"And Canada also pitched in during the War of the Worlds in 1938..."
Here's a video clip (700K, QuickTime, enclosure) featuring Ann "Four legs good, two legs better!" Coulter doing what she does best -- going with her gut feeling and coming up with unsubstantiated facts to back them up. In this segment, an appearance on the CBC's news magazine show, The Fifth Estate, she's quite sure that Canada participated in the Vietnam war (which in fact, was not the case).
I'll put my cards on the table right now: Coulter is a completely insane bitch. Her worldview is that sort of "if you're not completely with us, you're must be an enemy after our precious bodily fluids" thinking -- consider her books Treason (in which she equates anything other than her brand of neoconservatism as such) and How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) (the sort of back-patting cliquery that one should've dispensed with after high school). I've read both books and must say that I've seen better paper after wiping my ass.
Attachments:
Office phone:
Google Talk:
1. Canada did sell more than $2.5 billion in war materiel to the pentagon (not sure if that's in the clip or not).
2. Joey, can you do something besides Quicktime? You're killing us Linux geeks.
2. I don't actually do the captures for the videos I post; I just find 'em and post 'em. If anyone can point me to a Mac- or Windows-based utility to do WMV-to-MPEG and QuickTime-to-MPEG conversions, I'll start posting in MPEG format.
You might be deliberately missing the point here. If Carigini knew that you were going to hurl that accordion off of a balcony with the intent to harm passers-below or worse, perform only Celine Dion covers, then he would have been complicit with your crime. Seriously Joey, "war materiel" means things like guns and ammo. You can't sell them to one of your allies, who's at war, and say "oh, we didn't know you'd use it for that!" And make sure that you frame Canada's non-participation in the Vietnam conflict with the violently anti-Communist sentiments espoused by Canadians at the time.
Canadians can say with the straight face of a war profiteer "we stayed out of that one" but that kind of thing, like France's pretend righteousness in the run up to the Iraq war, still "smells like the ass we pulled it out of."
Yes, there is a difference between selling the gun and pulling the trigger but when we involve ourselves in a chain of causes, it's probably best to not get so smug about it. I guess that's all I was trying to say.
And let none of my satanic advocacy distract anyone from the fact that Coulter is a Compleat Toole[TM]
As for the QuickTime thing: sorry, I thought you came up with the capture yourself. My bad.
I'll just keep launching VMWare, though a little piece of me dies every time I have to use it ;o)
You still rawk, Joey. And you got my vote for best blog.
That's cool if it's true. I know that codecs are available for wma's but I hadn't heard about .mov's. I thought my only options were VMWare or the Crossover plugin.
Time for some more google-fu.
I despise that hysterical witch, ann coulter.
It's hard not to get pissed off at these comments. I suppose you just have to consider the source(s).
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/1588/
Canada geve the US effort in Vietnam strong support. They provided aid to South Vietnam, sold and developed arms for the US, and thousands of Canadians served with the US forces.
In short, Coulter was right.
(And unlike Coutler, I will get back to you on theat matter.)
At the same time, Canada was trying to play the role of a good UN citizen by attempting to broker ceasefires and even openly criticizing the US bombing campaigns as well as giving refuge to draft resisters.
The wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_the_Vietnam_War
A CBC documentary about Canada's role: http://archives.cbc.ca/400d.asp?id=1-71-1413-9128&wm6=1
An article in PEN: http://perc.ca/PEN/1992-11/collins2.html
See also "Snow Job: Canada, the United States and Vietnam (954-1973)", by Charles Taylor
Exactly when did the Prime Minister of Canada authorize the deployment of the Canadian armed forces to Vietnam? Some Canadian citizens, of their own free will, chose to go south to enlist in the U.S. army, but if that means Canada sent troops to Vietnam, then the existence of Jeremy Hinzman equally proves that the United States never invaded Iraq.
Canada's lukewarm support of the U.S. in Vietnam had more to do with Pearson's desire for a stronger UN: most Canadians hated communism and didn't object to the USians apparent attempt to stop it in Vietnam, but like Pearson, they wanted the effort to be led by the UN. This came straight out of Canada's post-WWII determination to continue to make something of herself as a country. We came of age in the two World Wars and then wanted to make our mark on the world.
Yes, when the bombing campaigns against civilian targets got underway, Canadians did voice their disapproval, but it's not as if the Canadian companies stopped making Napalm and selling it to our neighbours for use against those same civilian targets. There were no great calls to end the arms trade that enriched our economy to the tune of about $2.5 billion (1960's dollars!). We didn't demand sanctions from the UN, refuse to trade with the US, publicly side with the North Vietnamese or offer support in the UN, and that's mostly because as a nation we agreed with what the USians were doing, if not how they were doing it.
Coulter's correct about Canada "pitching in" when the range of "correct" is sufficiently narrow. That's the devilish thing about these neocon talking heads: what they're saying is arguably true. It's just mostly false in the context that the rest of the world inhabits. And it's hard to have a debate about these issues when the moderators crop everything into 15-second sound bites.
I finally managed to get the clip to play (there's a wmv stream floating around.
Dude, she comes across as a total ass tool.
Dude! What did you eat! ;-)
I was watching the Fifth Estate that night with Kingi.
Bill O'Reilly is fascinating to watch.
While the ability to make up facts and sorces on the spot does well in in improve class or a high school debate, it reflects a sad trend in TV journalism today.
Most News shows basically have become Opinion Shows with a lot of shouting. It's almost like a TV version of talk radio in the States where the host baits the audience in order get call ins or encourage them to listen because you don't know what will happen next.
I remember when Bush first said the words "regime change".
I'm proud that Chretien reflected my views and opted to let others step up to the plate.
While Canada has a military and does participate in war, we have:
- less than 10% of the population of the US. Our military relects these numbers. It reflects simple economics, ability and need. We are still partipating in Afganistan. We do not have the numbers or the finances to conduct 2 wars at a time.
We prefer to let the wars take a number and wait to be served.
We also have a belief in the UN.
Peace keeping has always been a major function of the Canadian Military.
- never participated in the Vietnam War as a country. Individual Canadaians did go south to enlist. Yes, we allowed draft dodgers to seek refuge from a war that we considered unjust and unwinnable, just as we allow refugees to seek asylum from countries that will persecute them for their beliefs.
- a tendancy to go south for money and fame. We have little or no star system and 10 % of the populaion. It's basic economics.
It's a bigger market.
- a tendancy to be a little socialist. Our healthcare and welfare system reflects this. A lot of this additude came from having a rock start as a prime minister (Trudeau). To this day I'm convinced that Americans are really jealous of this fact.
The closest they came was Kennedy or Clinton, and they were never really "groovey" enough.
- an unnatural love of curling as a country. The US networks won't even broadcast it under their coverage of the Olympics. (This alone is the major cultural difference between our 2 countries)
To be honest, (in my eyes) the US has changed too.
There used to be more tolerence.
I remember hearing the story (OK. I paraphrasing here) of how Eisenhower was considering using nuclear weapons against the Chinese. A protest started where people would mail in a bag of rice with the note -'If your enemies are hungry, feed them.' Romans 12:20
Not that this stopped Eisenhower from dropping the bomb.
I just kind of wish there was some sort of kind ear in the US government these days.
I have to admit that I was amazed when the Bush brothers (Jr & Sr) and Clinton pledged US Tsunami relief and aid.
That money will go further to solving America's crisis with the Muslim world than any US military personal in Iraq ever could.
Carson
IMO, says loads about a country and culture that would make her a rich, influential person who gets interviewed a lot ... rather than an alien who more properly belongs as a character-of-satiric ridicule on, say, South Park ? Perhaps the nurse who administers Cartman's anal probe ?