Somebody on another message board I read described the US/Canada relationship like this:
(And yeah, Canadians, I understand where you guys wouldn’t always enjoy being the little brother - the point is, we do love you even if we’re usually obnoxious about it.)
Yeah, man. I can just feel the love.
Rush is coming out with a new album in two weeks.
I occasionally catch Bob & Doug on cable.
Shatner was in Miss Congeniality.
And let’s not forget the beer. Woof.
Hey! Just a joke folks! One of my best pals in Quebecois. Boy, do I like ribbing him!
Let me put on my Canadian patriot hat and offer up this article, which I suspect is the one Johnny read: http://www.canada.com/national/features/friendlyfire/story.html?id={56E9BAE2-0470-44B0-8B5E-2BF3588260C7}
This sums up pretty much the extent of Canadian ‘animosity’ towards the U.S., if you can call it that. If anything, what we feel is more of a, “Hey, how about a little recognition over here?” attitude.
This isn’t just an American thing, by the way. Canada is underestimated throughout the world. Many people don’t realize that we have one of the most effective (per capita) militaries in the world, or that we supply 10% of all the peacekeeping troops in the world. Most people wouldn’t be aware that we had the 3rd largest navy and the 4th largest air force at the end of WWII, because we generally don’t go around talking about our military prowess or comparing our battle deaths to others. And that’s the way we like it, but sometimes when someone sticks a thumb in your eye or treats you like a joke it can be a bit frustrating.
How many of you know that the American military wants to pin a bronze star on a Canadian for heroism in saving a bunch of Americans in Afghanistan? Or that a team of three Canadian snipers and three U.S. special forces snipers worked together to save an entire company of the 101st Airborne that was pinned down by an al-Quaida pocket? Or that Canadians have the highest kill ratio in Afghanistan? Or that there are 3000 Canadians in Afghanistan, which is almost as many troops as the U.S. has there (US has about 5,000)? You sure wouldn’t know it by reading the media, which tends to lump Canadian troops in with ‘British’ troops (if it mentions them at all).
It’s nice of a British writer to take the time to inform the British public of how Americans feel about Canadians. It’s less clear why a British writer would think he had any special insight into that.
[quote]
Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the “British.”[/qute]
This is, of course, the British POV. Americans do not think of anything Canadians do as being “British.” If they make that type of error (and they do), it is by thinking of such actions as being American.
A lot of us do, and are deeply grateful for it. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.
Jodi, this is just my own personal opinion, but I don’t think Canadians think that Americans generally were unfeeling about the deaths. My impression is that Canadians feel that President Bush was unfeeling, a quite different thing indeed, and much more personal.
To start with, just from the SDMB I’ve heard strong expressions of sympathy from south of the border. I teared up reading this thread, which throatshot started: My condolensces to Canada. I’ve also seen strong expressions of sympathy on the various U.S. newscasts we get up here. Those expressions of sympathy are very much appreciated, and show the strong links of friendship and respect between the citizens of Canada and the U.S.
However, the first day and a half there was silence from President Bush, no public statement. In fact, the only comment he made to the press, in response to an inquiry as he was leaving a press conference, was an off-hand “I expressed my regrets to the Canadian Prime Minister.” Considering that he said it as he was going out the door, he came across as astonishingly insensitive.
Now, it might be argued that he’s a busy man and can’t personally respond to every casualty in wartime; except when three American soldiers were killed in friendly (American) fire back in December, he practically ran into the White House press room on the spot to express his regret to the American people. That difference in behaviour spoke volumes. Plus, when you’re the Commander-in-Chief of a pilot who has just killed four of your close ally’s soldiers, just maybe there’s an added obligation for a public expression of regret?
I’m sure you’ll recall that in his speech thanking the world for support back in September, President Bush managed to thank pretty much everyone who had helped, except Canada. I thought that was an astonishing lapse, considering that Canada was the first country who aided the U.S., the very day of the attacks, by accepting planes and passengers in transit. At the time, it was by no means clear that the plot might have been broader and some of those planes hazardous. (If I recall correctly, you and I chatted a bit about this in a thread back in September/October). So this episode starts to look like a consistent pattern by Mr. Bush of ignoring Canada.
Of course, it’s always the negative that gets played up. In the spirit of “credit where credit is due,” I started this thread a few days ago: Now this I like - thank you, Mr. Bush. I’ve seen similar supportive comments in the Canadian media about this decision by the U.S. administration, but I suppose predictably, those expressions of approval don’t get much emphasis. (Just like my thread sank like a stone, with only one reply. Not that I’m bitter. :rolleyes: )
I think the Ottawa Citizen published an editorial cartoon that in my opinion best summed up the reaction. I can’t link to it directly, because the website uses frames, but go to this link and click on the link entitled “Cam042302_Relationship”
Actually, I don’t think Canadians generally feel snubbed about the accident at all. I didn’t even know that there was some kind of controversy over Bush’s handling of it. We understand that a modern battlefield is an extremely dangerous place to be, and that mistakes happen. It wasn’t intentional, and we all understand that.
I really think the only universal Canadian feeling is that our contributions are sometimes overlooked.
For example, CNN has gone on at some length about the operation in Afghanistan where the soldiers have been clearing out the caves. What wasn’t mentioned was that the majority of those soldiers are Canadian. But even I didn’t realize that Canadians were in the operation at all until I turned from American news to Canadian news, and then I discovered that Canada is actually leading many of these operations.
But what gets me some times even more is that a lot of people treat our military as a bit of a joke just because it’s small, so the assumption is that it’s a kind of 3rd world force. In fact, Canadians are among the best soldiers in the world.
Every few years the U.S. puts up a fighter competition where the best fighter squadrons from around the world compete. In the last one, a single Canadian squadron competed against 11 American squadrons in 11 different competitions and won six of them, including Top Gun, best operations, best fighter element, and best team. And of the other five competitions, Canada finished second or third in all of them.
There used to be tank competitions in Europe that were known as the ‘Canadian Cup’ or something like that because Canada won them so often. Man for man, we can stand up to any fighting force in the world. And a large percentage of our soldiers are trained like the U.S. special forces. Canada also provides 10% of all the peacekeeping forces in the world, despite having only 1% of the population of NATO. Hundreds of Canadian soldiers have been killed over the years in peacekeeping operations, with nary a comment from anyone outside of Canada.
So sometimes it just gets a little frustrating living under the shadow of the mighty U.S. military machine, and having our own accomplishments ignored or even laughed at. And now that we have a Prime Minister hell-bent on destroying our military, we may not even have our current capabilities much longer. That can be extremely frustrating.
Actually, Bush only thanked a couple of countries. Canada was by no means the only one he omitted, and there’s no way it was a deliberate slur against Canadians.
I remember that many Canadians got into a big snit about this, but I could never figure out what the big deal was. And I speak as someone who spent many years in Canada.
In another section of the speech he did mention some countries who lost people in the attack, but again there were lots of countries he left out.
Ed
I would disagree. Here’s exactly what he said in his speech to Congress on September 20:
So, he thanked the three major Euoropean allies; key players in the Middle East and southern Asia; Australia; all of Africa; Mexico; and all of Central and South America.
Guess Canada got lumped in with Russia, China and Iceland.
This is something that has always been somewhat confusing… on the one hand, we hear “the Canadian military is a joke”, and on the other hand we hear “Canadian soldiers are unbelievably good”. Even accounting for the inevitable equipment differences between the U.S. and Canada that would explain the first aspect, it still raises the inevitable question: if this is true, what makes Canadian soldiers superior? Training? Culture? History? Organization? What?
I don’t think Canadian soldiers are necessarily superior, but probably that the *average soldier in Canada is trained to a higher level than in the U.S. - more like the training U.S. special forces get.
And that’s partially because Canada’s military is simply structured differently. The U.S. requires huge quantities of front-line troops and infantry soldiers. Canada can’t afford to field that kind of army, so it focuses more on peacekeeping, special operations, logistics, and the like. Those kinds of roles typically require a higher level of training, and/or a higher level of education or intelligence for recruits.
Part of it is our ever-shrinking military budget. The U.S. typically has more positions open than available recruits, and has to actively recruit for new soldiers. Canada, on the other hand, usually has more applicants than open positions because the military is proportionally smaller, and can therefore be pickier about who it enlists.
But I’m pretty sure that if you took an American soldier that was trained to do the same job as the Canadian, you couldn’t tell them apart. Canada and the U.S. do a lot of military exchange and joint operations and training, and are probably very similar in quality.
As for the Canadian fighter squadrons - the relative lack of fighters (Canada has the F-18, but only a couple of hundred) means that the competition is fierce, and only the very best of the best make it into the cockpit.
But there is also a culture thing. I don’t know if Canada’s martial culture is any better than the U.S. culture, but it certainly is different. And there is a long, spectacularly successful tradition to live up to.
But in the end, the bottom line is that Canada’s military is structured differently than the U.S.'s, and in a complementary fashion. Canada needs the U.S. to fight a war successfully, because it doesn’t have the type of battlefield assets that have proven so important. Canada doesn’t have a heavy airlift capability, and can’t project power. So Canada contributes by providing peacekeeping, anti-sub patrols, Northern early warning, and special operations troops.
Makes sense. I had had it explained to me once (by a dubious source, but one with military friends) that the difference is cross-training. In essence, Canadian troops are trained to do a number of different related jobs, whereas U.S. soldiers are trained to only do one. The crew in a tank, for example, could do each other’s jobs in a pinch (although there’s no doubt they’d be better off doing their own) whereas the loss of, say, the driver of a U.S. tank would mean that the tank would be pretty much stuck there, as the soldiers in the other positions wouldn’t be able to take over.
You know if there’s any truth to this, Sam?
I’m not familiar enough with the specifics of Canada’s training to answer that intelligently. I know a fair bit about the culture, having lots of military friends, living in a military area, and having worked on a military base as a director a flying club. But I wasn’t ever in the military.
For some more info on what Americans think of the Canadian soldiers they’ve been fighting with,and some details on what Canadians are up to over there, read these articles: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1016406108971&call_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&call_pagepath=News/World&col=968350060724
and
and
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20020423/3932.html
The last article is interesting, because from it we learn that a Canadian sniper had a confirmed kill from an astounding 2,430 meters away, making it the longest shot recorded in the history of combat, ever.
The U.S. military has also planned to award five Canadians with the Bronze Star, but as usual our retarded government has stepped in the way for political reasons.
From the article:
Well, there seems to be some dispute about the reasons for the delay. In the stories you link, Sam, the National Post speculates it’s because the federal government doesn’t want to recognise that Canadian solidiers might actually kill someone. However, in a more recent story, federal defence officials are quoted as saying they’re waiting for a formal request from the U.S.:
That makes sense to me, for two reasons.
First, one country normally does not award honours to citizens of another country without permission. For example, the U.S. offered to award Purple Hearts to British soldiers who were wounded while serving alongside American soldiers in some theatres during WWII, but the British government declined, since it didn’t want medals going to some soldiers but not others, depending on the chance of where they served.
Second, military bureaucracies are reknowned for being slow.
So, I’d be inclined to wait and see.
That may be the case. But I believe there is actually another reason: One of the snipers that was going to be awarded a Bronze Star has been court-martialed by the military for saying something ‘derogatory’ to a chaplain during a stress debriefing.
They’re probably trying to figure out how to handle the conflicting situation.
2,430 meters away?
That’s not sharpshooting.
That’s artillery. 
Pretty much, eh? And apparently they were making routine shots at 1700 meters, which is also WAY, way out there when it comes to shooting accuracy.