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An interesting read

Contributor: amd_1979

Date: 2003-01-22 19:24:07

Although it has many affiliations with New York, the International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com) is produced/published out of Paris. Please check them out for more unbiased reporting of current events.

An article that made me think hard about Bush and his policies, ideas and convictions can be found here: http://www.iht.com/articles/84078.html I highly recommend it!

Please ask meaninful questions of each other, of your leaders, of yourself before you make decisions, and before you throw your support behind anyone. The best thing about being Canadian is the ability to be objective when it comes to world-impacting issues like Bush's campaign against Iraq.

We have to remember that there are no right or wrong answers, but that there are some solutions that are far better than others for all parties involved. And those solutions will only be reached by being as informed as possible about all the outcomes and consequences.

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An interesting read

Contributor: rmk

Date: 2003-01-23 08:47:16

While the IHT article is very insightful and does account for a number of underlying factors for the agressive action towards Iraq, let's not forget what is at stake here. Maintianing the U.S. economy is of the utmost importance to any administration and can be lost in the rhetoric of why. It is this economy and the lifestyles that go with it that have created these situations. We enjoy a certain lifestyle here because of what the U.S. can do abroad.

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An interesting read

Contributor: dsteve3

Date: 2003-01-23 10:25:42

By this reasoning, we should adopt an imperialist attitude and merely conquer any region of the planet for our profit. In fact, this is exactly what we have been doing. Anyone who is actually informed about our role in Yugoslavia, where we, as partners in the NATO bombings, successfully destroyed over 300 schools and only 14 tanks. How did destroying Yugoslavia's infrastructure prevent ethnic cleansing? It didn't, in fact it helped to escalate that problem.

We have been complicit in the crimes that have plagued our world, while pretending that we are some benificent influence. Our role in the G7/G8 has not resulted in moderating the escalating turmoil, but that of deceptive support of destructive foreign influences.

We have precious little time left before our imalgamation (voluntarily or otherwise) into a greater American jurisdiction, where our interests will continue to erode. The regions of this country have sufferred at the hands of invisible influences, which hide behind the spontaneously invalid title of "conspiracies".

Our utter lack of national responsibility to our precious finite resources combined with our support of oppressive measures around the world, from Korea to the Gulf, has shown the shambles of our democratic institutions. It demonstrates how shallow our pretence is to furthering world peace. We live in a world that has been greatly influenced by our ACTIONS, which in fact are farthest from our beliefs. The time to actually doing something about this is quickly coming to a close.

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An interesting read

Contributor: rmk

Date: 2003-01-23 14:22:45

I agree that we are allowing our natural resources to be swallowed up without protecting our own interests. It is this very type of behavior that has created this "follower" stance. Regardless, what I am disturbed by is the lack of respect we have for our neighbours to he south. Everyone seems to believe that they are the only resource gluttons in the world, when, in reality, we use more per capita than any other country. The relationship we have with the U.S. is closer than geography shows.

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An interesting read

Contributor: Robert

Date: 2003-01-25 17:02:45

I completely agree with this comment. The amount of people which on a daily basis ridicule the United States is astounding. How different are we from them? Have we forgotten that we fought the same fights, grew in the same time period, or have encountered much the same problems? True, we have had different approaches to different problems which can be attributed to our resource differences. The US has much deeper pockets than we do, and so they deal with problems differently. But, while they have on occasion stooped to acts which are shameful, they have more often than not followed their conscience. More than any other superpower in the past, the US has adhered to the principles on which it was founded. For this we should respect and applaud them, if for nothing else. I fear we are merely the armchair quarterbacks of the world.

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An interesting read

Contributor: Kdog

Date: 2003-02-24 19:46:19

Thanks for your defense of the US. I am an American and while I do agree that we have made errors, I am proud of my countries heritage overall, and one of our strengths I feel is the ability to overcome mistakes and try to stay true to certain ideals.

I agree that we are not that diferent, indeed we are more alike than any other two English speaking countries in the world. We share one the two greatest areas of natural resouce in the world, and the greatest area of economic opportunity and human liberty in the world.

Which is not to say that we dont have things to work on together. I am in the Air National Guard as a part time airmen. I am proud to learn that there are Canadian forces assisting in the Coalition to liberate the people of Iraq from the Bath ruling party led by Hussein. I hope that Canada will take a larger and more proactive role in North American security in the future as well.

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An interesting read

Contributor: CdninCali

Date: 2003-01-27 01:22:21

Applaud the statement.. We have let our natrual resources get eatten up. I think in some ways we need to stop that flow and become much more conservative with out resources. In some ways, I am lead to believe, that the NAFTA act does not allow Canada to slow the flow the of its resources. We need to find a solution to this problem. It feels like we sold our selves out in some ways. We need to take responsibility as a whole society to find out what is really going on. The love of my Mother country means more to me than I could discribe, as my Canadian Pride in enormous and I do whole heartedly believe we can keep our Canadian personality in this world. I agree with the statement made that we are looking more and more like our Imperlist's neighbours and this has got to stop. We share a lot with our neighbours as well but we can be very different than them as well.. Lets keep this North Country strong and free, and lets keep our identity.

Tim...

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