Friendly Fire

The most recent installment in the sad folly that is Canada's involvement in the Afghanistan war played out in two parts this weekend. Four soldiers killed and 10 wounded when ambushed by the Taliban; another, a luckless RCR, was strafed and taken by an American A-10 Warthog, a victim of what is war's most bitter and black humoured euphemism, 'friendly fire'.

The Canadian media have used many expressions to avoid painting our place in Afghanistan for what it is. The common descriptor is mission, as if our soldiers were working with the cold and clinical precision of a surgeon in the inhospitable Afghan desert.

We are fighting a war, plain and simple, in this Godless and obscene place. the stated goal of our 2200 soldiers is to help plant the seed of a true democracy where one has never taken root, let alone cultivated. It is the poppy and the opium trade, not tolerance and democratic forces that are the abundant Afghanistan harvest.

On September 4 Christie Blatchford of the Toronto Globe and Mail wrote a long and passionate attack on the leader of our left wing party, Jack Layton of the NDP. She questioned the moral rectitude of Layton and anyone other Canadian who both opposed this war and who professed sorrow at the deaths of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. Blatchford wrote - "You can't position yourself as a soldier lover when you loathe soldiering"

I respect passion and honest feeling where ever I see it, and as
Blatchford was stationed in Afghanistan for months as a Globe correspondent, where she observed this war from a front line position, she must surely feel a real kinship with our soldiers there.

Sadly, her honest sentiments have been twisted and tortured into stunning and peerless sophistry. Hers is the uncomplicated mantra of 'are you are with me or against me?' It has all of the subtlety of the kindergarten playground.

In the Blatchford world, it is only the true patriots who believe in our Afghanistan cause who are permitted to express their emotions for the dead and the wounded. The rest of us, it seems, are hypocrites and fakers. We are against the soldiers if we are opposed to war.

I am saddened on two fronts. The first is that Christine Blatchford and her passions could fall so readily into this man trap of false patriotism. I love my country too, so much that the waste of life and effort in such a bleak and featureless place as Afghanistan brings me near tears without my countrymen dying there. Our democratically elected government determined this course - I have the option of both emphatic peaceful protests and the ballot box. I honour our soldiers, who have no choice in this matter. I want my government to ensure their safety as best it can when they are deployed in this terrible place where the enemy is both seen and unseen. I demand that our men and women be properly cared for and protected by their commanders as best they can be during their tours of duty.

I find the concept of an Afghan war for democracy, or whatever other ideals are espoused thousands of kilometers from our own imperfectly constituted nation, as one that is repulsive in the extreme. I can love the soldier, one Canadian to another. I can despise the cause. I can mourn a tragedy, too. No one needs Christie Blatchford, or anyone else to dictate how they may make their withdrawals from their private bank of human feeling.

The second front in my personal conflict over Afghanistan? For the first time in his long and often quixotic political career, I found myself in agreement with a sentiment expressed by Jack Layton..Thank you, Christie Blatchford - there is a first time for everything..