley on our nation’s noble and right Afghanistan mission appears at first glance to be about as close to my own “report” as can be with the possible exception of the proposed threat that would be issued to NATO that we pull out our combat troops by February 2009 unless NATO steps up to the plate. I’d stay in full combat mode—and build it higher using our F-18 jet fleet and more—no matter what, until we win, and I’d publicly promise to do that by yelling loudly into a microphone. And by the way, my “report” is apparently every bit as useful and relevant as any ridiculous bureaucratic fact-finding committee’s, since they came to much the same conclusion as I did years ago.
And the all-politics, all the time reaction from the unprincipled set—Liberal Frenchman Stephane Dion and Jack Layton et al —is absolutely predictable. Dion sounds unspeakably ridiculous today, as is becoming a “tradition” with him:
“What we want, it’s a mission to help Afghanis to build their country, a mission in the tradition of Canada,” Dion said. “The combat mission must end in February 2009, and after that we’ll help Afghanistan by other ways.”
—CTV.ca news story
Here’s one lesson we can take home from this: Never take a lesson from a liberal-leftist on “tradition”. Modern liberals know nothing about “tradition”. They know about as much about “tradition” as they do about “values”, or “principle”. Or “the right to life”. Or “Kyoto”. Or honesty. Or fighting wars. Liberals hate tradition, especially when it comes to Canada. They manifestly hate Canada and the way it was conceived—what with the fact that Canada was founded upon the principles that recognize the supremacy of God, its reliance on Judeo-Christian principles and “traditions”, traditional families and values, a respect for life, a sense of self-reliance and personal responsibility and a pioneering, entrepreneurial attitude, and full freedom including free-market capitalism. And so they constantly seek to change it to mold it to their way of thinking—based on their world view, which liberals and all leftists like to call “progressive”.
In the interest of winning the war and building our nation, and the prerequisite, knowing the enemy, we ought to just cut the crap and get to the point —their point, and call it what it is: Orwellian, Godless, nanny-state socialism. The opposite of what we are.
The enemy is a moving target, of course. The “progressive” never ends. Who knows what will happen, in their world? Not even them. Even the fanciful liberals appointed to their Supreme Court division don’t know. They have no “exit strategy”. They just keep going. No end dates are known. They’re kind of like the Taliban and al-Qaeda and Islamofascist terrorists that way, ironically.
No that’s crazy. Let me start again: The first lesson we can take home from all this is that today’s liberals generally are abject liars.
Canada’s “tradition” is not that of training soldiers in far away places, nor sharing tea and buns with them, as the far-liberal-left of Dion and Layton would have us do. To the extent that a nation of perhaps 140 years of age can even have a military “tradition”, it has in fact been marked by almost unthinkable heroism in battlefields and fearsome battles. In the two World Wars. In Korea. And sorry CBC about that abject denial of yours and losing that snarky little bout you stirred-up with Ann Coulter about this that one time, but we even proved our mettle in Vietnam where tens of thousands of Canadians joined the Americans in bloody, awful battle against socialism and communism there. And certainly more recently in Kosovo, where our fighter jets actually engaged in fierce bombing runs, dodging bullets and sundry counter fire all the while—in a real war.
Afghanistan isn’t unique —it’s par for the course. To say otherwise is to lie. And it’s actually something—a tradition—we should not blush about or run and hide from. It’s something we should proudly build upon. Get better at. Do more of. Build on that proud reputation that the Dutch and South Koreans and Balkans and realists all over the world can tell you about: that Canada is a tough-minded, well-armed, well-trained, benevolent freedom fighter that is up to the task; and a country which can hit above its weight.
Dion and Layton and the entire Left seek to portray us in the world as the exact opposite. He seeks to demean and diminish Canada and its history and abilities. He seeks to thus create (or continue to build upon, perhaps more accurately) a sense among the Canadians, whom he apparently so disrespects and detests, that we need him and “The Party” and his grand nanny-state and, under his God-awful tutelage, a continuation of the already redundant social programs and entitlements and supports and bureaus and still new ones to boot.
Jack Layton lived up to his nickname (“ass”) today about as well as he ever could have as he reiterated his utter stupidity on the Afghanistan file, in light of the Manley report. And this is just the early going.
NDP Leader Jack Layton reiterated his party’s call on Monday for a complete Canadian withdrawal.
“I think that it’s well known by Canadians that we feel this is the wrong mission, the wrong mission for Canada, that NATO’s approach is failing,” Layton said. “More and more Canadians have come around to our view.
—CTV.ca news story
Here’s a man (term used loosely) who constantly demands commissions and committees and group discussion and reports and bureaucracy and when he gets a report from one and doesn’t agree with it, he whines like a little girl with her hands over her ears and cries “I can’t hear you!… I can’t hear you!…”. I’m not sure if he hates Canada more, or our soldiers specifically. No man who loves our country and our noble efforts the world over would say or behave in such a stupid manner. In fact, any self-respecting person wouldn’t behave in the manner he does. Certainly nobody would vote for this (but for the state-run CBC’s apparent insistence).
As I’ve always said, we should stop the treasonous talk of “dates” of withdrawal, as if we were totally stupid. We should promise the opposite: that we will stay there and fight with all our guns and jets and tanks and fancy weaponry until the job is done, no matter how long that takes, and then stay a week longer just to get extra points.
We should establish a war cabinet. And a war room. We should take this seriously. This war represents the front line of a huge threat. We need to get serious. We need to grow up. Layton and Dion and the Bloc’s Gilles Duceppe need to zip it and be Canadians. People all across the country ought to get on board and win this. Or come out and admit their real objectives.
Any politician who speaks otherwise should be ignored and cast aside as something other than Canadians who speak for the good our country. They know not what they say, nor anything about our nation’s “traditions”—and most especially, they don’t know how to build our nation—much less help build any other.
Know the enemy.
Speak out against them. Speak up for Canada and our traditions. All of them.
UPDATE: Also see my transcript of a great answer John Manley gave to a reporter during the post-release news conference.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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