In announcing Canada's new policy Prime Minister Trudeau has argued for "reason" in the war against ISIL. He forgets that the world couldn't reason with Hitler and Mussolini. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his beheaders are beyond reason. Hitler took over an existing state and wreaked havoc on the world. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is trying to establish a fanatic caliphate state and committing horrible crimes against humanity, Muslims and non Muslims alike.  

And in the midst of it all our CF 18s are coming home from the mission in Iraq.  But we will continue to do aerial surveillance, refuel ally bombers in the air, identify bombing targets for our allies and send more trainers to train fighters on the front lines.

So we won't bomb ourselves but will do even more to help our allies do the bombing.

If there is any logic to the government's contortions on this file one may find it in these somewhat abstract lines: "The lethal enemy of barbarism isn't hatred, it is reason. And the people terrorised by ISIL...don't need our vengeance...We ought to avoid doing precisely what our enemies want...They want us to...indulge in hatred."

The lines have some philosophical nuggets: Bombing with our CF18s is "vengeance" and "hatred"; identifying bombing targets on the ground for the allies and refuelling their bombers and helping them bomb is "reason". Mind you our allies have in fact ramped up the bombing of ISIL. Have they ramped up "vengeance" and "hatred"?

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi certainly won't be losing any sleep over the lines coming out of Ottawa. The Canadian Islamists and Islamists the world over will certainly detect a halo of appeasement in them. And our allies will hide their disappointment over our breaking of the ranks and our preachiness.

Let us be clear.

These lines about "vengeance", "hatred" and "reason"  are nothing more than a cheap moralistic swipe at our allies who are fighting the 21st century fascism.