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Short of some future war being played out at the base of Whistler Mountain - Tribe Shredders versus The Two-Sticks - none of us are ever likely to see anything even approaching the war zone Tiny Town is likely to become next February.
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Short of some future war being played out at the base of Whistler Mountain - Tribe Shredders versus The Two-Sticks - none of us are ever likely to see anything even approaching the war zone Tiny Town is likely to become next February. There will certainly be more RCMP personnel, more mercenaries and more Canadian Forces troops in and around the Olympic venues in Vancouver, but Van's a big city and can absorb several orders of magnitude more weirdness than Whistler without anything seeming particularly out of place.

Whistler? The sight of even one cop in the village is an unusual experience if you're not accustomed to haunting the place after midnight. It's hard to imagine what effect a couple of squadrons of grim-faced, uniformed, visibly-armed security folks are going to have on the ebb and flow of life as unusual, let alone their dampening effect on what's billed as the biggest party to ever hit town. At a minimum, I'd certainly advise everyone to leave their staplers and other office equipment at home.

Despite assurances given at the recent Open House that security forces would be of the kinder, gentler, more understanding - yea, even fun-loving - variety, the reality on the ground is likely to feel oppressive to anyone used to the largely invisible role the RCMP and military currently play in the Great White North. The Big Brother is Watching paranoia will be heightened by the installation of several (insert absurdly large number here) CCTV cameras recording our every public move. While the plan is to aim those suckers inside the secure areas of official Olympic venues, fears of terrorists lurking around every dark corner are likely to trump public-soothing plans and it's more likely you won't be able to fart in the village without it being captured on tape.

And as a dog lover in a dog loving town, I'm happy Mo pointed out the police dogs deployed here are supposed to be bomb sniffers, not drug sniffers. I'm not particularly worried about a drug dog getting friendly with me as I wade through the humanity in the village but I was worried about the kind of olfactory/mental meltdown a drug dog might suffer if it was used in Whistler. Poor animal would be so overloaded with scent trails it'd wind up spinning in circles like a fly with only one wing, chasing its own tail ever-faster and winding up like the tigers in Little Black Sambo. I'm not sure it's still legal to cite that 1899 children's story but rest assured, no slur was intended by doing so. I just always liked the image of tigers melting into butter. Ummmm... butter.

I'm willing to suspend my disbelief about how oppressive or benign security is likely to be for the time being. Keep the powder dry until needed. I'm even willing to imagine it's possible protesters will be given relatively free reign instead of being cordoned off in obscure "free speech" zones. I'm willing to imagine it in the same way I'm willing to imagine world peace or ever being lucky enough to have a winning lottery ticket. It's highly unlikely but imagining it is a form of cheap entertainment.

But I initially recoiled in horror at the thought of Canadian Forces personnel being deployed domestically. Apparently, they're going to defend the Olympics from attack by sea or air, use their big choppers to move people around and coordinate with NORAD in case rogue elements of the Russian mafia decide to launch ICBMs our way if it looks like Russia is going to lose hockey gold to either the Canadians or Americans.

Canadian troops on Canadian soil? Doing something other than snow removal in Toronto? Gives me the third-world, banana republic creeps.

Then I realized maybe that's not such a bad thing. Especially compared to pointlessly losing their lives in Afghanistan. I'd much rather see Canadian Forces deployed doing good - that's doing Good - inside Canada as opposed to propping up corrupt governments in ungovernable countries and getting bogged down in geopolitical quagmires in which Canada really has no valid stake.

And make no mistake, that pretty much sums up Canada's role in Afghanistan. The military folly in that country may have sprung from noble beginnings, but even good fruit goes bad if it sits out too long. Vanquishing the Taliban, planting the seeds of democracy - even in a country unfamiliar with the concept - freeing an oppressed people, doing the work the United Nations was originally established to do was all noble. Hanging around to refight the war on terror on another front, enabling a co-dependent government and engaging in heavy combat because of NATO's misguided effort is, well, less noble.

And now, the new NATO boss, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, would really, really, really like Canada to rethink its planned 2011 withdrawal. Not that he's trying to intervene in internal political decisions or anything like that. To hear him tell it, Mr. Rasmussen - Denmark's former prime minister - only has Canada's best interests at heart. In his estimation, it is not for nothing 130 or so Canadians have died in Afghanistan's burning deserts or frigid mountains. "At the end of the day, it is a question of our own (NATO's) security - we cannot allow Afghanistan once again to become a safe haven for terrorists - and I also think it is in Canada's interest to ensure a peaceful and stable Afghanistan."

Excuse me but I feel one of those coughs coming on. You know the ones, they kind of sound like "bullshit" coming out.

Once again, as it has throughout its relatively short history, Afghanistan is about to hand foreign countries their respective asses. Despite appearing to have more smarts than George Bush, Barack Obama is about to make a massive, and massively stupid, commitment of additional U.S. troops and dwindling treasure to a mad attempt at fighting chimera. NATO, with nothing better to do since the end of the Cold War, is simply fronting a Hail Mary play to keep the world's military from doing something truly useful.

Canada shouldn't allow itself to be bullied into playing along any further than it already has.

I don't know what the appropriate role should be for Canada's military. We'll never have the strength to defend ourselves or our borders militarily but I'm not certain that's a bad thing. If the rule of law - as opposed to the rule of might - has any currency in the world of the future, Canada's better off hitching its fortunes to that.

In the meantime, snow removal and Olympic security don't seem like such bad alternatives.