By Frank Moher When it comes to Canadian deaths in Afghanistan, our media’s sentimentality knows no bounds. Each time a soldier dies, we are assured that the young person — for they are almost always young persons — loved animals, or to make people laugh, or, in the case of 22-year old Marc Diab, killed […]
Afghanistan
Stephen Harper, panicked child
Stephen Harper reminds me of a panicked child, surrounded and overwhelmed in the schoolyard, red-faced and flailing at every perceived enemy and striking not a one. It would be nice if our issues could be solved with quick fixes, but they can’t. For instance, more people in jail does not reduce crime — just glance […]
Harper has a good week
By Nora Abercrombie I am not a fan of Stephen Harper by any measure but we have to acknowledge that he conducted himself fairly well this week. He did not shy from telling Canadians that economic times are going to get tougher. He commended Manley’s report on Afghanistan without leaping to agree with it, asserting […]
International man of muckups
The thing about Trudeau was that we were never ashamed of the guy on the international stage. Sure, he flipped us the bird in Western Canada. Sure he performed a pirouette behind the Queen of England, but that was a big moment for us. He was a pugnacious prick most of the time and built […]
Afghanistan: Oh well then
By guest blogger Alison@CreeksideA few days ago a NATO air strike killed 14 Afghans sleeping in tents beside the road they were building in Afghanistan. Afghan officials said they were road workers at a construction site and NATO claimed they were Taliban at a training camp. Their employer, an Afghan-Korean construction company, said that all […]
Politics and energy make history
Canadians have such high hopes for the rest of the world. We are bright eyed and naive. Some of us propose that perhaps if we are very hardworking and ethical, and make symbolic gestures of disapproval, that terrorists will stop butchering people in Afghanistan, or shooting women who dare to learn to read. And the […]
Support the troops? Sometimes. Maybe.
By guest blogger Nicole Walyshyn As the Royal 22nd Regiment — the Van Doos — marched off to Afghanistan, we heard the usual enjoinders that, whether or not we supported the war, we should “support the troops.” Similarly, 10 days before, as the bodies of six Canadian soldiers were returned home, Prime Minister Harper advised […]
We belong in Afghanistan
The Canadian Peace Alliance, Canadian Labour Congress, and Canadian Islamic Congress are wrong when they say that Canadians in Afghanistan are fighting an American war. Afghanistan is not Iraq — though that bloody civil mess is hardly a U.S. solo turn either. It was the British who decided it would be a good idea to […]
