As a Canadian, I found it very threatening that Trump and Putin met in Alaska, where the US essentially borders both Canada and Russia. Putin thinks Ukraine should be part of Russia; Trump says Canada “was meant to be the 51st state.” Trump’s gestures toward being “tough” on Russia are now seemingly at an end. Did his pro-Russian sentiment (or perhaps the rumoured kompromat) get bolstered by a promise of mutual support in the plundering of Canada? (I know it sounds paranoid, but Russia made legal moves to extend its border closer to Canada’s *at the same time* that it invaded Crimea, and our third geopolitical neighbour, Greenland, is also on Trump’s list). Though I once believed it couldn’t happen, this authoritarian re-alignment is impossible to miss, and it appears that the most we can expect from our American cousins is hand-wringing and the oft-repeated (but increasingly ahistorical) “this is not who we are.”
Oh my. I’d ordinarily not respond to such rage-baiting horseshit, but you’ve suggested that deliberately starving children “rewards Hamas for rape.” That’s the equivalent of saying that every Christian child in the United States should be bombed and starved because the KKK represented themselves as Christians. Folks who believe military might makes right—and you seem to have placed yourself in that category—and those who believe that objecting to the starvation of civilians is wrong—ditto—lack perspective and any appreciation of nuance. Like the present US president, who suggested that the German people ought to feel shame at the Allies’ defeat of the Nazi regime, I think you need an education in history. How does your perspective on the relative strengths of the Canadian and US militaries make the annexation of another country just? Is my concern about the present US-Russia (Trump-Putin) imperialist alignment meaningless because you think former PM Trudeau is a sissy? You’re right that our military isn’t what it should be—that’s because we apparently mistakenly believed that the US would continue to be a force for good in the world. (BTW—a US invasion of Canada would be a disaster for the US: most of the US population—isolationist but eager to be the “good guys”—wouldn’t support it, international trade would get even uglier than the present administration has made it, and we’re no less committed to our identity and sovereignty than, say, Vietnam or Afghanistan: ask Putin how his 3-day plan to subjugate Ukraine has gone).
Well you have the mighty Canadian army to thwart any threats against your country. Under Trudeau, that epitome of masculinity, you spent about 1 percent on defense spending. Aren’t you down to one operable submarine now? At the end of WWII, where Canadians performed heroically, you had the 4th most powerful armed forces in the world. You are a joke now a joke, but a “moral superpower”. Cutting off aid to Israel (where will they get their kayaks?), rewarding Hamas for rape, kidnapping and murder by recognizing a Palestinian state, leading the fight on climate change when you are sitting an ocean of oil and natural gas, threatening to freeze assets of your own citizens for exercising free expression, et al. Just hide behind the US skirt like you have for the past 80 years and keep quiet
As a Canadian, I found it very threatening that Trump and Putin met in Alaska, where the US essentially borders both Canada and Russia. Putin thinks Ukraine should be part of Russia; Trump says Canada “was meant to be the 51st state.” Trump’s gestures toward being “tough” on Russia are now seemingly at an end. Did his pro-Russian sentiment (or perhaps the rumoured kompromat) get bolstered by a promise of mutual support in the plundering of Canada? (I know it sounds paranoid, but Russia made legal moves to extend its border closer to Canada’s *at the same time* that it invaded Crimea, and our third geopolitical neighbour, Greenland, is also on Trump’s list). Though I once believed it couldn’t happen, this authoritarian re-alignment is impossible to miss, and it appears that the most we can expect from our American cousins is hand-wringing and the oft-repeated (but increasingly ahistorical) “this is not who we are.”
Oh my. I’d ordinarily not respond to such rage-baiting horseshit, but you’ve suggested that deliberately starving children “rewards Hamas for rape.” That’s the equivalent of saying that every Christian child in the United States should be bombed and starved because the KKK represented themselves as Christians. Folks who believe military might makes right—and you seem to have placed yourself in that category—and those who believe that objecting to the starvation of civilians is wrong—ditto—lack perspective and any appreciation of nuance. Like the present US president, who suggested that the German people ought to feel shame at the Allies’ defeat of the Nazi regime, I think you need an education in history. How does your perspective on the relative strengths of the Canadian and US militaries make the annexation of another country just? Is my concern about the present US-Russia (Trump-Putin) imperialist alignment meaningless because you think former PM Trudeau is a sissy? You’re right that our military isn’t what it should be—that’s because we apparently mistakenly believed that the US would continue to be a force for good in the world. (BTW—a US invasion of Canada would be a disaster for the US: most of the US population—isolationist but eager to be the “good guys”—wouldn’t support it, international trade would get even uglier than the present administration has made it, and we’re no less committed to our identity and sovereignty than, say, Vietnam or Afghanistan: ask Putin how his 3-day plan to subjugate Ukraine has gone).
Well you have the mighty Canadian army to thwart any threats against your country. Under Trudeau, that epitome of masculinity, you spent about 1 percent on defense spending. Aren’t you down to one operable submarine now? At the end of WWII, where Canadians performed heroically, you had the 4th most powerful armed forces in the world. You are a joke now a joke, but a “moral superpower”. Cutting off aid to Israel (where will they get their kayaks?), rewarding Hamas for rape, kidnapping and murder by recognizing a Palestinian state, leading the fight on climate change when you are sitting an ocean of oil and natural gas, threatening to freeze assets of your own citizens for exercising free expression, et al. Just hide behind the US skirt like you have for the past 80 years and keep quiet