- Pat Buchanan recently called Canada "a haven for
terrorists," a place with lax security. His words struck me as a bit
odd considering that not one of the Gang of Nineteen involved in 9/11 came
from, or even through, Canada. They all entered the United States from
other places, and they all had American-issued visas.
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- It would be hard to imagine a more grotesque example
of lax security than an attack on America's temple to the military, the
Pentagon. Letting that happen when you spend $30 billion a year on intelligence
and hundreds of billions on defense surely qualifies as world-class laxness,
probably good enough to claim a place in the Guinness Book of Records,
if it weren't just so downright embarrassing.
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- The military drum-beat crowd likes to ignore that little
fact as they harangue those who don't agree that police-state measures,
or for that matter, blowing up women and children in Baghdad, just naturally
follow from the events of 9/11.
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- Pat's crowd also ignores the fact that after decades
of hijackings and threats to commercial aircraft in America, and despite
clear warnings there were people out there with some very unpleasant intentions
(recall Mr. Clinton's fleet of cruise missiles hurled at camps in Afghanistan),
the American Congress never bothered with such elementary new security
measures as strengthening cockpit doors or improving the professionalism
of airport-security staff.
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- Yes, the entire horror of 9/11 could have been avoided
by a Congress that had just done its job. But that's not the approach Pat's
political crowd is comfortable with. Sensible preparations? 'Why, boy,
that sounds distinctly like interferin' in private enterprise, maybe even
some of that there socialism!'
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- No, Pat's crowd waits for disaster and then responds
by shoveling tens of billions at idiotic, irrelevant military schemes and
working overtime to unravel the very parchment of the Bill of Rights. Any
resemblance to fascism is strictly coincidental.
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- Pat contemptuously refers to Canada as "Soviet Canukistan."
He never pauses to explain what that goofy epithet means, but it does reveal
something about his thinking. You could fairly deduce that in Pat's mental
atlas America then assumes the relative position of Soviet Russia.
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- But what's meaning to a guy like Pat? You go for the
cheap wisecrack and race on to make the next one. The phrase, of course,
has the earmarks of Rush Limbaugh's pimply-teenager-at-camp, self-satisfied
snickering, but that's all you require for success in America's television
politics. No wonder Americans are so poorly informed: fraternity-boy acts
pass for political commentary.
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- Canada is a "freeloading" country according
to Pat, lapping up luxurious security courtesy of the U.S. defense budget,
a regular hog at the trough. People like Pat never explain what it is that
Canada is being defended from.
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- If it makes Americans feel good, Canadians are willing
to say they are grateful for being defended, but, in secret, many scratch
their heads about what it is they are supposed to be grateful for. Canada
does not have a serious enemy in the world. The only country in a good
position to threaten Canada is, in fact, the United States, but that does
make a convincing argument to keep right on saying thanks for all that
defense, especially with Pat's crowd running the place.
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- The world, quite correctly, does not regard Canada as
a partner in America's uglier plots and stunts, and Canada enjoys a significant
margin of safety from terror simply by virtue of that fact.
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- America makes a lot of enemies pushing people around,
claiming high ideals all the while. Nobody likes a bully, and most people
are repelled by noisy hypocrisy. America maintains its bloated, costly,
and increasingly-dangerous armed forces precisely to do all that pushing
and protect itself from the consequences.
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- Looked at in this way, calls by Americans like Buchanan
- or for that matter America's current, intrusive Ambassador to Ottawa,
Mr. Cellucci - for Canada to spend a great deal more on defense really
amount to demands that Canada subsidize America's efforts to impose its
often poorly-informed and generally-selfish notions on the world.
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- I once read an article written by a man who grew up with
Buchanan. He described what an unpleasant street-tough Pat was, a bare-knuckles
troublemaker who roamed his neighborhood territory, always ready for an
argument and a fight - a regular backyard brown shirt.
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- That story might not be worth relating so many years
later, had Pat demonstrated some capacity for growth, but he hasn't, not
a bit. He's too old and puffy to use his fists now, so he's substituted
his mouth. And if you listen carefully to what he says and the way he says
it, you just might recognize the shrill and painful sounds of a badly abused
child
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- John Chuckman encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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