06.24.2015 07:23 AM

So long, every single Jewish vote in Canada

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Quote:

If the Liberal Party claims victory in the next federal election, Justin Trudeau says, his government would end Canada’s bombing mission against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and restore diplomatic relations with Iran, in a dramatic departure from the path taken by the Harper government on foreign policy.

“We’d move away from the CF-18 [bombing] mission,” Trudeau said in an interview with Terry Milewski on CBC’s Power & Politics. “This government has failed miserably to demonstrate why the best mission for Canada is to participate in a bombing mission,” Trudeau said.

Helpfully, the above statement was made on the same day this was released.

Operation Alienation wins again!

54 Comments

  1. ottawacon says:

    An ironic pairing of policy announcements, considering one of the few elements of common ground right now between Iran and much of the West is mutual antipathy toward ISIS

  2. Peter says:

    And this. Is he still on about the winter jackets?

    It’s amazing watching so many on the left hold firm to the party line about futility, oil, Western interference, etc., not to mention Canadian smugness, in the face of the most gut-wrenching atrocities and desperate pleas for help.

    Looks like Mercer nailed it.

  3. Joe says:

    Justin gave up on the Jewish vote long time ago. He is going after the Muslim vote.

    • Warren says:

      Not my view. Most of the Muslims I know see ISIS as the greatest threat to the Middle East and their faith. They want it destroyed.

    • Danny Aldham says:

      The CBC Insiders the other night had some thoughts that the Liberals and the NDP are fighting over a big group of 20 to 30 % of voters who are in flux between their two parties. I think this announcement goes after that group. But the same segment talked about the Conservatives are going after a smaller group of 10% who might move Liberal to Conservative , or not vote at all. This announcement by Trudeau gives up that 10% .
      The CPC has been working Jewish groups, new immigrant minorities, Catholics, 905 constituencies, the right side of the Liberal party. Harper and team woke up to an early Christmas present.

      • Matt says:

        Poll just after the extension

        67% of Liberals and 54% of NDPers support the mission.

        With his recent string of announcements, Trudeau is trying to be everything to everyone. When you do that, you end up being nothing to anyone.

  4. Matt says:

    WTF are his advisors doing?

    The Liberals slide in the polls began when the Liberals refused to support the ISIS mission.

    They had a chance to rectify that when the vote came up to extend the mission, and shit the bed again.

    Now this, on the same day ISIS releases a new video of locking people in a cage the lowering it in a swimming pool to drown them – their deaths captured in hd with under water cameras, locking people in a car the blowing up the car with an RPG, puttig explosive laden necklaces aroung prisoners necks, linking them together with detonating cord and blowing them up.

    Great timing Boy Blunder!

    • Jim Walsh says:

      It’s easy to blame advice. But these could well be Justin Trudeau’s very own bad ideas. As many have said, he got his father’s ego and his mother’s intellect.

  5. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Wondering if his next foreign policy statement will be to stop aid to the Ukraine, and drop sanctions against the Putin regime.

    Makes PM Harper look relatively Churhillian, eh?

    • Lance says:

      LOL I wouldn’t say it makes Harper Churchillian, but Trudeau Chamberlinian? Absolutely.

      • davie says:

        Okay, but what about the other roles? Who’s going to play, Bomber Harris and Desert Fox Rommel? Oh, and who’s going to play the 60 or 70 million people who die from the immediate…or, how about, who’s going to play Chandra Bose or the rebel in Indo China and Indonesia…I mean, who’s going to play in this repeat of the 20th Century constant blood letting …who will play the concentration camp inmates this time?

        It’s all a movie, right?

        • Al in Cranbrook says:

          No, Davie, this is very real world stuff. As we speak, analysts across NATO, the US, and particularly Russia and China, not to mention Israel and the Middle East, are sifting through Trudeau’s positions on foreign policy vis a vis this latest policy statement. Why? Because he is a potential prime minister of Canada about six months from now. Thus, he represents a measure of Canadians’ collective resolve, and direction.

          Lefties like to believe that nobody in the rest of the world gives a damn about Canada militarily. And they would be dead wrong. Canada represents America’s northern border, and its closest ally, if for no other reason than just that.

          In my 60 years, much of it listening to Cold War rhetoric, I have never been as worried as I am now about the threat of global war.

          And there isn’t a Churchill, or even a Roosevelt, in sight anywhere.

          • davie says:

            Always good to have an exchange with someone who knows what reality is.
            In my 70 and a few years (gotcha there, Al) I saw the wearing down of the half century of civil war that Europe visited on itself, dragging in its colonies and dominions from around the globe to take part in the slaughter. Sometimes I wonder if the assassination of Jean Jaures in July of 1914 might have been as important as the murders in Sarajevo that summer. The leaders of that flare up had given war such a bad name that they nattered on about ‘never again’ while they went about consolidating (with considerable violence) their empires, and telling the non white world to get back to their place. After the leaders and their war mongering supporters who said that they knew what reality was continued the butchery they changed secretaries and ministries of war to secretaries and ministries of defense…so that they could justify continuing on their ‘real world’ murdering for profit and position.

            When Kaiser Wilhelm called the Brit army and army of mercenaries back in 1915, English poet, and fellow knowledgeable about the ‘real world’ wrote:

            These in the day when heaven was falling,
            The hour when earth’s foundation fled,
            Followed their mercenary calling
            And took their wages and are dead.
            Their shoulders held the sky suspended:
            They stood and earth’s foundations stay;
            What God abandoned, they defended,
            And saved the sum of things for pay.

            To this sappy tribute to militarism, a Scots poet replied:

            It is a God-damned lie to say that these
            Saved, or knew, anything worth any man’s pride.
            They were professional murderers and they took
            Their blood money and their impious risks and died.
            In spite of all their kind some elements of worth
            With difficulty persist here and there on earth.

            High grads are on. Go down to the grad ceremony and point out the kids that you want in uniform and sent to the other side of our planet to carry out a ‘real world’ agenda on the people there. While at it, look at friends and neighbours who are there and point out which ones deserve to be gassed, blown apart, sickened to death, shot, or tortured to defend Canada’s ‘interests.’

            I find particularly despicable a party and its supporters who misuse our military as a major plank in its prolonged election campaign.

          • Al in Cranbrook says:

            Davie…

            20th century history is one of my interests, and I’ve read a fair bit to that end.

            Here’s the reality of the situation today: Russia is ruled by an x-KGB thug, whom has little regard for anything but his own ego and a warped sense of Soviet destiny. Iran is ruled by a Theocracy whom are on a mission to set the stage for the End Days when Islam will descend upon the rest of the world in a holy conflagration. To this same end, Islamic jihadists are hell bent on making it all happen sooner than later, but whatever means, absolutely no holds of any kind barred. N. Korea is ruled by a sociopath whom sees himself as some sort of literal god, and is capable of no end of unimaginable atrocities. How they all got there is, realistically speaking, beside the point. The point being that they are real, and they are immediate.

            The bigger point is, they don’t give a good god damn about the ideals/values we hold so dear: Humanity, life, liberty, decency, rights. Which is to say, they will be quite happy to send their armies into battle to kill as many of us as they deem they can get away with in order to achieve their ends…no matter how much we protest for the sake of humanity, nor kiss their sorry asses in appeasement to avoid yet another war. The deciding factor will be, as it always has been with tyranny, how much can they push the envelope without getting their asses handed back to them.

            What motivates them to such extremes? The same as always: Ideology and/or religion, the difference between which is usually a very fine line. Even mere conquest of land and resources is ultimately driven by ideology. Their God/ism du jour is superior to everyone else’s, and therefore justifiable.

            Here’s the difference between us and them, and I make no apologies: A belief in humanity, life, liberty, decency, and rights is in fact superior to their ideologies.

            Duality/polarity is the law of the universe. Where there is good, there is evil by which to contrast the good.

            We represent the good, full stop. Yes, not always as well as we could or should, life is complex like that, but it still kicks the hell out of anything they have to offer mankind.

        • Lance says:

          “Oh, and who’s going to play the 60 or 70 million people who die from the immediate…”

          The ones dying now.

          I mean, who’s going to play in this repeat of the 20th Century constant blood letting …

          Take a look in the mirror……..this is you, me, everyone here on this thread, our children, their children, our family, their family………..

          When are people like Trudeau, who bleat that it is “nonsensical” to be asked what it would take for him to support military intervention if ISIS/L is not sufficient cause, EVER going to get it?!

          All the world is a stage, never mind a movie. And a former substitute drama teacher wants to be director? No thanks.

          • davie says:

            ISIL and was committing atrocities for two years. They were declared terrorist only after they grabbed oil facilities in Kurd territories. OU rallies in bombing Iraq are , Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militia, and Al Qaeda.

      • Tired of it All says:

        Ouch!

  6. JH says:

    Trudeau does this and now Mulcair is promising special status for Quebec and dissing the Clarity Act. Looks like the right choice is getting easier to make all the time for this voter.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      JH,

      Ask the right choice — assuming he allows a question or two, why he won’t put troops in Iraq and Syria. Then watch him chicken out with the usual BS excuse of acting only in concert with our allies. Convenient fig leaf for the right choice’s so-called tough stand on ISIL. You won’t see Harper pushing for ground troops with our allies — contrary to the good old days in 2003. He’s smartened up a tad since being Alliance leader.

  7. Happyjack says:

    We have been bombing that area since 2003. What exactly are more bombs going to accomplish?

    The Americans have been trying to train an Iraqi army since 2003. They still can’t fight. What is more training going to accomplish?

    The Americans have been arming “friendly” groups in the area since forever. These arms are now being used against them and against us. What is more arms going to accomplish?

    Is the plan simply to bomb and fight forever? Seems like a pretty dumb plan.

    I am a standard left of center voter who has cast ballots for NDP and Liberal candidates in the past. I do not support any more wars in the Middle East and will not be voting for any leader who does. I think this is great policy from the Liberals.

    /As for reopening relations with Iran, little bad ever came from talking. Not every enemy is Hitler.

  8. King Prick says:

    Who cares about the Jewish vote? Why should we be concerned? If you believe that such a small part of our population can so dramatically alter the outcome of an election then I would suggest that that segment of the population has too much power.

    Let’s be clear and fair; I don’t support what Israel does and the Jewish community by and large, seems to. Maybe Justin is doing what’s politically astute. He’s going to return Canada to a neutral position with Israel so that we’re not support a nation that a)won’t declare its nuclear arsenal, b)has passed in their parliament something called The Samson Option which calls for the complete nuclear destruction if foreign military actions threaten its existence. c) has a war criminal for a leader and willfully culls any Palestinian they choose and destroy their homes without benefit of trial or imperical evidence.

    if you ask me— they’re all fucked in the Middle East. George Carlin said: “seal their borders and give them better weapons training.” We’ve already begun to do that in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far it’s only created ISIS.

    If Trudeau is willing to ignore idiots like Netanyahu and if he has to alienate Jewish voters in Canada to do it; he gets my vote. I think it’s good politics on his part. Shrewd move.

    • Henry Sporn says:

      pretty clear where this dude is coming from.

      • Justin says:

        It wuz da joooooooos! It wuz them I tell ya!
        (End Mock of King Prick)

        • King Prick says:

          … And it begins…

          As soon as someone calls BS on the Jewish vote and/or Israel, some ignorant fools immediately pull the anti-semite card. Well, for the record, I’m not an anti-semite. I just don’t think the Jewish vote is a big deal to have or to lose. My opinions on Israel, are my own and are based on what I stated about ridiculous ideas like their Samson Option. What country threatens to destroy a planet to save themselves? Seriously.

          Sadly, neither of you had the sense to address the matters I mentioned, instead you both made a veiled attempt to label me an anti semite. Gross. Both of you should be ashamed. If you want to argue a point or a respond with sense; fine. But to label a person anti semitic is as bad as no different than what that Nazi rag newspaper is doing in east york. How sad of both of you. So weak of character that you can’t even address the points made. You just point and call names. Sad, really.

  9. BillBC says:

    Warren…I’ve taken to reading your blog. I’m a long-time small-c conservative, but I read a good deal on the Left too…rabble.ca, for instance. It’s great to find a Liberal I can agree with most of the time. About young Trudeau, for instance. But I think you are wrong about the postal service and seniors. I live in Ladysmith BC, a town of 7,000 that has never had door to door delivery. Years ago people went to the post office downtown…then about 25 years ago they started installing these neighbourhood superboxes. It’s no problem walking 75m to get the mail.
    So what about seniors? The thing is, that if they are fit enough to shop, go to church, etc., they are fit enough to get the mail. If they are too infirm to get the mail, then they are probably too infirm to live alone. So either a friend, relative, or neighbour picks it up for them (it’s that kind of town), or they are in an institution, where the mail is delivered to them. No problem.
    It drives me crazy to read the debate on this issue, with opinions from people who ignore the fact that tens of thousands of seniors (I’m one of them) have never had door delivery, or haven’t had it since about 1990, when they started the new system.
    The fact that 95% of my mail is junk only adds weight to my annoyance.
    But other than that, I agree with you a lot of the time…

    • UFP Ambassador says:

      Make no mistake – WK is no conservative – he’s just fucking with Team Turdeau because they pissed him off. As a general rule of thumb, don’t piss WK off.

  10. cgh says:

    Warren, it’s more than just every Jewish vote. Canada has thus far been the only nation to support the US in both Iraq and Syria. The Arab nations support operations in Syria, the Euros in Iraq. Canada’s withdrawal will weaken the US position in both. JT claims to want to improve relations with the US. This proposal of his will worsen them substantially.

    As election strategy it’s a disaster for the reasons you noted. As foreign relations, it’s mostly a disaster with the most important foreign nation to Canada.

  11. Brian says:

    Hey tough guys, why don’t you all suit up, grab your SpongeBob stamped bugles, and head on over to help “crush” ISIS if it’s such a great idea. First, though, you’ll have to name something we’ve crushed recently with our efforts in the mid-east.

    Anyone?

    Beuller?

    I thought not.

    Eventually, the Arab civil war is going to have to be fought by, and only by, Arabs. It’s so obvious it should go without saying. Imagine if the English had come over and fought on the Union side to win the US civil war? I know this requires thought and ability to process the obvious, and therefore that it will be hard for you armchair warriors. But, just try to imagine what that would have brought.

    • Mark says:

      Here’s something from an armchair historian:

      There actually were thousands of British volunteers who fought on both sides of the US Civil War. And Britain hardly stayed at the sidelines during the war, manufacturing and selling all kinds of armaments to both the North and the South, and continuing to supply money to the South by means of purchasing cotton and other goods. The North viewed Britain as an “unfriendly neutral” at best. Of course the Union was most pissed off about the fact that British shipyards were illegally building Confederate raider/cruiser ships – one of the reasons Britain agreed to pay US $15 million in damages after the Civil War.

      And this doesn’t even touch on the involvement of Canada, France, Russia, etc. in the US Civil War. The point is, the Civil War was very much an internationalized conflict, not just something that was neatly contained within the borders of America. In the same way, it’s naive to think that the “Arab civil war”*, as you call it, is somehow easily cordoned off within a certain region. It does, and will, affect all nations of the world. Canada is irresponsible if it does not play a role in its outcome, and regardless of if we end up with Harper, Trudeau, or Mulcair as PM, “Let the Arabs fight it out” is not a viable strategy.

      *Never mind that there are tons of non-Arabs in the region.

  12. chuckercanuck says:

    I’d bet Trudeau admires ISIS. Afterall, the Caliph has even more power to re-engineer the Caliphate’s economy than the Chinese Politburo. If the Caliph decides that ISIS goes green, they can do that overnight without a whisper of complaint. Problem with ISIS is that when they lose in Olympic hockey, they tend to get all war-aggressive-y.

    Befriending Iran is a bimbo eruption – there’s no reason for the Canadian government to waste time on that issue. We have no immediate interest with Iran. Its just a cutesy thing to do.

    Now, we Harpermaniacs have to be careful: we don’t want to totally demolish Trudeau. We have to keep him viable enough to draw away votes from Tommy Mulcair. In the next post, Warren warns people not to sit around expecting the opponent to collapse. What we have to do is help Trudeau not collapse so absolutely that all lefty votes go to Mulcair.

    Thank god for Gilles Duceppe’s amazing vanity. He’ll draw away Mulcair votes AND make the argument that Mulcair will coalition with separatists viable.

  13. Henry Sporn says:

    Not sure why you singled Jews out to be upset with Trudeau’s vow not to bomb ISIS. It seems to me that the war against ISIS isn’t a particularly Jewish fight, or Israeli fight, and that most everyone supports the defeat of ISIS. AS for restoring relations with Iran, I would think Iranian expats, or any Canadian who remembers what that thugocracy did to Zara Kazemi, would be every bit as appalled as Jewish people are likely to be if this comes to pass.

    • Warren says:

      Absolutely, brother. As I noted below, righteous Muslims – and I have worked for and with many – see ISIS/ISIL as the greatest threat to the Middle East, and their faith, in many generations.

    • Matt says:

      The loss of Jewish Canadian support would come more from his decision to cozy up to Iran.

  14. Liam Young says:

    I think it’s a shrewd observation. On a superficial level, no politician in their right mind should get into this discussion because anything you say that’s not ‘Strong, Proud, Free’ puts you in the ‘weak’ camp. Next thing you know, you’re doing a slow crawl to third place because you’ve been taken out at the knees.

    That said, I truly wish the world would get serious with respect to asking the tougher questions like ‘Who is ISIS/ISIL?’ and ‘Who helped them get off the ground in the first place?’ Scratch the surface and I don’t think we’ll like what we see, ie. that this is just another op created to fund a never-ending war in the Middle East.

    Let’s face it: how do you justify the vast majority of public dollars going to military expense if you don’t have a boogeyman?

  15. Kelly says:

    This benefits Mulcair. There are only 100,000 Jewish voters in Canada but quite a few people who aren’t Jewish but are for some reason Likudniks. They already all vote Conservative.

    Trudeau’s problem is that the Liberal Party is two-faced — just as it has been for the last 15 years. They promise one thing, then do another. They pretend to be socially progressive then offload services onto the provinces which have led to a startling growth in absolute poverty (homelessness, cuts to social assistance, etc.) and Harper has accelerated these trends with a supercharged engine. Trudeau doesn’t back directly fighting ISIS, yet supports the secret police bill. He doesn’t ask why Canada is fighting ISIS (incompetently) yet sells arms to Saudi Arabia and welcomes the support of Iranian troops in Iraq. He can’t attack conservative serial hypocrisy because the Liberal Party is rife with hypocrisy itself.

    That’s why the NDP is riding high. People believe the NDP will do what it promises — and it’s promises are popular with most people (except the 5% of the population that makes over $150,000 a year and owns almost all the assets).

    People hate ISIS but they don’t like Saudi Arabia and Iran either — and they don’t much like the illegal and violent policies of the current Israeli government, though they are broadly supportive of Israel as a country. Mulcair is able to lump the Conservatives and Liberals together as Phoneys. Nobody likes a phoney.

    • Peter says:

      People believe the NDP will do what it promises —and it’s promises are popular with most people (except the 5% of the population that makes over $150,000 a year and owns almost all the assets).

      Boy, have I ever messed up somewhere.

    • UFP Ambassador says:

      I make less than that, but more than others, and from reading Liberal and NDP platforms I will be screwed over by them both. No thanks, I pay enough to help others both voluntarily and through taxes and fees. I’m unwilling to sacrifice further because Justin and Tom say that I should.

  16. SF Thomas says:

    So Warren, I’m curious, do you think personally think the bombing mission has been effective or not? I’d like to know what you think on this beyond the political posturing.

    Justin may very well have a point here. Yeah ISIS is terrible and no one is disputing that, but the question is has the bombing campaign been effective and accomplished the objectives the gov’t wanted it to? If it isn’t being effective we are spending quite a bit of money for little results.

    Media hype on stuff like this drowns out the actual merit of this debate. I’ve already seen one article in the Ottawa Sun by Anthony Furey earlier today making up stuff about how Justin wants to negotiate directly with ISIS. He took a quote about ‘engaging in development and diplomacy’ massively out of context, when it meant talking to the countries in the region about how to deal with ISIS.

  17. Every single Jew in Canada? Offhand, I can’t think of an ethnic group less susceptible to intellectual conformity.

  18. Nic Coivert says:

    Bombing ISIS is not the answer. Bombing only leads to increased radicalization, oh, and it lines the pockets of weapons manufacturers. For historical example see Cambodia and the rise of Pol Pot. Bombing is more about the economy of war than it is about morality or what have you.

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