
Oh snap, that’s me!
StudentsOfTheWorld | OpenClipArt
Yes, you heard right! The Harper government is sending in the troops–only the air ones, and only for six months, but who’s counting? Canada’s flying machines are heading to Iraq to “fight Islamic Jihadists in the Mideast,” which probably means they’re going to blow some stuff up or do surveillance rounds or… something else. Considering the increasing number of secrets the PM is keeping, we probably won’t know exactly what happens for at least a couple decades. At this moment, the big question for many Canadians might be, ‘why?’
Harper’s nationalist reasoning for combat is clear-cut: “Left unchecked, this terrorist threat can only grow and grow quickly. As a government, we know our ultimate responsibility is to protect Canadians, and to defend our citizens from those who would do harm to us and to our families.” Although I might suggest Canada’s first protective move would be to ban Fox News, Harper thinks protection means fighting abroad. Yet his reasoning has about as many holes in it as the Maple Leaf’s defence last season–252 goals against, seriously?

Some things are too sad to fully understand.
Toronto Star | OpenClipArt
First, it is not necessarily clear that this terrorist threat, if left unchecked, will grow and grow fast–as far as Canadians know, Harper still does not have the psychic powers of Raven Symone. Canada probably shouldn’t make military decisions based on our omniscient Prime Minister’s assumptions.
Harper’s next bit of reasoning relates to protecting Canadians from those who would do harm to us and to our families. Who says ISIS wants to do Canadians harm? Oh, wait. Yes, an audio recording from ISIS did encourage extremists to kill “disbelievers” in countries supporting American and French-backed military action against ISIS. Okay, it’s true; Canada is one of the countries supporting American military action, so the ISIS threat does affect Canadians.
Hold on a minute. Let’s think about this for a second. ISIS is threatening Canadians because we’re backing American military action, and our Prime Minister has the gall to reason that we need to back American military action because ISIS has threatened Canadians. If the Conservatives decided not to back American military action, Canada would no longer be on ISIS’s threat-list. In other words, Harper has the power “to protect Canadians, and to defend our citizens from those who would do harm to us and to our families” simply by deciding that we should not fight in this war.
Harper has great power in his hands. If we take a step back and reason out causes and effects, his decision to go to war directly puts Canadians on ISIS’s threat radar. Maybe Harper should take a little more time thinking before he acts. At the same time it’s not like our biplane airfarce is going to do much harm in this battle, so maybe Canadians will be okay after all.