In my friend from Halifax Jackie's words,

"A very moving editorial cartoon from Bruce MacKinnon in this mornings [Halifax] Chronicle Herald".

In my words, a declaration of war.

After all, he (Corporal Nathan Cirillo) was shot and killed in service to his country.

It's known who did it.

It's known who he (Michael Zehaf-Bibeau) was affiliated with, or at the very least inspired by along with his comrades at large.

Granted, the Islamic State or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or whatever it is this week is not recognized yet as a sovereign state that I'm aware of.

So forget the United Nations authorizing a coalition against IS, it not being a "member state".

It does have a sizable military and a manipulative ideology at its command.

It's able to project force across the world and least encourage individuals to do insane things.

Granted, not a massive force yet, but that may be a matter of time.

Perhaps you the reader may find it not apropos that I devote today's blog to a Canadian event, my being in the United States.

But I live two hours from the border -- depending on where you drove north in North Dakota, you would end up in Winnipeg or Manitoba. You see a lot of Canadian license plates around here.

And I'd be lying if I said this touched me almost MORE than our own September 11 terrorist attacks.

Perhaps that's because I thought -- correction, I think -- we were focused more on rebuilding our torn-down barns (or our blown-down buildings) and building bigger and better ones and, after some moments of grief, going on with business as usual.

Oh, we sent our military overseas to do a great job flushing out terrorists (some legitimate, some not) in faraway countries which were teetering on radical-driven insanity to start with.

And the United States Armed Forces did and do a great job. BUT they operated (and I'd argue operate) with one hand tied behind their backs sometimes. And being -- mostly -- good soldiers and sailors and marines and pilots, they can only go as far as they are ordered to.

I think we're realizing now they were not ordered to go far enough. It's easy to blame our leadership, it's easy to blame our national policies, but no ... there's a way more basic explanation.

YOU HAVE TO WANT TO WIN.

"Peaceful coexistence" is a contradiction when one side has declared its intent to annihilate the other off the face of the earth.

I don't want a war. I suspect you don't want a war either.

But now that we have it, we need to win it.

David