It’s a little bit ironic to me.
Every year around this time (Indeed exactly at this time) we stop for two minutes and pray and give thanks to the men and women who have gone to war or gone to battle or gone to defend the freedoms we enjoy in Canada. My kids understand it today, better than they’ve ever understood it and yet I am still puzzled. I gave thanks to a soldier on the subway this morning. What he had done in terms of being a member of the military something that is foreign to me. I did this today, but I’m not the kind of person who does it every day and really, I am not sure I would ever start.
Military is a necessary evil in the world. It’s an evil I pray every day that we don’t need and it saddens me to know every day that awaken we still need it.
I am vehemently opposed to war, and am vehemently opposed to peace keeping missions. I am not naïve enough to think that they aren’t necessary, it’s only that in my idealistic mind (chemically induced or not) war is bad and evil. If not for war the world would be a horrendous place, and Hitler and many others would have us believe that it’s supposed to be that way – War has prevented it from being that way.
Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and many others made the world stand up and take notice. They forced the “free” world to act upon their evils and to fight a war that prevented them from taking over the world.
That was 1945 and since then, there have been countless other wars, wars in which Canadian’s have fought or kept the peace. Korea, Vietnam, Cuba (what’s the worst that could happen there? They stop making cigars?), Haiti, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Grenada and so many other’s it’s hard to contain in a small blog. These wars have been civil uprisings for the most part. The world wars of the first half of the last century a thing of the past, todays wars are more police states. Afghanistan and Iraq are great examples. Iraq is paying the price of having two religious sects at the top of their food chain, two sects who don’t really like each other. Afghanistan, the country that Canada and the US once supported financially in their battle for freedoms against the evil Russians, is now the enemy, the money we threw at them was used for bad apparently and now we’re paying the price, the price being 133 men and women who have been killed in an effort to keep peace in Afghanistan.
The efforts in Afghanistan and other places are boldly and proudly fought by our military. The reason’s they are there are moot, they are military, we recruited them into that career and they proudly where our uniforms (which by the way are very ugly) and do as we say and ask.
But why? Why are we trying so desperately to effect change in Afghanistan?
Once heralded as an attempt to find and bring to justice the fearless leader of Al Quida, Barrack Obama Bin laden, this is now about saving face.
Bin Laden for his part? The guy is one of two things. He’s living on some lavish estate somewhere in the world (you don’t believe he lives in a cave do you?), maybe even in the US! The second option, the one I put most of my belief into is that Bin Laden is Bin Dead. I also believe that the CIAor some higher authority knows this. Have you heard his name lately? He’s no longer the prime target of the Afghanistan or Iraq missions, the missions have shifted to creating a better more Americanized place to live.
Our men and women serving for their part don’t care. They aren’t paid to care, they are paid to carry out the duties of the military, and that is what they do. The do it admirably in fact. They always have. World War II – would not have been won when it was if not for the carefree and tactical stylings of the Canadian Military. The same can and will be said of Afghanistan, where sadly we will lose many more brave soldiers before the mission is completed.
Funny, but in my times playing poker on line, any military personnel from the US come into the rooms and announce who they are and usually what their role in the military is or was. EVERY American in the room says thank you to them and that’s regardless of the day.
We need to adapt the same thinking in this country, despite the fact that many of you reading this are supportive of wars or military actions.
Don’t thank a soldier today because it’s November, thank the soldier tomorrow because it’s any month. They didn’t create the wars but they are the ones (unlucky or not) who are fighting them to keep Canada free.
posted by G.M. Shier @ Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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