As a Canadian, the attack on our capital city on October 22, 2014 (the day before my 70th birthday) forced me to rethink my opinion about my country's role in response to ISIS threats. Having thought of war as an ungodly and primitive response to a distant situation, a response which tore apart the minds and bodies of millions of young men and women, and left them -- if alive -- broken for the rest of their lives in defense of a tenuous peace, I confess that my beautiful flawed fascinating polite socially aware and self effacing Canada would not exist were it not for young men like my father who went to war, fought, and won.

The radicalized young man who killed a soldier and wounded another in a parking lot in Quebec on October 9, 2014 and the terrorist attack on Ottawa only two weeks later stunned Canadians, but did not succeed in bringing us to our knees in fear. Our media is not fear-mongering in response and we are not afraid. As our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, declared "Canada will never be intimidated."

Canadian airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq continue -- perhaps they precipitated the attacks, but we will not bow to threats.

In Canada, it's not illegal to have dangerous opinions or beliefs until they are acted on, so the RCMP were hampered in their attempts to help the first young man, though they were aware of his radical beliefs. His family and imam and other members of his community were consulted and their good faith utilized, but Michael Zihaf-Bibeau appears to have been a mentally unstable person whose attack on the two soldiers was unrelated to the Parliament Hill shootings. In focus, however, of the world situation today and the ever-increasing media coverage of ISIS and other terrorist threats, Canadians are divided whether these attacks were a reaction by radicalized individuals to the world situation in the Middle East and beyond.


This brings about an "us and them" mentality which could be equally dangerous in this country.

Moderate Islamists live as peaceful citizens and don't support their radical brothers and sisters. The danger here is that Canada will become a country of fear and hatred toward the unknown, toward Muslims, toward those who would speak reason and not brand an entire group of millions of peoples who have a history of thousands of years of civilization.

Remember that the USA supported Osama Bin Laden initially, when he drove the Russians out of Afghanistan, and the USA also supported Saddam Hussein in the early years. Former enemies such as Germany and Japan and Italy are now our friends and allies.

Times change. People change. Nations change. Each nation calls upon their God to help them in their holy wars.

My father, who fought in five campaigns in five different countries in WWII, and emerged forever damaged after the war, often told his children, "I refuse to let them make me live in fear."

Go to our soldiers, not the leaders, for the truth.



 


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