A Knife in Search of a Gunfight.

Uncle Volodya says, “When a war breaks out, people say: “It’s too stupid; it can’t last long.” But though a war may well be “too stupid,” that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.”

Sittin’ around the house,
watchin’ the sun trace shadows on the floor;
Searching for signs of life, but there’s nobody home…

Better Than Ezra, from “Good”

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.”

Frank Zappa

I imagine most of you have heard the expression, “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight”. The meaning is pretty self-evident, but the Free Dictionary helpfully frames its intent: “To come poorly prepared or equipped for some task, goal, competition, or confrontation. Often used in the negative as a forewarning or piece of advice.“

You are far more likely to come ill-prepared for some task, goal, competition or confrontation if you are stupid. In recent years many of us have become accustomed to stupidity in our elected and appointed officials, but watching Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s performance of her duties is like being chained to the village idiot. To put the situation in the context of the expression above, sending her abroad to represent even the flailing country this one has become is like taking six inches of dental floss to a gunfight. Perhaps while wearing a T-shirt with a bullseye printed on it. It’s asking to be sent home with a red face and ruler-tracks on your bum.

Melanie Joly is the Canadian Sarah Palin; she was a cartwheeling disaster as Heritage Minster. Heritage Minister!! The department’s mandate centers on “fostering and promoting “Canadian identity and values, cultural development, and heritage”. Sounds like a job the average drugstore manager could perform with distinction, especially if he or she had a whole department of more than 1,800 employees to help and advise him or her. But tasked with management of the festivities and ceremony attendant upon the 150th anniversary of Canada Day, Melanie Joly rolled out a train wreck that earned comments like “I have never seen such a poor, chaotic display. Shame on you Ottawa.” And: “Please, (Minister Joly), I beg you to step out of your protective shell and acknowledge what a mess Canada Day was and take some responsibility for it.” And: “Time for you to resign!” The local news of the village she is idiot of – Le Journal de Montreal – said “she sounds like a living answering machine having a nervous breakdown”. No need to wonder any further where the inspiration came from for the Sarah Palin reference. “Joly’s penchant for bafflegab made her a frequent target of cartoonists and humorists in the province — hardly what Trudeau was hoping for when he made Joly his highest-profile Quebec minister.”

Sacked from the stress-magnet job of Heritage Minister, Joly was shuffled downward – not resoundingly kicked from the top step of Parliament, remember, she’s a personal friend of our talking wig-stand Prime Minister – to bring her administrative talents to bear on the minor portfolios of tourism, official languages and la Francophonie.

And then, just when things looked darkest…she vaulted straight to Minister of Foreign Affairs, promoted by her good friend Justin Trudeau in what critics claimed was a reward for her loyalty in the 2021 election which saw the Liberals re-elected, as well as toads raining from the sky and a lightning bolt straight from the finger of Jeebus. And things went rapidly downhill from there.

“My guess is that during that very challenging campaign, she cemented her status as a trustworthy lieutenant,” Mr. Reid said. “When you fall behind during a campaign and then mount a comeback, you see up close who can be counted on. I suspect he saw that in her and decided he wanted that in Foreign Affairs.”

What struck me on reading the reference, though, was a comment she made in describing her vision for the Foreign Affairs responsibility. She was speaking about possible disciplinary action which might be taken against China, but she claimed, “I can tell you, however, that we have no illusions. Our eyes will be wide open.”

And then the Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, with her eyes wide open, concurred with the United States that the Russians likely blew up their own gas pipeline, all part of Putin’s weaponization of energy.

Asked by CNN anchor Jim Sciutto during a conversation in Washington, hosted by the Atlantic Council, who was behind the damage, Joly did not mention Russia by name but pointed to allies’ assessments that the attacks were deliberate. “At this point we’re still investigating, but obviously we want to make sure that we do things the right way, but we’re not naïve,” she said. “You’re not naïve as to who’s behind it?” Sciutto responded.“As I said, we won’t speculate but at the same time, we want to make sure that — the world needs to understand that this is very important European infrastructure that was sabotaged,” the minister added.

She added no gas was flowing through either pipeline at the time the leaks occurred.

Really? No gas flowing through either pipeline…at the time of the leak? Then how could there be a leak? Leak of what? The very next paragraph confides,

“On Thursday, Swedish officials discovered a fourth leak along the Nord Stream gas pipelines, vital energy links for Europe that have been spewing methane into the Baltic Sea since Monday following two underwater explosions.” Spewing methane. Natural gas is almost completely methane.

And NATO muttonheads were quite happy to pontificate and puff over these ‘deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage’ while they believed the perpetrator would never be identified.

But then, Seymour Hersh – one of the most credible journalists alive – broke a story on how American Navy divers had planted the explosives under cover of a NATO exercise, assisted by Norway, which explosives were later detonated remotely, destroying the pipeline. America had threatened it, had tried to stop its construction through sanctions and international bullying, had shopped proposals to Europe that Europeans buy American ‘molecules of freedom’ instead, and had flatly promised to stop it ever going into operation. Means, motive and opportunity. And yet, when America announced that Russia must have done it itself, Melanie Joly agreed. After all, we’re not naive.

To this moment there has not been any statement of which I am aware in which Melanie Joly recants or expresses doubt in her conviction that Russia blew up its own pipelines.

If only her stupidity were an isolated incident in a wider frame of reason and deliberate weighing of evidence, pondering of the facts. You know – the kind of leadership we were told would become the norm when women were better represented in politics. See any evidence of that? Let me throw a few names out there, see if they ring any inspirational bells: Hillary Clinton. Annalena Baerbock. Ursula Von Der Leyen. Gina Haspel. Avril Haines. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Chrystia Freeland. Nikki Haley. Useless as a chocolate teapot, the lot. Liz Truss, so thick she’s almost soundproof. Christine Lambrecht; as Germany’s Defense Minister, she admitted she did not understand the Army’s ranking system. During an army training exercise late last year, all 18 Puma Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV) involved in the exercise had to be withdrawn owing to breakdowns and technical difficulties.

“Scholz’s judgment has been questioned over his appointment of Lambrecht in the first place. He is under pressure to replace her with another woman, in order to fulfil his pledge to have an equal number of men and women in his cabinet.”

Lambrecht succeeded Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was Von Der Leyen’s handpicked successor. All three presided over disaster to one degree or another in the German army during their tenure as Defense Minister. But to hear them talk, you would think they were Jean-Claude van Damme, after learning the airline had lost his luggage halfway through a 14-hour flight. Kramp-Karrenbauer endorsed a first-strike nuclear policy against Russia as a ‘deterrent’. Ursula Von Der Leyen’s swaggering smack-talk would not look out of place in a Super-Bowl locker-room. It is as if all of them are in the practical assessment phase of a course on how to out-belligerent the boys.

Is that the ideal which informed the drive for more women in politics, in positions of higher responsibility, with greater decision-making power on behalf of the nations they serve? A spitting, snarling demon you have to bring into the summit on a choke-chain? Is that the example their male predecessors set for them – that they would not be respected if their rhetoric did not verge on homicidal? I hope that’s the case, because otherwise it is patently obvious there is no such thing as built-in gender suitability, and no evidence at all that choosing women to run things makes war less likely because they are women – no such thing as a ‘gentler sex’.

Right on cue, here comes the Village Idiot, shaking her pom-poms for more war. This is not the time to talk about peace – yes, she actually said that – it is time to ‘arm them’. Who needs fucking brains, when you have guns, you weaklings!!

Undeterred by the whack-a-mole parade of incompetence from feminine foreign Defense Ministers, and goaded by a revolving door of sex scandals in the Canadian Forces, Trudeau appointed Anita Anand Minister of National Defence in 2021. Although I was intrigued to learn she was born not 20 miles from where I grew up – described by some media sources as ‘rural Nova Scotia’ – I was unsurprised to read she has no military experience whatever. She was a lawyer specializing in corporate governance and the regulation of capital markets. Much of her research focused on – you guessed it – diversity. On her appointment to her present role, she stated that her top priorities would be “..tackling sexual misconduct and building a durable culture change in the Canadian Armed Forces.” How’s that working out, do you think?

Well, if you accept that the role of the military in an enlightened democracy is to act as a crucible for progressive thought and social- justice initiatives, it’s going smashingly. Under Anand, military dress regulations have been essentially abandoned; although you still have to wear a uniform, if you’re a guy who ‘identifies’ as a female, you can wear a skirt. Pink hair? Why not – it brings out your eyes. Think I’m making it up? If only. Don’t take my word for it – ask David Harries, former Commanding Officer of the Airborne Regiment, about his recent observations at Royal Military College, the foundry that churns out our next generation of military officers.

Harries leans into his screen with one last story: “I was at RMC yesterday having a meeting with Athletics about rugby issues. God. The new dress rules. There are no dress rules. You can wear what you want. If you are a male, you can wear a RMC skirt if you want. If you want to colour your hair, you can colour your hair. There are no rules on hair anymore. If you want tattoos on your face, you can tattoo your face. This is all in the interest of diversity and human rights. I can tell you what our allies think of this.”

I also have to wonder how much of the hot-button sexual misconduct that unleashed a diversity avalanche actually happened the way it was described. For instance, Major-General Dany Fortin, a high-profile military officer who was placed in charge of the national COVID vaccine rollout, was accused of sexual assault that allegedly occurred more than 30 years ago. As is typical for such incidents in Canada, he was immediately removed from his position – a little quicker than immediate, actually; he was removed from the appointment 5 days before the military police referred an accusation against him of sexual assault to the Quebec prosecution office. General Fortin suggested – prophetically, as it turns out – through his attorney that there was immediate and wide-ranging political interference with due process;

“This application exposes a serious breach of that proper ordering of civilian control that Parliament contemplated in the National Defence Act by political actors outside the chain of command,” he said.

“It is an insidious breach that, if left unchecked, will have serious and negative repercussions for it will signal that a new norm is in place. One that permits political actors to seed the chain of command with members who are not committed to the chain of command.”

I don’t suppose you would be surprised, by this point, to hear that General Fortin’s replacement was a woman, Brigadier-General Krista Brodie. Unfortunately for the narrative, General Fortin was found not guilty in a court of law, which observed that the accuser’s story was inconsistent. It is important to note here that the judge believed the complainant had been sexually assaulted. He was, however, unconvinced – due to the aforementioned inconsistencies in her story – that it was Dany Fortin who had assaulted her, and there was no convincing evidence that he had done so. Unfortunate for Canada’s shambolic political administration, too, as General Fortin is suing the Prime Minister and several top executives for $6 Million. A statement of claim alleges defamation, malfeasance in public office, conspiracy and negligent investigation.

Nor is the current and increasing embrace of wokeist culture for the military confined to such individual examples.

Allyship is defined as an “active, consistent and arduous practice of unlearning and re evaluating, in which a person in a position of privilege and power seeks to operate in solidarity with a marginalized group.” Colour-blindness, or refusing to see race, according to the lexicon, can “foster the systematic denial of racial subordination.” White is a “social colour” that comes with “unearned power, benefits, advantages.”

That’s an example of the package of ‘values’ currently being imposed on the country’s armed forces as a whole under Anand’s leadership. Is it any wonder the military is short thousands of positions, and recruiting is getting increasingly desperate? Who would be interested in joining an organization that tells you from the outset that you are unworthy and should be ashamed of yourself?

If you believe the purpose of military forces is to be prepared to fight in defense of the nation’s security, values or self-determination…don’t look for that sort of commitment here. We’re a little busy getting in touch with our feminine side, walking a mile in the other pronouns’ shoes, and atoning for generations of colonialism. When you get right down to it, gosh-darn it, do we really have the right to make assumptions about the enemy? Maybe some of they/their/them would be okay with just hugging it out.

Saving, in my opinion, the best for last, we have the Toad-Queen of the US Department of State, Victoria Nuland. If you were looking for an example illustrative of some innate characteristic of women which makes them better leaders, administrators, managers and diplomats than their male counterparts…well, this is not it. Nuland proudly stipulated to her country’s investment of $5 Billion into Ukraine to tip it into revolution, was caught on a recording planning the incoming government of Ukraine with the then-Ambassador to Ukraine once that revolution was successfully started, and has consistently argued that the United States must get tougher with a country – Russia – it opposes on purely ideological grounds because it is a geopolitical rival. The US military is supposed by its very nature to be a defensive force protecting the USA, and Russia has done nothing to threaten America.

Anyway, let’s not get too far into the geopolitical weeds; back to Melanie Joly and the pursuit of gender-driven greatness. Melanie Joly was promoted because her mentor, Justin Trudeau, is convinced or allowed himself to be persuaded that the Canadian government – at the very least, actually the initiative extends to industry, the arts and more – must have more women. In Joly’s case, it is demonstrably not based on exhibition of any quality but doglike loyalty. She is not good at her job, although to be fair, there are certain expectations imposed upon occupants of high-responsibility offices, and it is natural to try to create an impression that one is very, very serious about it. The facts speak for themselves – there is nothing ‘innate’ about women, meaning inherited or genetic or whatever, that predisposes them to brilliant leadership.

Yet this fallacy persists. Harvard Business Review insists that the data don’t lie – women are better leaders than men. Although it acknowledges that at the time (2012), 64% of leaders were still men, it claims women ‘scored higher’ in all but one management competency: the ability to develop a strategic perspective.

But the findings were the results of surveys – ‘ratings’ which were supplied by the women’s peers, bosses and performance reports. Nobody had to complete a test or run from point A to Point B, or do anything which can be measured or scored. Yet the contention that the women ‘outscored’ the men rests. Was there any pressure to rate women higher because of their sex then? There certainly is now; there is a political expectation that the leader will appoint an equal number of women to men, and in Canada the ‘diversity’ expectations are higher yet.

I’ve worked with and for women over the years, both in the military and out, who were exceptional leaders; who might have made an excellent Minister of National Defense. In each and every case, it was the force and character of their personality and personal ethics which made them so, not their gender. And there are plenty of such examples now, although I don’t personally know any of them – Tulsi Gabbard. Sahra Wagenknecht. Danielle Smith, who inherited the leadership of the province of Alberta from Jason Kenney. Smith’s positions are controversial, to say the least, and her opposition to the nation’s simpleminded public-health policies on COVID guaranteed her press coverage would be horrible. But her courage and determination to increase Alberta’s autonomy within Canada are inspirational. And she clearly scares the shit out of the current national government, as Alberta is a wealthy province owing to oil and gas revenues, which the Federal government is accustomed to tapping into for equalization payments to less-fortunate provinces. This often has the effect, intentional or otherwise, of compelling those provinces to help keep that government in power.

In a climate in which any resistance to the suggestion that only more and more women decision-makers can save us from the abyss which yawns before us makes one a misogynist, I suppose that will be the label I am awarded. That’s certainly your judgment to make. But I ask you to simply look objectively at the results. Of course not every woman can be expected to instantly reverse the damage caused by decades of mismanagement, and I don’t think anyone realistically expects it to happen that way. But in the case of examples like Clinton, Nuland, Von Der Leyen, Baerbock and even Joly, they used the influence granted to them by their position to plot and scheme and guide policy in precisely the wrong direction. Clinton never saw an international disagreement that did not look to her like sending in the Marines was just the ticket; such relish for pre-emptive warmaking is fortunately given to very few. Baerbock’s stupid intransigence, in concert with her fellow Green-Party lunatic Robert Habeck, has resulted in a substantial decline in living standard for all of the German people except for those who are investors in military production, and defiantly proclaimed that Germany would support Ukraine in its descent into hell – as opposed to negotiating a peace agreement while Ukraine still held about a third more territory than it does now – regardless what the voters thought. Spoken like someone who was appointed to her powerful position rather than elected. Von Der Leyen’s hamfisted fumbling is surpassed only by her grandstanding and belligerence. Joly is gleefully picking a fight with China, and moves in lockstep with American diktat regardless its consequences for Canada. But all were selected because they are women, based on an apprehension that women make great leaders because they are women.

There has never been a time, I submit, where it was more critical that the right person be selected for positions of political influence based on demonstrated merit, ability, experience…pretty much anything other than their gender. The right person for the job might well be a woman, but that will be a distant second to her ability to provide unswerving guidance and leadership that show prompt results, and her willingness to back away from initiatives that either are already not achieving the desired effect, or show near-zero potential for doing so. All the European leaders who backed sanctions against Russia, to the instant and ongoing detriment of their own economies and for the sole purpose of bootlicking to the biggest warmonger on the planet were wrong, wrong, wrong. Men like Josep Borrell and Jens Stoltenberg were likewise so wrong they were living caricatures of rightness – but they were not appointed because they are men. The whole process of choosing leaders started to slide decades ago, and now it is completely out of control as wokeness and gender politics play increasingly influential roles.

“It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.”

Michel de Montaigne, from, “The Complete Essays”.