ok, just got back from work, so my rebuttal is a bit late....ok, if keeping to ourselves is a bad idea, why don‘t "we" send our forces to do good elsewhere, and leave the stuff that may backfire (as in retaliatory strikes) to someone else? For instance, supposing the CF committed itself wholeheartedly to stopping the mass carnage and civil wars in Africa, and there just weren‘t enough troops *wink wink* to commit to any operations against an international terrorist organization which has sleeper cells throughout the world. We could support the "war on terror" in "spirit" and instead be doing good elsewhere. The middle east isn‘t the only, or even the worst, unstable region in the world.
As for everyone loving Canada, of course i know that‘s not true. But I also know that if you‘re standing next to a guy throwing rocks, eventually someone is going to throw something back, and the odds are eventually, something is going to hit you.
Weak analogy, but the Canadian government should be looking at protecting Canadians, not North America. The Americans are not our "brothers", they‘re our neighbours, and the government should be doing whatever it can to protect the citizens of Canada. If that means that you stop watering your neighbours‘ lawn every time they ask, and they stop bringing you casserole, then so be it.
(remember, we‘re their largest trade partner too, and the US economy is not yet in a state to start roughing up one‘s trading partners.)
I know it‘s a weak analogy, but hey, I have a weak arguement. Well, no, but I think I‘m making a point. Canada has not been attacked....yet. 9/11 was not an attack on Canada, I‘m quite certain that Osama Bin Laden was not sitting in a cave going "okay guys, we‘ll target the largest, most visible buildings in the city. if we‘re lucky, there will be some Canadians in it". Of course, I have no way of knowing that, but meh.
To summarize my point...Canada has not been attacked directly. Until that day (hopefully never), nobody can bash the Canadian government, or CSIS, but not doing their jobs. Given our "lack" of commitment to the war on terror (as Cellucci said) one could only assume that the only real threat to our safety is our proximity and close (?) relationship to the United States.
Again, just an alternative point of view. FOR DISCUSSION.
Travis:
I think the reason they put "truck driver" and "boring" stuff is to encourage the right kind of people to join. I mean, if I was running the army, I wouldn‘t want people to join who just wanted to imagine that they‘d spend the whole time blowing up random stuff, firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition at brush while there is no ememy around, and learning how to snap necks. (If i‘m wrong though, then HOT ****) The way the application worded everything, I think they wanted to portray the army as a "real" job, meaning you have to deal with lots of stupid, unpleasant people 24/7 and put up with super boring trash....just like everyone else. For instance, the infantry info sheet said that "the job of the infantry is to do blah blah blah"
did you notice how they never said that you‘d be doing it?