Shock. Horror, Fear, fear, and more fear. This, so far, is the message from media relating to one symbolic soldier being murdered while on symbolic guard before a symbolic memorial commemorating war, yet, risibly, termed a ‘Peace Memorial.’ Tragic, as all senseless killing is, 9/11 this is not. I have little doubt that the shooter will prove to be a sociopath or psychopath, acting alone but with encouragement from the pseudo-Muslim sociopaths who attempt to radicalize disaffected youth through talk of a fictional war against Islam.
When I wrote in this blog recently that Canada’s entry into the Iraqi civil war would not make this country safer – as Prime Minister Harper foolishly claimed – but would instead make it less safe, this is what I meant. So, Mr. Harper, you now have more blood on your hands, and you will undoubtedly be getting more, unless you withdraw Canadian troops from controversial conflicts involving U.S. forces attempting to impose American will upon countries best left to sort out their own problems in their own ways – even if these ways do not comply with U.S. Foreign Policy, which is currently best exemplified by the conviction of Blackwater mercenaries for the 2007 murders of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. The privatization of war, begun by Bush 1st, utilizes overpaid forces answerable to no one in politics. They run amok; their employers get rich; and low-ranking suckers become the fall-guys. Such operations belong to the 15th century and ought not to be tolerated by civilized 21st century nations. Terrorism is, after all, also the privatization of war.
Naturally, American media are even more hysterical and fear-mongering than our own over the event in Ottawa. It is always worth remembering the old saw that the most frightened populations have the strongest governments. The very reaction of such unjustified terror is precisely the goal of the terrorists – and I mean the ones who run these small factions, like the Wahhabi leaders in Saudi Arabia, not the deluded or brainwashed souls who believe their lies and commit these deeds. The current reaction will endanger any Canadian in uniform, and soldiers can thank Mr. Harper now both for not looking after them when they return damaged in mind or body, and for making them fear living in the country they protect.
As usual, the response is provocative, and the cause ill-considered, inept politics from a government jumping to the whip-crack of ringmasters in Washington working for Big Oil.
With love, as always, Paul William Roberts.
