Liberal Voices - Conservative Mission

"There is no way that you will destroy that enemy without boots on the ground. There's no other way around it ... It can't be advisory. That sounds like Vietnam. It is actual, physical, reinforcement of capabilities on the ground, contain it, and build up capacity to destroy it."
(former) Senator Romeo Dallaire 

"It is now apparent that the forces of radical violence have metastasized, and that Islamic State represents a clear and present danger to the people over whom it rules, to any minorities around the area, to the region and potentially to the world."
"This is not about 'peace' versus 'war'. This is about something different -- the collective capacity of governments and international institutions to deal effectively with perpetrators of violence."
Bob Rae, former interim leader, Liberal Party of Canada

"If you really want to stop them, you're going to have to give a full-court press. [The genocidal jihadists, including Canadians and other Westerners who fight under the banner of ISIS] have to be whacked, and whacked good."
former Liberal foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy

"This is a significant threat to our society and Canada and Quebec are part of that landscape. Let us not be so naive that we think because Quebecers have been fortunate enough to live in peace for centuries that we're immune to this risk. The risks also exist for us. These murderous movements are mobile, they are imaginative in the worst sense and they won't hesitate to attack those they consider enemies, which are democratic societies."
Quebec Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard

Cpl Kenneth Galbraith, CFJIC   Canadian Armed Forces Maintainers, from the Canadian Air Task Force Lithuania, await the pilots to disembark the CF-18's to greet them and prepare the aircraft on Aug. 26, 2014. The Harper government’s plans for a combat mission in Iraq, include up to six CF-18 fighter jets, including about 320 aircrew and other associated personnel.

Romeo Dallaire, as a former Canadian general who was cross-assigned to the United Nations and deployed to Rwanda with a UN peacekeeping force only to witness and be unable to stop the genocidal massacre by government Hutus of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, knows all about tribal hatreds and devastatingly bloody wars and the helplessness and horror involved in being a witness to a historical bloodbath with hands tied by bureaucracy.

Lloyd Axworthy is known for his aversion to war, his willingness to try every other avenue, his championing of 'soft power' through diplomacy and peacekeeping. He, unlike the current leader of the Liberal party who aspires to become Canada's next prime minister and who enjoys high public regard for his youth, energy, celebrity status as a Trudeau, acknowledges a quantifiable degree of callow stupidity that comes fairly close to mind-boggling, in the mindset of Trudeau Junior.

Former Liberal leader Bob Rae, rejects completely the comparison that Justin Trudeau, the aspirant to lead this country, makes to the similarity of this conflict with that of the 2003 Iraq War as "simply wrong". Former Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire considers that a campaign consisting only of air strikes, sans ground troops completely pointless. Former Liberal Premier of British Columbia and federal cabinet minister Ujjal Dossanjh speaks of the need for a "robust" Canadian military action to defeat ISIS.

Under Canadian law the federal cabinet is entitled as the executive branch of government, to commit Canadian Forces to travel abroad for combat action, with no need for parliamentary approval or consultation. Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien took such decisive action making no attempt to consult parliament, as both the NDP and Liberal leaders insist Prime Minister Harper must do on this occasion.

Jean Chretien used his prime ministerial prerogative to launch Canada's mission with NATO in Afghanistan. Only when it came time for an extension in Afghanistan when Stephen Harper's Conservative government took power, was parliament consulted, and in 2006, 30 Liberal MPs broke rank to support the government's initiative at that time.