Canada Should Never Have Become a Member of the Military Coalition Against ISIS

Good day everyone! I'll get right to the point; these are my main arguments: I.) Canada is spending copious amounts of money on this modern-day crusade that could be put to better use. II.) Canada will be largely ineffectual as a military force. III.) The threat ISIS poses to Canada is not serious, it simply seems to be. I.) Unnecessary expenditure Canada is spending exorbitant amounts of money on this endeavor for no good reason. Although the federal government has not released the exact amounts the airstrikes will be costing taxpayers, it is reasonable to estimate that they will total around $347 million based on information released after Operation Mobile in Libya which utilized the same forces and support. This is not including the $28 million Canada has already contributed in humanitarian aid. Imagine what better use $347 million can be put towards. For example, the large sum could be put towards 30000 undergraduate scholarships for Canadians. The large sum could raise 188 children from birth to adulthood. The large sum could be put towards helping 13 times as many Syrian and Iraqi refugees as Canada is currently contributing to! There are many who may say that national security, the safety of Canadians, must be put above all else. To those people I say, exactly! The budget available to Public Safety Canada is $1.2 billion. Of the 1.2 billion, roughly $30 million is devoted to national security: the funding for counter-intelligence, identifying internal threats, and fighting homegrown terrorism. 30 million! The amount dedicated to the ISIS airstrikes is 13 times that; an entire order of magnitude larger! CSIS has already cautioned the Canadian government that ISIS fighters, if at all, are likely to strike from within; they would be Canadians, not foreign nationals. Why therefore are we neglecting the security of our good Canadian citizens to bomb a country across the Atlantic? Bombing, I might add, that may not be largely effective in the first place? II.) Ineffectual airstrikes Yes, dear people, the bombing of ISIS by Canada will not be the magical cure to terror in the Middle East. This is largely due to faulty military intelligence and the fact that airstrikes are not the right form of attack against such an enemy. It had been revealed to the Daily Mail early in October that leaders in the coalition are not receiving adequate intelligence on positions of ISIS troops and placements. Syria and the Iraq of today lack the complex network of spies and informants used by Western forces in the earlier Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Thus, coalition airstrikes rely completely on images taken by drones and satellites. Pentagon officials have admitted that they are unsure of the occupancy of many targeted buildings; they could be filled with ISIS fighters, but are more likely empty or even occupied by civilians. This is even more worrying when considering that airstrikes are completely wrong in combating this type of foe. The coalition boasted in early October of destroying three Humvees, two tanks, and a bulldozer over a weekend. This may seem a great victory to the conventional strategist and newsreaders, but ISIS is no conventional foe. ISIS is at its core an angry mob, its strength relies on the ferocity of its foot soldiers. To this enemy, capturing and using tanks and large guns are more of a show of strength than true strategies in combat. The coalition boasts of destroying tanks and large guns, but in nearly half a year they have succeeded in only killing 500 enemy fighters; a small dent in an army 10000 strong and growing by the thousand every month. The West has faced enemies like this before, largely in Iraq and Vietnam. Wars where the enemy were never truly eradicated. III.) Why is it OUR problem? Finally, is ISIS really such a large threat to Canadian safety that such drastic measures are required? The past few months have been a constant stream of news reports of ISIS brutality and political rhetoric about the necessity of stopping them. However, authorities on national security don"t seem to share the alarmist attitudes about the threat of ISIS. CSIS director Michael Coulombe has gone on record in front of the House of Commons Public Safety Committee saying "We have no information indicating an imminent attack"We"re telling people they should go about their daily lives." Addressing concerns about the multiple Canadians have traveled abroad in support of ISIS, Coulombe has said that they worked mainly as propagandists or fundraisers; I quote "I don't want people to believe that we have 80 returnees who were hard fighters in Iraq and Syria, because that is not the picture we have at the moment." Even if one is worried about the minute amount of danger posed by such individuals, the RCMP has responded by saying they are kept under scrutiny. Addressing the exactly 130 Canadians overseas fighting with ISIS and the 80 who have returned home, Coulombe has stated "It's a firm number that we're aware of. And yes, we know where they are." He was joined by RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson who stated "It"s nothing for Canadians to worry about." Although it is painful for Canadians to seemingly not contribute to the global effort to combat ISIS, people must be aware that we are addressing the problem incorrectly with airstrikes. Bombing buildings and encampments kilometers away is not going to ensure our safety, and neither is throwing money at the problem. We should be instead focusing on securing Canadians and doing all we can for those displaced by the conflict. I finish with a recent quote from Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the former UNAMIR Forces Commander, "I watched the Rwandan genocide unfold. We're making the same mistakes in Iraq." Thank you very much!