Gutless Glavin: The Conclusion

For a few days I thought about posting something about why I expended so much energy on the war-monger, Terry Glavin. It's true that I found his incoherent, cowardly, insulting "debating" style infuriating. It's true that I think he's totally wrong on an important subject (with the side he supports having deadly consequences for those unlucky to be on the receiving end of what he imagines are "humanitarian impulses"). But I also found the drooling nitwit at "Halls of Macadamia" to be infuriating, but I never expended any mental energy worrying about it. Probably because the guy at HoM is just a drooling nitwit. Glavin, on the other hand, shows evidence of having a brain. And, for better or worse (and it's worse) Glavin's support for "the mission" in Afghanistan is based on noble sentiments. But his position is indefensible, his bullying, insulting style of defending his delusions and his cowardly habit of deleting posts that challenge him makes him an unprofitable source of opposing opinions. And after today's post I'm pretty sure that I shan't be bothered with him for even a millisecond.


It doesn't totally surprise me that I'm not the only one to have encountered Gutless Glavin, but I was a little surprised to read beluga2 in the comments section at Dr. Dawg's blog stating that (s)he had suffered the same treatment at Glavin's hands and that even the respectable Dr. Dawg himself was similarly mistreated:

Probably a good thing you're not going, Dawg. If Glavin treats his fellow passengers the same way he treats commenters on his blog, you'd probably find yourself being hurled bodily off the bus the first time you opened your mouth. ...beluga2

Indeed I was banned by Glavin after a couple of posts--which he erased--but he permitted sundry yahoos to insult me afterward. He doesn't like opposition. A bit of a fraud and a coward, our Terry. ...Dr. Dawg

I think my favourite example of Glavin's thuggish "debating" tactics was when he went over to someone else's blog and proceeded to bully and insult the commenters there: http://billtieleman.blogspot.com...-shows- why.htmlI especially liked the part where he threatened to instantly delete anyone who followed him back to his own blog. That was awesome. ...beluga2

I followed the link provided and found an extended rant from Glavin, including the following example of unwarranted arrogance and undeserved contempt for his intellectual betters that he's so infamous for:

Any anonymous wankers and trolls from who follow you over from here will be deleted.

I should like to address a couple of his points and then (to your undoubted joy dear reader) close the book on this blog's concerns for the gibbering nonsense of Terry Glavin.


First of all, there's his idiotic assumption that because he has the "courage" to put his own name beside his stupidity it somehow gives it more weight. It doesn't. Furthermore, if someone adopts a persona online, it doesn't make their arguments less valid. Deal with the facts and the analysis Terry. It's not that difficult a concept.


Secondly, Glavin spends an inordinate amount of time on that thread differentiating between "combat" deaths and other deaths suffered by the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. As if it matters whether you were shot in a firefight or blown up by an IED on the way home. You're still dead. And you died fighting for a murky cause.


Third, of that cause, Glavin had this to say:

And there's nothing in your column, not even some statement uttered by Joya in the heat of one of her fine rhetorical moments, that comes even close to showing why "working with the current Afghani [sic] government dooms our mission." We don't get to pick the Afghan government we work with. The Afghan people do, and we're stuck with Karzai and the rest for at least another year.

Which is, if you examine it for a second, completely wrong and completely insane. To begin, the USA did pick Karzai. End of story. (They later ran him in a public-relations exercise election against a detestable warlord and he won that one.) Furthermore, who the hell is the USA that it can't enforce something on a government entirely beholden to it for its existence? Used to be that the IMF could write a country's economic policies for it, even if those policies meant plummeting living standards for the so-called "citizens" of those so-called "sovereign" states. Karzai has been forced to rely on ISAF troops for his own protection rather than the mercenaries of the warlords he's otherwise reliant upon. And if Karzai is so independent and free of Western influence, then why haven't his repeated calls for an end to the cowardly policy of indiscriminate airstrikes on Afghan villages been heeded? The fact of the matter is that the NATO countries could make damned sure that Karzai runs his country properly and they could provide him with the funds to do so if they actually gave a damn about the country.

But the core of this issue is that the NATO countries don't care about Afghanistan. For the USA it's a base for launching possible airstrikes upon Iran and to project power outwards in Central Asia, where Russia and China are also competing for regional influence. For Canada, being in Afghanistan is a craven attempt to curry favour with deluded U.S. administrations, full stop.

That's why, for eight years now, the government of Afghanistan has been a disaster. Karzai cannot control the situation and he doesn't have the money or the power to guarantee compliance with professional, just, and democratic policies. And you simply cannot rationally believe that you can defeat an insurgency and make a people believe in their government while simultaneously ignoring the fact that the government that the people don't believe in and which some of the people have taken up arms against it, is brutal and corrupt. That's akin to desultorily furnishing somebody's bedroom in a burning building and hoping that they'll start to feel at home there. It's insane.

Ah, I've discussed all of this before. Glavin is a cowardly, deluded dolt. End of discussion.