Monday, April 09, 2007

Our amusing peacenik neighbors to the north.

When discussing Canada, I always have to laugh at how they eschew anything to do with military force yet they reside comfortably next to us and sleep safe under our nuclear and conventional arms umbrella. I have to wonder if they'd have the same anti-military views if they were a country in the middle of Europe of the mid-east instead of having us as their only neighbor in a situation where Geography compels us to be their big brother whether we really care to be or not. Heck, if we weren't right next door to them, maybe they'd even have a real navy and one that didn't draw half of it's fleet from the old Boblo boat line.

This comes up this morning due to an interesting article on The Shekel blog about how the Canadians want to lease twenty--that's right, just twenty--Leopard battle tanks from the German government for use in Afghanistan because the Leopards that the Canadians currently own don't have air conditioning. And apparently the Canadian left is all in a tizzy, claiming that tanks won't make the Afghanis like them. I guess those Canadian leftists never read Machiavelli's essay on whether it is better to be liked or feared:

Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Italian dramatist, historian, & philosopher (1469 - 1527)

Me, I'll always advocate for armor and greater force, if only to prevent a repeat of what happened to our troops in Somalia when President Clinton refused to allow them to have armor when our local commanders requested it. But hey, I'm not Canadian, after all. I'm not so pacifistic that I consider John Lennon to have been a war-monger, and I realize that peace and security comes through strength and the resolve to use it. (Can you hear me, British navy?)

That said, in related news, there is reportedly a movement afoot to change the Canadian national anthem from "Oh, Canada" to "Why Can't We Be Friends?"

3 comments:

  1. Before you become too much of a smart ass, why don't you compare the entry date of WWI and WWII of both the USA and Canada and tell me how many more years at fighting world wars.

    You are far clearly too smug to learn anything about the Canadian attitude and military tradition.

    And don't go off telling me that the US protects Canada because as far as I know, not one US serviceman has ever lost their life protecting Canada.
    We just lost 6 more is Afstan bring our dead to 51. That is one short of the UK

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  2. Yes, Canada did enter both World Wars significantly before the United States did. However, you guys didn't change anything, whereas in both instances, once we entered the fray our manpower and industrial might finished those fights. And after World War Two, it was our economy and our Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe and Asia.

    But hey--nice job at Dunkirk in 1940.


    Nah, seriously--I really do love you Canadians, even if you did foist William Shatner off on us. You still make good beer and those McKenzie Brothers were damned funny. Plus North of 60 was my favorite show for a long time.

    So we can still find common ground and be friends. After all, it's not like you can invade us if you get mad, eh? All two dozen of your army tanks are in Afghanistan!

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  3. from http://frum.nationalreview.com/

    ....

    Being a Canadian, of course, Schreiber underscores his point with a final statistical comparison to the US forces in the Meuse-Argonne region on the southern portion of the Western front.

    Troops engaged

    Americans: 650,000
    Canadians: 105,000

    Duration of Operations

    Americans: 47 days
    Canadians: 100 days

    Maximum Distance Advanced

    Americans: 34 miles
    Canadians: 86 miles

    German Divisions Defeated
    (Out of a total of 200)

    Americans: 46
    Canadians: 47

    Average Number of Casualties Suffered per German Division Defeated

    Americans: 2,170
    Canadians: 975

    Total Casualties

    Americans: 100,000
    Canadians: 45,830


    “The ultimate conclusion that must be drawn,” he sums up, “is that … the Canadian Corps was able to make a highly significant contribution to the defeat of the German army on the battlefield at precisely half the cost in terms of life and limb as the American army.”
    ..................

    Canada was the 4th most powerful military in the world after WWII. Not bad for a country with a small population.

    BTW...Out soldiers have crossed the border in the past...we burned the white house down, and took Detroit. We didn't like Detroit and gave it back. There is nothing there that we wanted.

    If you think that Canada is such a push over now...take a look at the military power rankings...You might be surprised at Canada being ranked higher that Iran.

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