I found it ironic today that there are people viewing staying out of Iraq as being on the “wrong side of history”. I couldn’t think of a more perfect example of a battle fought in folly, than Canadian troops going to fight ISIS in Iraq with bombers.
Eleven years ago I was in an evening classroom learning about computer graphics when Bush and Cheney started the second Iraq War with “shock and awe” bombings. The ensuing destruction of that country left the Americans floundering for money at home, and Iraq awash in political instability and weapons. With the Americans weary of a decade long war, they pulled out of Iraq, leaving a power vacuum that was entirely predictable, but didn’t have a more workable solution.
Now Canada is graced with a war-hungry neo-con Prime Minister who’s not about to pass up a chance to bomb a Muslim country. I grew up when there were still WWI veterans at Remembrance Day ceremonies, and kids drew posters proclaiming, “Never Again”. Now, those veterans are all dead, and with them the idea of avoiding war to solve geopolitical struggles.
Powerful Canadian politicians instead sound like texting-teenagers looking for a cyber-fight.
Despite credible, and entirely reasonable warnings that air strikes are not a terror-suppression tactic, Canada will paint itself as some sort of bold defender of the Kurds, and charge into Iraq behind the Americans.
A 3rd Iraq War, with Canada more involved than the last time, is a mistake. Yes, ISIS is a terrible despotic government, but Canada doesn’t go around bombing every despotic government. There are specific reasons the Americans are focused on Iraq, and Canada doesn’t have to get wrapped up in them because a lunatic Prime Minister wants his legacy to be a war conducted in folly.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/10/02/harper-needs-to-make-the-case-for-going-back-to-war/
“Saudi Arabia, one of Canada’s coalition partners in Iraq, has beheaded 22 people since August 4. This dictatorship has been described by U.S. intelligence sources as the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. Another coalition partner, Kuwait, is the epicentre of fundraising for terrorist groups inside Syria.”
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/10/06/the-hill-media-war-chorus-clears-its-throat-politely/
http://www.straight.com/news/743321/gwynne-dyer-terrorism-101-offers-lessons-how-respond-isis
“The key insight was this: terrorist movements always want you to overreact, so don’t do it. The terrorists usually lack the popular support to overpower their opponent by force, so they employ a kind of political jiujitsu: they try to use the adversary’s own strength against him. “