Some Thoughts For My Non-Canadian Friends

When I get into serious discussions with my non-Canadian friends, I think many of them are often surprised at times by the so-called right-of-centre attitude that I take on international political issues. What I don't think any really understand though is the political climate that I'm immersed in here.

There are just too many of my fellow Canadians who:

• Have placed themselves in a self-imposed bubble of ignorance about the world.
  
• Almost always blame Israel for all of the problems in the Middle East.
  
• Claim to abhor racism but take every opportunity to espouse how much they hate Americans.
  
• Take for granted our strong economic position that is directly thanks to the U.S.
  
• Often hold China up as a shining example of what a superpower should be like.
  
• Blame Tony Blair and George Bush for the recent bombings in London.
  

Don't believe me? Then read this. It is just one example of MANY that I see every week.

On many issues I am an open-minded moderate. For there are many issues that are very complicated and don't have simple rights and wrongs. Abortion is one of these. So is unlimited free speech. So is gay marriage. So is welfare. I have empathy for the arguments on both sides of these issues.

But there are certain issues for which I will not accept moral relativism. And one of these is terrorism. I refuse to accept that the murderers who perpetrate these crimes are "victims", as so many in the Canadian media would have us believe.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that a great number of Canadians blame Blair and Bush for the London bombings. For their world is consumed with reading free newspapers that total about a dozen pages, watching 5 minutes of soundbites on 24/7 repetitive news channels, and with political discussions on our public CBC radio & TV that consist of left-leaning people on one side and ultra-left people on the other.

What I suspect most of all is that the majority of Canadians haven't yet accepted that we are involved in a war - admittedly a long, slow burning one - but a war nonetheless. Our enemy is not George Bush, but rather the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists who want to end Western civilization as we know it. Well, I for one, refuse to accept that Canada should become another pre-9-11 Afghanistan. Coincidentally, so do the Afghani people today. While I have not and will never agree with all of the policies of Bush et co., I know very clearly which side I stand on in this war.