The unknown soldiers and those who neglected them
The Globe's Christie Blatchford (bless her) describes the Canadian media's years of neglect of the Canadian Forces, and the hypocrisy of their sudden concern for our troops (full text not online).
This ignoble fight about the fallen, as it might be called, is not about denying the Canadian media, despite all that has been said and written to the contrary.
Even if that were the issue, my colleagues and I would be arguing from our usual quarters on the low moral ground. The press of this country is in no position to quarrel with whatever limits that might be put upon our collective access to the Canadian Forces and its members -- dead or alive, and whether those limits are imposed by political or military leadership.
For the longest time, access was the last thing we wanted.
For decades, the press remained resolutely uninterested in the nation's military, and in this sense, operated hand-in-glove with the government of the day, which, regardless of political stripe and with few exceptions over my lifetime, has generally behaved as though there was something a little distasteful and embarrassing about soldiers...
This collective failure might be less important if the military had not been, through much of this time, systematically also being subjected to massive cuts in both budget and presence in Canadian towns and cities and increasingly treated by Ottawa as just another federal department (like the environment or culture ministries) and increasingly seen that way by the press.
So there's that: We have no moral authority to complain, whether the order to close off Canadian Forces Base Trenton this week as the bodies of four fallen soldiers killed in last weekend's roadside bombing were repatriated, came from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor or Prime Minister Stephen Harper...
The Sun papers' Lorrie Goldstein takes a similar view about Liberals and New Democrats. Let us hope the Conservatives really do better.
...
As military historian Jack Granatstein wrote in Who Killed the Canadian Military?: "There is, unfortunately, a soft-headedness about Canadians and their politicians. An unwillingness to focus on the essentials."
And that's all this flag flap is. A non-essential, with the chorus of "support" for our soldiers being led by hypocritical Liberal and New Democrat MPs -- all of whom should be ashamed of their parties' records when it comes to our military.
Anyone can make nice speeches about fallen soldiers in the Commons.
Anyone can shed crocodile tears. Anyone can pretend that the recent Liberal "innovation" of honouring some soldiers by lowering the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill when they are killed in action, but not others, represents "respect."
After all, it's so very Liberal. It's easy, it looks nice and it doesn't cost us a cent...
...Why do these types only seem to care about our soldiers when they're (a) dead or (b) "peacekeepers" -- a concept that's 15 years out of date in the real world?..
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
This ignoble fight about the fallen, as it might be called, is not about denying the Canadian media, despite all that has been said and written to the contrary.
Even if that were the issue, my colleagues and I would be arguing from our usual quarters on the low moral ground. The press of this country is in no position to quarrel with whatever limits that might be put upon our collective access to the Canadian Forces and its members -- dead or alive, and whether those limits are imposed by political or military leadership.
For the longest time, access was the last thing we wanted.
For decades, the press remained resolutely uninterested in the nation's military, and in this sense, operated hand-in-glove with the government of the day, which, regardless of political stripe and with few exceptions over my lifetime, has generally behaved as though there was something a little distasteful and embarrassing about soldiers...
This collective failure might be less important if the military had not been, through much of this time, systematically also being subjected to massive cuts in both budget and presence in Canadian towns and cities and increasingly treated by Ottawa as just another federal department (like the environment or culture ministries) and increasingly seen that way by the press.
So there's that: We have no moral authority to complain, whether the order to close off Canadian Forces Base Trenton this week as the bodies of four fallen soldiers killed in last weekend's roadside bombing were repatriated, came from Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor or Prime Minister Stephen Harper...
The Sun papers' Lorrie Goldstein takes a similar view about Liberals and New Democrats. Let us hope the Conservatives really do better.
...
As military historian Jack Granatstein wrote in Who Killed the Canadian Military?: "There is, unfortunately, a soft-headedness about Canadians and their politicians. An unwillingness to focus on the essentials."
And that's all this flag flap is. A non-essential, with the chorus of "support" for our soldiers being led by hypocritical Liberal and New Democrat MPs -- all of whom should be ashamed of their parties' records when it comes to our military.
Anyone can make nice speeches about fallen soldiers in the Commons.
Anyone can shed crocodile tears. Anyone can pretend that the recent Liberal "innovation" of honouring some soldiers by lowering the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill when they are killed in action, but not others, represents "respect."
After all, it's so very Liberal. It's easy, it looks nice and it doesn't cost us a cent...
...Why do these types only seem to care about our soldiers when they're (a) dead or (b) "peacekeepers" -- a concept that's 15 years out of date in the real world?..
Cross-posted to Daimnation!
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 9:26 a.m.
1 Comments:
She hit's the nail on the head there. In the 80s you were more likely to be mistaken for a bus driver than a member of the military in those horrible green uniforms. The military wasn't even meant to be seen, let alone heard.
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