Fox fools/Please staple Steve's lips/Uppestdate: And some other Canadians' too
The major media here are noticing the ignorant idiots. A CP story:
Update: St. Steve has bottomless gall; now he's urging Canadians to defend the forces the loves to loathe:
Fox show ridiculing Canadian soldiers stirs up controversy, anger on InternetMr Staples also said this in an Ottawa Sun story:
OTTAWA — A videotaped segment of an American TV talk show where panelists mock Canadian soldiers as slackers is making the rounds on the Internet.
The five-minute segment aired last week on Fox News late-night program Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld and it was later posted on youtube.com.
The segment features American panelists suggesting Canadian soldiers need time off for "manicures and pedicures."
The item aired after Gen. Andrew Leslie, the Canadian Forces Chief of Land Staff, told a Senate committee the military would need a one-year break from operations after the difficult mission in Afghanistan winds down in 2011.
"The Canadian military wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white capri pants," Gutfeld said with a sneer, adding: "Isn’t this the perfect time to invade this ridiculous country? They have no army."
Another panelist, Doug Benson, said he was unaware Canadian troops were on the ground in Afghanistan.
"I didn’t even know they were in the war. I thought that’s where you go if you don’t want to fight — you go chill in Canada," he said.
The segment aired a couple of days before four Canadian soldiers were killed in two incidents in Afghanistan Friday.
The segment was posted online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?vtcJn5XlbSFk) by an outraged Canadian who titled it How to Lose Friends and Alienate Countries.
More than 3,000 people have posted responses to the clip, which also makes fun of RCMP officers and their red uniforms.
Fox News was not immediately available for comment.
Ottawa-based Conservative commentator Geoff Norquay called the segment "insulting and beneath contempt."
"In a week when we lost four more brave soldiers, Canada deserves better from this so-called news network," he said.
"I really wish I subscribed to Fox News so I could cancel it. I hope Canadians will boycott these ignorant children and their pathetic comments. They do not deserve to earn a penny from Canadians."
Steve Staples, director of the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, called it a "shameful display" that a panel would laugh it up at the expense of families who have lost loved ones.
...Pity they had to quote St. Steve. What a flaming hypocrite he is, what with having opposed the combat mission--and dismissing our efforts--for years and advocating instead than the CF focus on UN peacekeeping. Just the sort of attitude the Fox fools were mocking. The Stapler wrote this in April, 2006:
"The dismissal of Canadian efforts in Afghanistan simply rubs salt in the wounds of Canadian families whose sons and daughters have been injured or killed in the war."..
...This is what he wrote in June 2007:
* Once a top 10 contributor of soldiers to UN peacekeeping, today we can fit all our Blue Helmets onto a single school bus - less than 60, out of more than 60,000 UN peacekeepers worldwide.
* Our 2,300-troop-strong effort in Afghanistan, a counterterrorism mission currently under U.S. command, is a proving ground for the adoption of U.S. war-fighting doctrine and a symbolic end to Canadian/UN peacekeeping...
...Then this from February 27 this year:
In a broader context, Prime Minister Harper's remarks last week may signal that the current military buildup and transformation of the Canadian Forces from peacekeepers to war fighters has reached its zenith...
Why Canadians want their country to be a peacekeeping nationNow take a look at who's involved at Ceasfire.ca, a website (the name says it all) the Stapler founded and that remains dear to his, er, heart. I'm tempted to sick Gutfeld et al. on him. Really tempted.
...
By embracing UN peacekeeping, rightly or wrongly, Canadians are expressing a rejection of aggressive U.S.-led wars. Keep the military with the UN, otherwise, many fear, our forces will simply become an adjunct of the Pentagon, serving U.S. interests.
Sadly, successive Canadian governments have abandoned UN peacekeeping to the point where we have dropped from the first to the 53rd highest contributor, next to Malawi. Today we send so few soldiers, they could all fit on a school bus (62 Canadian soldiers out of 78,000 international troops on UN peacekeeping operations).
And so, while UN involvement plummets, 2750 Canadian troops are stuck in a failing US/NATO-led war in Afghanistan. It seems to me that Canadians actually know the score very well. Now, if only our government would listen.
Update: St. Steve has bottomless gall; now he's urging Canadians to defend the forces the loves to loathe:
...Such a shameful display shows that no matter how much sacrifice Canadians make in Afghanistan, it will never be enough for some Americans...Flash! Clear the line! Upperdate: Fox is wimps, after all:
The Rideau Institute [take a look at its "Board of Directors" webpage] is suggesting that Canadians write to Fox News asking the program’s host, Greg Gutfeld, to apologize for the segment.
Gutfeld apologizesUppestdate and out: Common sense at Milnet.ca (scroll upwards):
I have done my best to stay away from interweb comment boards on places like Youtube et al for quite a while. However because this video is quite frankly impossible to avoid, I've inadvertantly read few (very few) of the comments made by Canadians in response to this clip.Quite. I hope I have just been anti-Red eye. As for those Canadian troops in Iraq, well there sure is a lot of ignorance to shovel around in the Great White North. This blog hopes to provide a bit of, er, enlightenment. Especially regarding those Great White Weasels such as the Stapler.
While reading these comments, I have become disgusted on an almost equal level while reading what other Canadians have to say. EVERY comment that I have read has been anti-American to the fullest extent. The sheer level of ignorance shown by Canadians is .... well, there aren't words for it.
This Gutfeld character was trying to be funny, even though in bad taste (which does not make it any better)... these following cut/paste comments are not people trying to be funny, they are just examples of ignorance.
"America couldn't invade
Canada ever! They would run out of gas and oil to do it, we power them remember!!!! "
"F@CK FOX and F@CK the USA a pissed offed canidian"
"Wait 'til our troops have been pulled out of Iraq, then watch these guys squirm and beg for us to come back. Go frig yourself Fox News!"
"[name removed] agrees,Canadians are fighting a war those assholes started......."
The level of anti-American attitude present in Canada should make any Canadian shake their heads.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 8:55 a.m.
6 Comments:
While the timing was awful and the tone boorish (but that is what Red Eye does - and they make fun of a lot of sacred cows) they have a point. I don't in any way blame the troops, or even the generals, but the question is begged: How did a major nation like Canada get itself into a state where maintaining a battalion+ battle group and support assets in a low intensity conflict for a few years is trashing our military? My usual answer would be "the Liberal Party of Canada" - but I know that is only a partial answer.
Our troops over there (and their families) are doing a marvelous job, really giving their all - but as a nation we are still trying to do it on the cheap - not as cheap as we were, but there is still no long-term, sustainable commitment to a strong, expeditionary defence.
My feelings exactly - it's not a comment on the soldiers' readiness or sacrifice, but more on the governments that have led them to the position where we have to take a year-long break to regenerate the military. Very telling.
If a US military official said what LGen Leslie said about a year gap, the Canadian media would be all over it proclaiming the end to US hegemony or whatever.
Regardless, it was still a hurtful comment. I am a mother of a Canadian soldier oversea. He is a tanker. What the Canadian public needs to know is the US soldiers abroad hold a brotherhood respect as well. If course there is occasional friendly rivelry, but all in good fun. I was also born in the US,and I can honestly say the views of my American family and friends do not reflect of the show. But, I believe our Canadian sons and daughters overseas are ill equiped. This is something the government needs to ensure that our soldiers get the equipment they truly deserve keeping them as safe as possible. It is none compared then what the US soldiers have at their disposal. Yes I am hurt by the comments, but I am more so with the silence that comes from the Canadian public.
Note that Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay has just demanded an apology from Fox News. In an interview with CTV Newsnet, MacKay expressed his anger over the comments: "It's crass, it's insensitive, it's in fact disgusting given the timing where Canada is just receiving back four fallen heroes." Friday, four Canadian soldiers were killed in two separate IED blasts that injured another five soldiers. The deaths bring the total number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 116.
See: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090323/military_comments_090323/20090323?hub=TopStories
Renowned comedian and political satirist Rick Mercer has a few words of advice for the Fox News panelists who incited the Canadian government to demand an apology for their mocking of the Canadian military.
“If you're going to do satire, three of the most important rules are you have to tell the truth, you can't be a bully and don't be an asshole,” said Mr. Mercer, who hosts his own show on CBC. “Being a bully is not satire.”
http://bit.ly/OKrh
Uh Huh - Like Mercer and his buds aren't ever arseholes to Americans (inc. the Army).
How about when it took Heather Mallick of the CBS - who is supposed to be a serious journalist (i.e. not a wisecracking former editor of Men's Health Magazine) a frickin MONTH to apologize for her insane statements? How about the taxpayer subsidized rantings of Naomi Klein?
I am glad Gutfield apologized, but the manufactured outrage by various America-haters is pure BS - especially since most of them rarely have a kind word for the CF (I don't include Mercer in that - he's never been a dick to the troops).
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