Chan's Personal Blog

Whether you see Yassir Arafat as a terrorist or a politician, his death yesterday marked an end to an era. A little backgrounder for people who didn't know who he was, Arafat was the leader of the Palestinians who became very ill in late October. He was flown to a military base in France for treatment for a mysterious illness. He fell into a coma and died as his organs failed. He was 75 years old.

In either case, the Christian Science Monitor has a pretty good article about these events. There's also an interesting story here about Former President Clinton's reaction to Arafat's passing. (Clinton helped bring the Israelis and Palestinians on the brink of peace during peace talks.)

CNN has an article about the world's reaction to the passing of Arafat. The opinions differ greatly.

"The tragedy was that Arafat, who had the power and prestige to move his people to peace, instead moved them and us into a terrible war of terror that cost thousands of lives, Israelis and Palestinians alike. This is the man who also pioneered international terrorism, the art of hijacking planes, ships, kidnapping and seizing of hostages and you name it. Which gave birth, of course, to other terrorist groups who emulated him, including al Qaeda." - Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"[Arafat was a] man of courage and conviction who has incarnated, for 40 years, the fight of Palestinians for the recognition of their national rights." - French President Jacques Chirac

The coming weeks should be interesting as new Palestinian leadership comes to power. We'll have to see if the leadership becomes more radical or moderate. Some analysts fear that there will be a civil war between the various factions that are trying to grab power.

Hopefully a more moderate leadership emerges and the peace talks can continue. Arafat was shunned by the Israelis and Americans because they saw him as completely incompetent in disarming his own terrorists. There's also a sense that Arafat didn't really want peace because during the peace talks in the 90's, Israel had offered the Palestinians 99% of their land back, and Arafat walked out on the talks.

This article caught my eye and I am somewhat outraged. The story talks about some war veterans in Quebec getting ready for Remembrance day ceremonies. They asked their Bloc Quebecois member of parliament (MP) for Canadian flags, and he denied their request.

Here's what the MP said:

"Handing out Canadian flags flies in the face of Bloc's push for sovereignty ... Personally, as a Bloc Quebecois MP, I don't feel the obligation to distribute Canadian flags" — André Bellavance

What's even worse is that this isn't the opinion of a single Bloc MP, their leader supports this stance as well.

Remembrance Day SHOULDN'T be a political game! I am disgusted by this show of disrespect to our war veterans. For crying out loud, they sacrificed everything so that freedom would reign. 60,000 Canadian soldiers died in World War 1, 40,000 Canadian soldiers died in World War 2. The least you can do is give them their 10 flags that they asked for!

Time for a good old fashion G2K flag drop over Quebec. I propose we get a C-130 cargo plane, and load the hanger with a few hundred thousand Canadian flags, and fly over Bloc headquarters and release the payload.



Who's with me?

Well, last night I went to bed after watching the American presidential election for a good chunk of the evening. The score was 254 Bush, 250 Kerry, and no clear winner. I woke up this morning and booted up the old computer to check the election results, and still no winner. Finally when I got into work, I discovered that Kerry had conceded.

My personal reaction was that this election was very exciting because it was so close. A lot of the media coverage wouldn't declare a winner prematurely because of the tight race. I'm glad that we didn't have to endure a lengthy recount and court battle (especially in Florida).

From a Canadian perspective, I was watching the CBC interview Americans and Canadians that lived in Canada, and they were all grumbling about a Bush victory. On the bus this morning, more grumbling about how stupid Americans are for voting such a moron into the White House. Although this doesn't reflect my opinions, it does illustrate the reaction to a Bush victory from abroad.

Whether you love Bush or hate Bush, one good thing did emerge: He stirred up interest about politics, and a lot more people came out to vote. This CNN article says that there was a 60% voter turnout which is the highest ever in modern times. About 120 million Americans voted. I think this is good news as it is very important to vote in a democratic society.

Here's another article that basically summarizes the events of today. Here's also a link to the world's reaction to the Bush victory.

The New York Times is also running an interesting article that credits part of Bush's re-election to Christians. I was watching the CBC tonight, and some analysts see a silent revolution taking place in America where values and family are becoming an important issue again. They see the political pendulum swinging away from the left to the right. The most obvious indicator is the eleven states that voted for the traditional definition of marriage. Another perspective on moral values influencing the election can be found here.

Anyways, the here's the vote results as of right now. Bush won 279 electoral votes, and Kerry won 252 electoral votes (need 270 to become president). For the popular vote, Bush won 59,108,395 votes, and Kerry won 55,554,114 votes. Well played gentlemen.

We are on the eve of the American election, and security seems to be dominating the debates in this final stretch of the race. A lot of pundits are dubbing the new Osama Bin Laden tape as the October suprise that will sway voters. Both Senator Kerry and President Bush are using the tape to further their goals as expected. This article provides a more comprehensive analysis than what I have below.

From the pro-Kerry camp, they're using the tape as leverage for the the following points:

• Bush has failed to capture/kill Bin Laden because Bush took his attention off Afghanistan, and went to Iraq.
• Bush failed to capture Bin Laden because he outsourced the job to Afghan warlords and the Pakistani intelligence service who's hunting him now.

From the pro-Bush camp, they make the following point:

• The war on terror is the president's strongest issue, remember 9/11.
• Notice we haven't had a terrorist attack on American soil in the last 3 years.

In my view, I think Senator Kerry is wrong about Bush letting Bin Laden escape in Afghanistan. Recently Retired General Tommy Franks, who ran the war in Afghanistan refuted Senator Kerry's assertion about Bush letting Osama get away. From this article, it states "Mr. Kerry's version of the battle of Tora Bora is revisionist history." I'm going to the word of a general that was on the ground as opposed to some Senator who was thousands of miles away from the front line, trying to score political points.

As for Bush's assertion that there have been no terrorist attacks on the homeland since 9/11, that is true. Security is one of those tricky things where you have to be diligent, and you ALWAYS have to get it right. For the terrorists ... they only have to get it right once.

However, I don't think Bin Laden's dumb enough to launch a terrorist attack on America so close to an election. Early this year, a terrorist attack in Spain had a massive political influence that brought down the government during elections. The population in general blamed the terrorist attack on their government's involvement in helping the Americans invade Iraq. They felt the government's meddling brought this attack upon the country.

I don't think another terrorist attack would have the same affect in America. I think another 9/11 would probably reunite the country which would be bad news to the terrorists, as America is currently a divided country. When Americans get attacked, they will respond in kind. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour awoke the slumbering giant America, and brought her into World War 2. America's goal: unconditional surrender from Japan.

An attack would unite America as well. Remember on September 11th, 2001 how everyone came together to back their president. Remember how Bush's approval rating was at 90% in the aftermath of 9/11. Whether you're pro-Bush or anti-Bush, you have to admit that Bush did a great job during 9/11 and he will go down in history following those events, for better or for worse.

In either case, my personal opinion is that the Bin Laden tape probably helped Bush. That was my initial knee jerk reaction as it reminded me of 9/11 all over again, and how we have to get this guy! Yes capturing or killing him would be great, but it'd be more of a symbolic victory than an actual victory in the war on terror. One has to realize that terrorist groups are distributed networks, and just because you take out the head doesn't cripple the organization.

Just my two Canadian cents...

This will probably provoke some strong responses from some of my viewers ... please keep it civil.