How Many Hero Highways Do We Need?

Today, the mayor of Canada’s largest city is renaming parts of a major highway to honor fallen Canadian soldiers – their bodies are brought back home on these parts of the road.

Toronto Mayor David Miller will officially rename parts of the Don Valley Parkway and some local connecting side streets the “Route of Heroes.”

Previously, the province of Ontario renamed a section of Highway 401 from Trenton to the Don Valley Parkway the “Highway of Heroes.”

Both are part of the route the Canadian flag-draped caskets containing the bodies of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan take, to the coroner’s office, before being released to their families for burial.

The sacrifices men and women make for their country at times of war should be honored, respected, and as many a war memorial says “never forgotten.”
However, Canada is not at war.

SO, why are so many bodies traveling down Canadian roads – enough to prompt petty politicians to use the highways as a promotional vehicle for their own slimy images, by cutting ribbons and making declarations about heroic routes?

As of today, 147 Canadian Forces personal have been killed since their first deployment to Afghanistan in 2002 – just over the weekend another solider had died, which was not even two-weeks after the last solider was killed in the line of duty.

Yet, again – we aren’t at war.

Originally, when then-American President George W. Bush announced his shock and awe bomb attack, in response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United Nations Security Council didn’t agree.

The UN wanted to find a peaceful solution first, and barring that, a planned and well-thought out approach to using military muscle.

But in keeping with his “you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists,” narrow-minded approach, President Bush went ahead and destroyed most of the infrastructure of Afghanistan and Iraq, all under the guise of getting their alleged ring leader – Bin Ladden.

Whatever happened to Bin Ladden? We never hear about him, other than the occasional poorly recorded audio or video of him ranting like a crazed lunatic.
You’d probably go crazy too if you had a redneck American president making threatening statements about having your head on a platter.

Not that Bin Ladden wasn’t crazy before all this – he may have been – we’ll never know.

President Bush failed in his attempts to nail the blame squarely on Bin Ladden, so he went after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and eventually did get his head on a platter – sort of. Hussein was hung quite publicly for the world to see on YouTube – probably the first world leader to be executed live, on the Internet.

Regardless of whether or not Bin Ladden, Saddam Hussein, or anyone else the Americans have labeled “terrorists” – Canada really has no part in their so-called “war on terror.”

Yes, we are allies of the States, and should support them in peace and in war.

But in typically Canadian fashion, our politicians have sat directly in the middle of the fence on the issue and that is what is killing our soldiers.

Canada isn’t officially at war, and being the backbone of the United Nations peace keeping forces for so long, we have a reputation of supporting the UN at all costs.

Yet the UN hasn’t stepped into the American’s so-called “war on terror” because they never supported the poorly planned vengeful attacks by their redneck leader, President Bush.

So our government sends thousands of Canadian soldiers to bolster up the Americans war efforts, with little planning – because the Canadian politicians don’t want to alienate the UN – and we end up with a never-ending parade of flag-draped caskets traveling our renamed highways.

Maybe our politicians should spend more time planning military strategies and tactics, instead of how to creatively rename a highway to get a photo op.

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Christmas Day Bombing and Beliefs

Image via Wikipedia

Score one big victory for the terrorists, after the Christmas Day bombing attempt on an American jumbo jet just days ago.

Security – particularly in the United States – got tighter than ever before over the days, weeks, months and years following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Never in recorded history had humankind been on such a high state of alert. At one point in time, we even had to remove our shoes – our shoes – prior to boarding an airplane.

Then, just as the world’s attention was focused on the holiest day for Christians – Christmas – the world was reminded just how important these measures are, as a man lit what initial reports claimed to be “fireworks” aboard an American flight over western Canada.

One wonders how on Earth – or rather about 30,000 feet in the air – someone can even get on an airliner with anything remotely flammable with all these security precautions.

And far worse, the ramifications since the Christmas Day fire cracker stunt may have gone too far, with little effect. In some American airports, security guards are even testing baby milk brought onboard flights. Maybe if you are real nice, they’ll feed and burp your infant?

Reportedly, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was briefed weeks ago about increased terrorist activities involving bombing attempts and American-bound flights. The reports said that secret terrorist cells had devised a new way to bypass security measures to get explosives on planes, and that these terrorists were conducting training exercises to ensure success.

The recent attempt this holiday season may have been the terrorist’s first attempt or a trial as part of their training exercises.

Either way, it sure got the world’s attention.

The real problem isn’t going to be fixed by adding more security – though that will be the immediate visible solution. For every additional security measure taken, eventually those unscrupulous minds that want to do harm, will.

For every creative and innovative step taken to prevent a terrorist strike, there are just as creative and innovative people at work figuring out how to circumvent these steps.

The only real way to prevent terrorist attacks of airplanes is to stop flying. And that’ll never happen, because air travel is an important necessity in our global village.

Well, there is one other possible way to put an end to terrorist attacks – world peace. If we could only ever achieve a world that truly is at peace, then, and only then, would we ever really be safe from the harm done by those non-peaceful terrorists.

But world peace will never happen either. There is more to peace than sitting around a campfire, roasting marshmallows and singing Cume-By-Ah.

With deeply held religious beliefs – some may even go so far to call ‘em cult-like beliefs – behind many wars around the world, some wars will never end despite all the attempts at peace.

Then you have beliefs so deeply entrenched in a person’s life, they are willing to actually die for them. Like those who killed by flying planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.

Stopping a belief – no matter how wrong – is virtually impossible. A belief is the foundation towards ideas, and ideas lead to actual solutions to problems.

And those problems, for the terrorists, are how to constantly counter all the security measures so they can fulfill their beliefs. So we come full circle, over and over again.

Because the American named “war on terror” isn’t really about people, bombs, planes, or peace. It’s all about beliefs.

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A Visit to the White House – What a Nice Distraction

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper took a joy ride south of the border last Wed. – or at least that’s probably how it seemed to him.

He met with American President Barack Obama for an hour-long meeting in the White House’s Oval Office. The two leaders discussed the economy, just ahead of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh starting today and running through the weekend.

They also discussed each country’s roles in the mission to Afghanistan. Canada has had soldiers in the battle-whipped country for over eight-years, but there are plans to pull all Canadian Forces troops out in 2010.

President Obama on the other hand is pushing for more American soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan this year and next year.

Canadian Soldiers should never have gone to Afghanistan in the first place – and will most likely end up in another place they should never be sent – Iraq in 2010 or 2011.

Afghanistan and Iraq are strictly American conflicts, begun by then-American President George W. Bush. Bush, the sly scoundrel he is, used the intense emotions stirred in his citizens by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 to launch attacks on these two relatively innocent countries.

President Bush originally launched air strikes in Afghanistan in what he called his “shock and awe” military attack, to get Bin Ladden and those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on American soil.

Almost a decade later, Bin Ladden (who boldly boasts of his success in his involvement of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but no one anywhere has actually provided proof of his involvement) is still running free, occasionally popping up to in grainy videos to taunt the Americans.

As the hunt for Bin Ladden dragged on, the American political machine needed a new scapegoat to distract the public’s attention from their failing mission in Afghanistan (the goal was to get Bin Ladden).

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

That’s when President Bush and the rest of the executive branch of the White House launched their smear campaign against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

They claimed Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and urged the United Nations (UN) to take actions against Iraq. Despite all the doctored images – which looked real at the time but have since been proved tampered with – the UN didn’t budge and would not support an outright attack against Iraq.

The UN did begin sanctions against Iraq, and sent over their own inspectors, to look for these weapons of mass destruction.

None were ever found, and the UN was satisfied Iraq and its leader were in the clear.

But trigger-happy American President Bush still launched an attack against Saddam Hussein, and in the process destroyed all the infrastructure of the tiny Middle Eastern country in the process.

Canadian soldiers are dying in great numbers in Afghanistan, as American soldiers are dying also in great numbers in Iraq.

But both these missions were unnecessary, and mismanaged from the get-go. American President Bush didn’t really care about bring those responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to justice, he just used that event to go after the countries in the Middle East with the richest oil reserves, to secure oil for his country, and his former colleagues in the oil industry from where he originally came.

Image via Wikipedia

Now America’s current leader, President Obama has to deal with the massive cost, lost lives, and lack of any signs of real victory in two wars. He’s also struggling with his push to launch universal, government-funded healthcare across all 50 States, similar to our Canadian healthcare system.

Here on his home turf, the Canada’s top politician is being made to jump over massive hurdles, just to do his job. Some of the heat is due in part because he’s only got a minority government, the other part is due to the childish antics of the opposition parties.

Prime Minister Harper is always facing threats of election calls for his head, by the Bloc, the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, or a combination of them. Currently, the Liberal Party is threatening to call a non-confidence vote to end the Prime Minister’s rule, and lead Canadians into yet another federal election – has it even been a year since the last election?

With the intense pressures both the current American and Canadian leaders are facing, their meeting must have been a nice distraction from the horrors of their worlds. Let’s just hope that distraction was short lived, and they can both get back to the business of running their respective countries.

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