Armed Forces

Red Tuesday At A Senator's Game

Mulder

Tonight it was Red Tuesday. The Ottawa Senators and Washington Capitals squared off in a game in front of thousands of our military and the stands were full of people wearing red to show support for the troops and their families.

Sitting in some pretty fine seats, I managed to get the ceremonial puck drop on video. General Rick Hillier had the honours and to his right (left of video) is Karen Boire and Lisa Miller, the two Petawawa women who started Red Fridays. I had no idea this was planned when I bought the tickets, but considering I took the original Red Friday video, I felt honoured to be at this game.

I apologize to the two women on Rick Hillier’s left (right on video) as I did not catch who they were. If anyone knows, please drop me a note.

The two on Rick’s left are Karen MacEwan and Debbie Potter, whose husbands are serving in Afghanistan the military. (I hope I spelled those names correctly. I could not for the life of me hear the sound on the video until it was uploaded, thus the “moment of silence” remark. But it’s working now so enjoy)

Click the video ONCE to view it on this page.

If the above video did not display for you, try clicking the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Q5KnurN9Y

US Departure From Iraq Needs The Robson Plan (A or B)

Mulder

Whenever I think of the way the US left Viet Nam, I imagine the scene from the beginning of Raiders of The Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is running through the jungle to his waiting pontoon plane, being chased by local natives, scrambling across the beach yelling “Start the plane! Start the plane!”, swinging on a vine and landing in the lagoon, swimming up to the pontoon and grabbing hold while the plane starts off down it’s watery runway for takeoff as spears and arrows land all around.

I get a similar emotion when I think of the Blackhawk Down situation in Mogadishu.

And I am starting to get the feeling that the situation in Iraq will be the same now that the Democrats are taking over.

It may not be politically correct, but I hope the US takes advice from John Robson.

What would Caesar do in Iraq? I ask not only because it was in that region that Julius Caesar came, saw and conquered. I ask because Imperial Romans habitually thought clearly and acted decisively on geopolitical questions.

As democratic politicians too often do the opposite, let me offer a simple, Caesarean solution to cut through the trouble and deliver Western security interests alive and well.

…

My plan A that won’t happen is the coalition troops grab their stuff and leave … through Syria. About 200,000 heavily armed, highly trained, really annoyed U. S. and other coalition troops stomp Bashir Assad’s regime flat, hang a left through Lebanon to demolish Hezbollah, then sail home from Haifa waving a sign saying: “Don’t make us come back and do that again.” I call this plan Caesarean because it’s the sort of thing Imperial Rome would have done to extricate itself from Iraq while inspiring salutary caution in its enemies, especially following the provocative assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon. But you know it’s not going to happen and you know why.

Far from being the ogre of Michael Moore’s fantasies, the U. S. lacks even the hard-headed sang-froid of imperial Britain, let alone Rome.

To expand Robson’s point, I think the Democrats lack the sang-froid of Scooby Doo and Shaggy when their box is out of Scooby Snacks.

Robson goes on with a plan B that makes a lot of sense to me.

…devise a Plan B that could happen. Namely that the U. S partitions Iraq into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite countries and leaves at least the latter two.

This plan is also Caesarean, and not just because Iraq est omnis divisa in partes tres. Yes, I realize it would require some people to relocate, but moving beats dying in a bloody civil war. Meanwhile my proposal has three decisive geopolitical virtues for the coalition (beyond the PR plus that if sectarian violence persists it will be clear who’s to blame).

First, whatever the various domestic and foreign insurgents in Iraq want, it clearly isn’t partition. Second, once done it would be extremely hard to undo. Third, it lets the coalition depart without fleeing, leaving in splendid Roman fashion at least one client state very keen on U. S. support.

John Robson writes for the Ottawa Citizen and can be heard every Friday morning with Steve Madely on CFRA between 8am and 9am. He also has a new book out that Mark Steyn has given a strong endorsement for.

Smackdown – Minister of Defence Lays Into NDP MP Dawn Black

Mulder

This is from Thursday November 9th, 2006 – Oral Questions.

“Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Coquitlam, NDP): Mr. Speaker, when it came to support for his war in Iraq, George Bush told fellow Americans, “You are either with me or against me”. After last night’s mid-term election results, it looks like the Americans are against him, with Republican after Republican getting booted from office for their support for this unpopular war.

When it comes to Afghanistan, will the government learn any lessons from last night, or will it stay the course and meet the same fate as its American cousins?

Hon. Gordon O’Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I consider that basically a silly question.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Speaker: Order, please. The Minister of National Defence has the floor.
Hon. Gordon O’Connor: Mr. Speaker, it is the equivalent of me asking the NDP if the election of Daniel Ortega will have changed its policies.”

Simply priceless Minister O’Connor, simply priceless.

H/T to DBT

Does A Poppy Mean The Same Thing To Immigrants?

Mulder

Throughout my childhood when the end of October rolled in our teachers handed us all a small envelope that contained a poppy. I wasn’t aware of what it meant the first few years other than to know the money went to help the veterans of the wars in some manner. You see my parents were immigrants from Greece and to them the poppy did not specifically mean much. But every year my father or mother gave me a quarter or two to put into the envelope to bring back to school the next day.

I don’t know why, but I was always proud to wear that poppy and in the occasional year I lost the poppy in the wind or the wear and tear of being a kid I always felt bad. Like something was missing. I think this originally stemmed from the fact that I would not have a poppy to wear at the Remembrance Day ceremony our school had every year.

Why am I telling you this?

Because today on the Lowell Green Show a woman who worked for the Legion called up and told Lowell that she had worked three days for 4 hours a day at a poppy table and that not one visible minority had come up and given a donation for a poppy in the 12 hours. I wrote it off as a perception because I am the son of immigrants and I am well versed in the meaning of the poppy and I hope our schools are doing as good a job educating our children about this, because quite honestly, there are probably many parents who just don’t know what the poppy is.

Whether what this woman said is true or not, I don’t think your ethnic background should matter with respect to the show of support for our military and those who fought to defend not only our freedom, but the freedom of many other nations.

I hope that no matter what YOUR background is, that you pick up a poppy and wear it proudly from now until November 11th.

"Pull The Troops Rally" Gets 500 In Toronto. Support The Troops Rally Gets Thousands In Kingston.

Mulder

I watched on and off this weekend as various news agencies reported on the numerous rallys across the country which were to raise awareness by moonbats to pull the troops out of Afghanistan. But one thing I noticed is that Toronto, the nation’s most populous city, could only muster about 500 protesters. Considering Toronto has a population of 4 Million or so and with the surrounding areas you can bump that up to 6 or 7 Million, I would have to say that the rally was a failure.

Meanwhile, there was a rally in Kingston where the Kingston Battalion marched into the city after being granted the key to the city. In the rain, there were thousands there watching.

I think when you compare the two rallys, it is quite obvious that there is a big difference in the amount of support.

I realize one was a rally against a mission and the other was one in support of troops. But the ratio of support was ridiculous. 1 in 8000 showed up for the Afghanistan pullout rally and at least 1 in 60 showed up to support the troops in Kingston. Considering Red Friday in Ottawa had 30,000 out of a million you can say that 1 in 35 or so showed up to support the troops in Ottawa.

I think the leftoid protesters need to toss in the towel.

ADDENDUM: I guess Toronto isn’t the only city with a crappy turnout for the leftoid protesters. Kate at SDA has a CBC post (yes I was shocked the CBC reported it too) that indicates in Edmonton only 100 or so protesters turned out.

ADDENDUM:  As BBS points out in the comments, the anti war rally in Windsor had a meager 50 or 60 people.  That had to take the wind from their sails!!  A city of over 210,000 people and they could only drag out 1 in 3500.  I wonder how many of those were Americans who made the trip across the river.

Red Friday Rally In Edmonton

Mulder

Natacha has kindly let me know that Edmonton is planning a big Red Friday rally. Details are as follows:

Date: Friday, November 3, 2006
Location: Sir Winston Churchill Square
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Rally Details:

The rally will include speeches, musical performances by Shawn Hlookoff, the sale of Red Friday’s merchandise and Yellow Ribbon products sold through the MFRC and Canex Retail Outlet, face painting and much more.

Lowell Green And I – The Red Friday Video And The Idea To Sell Prints Of The Parliament Hill Photo

Mulder

The one benefit I have when I work from home is the luxury of recording my calls to Lowell Green whom I respect to no end for his service to our community.

Today, after hearing how Le Droit Newspaper in Montreal was reporting only 2000 people on parliament hill and the CBC and CRV reporting that there was only 3000, I called Lowell to

a) tell him that the number was far greater. (He confirmed that the official count was close to 30,000)

b) tell him about the hundreds who had viewed my video already over the internet

and

c) resuggest that CFRA sells prints of the photo with proceeds going to the Legions or to some sort of fund that supports the families of soldiers who have died overseas.

Lowell thought it was a great idea. He also was incredibly generous and let me say my website name online.

As many of you are here specifically to view the videos, I have put a set of links to the right under the Red Friday’s ribbon so you can view the 7 parts. The granularity of the video is not that great as I tried to keep the file size down for those who may not have a good high speed connection.

I do want to take this opportunity to apologize about the shakiness in the videos as well. I had no tripod with me and with the crowd, it wouldn’t have done me any good anyway so what you see is basically the camcorder on my hand being held up in the air for approximately an hour straight. (my arm paid for it the next day)

What My Red Friday Was Like

Mulder

After taking all the video footage that is in the previous 7 posts, and working for a few hours to get it online, I discovered that I had not quite explained what my Red Friday was like.

After leaving the office I started making my way downtown an was listening to Lowell Green on CFRA the whold ride down. I managed to find parking on the top floor of a lot in the market and made my way towards the Hill. While walking up Sussex I noticed police motorcycles strategically placed …ummmm….everywhere. As I got to the corner where the Chateau Laurier sits the armoured cars and armoured SUV’s with full motorcycle entourage started coming around the bend and took off down Sussex behind me towards the PM’s residence. I am 99% sure this was Karzai’s motorcade.

The number of people milling around wearing red was about 1 in 5 or so but as I got closer to the Hill it was pretty much everyone. I knew I was feeling good when I stepped on the Hill and the first thing that stood out was a guy dressed up in a Santa Claus outfit. (Either that or the big guy showed up himself).

Because I arrived around 1145 and because the traffic was probably holding up a lot of folks I managed to get a decent spot about 20 meters in front of the stage, and as you can see about 10 or 15 feet to the right of Private Michael Spence (when looking off the stage).

I really enjoyed a bit of gabbing and smiles with the people around me and I enjoyed thanking man of the folks from the Legions. The video tells you what I saw.

After the event was over I managed to run into mayorial candidate Larry O’Brien again but my digital camera was dead on batteries so the photo his assistant tried to take did not happen. I also ran into Kanata North Council candidate Matt Muirhead (who I actually saw at the Carp fair again today).

Outside of that, I really just absorbed it all and felt the pride oozing from everyone. The positive vibes coming from every part of the Hill was great. I was also very pleased to see so many MP’s behind the PM and others while the speeches were on. It was quite a treat. Even Peter Stoffer was there. (I think he should run of leadership of the NDP one day!!)

I guess that covers it. If I can think of anything else, I will add it later. I want to thank Lowell Green, Steve Madely, CFRA, the Legions, the police force, the Hill staff and everyone else who made the day happen. I know it will make a great show for the troops.

Now for my one suggestion. I think that CFRA should make some sort of nice print of the photo and sell it to generate money for the local legions or for some fund for the families of those lost in the Afghanistan war. I would buy one, frame it and display it proudly if they do.

In fact…I just came up with a new Poll idea…

Red Friday – Part 7

Mulder

In the final part of this video collection the armed forces chaplin says some words, and then the red sea photo is taken. I am sure it will be a doozy and when the troops overseas see that so many people gathered just to show them a bit of support they will get a big morale boost.

I am one who was ecstatic that I could take part in such a gathering and I hope that everyone who made it gives themselves a big pat on the back. For those that could not make it, have no worries. You can show your support by wearing something red on Fridays. A shirt, a jacket, a hat, a ribbon, an armband, a tie… whatever. Just do it. It’s the least we can do to tell our boys overseas that we care and it’s the least we can do to show the loved ones of these soldiers that we care and that their jobs matter to us.

God bless all of them and may they all return home safe and sound when their mission is over.

If you can’t see the video above, try clicking the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu3VEQ8ap08

View Part 1
View Part 2
View Part 3
View Part 4
View Part 5
View Part 6
View Part 7