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It’s a scenario we’ve seen all too often in Canada in recent months. A young, born-and-raised Canadian, feeling angry about what’s happening in the Middle East, who then gets stirred up enough to leave behind everything he or she has in Canada — including family and friends — to travel abroad to Iraq and Syria, and wage war for what they believe is right.

But what I’m talking about is probably different than what you’re imagining. I’m talking about a remixed version that, instead of involving radicalized youths, involves retired Canadian military personnel, fighting not alongside ISIL, but against them.

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That’s right, several retired Canadian Armed Forces soldiers are confirmed to have gone overseas to join up with the Kurdish forces in their battle against ISIL.

Some might consider this a heroic undertaking, but it seems more like a form of international vigilante justice that — while motivated by noble intentions — goes against true Canadian values of due process, and working through the systems and measures set up by the government to counter this menace.