Rachel Marsden
The CIA claims that it never saw the storm coming, but Canadian intelligence sure did.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister
At the time, some thought that maybe the minister had a few too many mini vodkas on the ride over. Several days later, when protests and embassy attacks erupted in Islamic nations, and the American ambassador to
But pulling diplomats out of
First off, it would be helpful to depoliticize the issue domestically so the focus can remain on finding a solution rather than pinning blame to score cheap political points. Best I can tell, neither U.S. President Barack Obama nor Republican challenger
This also includes foreign players like
Nasrallah should get out more. Those laws already exist around the world in functional democracies, and they're good enough. If they aren't sufficient to prevent people from losing their minds in his neighborhood, then he should work on closing that behavioral loophole at home. But clearly, as protests in
And forget trying to concoct any overarching linear tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory around this latest fiasco -- there are too many parties involved, across too vast a region, each with their own interests, who will all exploit the disruption and fog of war to the max, regardless of how and why it may have started.
To some, the obvious solution is to cut off funding to all proxies and abandon all foreign interests to refocus on domestic economics and security. The common refrain is, "What are we still doing in Islamic countries? Let's get out of there and bring everyone home." Right. And the ragtag "rebels," including al-Qaeda, shuttling as needed between
It's a naive worldview at best. Even if America and all its allies shuttered all foreign embassies and interests tomorrow, they would be abandoning all economic interests and influence to the competition -- namely
It's a false paradigm to qualify these two nations as the "enemy."
Abandoning the global competition would be forfeiting the game completely, so that's not a realistic alternative.
Rather than everyone bashing each other over the head for political show, we need to find solutions for containing and curtailing these proxies -- including our own -- and engaging in a more honest and civilized global economic competition that doesn't involve constant mutual deception and obfuscation. Either that or we just accept warfare and any related deception as inherent to man's nature, regardless of his purported degree of sophistication, and a natural extension of politics by other means, as military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said. In that case, we just toughen up about it and quit whining about every global flashpoint as though we have some sort of better idea when clearly no one does.
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(c) 2012. Tribune Media Services, Inc.