Faithfully Yours - Pick your fights carefully

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By Neil Strohschein

As I write these words, Canadians are still dealing with the shock we all felt over the sudden senseless deaths of Corporal Nathan Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Their deaths left all Canadians asking how this could happen on our soil and why.

Canada’s print and electronic media have covered these tragedies in excruciating detail. Investigators have been able to recreate the events that took place on the days these men died. We also know how the lives of their killers ended; and of individual acts of heroism that helped end these horrific events.

What we will never know is “why” Cirillo and Vincent were targeted and murdered. There is a lot of speculation—both killers are alleged to have links to terrorist groups headquartered in the Middle East. But it’s impossible to determine how much impact (if any) their radical beliefs had on these killers because we will never be able to hear them explain in their own words why they did what they did.

That hasn’t prevented some terrorist sympathizers from taking to social media and making statements like “Canadians are getting a taste of their own medicine;” and warning us that if we continue to take part in bombing raids on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, we can expect more attacks like those mentioned above.

To their credit, our Prime Minister and MPs have stood with our allies and let it be known that we will not be intimidated by terrorist threats and we will not back down from the war against terror.

But I hope the deaths of Cirillo and Vincent have reminded our leaders that if Canada is going to send soldiers, sailors and pilots to war, we need to pick our fights carefully. Today’s wars are not confined to one geographical location. The bombs may be dropping and bullets may be flying in Iraq and Syria; but there is always the danger that a lone wolf whose mind has been poisoned by radical ideas can take the law into his or her own hands and randomly target, attack and kill a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil.

We did not face that threat in 1914 when we sent 620,000 uniformed personnel to war. Nor did we face that threat in 1939 when over 1 million Canadians joined the fight to liberate Europe and North Africa.

Today is different. Getting involved in a war anywhere in the world puts all Canadians at risk. So the question we need to ask is this: “Is the cause for which we fight worth the risk?”

Those who answered the call to fight in World War II knew why they were going to war. We had been asked to help the two countries whose colonists helped found and build our nation. One (France) had already been overrun by Hitler’s forces. The second (Great Britain) was under attack. We went to war to liberate our friends, to put an end to the tyranny that held all of Europe in its grip and to help create a world in which our neighbors and friends would never again have to face a similar threat.

Canadians have the right to expect the same transparency from today’s political leaders. We need to know that our uniformed personnel are fighting to uphold the values on which this country was built and that they are defending victims of injustice who can not speak up for or defend themselves. Only then will we support sending our troops to war and commit ourselves to stand on guard for them here at home.