would canada have join if....

[Jaxson]

guys, i haven't been here that long and all but today after reading an article a friend showed me, i started thinking some things and i don't know if this thread was started before but if it was it would have been a long time ago so i thought id post it and see what everyone thinks....

Okay today i started to think about the whole US led invasion of Iraq and such and how they don't like the fact that we (Canada) did not support them in their decision and did not commit troops to the War in Iraq, but i started to think What if it WAS a sanctioned war by the UN , would Canada have gone to war in it then? would we have had our own tragedies like Britain has had (bombings) ? How many other countries would have joined in the war, and would the insurgency even be trying to fight back the way they are, if there was 10-20 countries in there with troops, instead of just a few. whats your opinions and thoughts?

-=PeAcE=-

 

[Sig_Des]

not the place for this thread

 

[Blakey]

What was it in the arcticle that got you thinking that way?, is there a link to the arcticle?

 

[Jaxson]

two comments :

first to sig_des i put it in the political section cause i thought that this section was best for this subject (or do you mean this entire post has no place on the forums)


and blakey no theres no link, it was an article from a paper the main point i remember reading was something along the lines of Canada not being a true ally of America and such because we didn't back them up... it might not have been an Official story either it could have been someones write in opinion to a paper or such but the point is it got me thinking.

 

[Blakey]

Seen.

 

[Sig_Des]

Jaxson, the move is fine...I wasn't saying it's not a valid question, it's fine to want to have an answer, just not in the news section.

It's actually a question I've heard several times from American soldiers I've trained or worked with

 

[Roy Harding]

guys, i haven't been here that long and all but today after reading an article a friend showed me, i started thinking some things and i don't know if this thread was started before but if it was it would have been a long time ago so i thought id post it and see what everyone thinks....

Okay today i started to think about the whole US led invasion of Iraq and such and how they don't like the fact that we (Canada) did not support them in their decision and did not commit troops to the War in Iraq, but i started to think What if it WAS a sanctioned war by the UN , would Canada have gone to war in it then? would we have had our own tragedies like Britain has had (bombings) ? How many other countries would have joined in the war, and would the insurgency even be trying to fight back the way they are, if there was 10-20 countries in there with troops, instead of just a few. whats your opinions and thoughts?

-=PeAcE=-

Jaxson:

That's an interesting question.  Of course, there's no way to KNOW, so you're going to have to put up with conjecture.  Mine follows:

Would Canada have gone to war, if the invasion had been sanctioned by the UN?  In my opinion - only in a limited way.  We may have contributed a Field Hospital, and possibly CF-18's (against which there is little threat), much as we did during the Gulf War.

Would we have had our own domestic bombings (like Britain)?  Certainly - and we will, whether we "go to war" in Iraq or not - this is inevitable, as we are a Western Democracy.

As to thoughts and opinions - I never understood the Iraq war, I don't understand why the USA went in.  I only wish that Canada's non-participation had been a PRINCIPLED stand, rather than the (apparently) anti-American non-decision it was.  Now that the coalition is there, however, I only hope that they can establish stability swiftly, and withdraw.  I'm not sure that the war was EVER worth risking the lives of my American, British, Danish, Australian, amongst others, friends and brothers.  Those friends and brothers, however, are soldiers - it's an axiom that soldiers don't start wars - politicians do; and politicians don't fight wars, soldiers do.  Despite my doubts about why the Coalition went to war, my heart and thoughts are with those fighting the damned thing.

 

[a_majoor]

The "UN sanctioned" part is a red herring; Canada contributed combat forces in the 1999 air campaign against Kosovo without either UN approval or even parliamentary debate. We can speculate on the reasons why our government chooses to do the things they do, but obviously questions of domestic politics and the fanatical determination to retain power have a lot more to do with these decisions than "Realpolitik", morality or the national interest (however defined).

As for the intervention or non intervention affecting the actions of the terrorists; consider this: of all the nations of the world, only the Americans arrived in Bosnia with sufficient combat power and the will to use it to end the genocide against the Muslim Bosnian population back in 1995. For their trouble, they received a declaration of war from Al Qeada in 1998 and attacks against the American homeland on 9/11 2001.

Our participation in protecting Muslim populations will count for very little when the Jihadis decide the "Little Satan" (AKA Canada) has outlived its usefulness as a safe haven, fund raising and staging base.

 

[jmacleod]

a-majoor's post is quite right. The US War College has published some interesting papers on
the Iraq War, particularly the "insurgency" which their Staff and a number of authored papers
correctly predicted, prior in fact to the invasion, which has been overlooked in most of the
world media. MacLeod

 

[Chimo]

Do you have a link to any of the War College's papers? I am sure they would be interesting reads. 

 

[oyaguy]

Interesting.

I remember reading (cite sources, I believe it was in the CNN war section of their website), that the casualty rates were worse in Afghanistan. This was a while ago so things probably have changed.
So if we had in fact ended deploying troops in Iraq, we could theoretically have had fewer casualties.
However this completely  ignores the fact the the main Canadian contingent in Afghanistan was in the relative (compared to Kandahar say) safety of Kabul.
Additionally, this theoretical deployment of Canadian troops would have been, much like most of the other Coalition members, deployed in the Shiite south where the casualties simply don't compare to the Sunni Triangle.

As for the U.N. red herring, and Kosovo(weird, Kirov is in the spell checker, but not Kosovo??) ... NATO intervened knowing that the UN okay would then come. Forgiveness versus permission.

No matter what really, Iraq was going to be and is an American show, no matter how many other nations joined up as a part of the Coalition.

Sorry if this post only looked at the "What would have happened if Canada joined..."

 

[a_majoor]

I remember reading (cite sources, I believe it was in the CNN war section of their website), that the casualty rates were worse in Afghanistan. This was a while ago so things probably have changed.
So if we had in fact ended deploying troops in Iraq, we could theoretically have had fewer casualties.
However this completely   ignores the fact the the main Canadian contingent in Afghanistan was in the relative (compared to Kandahar say) safety of Kabul.

Canadians actually began their activities in the Kandahar region in 2002, and after 3 PPCLI rotated out another Candian contingent moved in with ISAF in Kabul. We are going back to Kandahar now, so the relative saftey or danger of these postings is subject to change. (Three casualties in the Kabul area were due to enemy activity, mines and homicide bombing, while most of the casualties in Kandahar were "friendly fire").

Additionally, this theoretical deployment of Canadian troops would have been, much like most of the other Coalition members, deployed in the Shiite south where the casualties simply don't compare to the Sunni Triangle.

Although this is a plausible assumption, is there any evidence this would actually have been the case? (Just a question, not a flame)

As for the U.N. red herring, and Kosovo(weird, Kirov is in the spell checker, but not Kosovo??) ... NATO intervened knowing that the UN okay would then come. Forgiveness versus permission.

Actually there were numerous UN resolutions requiring Iraq to undertake various actions, which were quite openly violated, so the UN "permission" wes already implicitly there. Strange how this doesn't seem to mollify the critics of the Coalition's actions.

The end result is our non participation was motivated by purly domestic political concerns, and if we had intervened with ground troops in Iraq, they would have performed well and done more than most people would have expected. Other than that, no one can say.

 

[48Highlander]

As for the intervention or non intervention affecting the actions of the terrorists; consider this: of all the nations of the world, only the Americans arrived in Bosnia with sufficient combat power and the will to use it to end the genocide against the Muslim Bosnian population back in 1995. For their trouble, they received a declaration of war from Al Qeada in 1998 and attacks against the American homeland on 9/11 2001.

If I remember correctly, part of the extremists beleifs is that thew only "real" Muslims are the ones who practice the traditional way.  Traditional language, laws, all that stuff.  Which the Bosnian Muslims don't.

 

[oyaguy]

Although this is a plausible assumption, is there any evidence this would actually have been the case? (Just a question, not a flame)

You're right but the operating procedure so far is that the Americans have been patrolling the riskiest portions of Iraq. The rest of Iraq is not without danger, but to a lesser degree.

You're remarks about the various UN resolutions are correct. Though in the case of Kosovo, NATO intervention helped save the UN face, where the resolutions passed after the US invasion of Iraq were more for lending Americans and the subsequent Iraqi government credibility.

As for the UN resolutions before the Iraq War, arguments can go to both sides about Iraqi compliance versus non-compliance. I personally lean towards the US as having split hairs in the light of Iraqi non-compliance, especially under the guise of "Disarming Iraq". Proving a negative is practically impossible. What I am getting at, which George W. Bush made clear was that he wanted to go to war. In the wake of the weapons of mass destruction discoveries, the seemingly failed pre-Iraq War UN resolutions had in fact worked.

Whatever. This is just details. A_majoor nailed it on the head with our domestic political issues getting in the way. I honestly can't see any plausible situation {beyond the bizarre} that would have seen Canada as part of the Coalition aside from a computer entry error on the US DoD coalition members website{which actually happened}.