alliance

Friday April 5, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 5, 2019

The world still needs NATO after 70 years

The 70th birthday of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization this week deserved far more attention and celebration than it received.

November 23, 2002

There were no parades, no fireworks, no self-congratulatory gatherings of presidents and prime ministers clinking champagne flutes to recognize an alliance that has done so much for global peace and security.

Instead, and in marked contrast to the three-day extravaganza that saluted NATO’s accomplishments on its 50th anniversary in 1999, there was only a low-key ministerial meeting Thursday for the organization’s members in Washington, D.C.

This was likely because an ambitious, A-list gathering of NATO-nation leaders would have had to include the volatile, NATO-bashing American President Donald Trump. Having no party was preferable to having one he’d ruin.

Yet NATO was worthy of better. Whatever challenges it faces today — and some coming from disaffected members like Turkey are urgent — NATO must be judged a rousing success.

According to the Brookings Institution research group, NATO is one of the most enduring military alliances in the past 500 years. It rose from the wreckage of the Second World War, when European nations so recently freed from the scourge of Nazi Germany were confronted by an aggressively expansionist Soviet Union.

May 29, 2002

Some critics insisted NATO had passed its best-before date. Russian President Vladimir Putin showed how wrong they were. Today, and with support from Canada’s Armed Forces, the 29-member alliance has deployed troops in the Baltic States, Ukraine and Poland to halt Putin’s territorial ambitions. When the Russians annexed Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine, an impotent United Nations watched. NATO acted.

Despite Trump’s rants and threats, Congress and the American people are largely supportive of NATO. They know the alliance helped them in Afghanistan and how much the friendship of so many nations counts in a changing, uncertain world just awakening to the rise of a headstrong, authoritarian China.

Today’s world is very different from what it was in 1949. But for seven decades NATO has helped guide it through seas both calm and rough. Change it must and will. But NATO is still needed and we hope it lasts at least seven decades more. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Thursday July 12, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 12, 2018

Trump suggests NATO allies could double defence spending beyond 2014 pledge

U.S. President Donald Trump barrelled into a NATO summit Wednesday with claims that a natural gas pipeline deal has left Germany “totally controlled” and “captive to Russia” as he lobbed fresh complaints about allies’ “delinquent” defence spending during the opening of what was expected to be a fraught two-day meeting.

February 22, 2017

Trump also suggested that NATO allies commit to spending four per cent of their gross domestic product on defence — double the current goal of two per cent by 2024.

The president, in a testy exchange with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that kicked off his visit, took issue with the U.S. protecting Germany as it strikes deals with Russia.

Trump’s dramatic exchange with Stoltenberg set the tone for what was already expected to be a tense day of meetings with leaders of the military alliance as Trump presses jittery NATO allies about their military spending ahead of his meeting next week with Putin.

November 17, 2015

“The United States is paying far too much and other countries are not paying enough, especially some. So we’re going to have a meeting on that,” Trump said, describing the situation as “disproportionate and not fair to the taxpayers of the United States.”

“They will spend more,” he later predicted. “I have great confidence they’ll be spending more.”

And with that, he went on to push allies at the summit to double their commitment on defence spending.

“During the president’s remarks today at the NATO summit, he suggested that countries not only meet their commitment of two per cent of their GDP on defence spending, but that they increase it to four per cent,” said White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders.

She said the president raised the same issue at NATO last year and that, “Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations.” (Source: CBC News) 

 

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Tuesday January 18, 2012

 

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday January 17, 2012

Board says no to so-called ‘gay-straight alliances’

Don’t expect to find any gay-straight alliances in the city’s Catholic schools — at least, not any groups that go by that name.

“We commend any initiatives and efforts to reduce bullying,” said Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board chair Pat Daly. “But would we have clubs in our schools called ‘gay-straight alliances?’ No.”

Daly’s comments come just weeks after the province introduced new legislation that will compel school boards to take a harder line on bullying. The legislation will also require boards to support student-led activities that promote respect for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including gay-straight alliances or similarly named groups.

Despite its opposition to the term “gay-straight alliance,” Daly said his board supports the proposed changes and is committed to reaching out to gay students through dialogue with chaplains, guidance counsellors and staff. It will also back gay students who want to assemble under the broader banner of antibullying awareness groups.

“Saying that, any club or curriculum that takes place within our schools has to be in keeping with the teachings of our faith,” Daly said. “That’s essential for us.”

The Catholic Church’s general teaching is that while being a homosexual isn’t sinful, acting on it is.

Although Bill 13 — tabled Nov. 30 and going through second reading — doesn’t speak to what the clubs are called, Minister of Education Laurel Broten insists they be “issue specific.” That means boards won’t be able to lump them into broader “equity” groups, as some Catholic schools have done.  (Source: Hamilton Spectator ) 

L E T T E R t o t h e E D I T O R

Dear Editor,

Regarding the article “Board says no to so-called ‘gay-straight alliances'”, January 17, 2012, the editorial “Gay-straight alliance position is wrong”, January 18, and the McKay cartoon of January 18, 2012:

I highly commend Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board chair Pat Daily for his promise to keep our Catholic schools and Catholic teachings safe from anti-religious predators posing as freedom fighters.

The gay liberation movement, in particular, has started to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan. It’s latest attack on religious freedom is evident in its ploy to use school bullying as a wedge to work pro-gay teaching into our public and Catholic schools. Clearly, there is no reason to give those with homosexual tendencies preferential treatment in regards to bullying unless of course the prime objective is to force our schools and society to accept the homosexual mentality. Here it should be noted that science has found no “gay-gene”.

Bullying can be curtailed without homosexual indoctrination. Further, it is ludicrous for homosexual activists like The Spectator editorial board, Spectator cartoonist MacKay and Diedre Pike to suggest that defending the Catholic faith means a denial of the homosexual person or his right to obtain help. Do parents think these things of their children when they exercise “tough love” on them whence they behave badly? Hardly! In fact the opposite is true. No parent who truly loves their child will allow him or her to do everything they please.

Ultimately, religious freedom precedes the state. It is the first freedom. It is the premise and guarantee of all freedoms that ensure the common good. The very idea of making the Pope subservient to Big Brother is not only irrational, it’s utterly hateful, blasphemous and ridiculous!

With respectful and cordial best wishes I remain,

Sincerely yours,

P. Kokoski
Hamilton