It now appears that the 1st world 'adult' mentality originally displayed by Canada has fallen by the wayside, and the Canadian Government has lowered itself to childlike behaviour and comments. Hardly the sort of thing you would expect a 'mature' government to do!
Can you imagine David Cameron or Margaret Thatcher spouting the vitriolic (and inaccurate) crap Harper and his cronies just have towards another country?? I think not! Winning cheap votes from the uneducated is one thing, but throwing tantrums on a world stage is quite another.
Now don't get me wrong, clearly the UAE has also acted in a foolish way, but had the Harper government done some research on cultural behaviour and peculiarities of the Arab World, then he would have been fully aware of the Arab's need to 'save face'. Agree with that mentality or not, it is a cultural fact that should have been observed.
What I want to know is, the UAE allowed Canada to use its country as a staging post for its military. This was not Canada's 'right' to be based here, it was an agreement between the two countries. Clearly Canada was the main beneficiary of this deal as the UAE stood to gain very little from it (aside from a few dollars in rent I guess)......... So, why shouldn't the UAE ask for a favour in return at some point? Why shouldn't they request a few more landing slots in Canada? What if anything was Canada EVER going to do to repay the 'kindness' offered by the UAE?? I personally think the UAE asked for very little in return, and was palmed off every time.
At some point then the UAE eventually thought "well f@ck you Canada", if this is just gonna be a one way relationship then you can get the hell off our sand!
Now when you look at it from that perspective, you can hardly blame the UAE for acting up like it has surely?
Last edited by Oblaaspop; 10th Jan 2011 at 14:55.