Innocent Canada attacked by Terrifying Terrorists! The only real suprise is that it hasn't happened earlier.

The joke among American's who travel abroad is that they sometimes introduce themselves as Canadian because admitting that they are American tends to trigger a lecture about the US being the biggest bully in the world. Or worse, it is met with embarrassing statements like 'oh, American? You killed my grandfather'. So given that such conversations are more iceberg makers than ice breakers, saying your Canadian helps. Canada is seen as the US's big friendly neighbour who wouldn't say 'Boo' to a goose. Good ole Canada doesn't interfere in other peoples business the way the US and UK do.

So if this is the case, why has Canada just had the experience of terrorists 'rampaging' through its Parliament and capital?

Sadly, the fluffy nation of polar bears and mounties is a myth. Canada is a paid up member of NATO and part of the unofficial 'Anglo-Saxon' imperial club that is happy to kill anyone who would try to change the balance of power in the world. Although the US is by far the largest member of this ethnically, historically and linguitically driven group, the UK, Australia and Canada have a close military relationship with the US where they keenly jump into wars together to watch each others backs, even when other NATO members are holding back.

This is why innocent Canada has been at war in Afghanistan for 13 years, why it helped the CIA with the international kidnap and torture regime that it ran from the prisons of Iraq and Guantanamo, and why Canada's PM recently declared that Canada was going to be joining the bombing campaign against the most bombed and traumatised people in the world - Iraq. Like the US and UK, Canada is helping to spread bloodshed around the world, and yet expects it not to come home.

[This video is specifically talking about US foreign policy and history, but the principal is the same for US allies as well "Violence begets Violence, Terrorism begets Terrorism"]

Like the Brit's, the Canadian public may still maintain an image of their country as a fluffy defender of democracy, but for people who live in the real world - or the 'third world' - one bomb falling from the sky to annihilate your village is pretty much the same as the next bomb regardless of which country it came from or what that countries people think of themselves.

The UK saw bombings in London a few years after it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, and so did Spain because it was one of the few EU countries willing to support the US led slaughter from day one.  The real surprise here is that Canada has not been the focus of some other attack during the last 13 years.

So why does Canada join its English speaking cousins in these wars? Well, just like the other major Anglo-saxon states, Canada has a lot invested in the current power balance in this world. Canada is a huge settler state - 2nd largest country in the world - which has wiped out and marginalised much of its native population and is now dominated by roughly 20 million white folks. It has a wealthy, western economy and huge oil reserves that it is currently using to allow the US to become independent of Middle Eastern oil. Like Australia and the UK, Canada's priveleged position in the world is depedent upon the the US staying top dog.

It would be nice to think we live in a world of 200 independent nation states, all going about their business in a spirit of cooperation and friendly competition, but we simply don't. White, Anglo-Saxon wealth and privilege is maintained through a complicated system of violence that has destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen in just the recent round of violence of the last 15 years. [We don't have space here to go into the endless list of genocides that established this Anglo-Saxon dominance in the first place, but needless to say, we didn't become the dominant group in the world with our business acumen or winning smiles.

Occasionally the other allies in the Western block can be dragged along to join in the slaughter, so we sometimes see France bullying its ex-colonies in Africa - or the Germans and Japanese sending a token number of troops to Afghanistan to show willing - but it is primarily the UK, followed by Canada and Austrialia - who are the first to dive in behind the US. And so, ultimatly, the violence that we bring to the rest of the world comes home to us (but always in much smaller, almost token amounts). If Canadians are suprised that there are people out there in the world that hate them, it is only because the are ignorant of their governments and militaries role in the world.