Editor:
Yup, the Ottawa shootout deserves local mention. Some archaic notions in precious times need to be addressed before, for example, some of our own Bow Valley youth join, not the killing ranks of IS/ISIL, but the killing ranks of the CDN military.
Pain and destruction suffered by families, friends and thus communities whether local or global is exactly that; pain and suffering. Whichever ‘side’ the dead belong to.
Don’t send F-18s in my name. Don’t send armed peacekeepers in my name. Using war as an instrument of peace is outdated, ineffective and only gets more of the same.
What to do then? Whoever asks such a question might have just taken the very first step to changing the prospects of their own life and then others’ chances of life without this violence spoken of.
On the heels of Nov. 11 at the Banff, Canmore, Exshaw Legions, please make the conversations informed and replete with evolved thinking. Then can it become common knowledge that for nefariousness to take root, traceable militant salaries, chemical weapons, rifles, hospital visits, tanks and missiles need to have the road paved for them to exchange hands and bank accounts. To be financed and transacted under the very watchful eye of banks themselves to the tune of trillions planetary-wide for all the insurgencies and wars going on.
Purveyors of drug wars, illegal arms, child sex rings, nuclear armament theft, countless dictators absorbing billions and unbelievably it’s we the locals and our emails and phones that get spied on by the US’ NSA, the UK’s GCHQ and our very own CSIS?
With all this overarching surveilling and intrusive technology and not one of these illegal trades has been trumped much less hampered? I smell a Rocky Mtn. pack rat.
Yes, time for local conversation. Maybe on the gondola? On one of our open-air patios? Maybe at the ice rink between periods? Elevation Place?
For the sake of those young ones who will inherit our peaceful valley, I will always engage this conversation.
Mark Heroux,
Exshaw
