Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

America’s alliances took a big hit after September 11. Instead of enacting the NATO decree of an attack on one is an attack on all, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that “The mission will define the coalition.” In other words, take a hike.

It was a mistake. And it was the beginning of the unraveling of U.S. diplomatic dominance and moral authority. Unilateralism played to Rumsfeld’s sense of power and its exercise. But it was not good policy. Ego often isn’t.

America went into Afghanistan and shut out others who wanted to help. Yes, Canucks were there for operation Anaconda and winning sniper awards there and Britain was involved, but where were the others?

For example, on 9/11, France proclaimed in a multi-point newspaper headline that we all were attacked on 9/11. Germany said many of the same things in their media. Russia? Russia is Russia — always grumbling, never trustworthy. But even they saw some political value to gain leverage with Chechnya.

You see, when our mission is up in 2009 we need other NATO members to do the heavy lifting too without crying about it. There is now huge political resistance in Europe to combat ops than would not have occurred if that other country — Iraq — had not been invaded.

Think about it, NATO finding its post-Soviet purpose and unity from the spring board of September 11th terrorism. NATO does that now, but an opportunity for true Western political unity was very real for a time. Instead we all fell back on the old refrain of America the cowboy and Europe the wallflower. It took Continental Europe so long and cost so much blood to change its mental-set that now it is filled with over-cautious sensibilities and reflexes while, by contrast, America behaves recklessly, shockingly, like a teenager — “sorry, Dad … that I drove too fast and wrecked the car!”

What would Afghanistan look like today if America chose to act in concert, off the bat, with her allies? Imagine if Afghanistan was the star, and not an American sideshow to Iraq! And in terms of the nature of the combatant, the Jihadists from Pakistan would be less; and the tactical training and inspiration for the Taliban would be less too (fewer, or no, IEDs and suicide bombers that are now being trained worldwide with motivation).

It started with Donald Rumsfeld’s missed political opportunity to use the sympathy vote from 9/11. Divide and not conquer.

What an ass.

The question that arises after a, predominantly urban, shooting is a handgun ban. But would a ban be effective? Hand gun fans say it is pointless and ineffectual and you are punishing the wrong people (law-abiding target shooters and collectors).

The principal of less guns meaning less criminal opportunity however, is unassailable. Others say that the bad guys would just get them somewhere else. Sure, of course they will. But if it’s not in a home or a gun store there is one less gun to get, right?

The best counter-argument for resisting a hand gun ban is economic: that it would cost too much to implement and would lead to a gun registry-type bureaucratic nightmare. There would be costs associated with seizure and searches but we are paying for the police anyway. The more hand guns that the state takes, the less there are around period. It doesn’t need to be a registry deal at all. Just don’t sell them and go after the handguns that you know about. Not a big deal. There not a lot of actual hand gun owners compared with long gun owners.

Long gun owners fear that they might be next. And factor into that protest the rural/urban divide with rural areas steadfastly supporting guns of any kind and urban areas opposed.

Another counter hand gun band argument is, shockingly, protecting your family; as if long guns couldn’t do that against the gangster hoards that are allegedly lining up to rape and pillage every farm house.

The answer is, it is not about what is “effective,” no one thing is the answer. We need tougher sentencing and more policing and to address socio-economic problems. But a handgun ban wouldn’t hurt. How could it hurt? Will it inconvenience sport shooters and collectors, sure. So what? They’re firing blanks anyway.

Shoot me. Go ahead make my day, punk.

Do you fight a war even if it’s a losing cause? Is the sacrifice of a soldier worth it if the mission is ultimately doomed? Is the illusion, or even the transitory action of doing the right thing, for the moment, worth the cost?

Sometimes in life you have to apply yourself even if it may not, in the end, amount to much. Is this what we are doing in Afghanistan?

International relations expert Gwynne Dyer feels that unless you have half-a-million troops on the ground (instead of 3,000) for a period of 25 or 30 years, forget it. There ain’t any reformation in Afghanistan without it, he says. Contrarily, UNB Professor Lee Windsor says that we are making progress, “winning” in fact.

There have only been a few successful counter insurgencies in history: the U.S. in the Philippines in the 1890s and the U.S. Indian wars in the 1860s through to 1900 and with Britain in Malaysia in the 1940s. Other than that, “low intensity” counter-insurgencies have been failures — huge ones; with big strategic consequences.

The Afghanistan mission comparisons to WW1 or WW2 are also fallacious. They go something like, “Well, when we were fighting Hitler in 1940, we still kept at it despite Britain’s weak strategic situation”. The difference, however, is Germany was a first world nation directly challenging the existence of states and directly challenging the balance of power. Afghanistan is categorized as a “failed state” and was not even an “asymmetrical” threat for years under the Taliban.

If the truth be told, the Taliban might have coughed Osama up had we given them some more time and let them save some face. All that they wanted was evidence that Osama was behind 9/11 and some dialogue. All America wanted to do was kick some ass.

Now, I’m no Taliban apologist here. They are an odious lot. But so they were/are in Somalia (another failed state and there are a lot of them) and the West cut their losses there, didn’t they, after the Black Hawk Down incident? In fact, Somalia has a huge fundamentalist, West-hating terror field there and it is growing as we speak. Was leaving Somalia and cutting our losses there a good idea? I think that it was. Staying would have created more opposition, more terrorists, like in Iraq today where al-Qaeda was non-existent there before America invaded.

America left Lebanon after the 1980’s suicide truck attack which killed hundreds of American soldiers at a base. Was former U.S. President Ronald Reagan right to do bail out? Nobody ever called Reagan a wimp, did they?

Nor did Reagan invade Libya after it was established that Libyan strongman Qudaffi was directly and operationally behind the terror attack at Lockerbie, the disco bombing of U.S. soldiers in Germany, and the downing of another airliner in Chad.

Neither Saddam nor the Taliban were ever operationally involved in terror attacks. Secular Saddam even rooted out fundamentalists in Iraq; moreover, the world was a safer place when Saddam was in power and oppressing his people and counter-balancing Iran.

The limits of military power are not something that we like to admit, but there it is.
When an enemy is well supplied as the Taliban are from Pakistan, and as the North Vietnamese army and Viet Cong were along the Ho Chi Min trail, and when an enemy is motivated and willing to lose longer than you are willing to win, then it is over.

So, what about the sacrifice? Well, you have to ask what the death accomplished. Is showing the world that we keep our UN and NATO commitments enough?

Maybe it is. But you know what? If it was me, and it was my wife or son who was dead over in Afghanistan I would say all the right things to people like me in the media (we’ve heard it all before) but in the quiet of my bedroom, all alone in the darkness, with nothing between me and my agony, and my despair, I would, through welling tears and sad, heavy breaths, cry out to the God that left me, or that never was, that there had to be another God damn way.

What does PRIDE mean?

The Gay Pride week festivities are full throttle in Halifax. Toronto had its big week in June. But has the time come to reevaluate what it all means?

In the wake of legalized same-sex marriage and accepted same-sex adoption it is, perhaps, time that the homosexual community started looking at celebration/reactionary/activist events as both counter-productive and a touch anachronistic.

There is no such a thing as a “gay” collectivity – the group is as fractured, diverse, and fragmented as “straight” culture. Indeed, the mainstream has embraced, for the most part, homosexual marriage as an aspect of civil liberties the same way many Americans embrace gun ownership as a civil rights issue — whether they like guns or not.

Have we not gone post-gay? Do genital displays and overt hyper-sexuality really need to be part of the branding of gay culture today?

Recent tabloid covers in the Maritimes featured a drag queen trying to look like Paris Hilton accompanied by a headline about making your own porn. But is this further self-stereo-typing and in-your-face sensibility really relevant anymore? The new reality is increased mainstream acceptance.

For some in the gay community, conformity is beyond their self-concept. Instead, old school indulgence and sexual flaunting is still the order of the day.

In fact, for some, conformity is a threat.

The mainstream is growing up — will you?

Now that is pride.