By Eric Walberg

http://ericwalberg.com/

Why can westerners join the IDF while westerners joining IS are despised and killed? In what sense is the IDF scenario any less reprehensible than the IS one?

In recent weeks there has been a spate of articles about western youth flocking to Syria and now Iraq to join the IS “caliphate”. An estimated 11,000 such fighters have already made the leap. Up to 130 Canadians have joined them, including Hamiltonian York University student, Mohamud Mohamed Mohamud, a Somalian Canadian, known to his friends and family as sociable and well-adjusted, wearing the latest fashions, listening to pop music and watching teen movies like all the rest of Canada’s multicultural happy family.

In September, Mohamud was declared the first Canadian killed by US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria.

As Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper enthusiastically volunteers Canadian bombers and ground forces -- 70 of the proposed 600-member contingent are already there -- soon Canadian soldiers will be targeting Canadian jihadists like Mohamud far from home. Few Canadians feel that Canada’s Afghanistan mission, which killed 158 and has left almost 2,000 Canadian soldiers traumatized and wounded, produced anything of value for Afghans. Nor does anyone believe that it contributed to Canada’s security, which is presumably the purpose of armed forces. Now he is eager to repeat this disaster, even as frustrated Canadian youth react by joining the latest jihad against western occupation of the Middle East.