I didn’t graduate from West Point, RMA Sandhurst, nor have I ever been an analyst at Rand, so a case can certainly be made regarding my ability to opine on both the strategies of warfare and geopolitics. I am fully aware that, as someone with a mere high school education, my views on history, foreign wars, and international politics should, at best, be taken with a grain of salt. So there’s your warning.

That said, what I do possess is the ability to educate myself. Being that I couldn’t afford a post-secondary education, I took it upon myself as a young man to dedicate a great deal of my free time to the study of history and its many facets, military history being one of them. Truth be told, I am probably most knowledgeable about the US Civil War, a subject that I have a great deal of passion for, and one that, while of seemingly little relevance in this day and age, played a fundamental role in the creation of the modern American mindset.

No matter your politics, everything is to be found in the past. Using the Civil War as an example with regards to general misconceptions and assumptions, several interesting facts that are commonly overlooked can be brought into focus.

1) Regarding what I consider to be one of the most bizarre assertions of modern American Conservatism – that the country’s political foundation is somehow based on the Judeo-Christian belief structure – history provides insight into a part of the birth of that misconception.

The words “In God We Trust” did not appear on American coinage until 1864. Given the devastation wrought by the conflict, one that took the lives of more Americans than all other American wars combined to this day, religious sentiment grew significantly given the need to quantify the nation’s trauma. Thus, a nation founded on secular principles adopted a slogan in a time of crisis that would go on to become the official motto of the country given the enormity of its historic application.

2) Turn on a television, or pick up a Conservative publication at a news stand, and you’ll be confronted by many claiming to promote the conservative traditions of the Republican Party. Interestingly, by today’s standards, Abraham Lincoln would be deemed a radical by those same people despite the fact that he was the first, and greatest, Republican President in American history.

3) Casualty rates during the Civil War were, by modern standards, beyond imagining. In truth, were the United States, or any other Western nation, to suffer such casualty rates in a modern, regionally confined conflict, public outrage alone would end it.

On September 17, 1862, more Americans fell than in any battle in American history. More than on D-Day, more than during the Guadalcanal campaign, more than during the battle for Tarawa. And that was only Antietam. In 1864, at Cold Harbor, the Union would suffer 12,737 casualties in 13 days. Put into stunning perspective, the Battle For Okinawa, which lasted 82 days, saw some 50,000 Allied casualties. Were the engagement at Cold Harbor to have lasted as long, and produced the same casualty rate as was seen over its 13 days, the result would have been a staggering 76,000. While that sort of math might seem stunning, take into consideration that over three days at Gettysburg the casualty total was almost 50,000 and then apply the same reasoning.

Even given the significance of the Second World War, were casualty rates in Afghanistan or Iraq equal to that of Okinawa alone, the American public, 9/11 of not, simply would not stand for it.

4) The US Civil War remains the greatest conflict ever fought on North American soil. Not since 1865 have the people of this continent had to deal with the direct impact of warfare. True, we have suffered great losses on foreign soil, but we have never seen our cities relentlessly bombed, nor millions flee the devastating advance of a foreign army. Only those native to this continent have the right to claim that.

Students of history can opine for weeks about the evils of the Soviet Union. Lost on most is the reality that while our young men were fighting and dying on foreign shores, forever to be cast heroes, tens of millions of Soviets paid with their lives confronting the Germans. Again, I don’t have a degree in history, but the truth is that I don’t need one to know that Operation Overlord would never have succeeded were the Germans not overextended on the Eastern front. That, on the banks of the Volga, the bloodiest battle in human history, one that would result in the loss of some 2 million lives, was the ultimate lynchpin of Allied success in Europe.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, almost 479,000 Soviet soldiers perished, some 53,000 more than the United States lost in total in both the European and Pacific theatres. In all, just under 24 million Soviets, both civilians and military personnel, perished during World War 2, a figure equal to just under one sixth of the entire population of the United States at the time.

For the Germans, Stalingrad was a nightmare. Some 750,000 men were killed or wounded during the battle. Ultimately, Friedrich Paulus would become the first Field Marshal in German history to surrender, having been promoted to the rank by Hitler in hopes that he would refuse to. In the end, Paulus saved the lives of some 91,000 of his men, though only 1 out of every 100 German soldiers captured by the Soviets during the course of the war would ever return to Germany.

The point? We have no experience with regards to the direct impact of warfare. While some might site the attack on Pearl Harbor or those of September 11th as counterpoints, the truth is that we have never witnessed the modern realities of a sustained conflict on our soil. We are, no matter arguments to the contrary, wholly foreign to the concept.

Make no mistake, that is precisely why we have so little trouble ignoring the ramifications of going to war elsewhere. Our streets will not be ruined, our houses will not be targeted by bombs, there is little risk of us becoming collateral damage. One hundred and forty-five years ago was the last time that North American towns were reduced to rubble, that the North American countryside was transformed into nightmarish landscapes, and that the bodies of soldiers were buried two and three deep in mass graves in North American soil. And even then, given the enormous size of the continent, all of it happened on but a piece of it.

Death is best dealt at a distance. Not for the sake of security, but for the sake of insularity. For were we to ever understand the truth of that which we have monstrously mastered, the shame of it would end us.

February 21, 2010

It’s been 45-years. In the context of history’s breadth that’s the blink of an eye. That number is significant because it was in July of 1964 that The Civil Rights Act was passed. The Act, if you can believe it, finally made it illegal to segregate schools, public places, and workplaces.

Think about that seriously for a moment. A little over 2 months and 45-years ago, it was legal to racially segregate a public place in a nation whose most sacred principles are in utter defiance of even the possibility of such a notion, but one in which the most devastating war in its history was required to end the practice of human slavery.

The Civil War ended in 1865, and yet it took almost a century for the Civil Rights Act to be passed. True, Constitutional Amendments were made prior to it, but had they been effective then the Civil Rights Act would never have been required.

Look at their faces. They’re faces that reflect centuries of ignorance. Thus, to think that in only 45-years racist undertones in North America have faded away is extremely naïve, as much as it pains me to say it.

Former President Carter might be getting rebuked for his recent statement regarding the issue, but the truth is that the healthcare debate has unleashed an ugly demon, one that has slept within the bosom of many white North Americans for some time, though most would deny it.

In all white company, how many Vancouverites have heard this city referred to as ‘Hong-couver’? It’s a racist statement, but one that’s prevalent in this town. It’s no different than how many talk about First Nations Peoples in this country.

Disagree as much as you’d like, but it’s out there, and it’s more common that most want to believe.

September 16, 2009

Sir Peter Ustinov said it best – “Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.”

You post about snow, you get comments. You post about a conflict which produces sharp divisions in thought, well, not so much. Maybe it’s because I post less about snow, I’m not sure.

Who gets what? That’s one of life’s great questions. The answer is – those with the biggest and best human meat grinders. Because if you can take it and hold it – it’s yours.

I do know this. If the people of Israel have the right to a land because it’s viewed as their ancestral home then we had better pack up shop and be prepared to move back to wherever it is that all of us came from, because this entire continent rightfully belongs to others. Of course, we took if from them, subjugated or slaughtered them, indoctrinated them and even stripped them of their culture and language at times. The only reason that we’re here is because the aboriginal peoples of North America lacked three things when we showed up – superior arms, complete mistrust, and immune systems completely unaccustomed to foreign illnesses.

By the end of the 19th Century, only 250,000 Native Americans were left in the US – and that only takes into account the US, not Canada or Mexico. Archeologists have discovered artifacts that date the existence of aboriginals along what is now the New England coastline to 3,000 BC. In truth, the peoples indigenous to this continent have Paleolithic origins, which means that they first inhabited the continent between 15,000 and 11,000 BP.

In conclusion – when it comes to land rights with regards to ancestral perpetuity, we’re screwed. Thankfully we took care of those pesky aboriginals long ago, so we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

January 2, 2009 58 Comments

For those of you that don’t know, this is what an SKS looks like…

The SKS fires 7.62mm rounds, the standard round size for most combat weapons – the M16, AK-47, etc. It’s magazine has a 10 round integral box capacity. Firearm enthusiasts in the United States passionately argue that the SKS is not an ‘assault rifle’, as assault rifles have ‘selective fire’, meaning that they can be set to fully automatic or semi-automatic. The SKS, without being modified, is a semi-automatic weapon at the point of sale in the US.

Nevertheless, it was an SKS that 19-year-old Robert Hawkins from Bellevue, Nebraska, used to gun down eight innocent people in an Omaha shopping mall before taking his own life.

As is commonly the case, those who knew Hawkins claim that he was a quiet boy, one that loved animals, but one that was not without his problems. He was solitary, drank, and suffered bouts of depression. Prior to the shooting he had lost his job at McDonalds, broke up with his girlfriend, and was living with a friend’s family…

“His friend’s mother, Debora Maruca Kovac, told the Associated Press news agency that when he first came to live with them, “he was introverted, a troubled young man who was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted”.

She said he phoned her about 1300 on Wednesday, telling her that he had left a note for her in his bedroom. She tried to get him to explain.

“He said, ‘It’s too late’,” and then hung up, she told CNN.

In the note, she said, Hawkins had written that “he was sorry for everything, that he didn’t want to be a burden to anybody, he loved his family, he loved all of his friends”.

The note went on to say he wanted to be famous, she said.”

I am, by no means, excusing the actions of Robert Hawkins. What he did was reprehensible. In the end he took his own life, but not before robbing eight others of theirs, robbing eight families of loved ones, and forever shattering the lives of those wounded in the shooting, those who witnessed it, and everyone besides that it will impact. But the question has to be asked – what possesses a young man to go on a suicidal shooting rampage in hopes of securing fame, even if cloaked in infamy? In fact, what possesses any young person to go on a shooting rampage as a way to attain some sort of finality? Is it because they were shit on? Is it because they felt that no one cared? Was it because, at a crucial moment in their development, one, or more, people failed them when they shouldn’t have?

There are, of course, the standard excuses that are relied upon so that the actual roots of the problems that plague everything from inner cities to troubled youths in Middle America don’t have to be faced – video games, music, film, and so forth. But those are simply cop-outs, conveniences that are used to justify that which would actually take real effort to confront. While we swim in the perception of our own societal perfection, the fact that it is rotting away from beneath us remains not merely overlooked, but willfully ignored.

Youth today live in a world of fear, a world of lies, a world of engineered wars, false hopes, false beliefs, and view those that promote such nonsense for what they are – full of shit. What else, given that reality, is there to breed but apathy, exhaustion, and desperation? Contentment is something purchased, that is the reality that young people today have been bombarded with, and to find oneself in the position, even as a teenager, of believing that failure is more probable that success is something so utterly damaging that it’s no wonder that the suicide rate is what it is, that kids are being put on medication to combat depression on an unprecedented scale, and that acts of senseless violence have become more common.

It is impossible to tell a child that the future is theirs to shape when they are given a block of stone and no chisel. Even worse, no idea of even how to sculpt.

Those steeped in religion will claim that the problem lies in a lack of religion. Those steeped in the ideological will claim that the problem lies in a lack of tradition. But neither has much to offer besides one-sided placebos in a world that grows more diverse and interconnected by the second.

Ultimately, and though it might be a bitter pill to swallow because it’s easier to allow anger to rule our feelings in such instances, one has to ask what it would have taken to keep that rifle out of that boy’s hands? And by that I am not suggesting that gun regulation is my primary point, though it is certainly one that must not be discounted. Simply that if he were given a chisel and some direction, eight people might still be alive.

December 6, 2007 70 Comments

Never think that we do not suffer the whims of the United States, especially when it comes to the War On Terror and the War On Drugs – in short, the influence of US foreign policies and how they apply domestically to US security interests. In the case of the War On Drugs, Mark Emery is proof positive that the DEA holds sway in this country and that the government of Canada bends to their will when the need arises. In Emery’s case, the Vancouver City Police had no intention of confronting him until pressure was placed on them, and the RCMP, by the DEA – all for selling seeds through the mail, which, while technically a felony in Canada, is so low on the list of anti-narcotics priorities in Vancouver that it’s basically overlooked. But because Emery sold them through the mail to US customers he was targeted by the DEA, which then led to the police suddenly taking a very real interest in him. Interestingly, rather than trying him for the crime here, our government cooperated with US requests that he be extradited. I mean, you can openly smoke pot in a few café’s in Vancouver, not to mention get caught with up to 30 grams of it without being charged anymore – or at least that was my understanding the last time someone ‘in the know’ brought it up.

Now, I don’t smoke marijuana, but its legalization is something that I don’t think would be a terribly bad thing. Like alcohol, it could be taxed to high heaven by the government. Of course, there is the risk that its legalization could lead to an increase in harder drugs flooding the streets, that can’t be discounted by pro-cannabis advocates. The reality is that it’s a staple of organized crime, and were they to lose it their gains would have to be made up in other ways. Thus, the availability and promotion of harder drugs would certainly increase. The question is; would those smoking marijuana necessarily make that leap? Personally, I don’t think it’s any different a comparison than applying the same question to those that drink. Then again, there is something to be said about targeting youth, whose penchant for acquiring that which is taboo is utterly engrained in our societal make.

Omar Kadr

Frightening new information has arisen in the case of Omar Khadr, the only Canadian being held at Guantanamo, who was a mere 15 years of age when he was interned there. US authorities charged Khadr with being complicit in the death of a US medic in Afghanistan, conspiracy and spying, and supporting terrorism. Yet it has just come to light that US authorities withheld information about a witness that could clear Khadr of the charges. From the CBC…

“The U.S. government has withheld information about a witness who could help clear Canadian Omar Khadr as an “unlawful enemy combatant,” Khadr’s military defence lawyer at Guantanamo Bay said Thursday.

“It’s an eyewitness the government has always known about,” Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler told reporters. “This is something that was buried because nobody ever looked.”

Kuebler’s comments came after a pre-trial hearing was adjourned at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, where the 21-year-old Khadr has been held for the past five years following his capture by American forces in Afghanistan.

The trial is taking place without one of Khadr’s Canadian lawyers present. Dennis Edney told CBC News on Thursday that the U.S. defence lawyer, Kuebler, barred him from the proceedings because of his criticism of the process, as well as Kuebler’s own preparedness and qualifications.

The defence has not interviewed a single prosecution witness, Edney said, while the prosecution has been preparing for the trial for the past two years.

“We have said the military defence lawyers are not ready for trial,” Edney said from Edmonton. “We put that in writing to them time and time again.

“My guess? They don’t like to be criticized.”

Khadr is the only prisoner from a Western country left at Guantanamo.

Now, as a Canadian, and given this new information, I have to ask the obvious – is our government going to intervene on this young man’s behalf? Will Mr. Harper’s government make an official inquiry regarding Kahdr, or will they remain silent? And if they choose to do nothing, what does that say with regards to US influence over us? In the past, the British government has intervened when it became clear that British nationals that had been interned there were wrongfully detained. One can only hope, when all of the facts are in, that our government has the same sense of obligation to one of its citizens.

November 8, 2007 37 Comments