Debating Responsibility

"This kind of jihadist extremism is expansionary. It is not satisfied with holding some towns and villages that straddle the border between Syria and Iraq."
"They believe that it is part of their mission to launch attacks, to infiltrate through foreign fighters into western societies. Therefore I think military action is critical [against ISIL]. In fact, I would say essential, to try to prevent their further advance and their holding of more territory."
"Military action alone is not sufficient. It's a very long game."
"[There may be 50,000 to 100,000] hard-core jihadists [in the world right now]. I think we turn away from it at our peril."
former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the Canada2020 conference in Ottawa October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

"We have been down this road before. These are the exact same arguments that were used about the Taliban in Afghanistan to begin with. For ten years, Canada was there, 40,000 troops, $30-billion,and a result that is less than certain, to be charitable."
NDP leader Tom Mulcair

"We all forcefully condemn this abhorrent, barbaric group of terrorists. None of that is open to question."
"When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, he only thought out step one, which was to capture Baghdad. After that, what? We saw what happened because of the failure to understand the overall challenge."
Liberal foreign affairs critic Marc Garneau

"The dark clouds of terror are gathering in Iraq and Syria threatening to strike their thunder from India to Spain. We must not let this storm descend on Canada, and we know that it will if left unchecked."
"You can't confront a 'network of death', as President Obama calls it, solely armed with bandages, platitudes and investigations. We must be careful not to draw a line between security and humanitarian assistance."
"Sending someone a doctor, lawyer or aid worker is great, but it's not going to stop the people they're trying to help from getting slaughtered in the first place."
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

SANLIURFA, TURKEY – SEPTEMBER 28: Smoke is seen rising from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani following an explosion that was followed by further fighting, which saw IS fighters shoot into Turkey for the first time on September 28, 2014 south of Sanliurfa, Turkey. Islamic State (IS, also called ISIS and ISIL) fighters are reportedly advancing with heavy weaponry on the strategic Kurdish border town of Kobani (also called Ayn Al-Arab), which they have surrounded on three sides. Several hundred thousand refugees are reportedly in Kobani and aid agencies are bracing for a massive exodus into Turkey. Carsten Koall/Getty Images

The all-party Parliamentary discussion that NDP leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau demanded take place, the first of two sessions did indeed occur. And where was Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, whose vision of Canada is one whose moral compass has gone askew? Not there to debate the issue. He was in the audience listening to what a likely candidate for the American presidency in 2016 had to say about the matter from her seasoned perspective as someone who had seen that history unfold at close range.

That exposure will do nothing whatever to have him change his mind about Canada taking part as a NATO country and ally of the United States in a mission to help protect a vulnerable population from annihilation at the hands of a fanatical pathology of sectarian hatred and religious-ideological domination. 'His' Canada is a different place where peace and stability reigns and nothing will intrude to interrupt that idyll. He obviously never heard the old adage that one should prepare for war to protect peace.

There are no mass concentration and death camps in Iraq, just a lot of dead bodies because the Islamic State jihadis idea of systematic slaughter is just that; line them up and destroy them. They aren't yet thinking in the mechanized methodical terms of the Nazi killing machine that birthed the Holocaust; their holocaust is more spontaneous if no less hatefully lethal. The purpose of the requirement to intervene, however, is to ensure that the Islamic State's holocaust doesn't reach the proportions of the original.

"We left Afghanistan much better off than we found it", responded Conservative MP Laurie Hawn. "Will it last? That will ultimately be up to Afghans." Sensible, sensitive, responsible, lacking the histrionics of Mr. Mulcair's passionate insistence on diplomacy and arms'-length cooperation he would prefer, in sending along alms in the guise of non-lethally useful items to bolster the humanitarian-aid segment of what he's willing to proffer.

But they can carp to their hearts' content, informing Canadians of the level of their humanitarian and intellectual mettle in their solutions to Canada's involvement in an international bid to restrain the Islamic State killing machine. Canada has a majority government. And it is up to that majority government how it will respond to the request from allies to help the coalition battling ISIL. In his wisdom as a statesman Prime Minister Harper has decided on cautious assistance.

Canada will deploy CF-18 fighter jets, surveillance aircraft, a refuelling plane and some 600 military personnel in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS. In joining some 60 other international bodies that have signed on to the mission, Canada is performing its due diligence in attempting to advance the world order from malevolent disorder. The imponderables demanded by the government's critics: duration, cost, evaluation of success, represent just that; imponderables.

We will do, as we always strive to, the best we can, hoping for the best possible outcome, anticipating that it will cost us dearly, but determining there is little other option but to act.