Afstan: The enemies within

The Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford eviscerates her own paper (via Norman's Spectator--text not online even using Google News, title is "Losing the PR war at home and abroad"):

If the Taliban are clobbering the Canadian Forces in the Afghan public relations war, as some fear, then bloody hell if the same thing isn't happening here at home.

Over the weekend, modestly attended and utterly banal peace marches held in cities across the country led Saturday radio and TV newscasts and print websites (including The Globe and Mail's) and Sunday newspapers, but barely a scintilla of attention was paid to the awarding of prestigious Canadian military decorations and honours.

The awards were announced midafternoon on Friday -- in plenty of time for newspaper deadlines -- but rated only a mention in some major Saturday papers, including The Globe (which ran only a brief, as we call minuscule stories, and then in only some editions) and the National Post. In Toronto, for instance, the only daily to run a proper story on Saturday was the Sun….

In a world where the word "hero" has all but lost its meaning -- attached as it is to almost anyone who endures a mild trauma without mental collapse or meets the now low threshold of nominal good citizenship -- about 40 gallant Canadian soldiers went almost entirely unrecognized by the press, and thus by their countrymen.

It is little short of disgraceful, and I have to say, when I saw my own newspaper on Saturday -- we managed to run four other Canadian Forces-related stories that day, including one which suggested that soldiers are low-achieving losers [full text not officially online] in flight from dead-end jobs -- I was ashamed.

A good post on the medals is here.

Wear red on Fridays and remember the rallies for our troops in Ottawa, Toronto, and elsewhere.

Update: The full text of the story is here (read the rant at the end). These paragraphs in particular bear quoting:

Two of the awards -- for Captain Nichola Goddard, a 26-year-old from the 1st Royal Canadian Horse Artillery in Shilo, Man., who was given the Meritorious Service Medal, and 22-year-old Private Kevin Dallaire, who was mentioned in dispatches -- were made posthumously. Capt. Goddard and Pte. Dallaire were both killed in action, respectively, on May 17 and Aug. 3...

Well, the boys are back home now, minus their friends and mates killed in action or accident, and not all of the living have their limbs or their eyes, and all are changed. There are many days when they must wonder if somehow, they aren't still in the presence of some enemy even less readily identifiable than the Taliban.

Upperdate: This story from Kingston of course got only local coverage:

Drizzle that threatened to turn into a downpour was not enough to keep hundreds of people from saluting Canadian soldiers during Saturday's Freedom of the City parade.

Spectators clogged the sidewalks in front of City Hall to get a glimpse of the historic parade, in which around 1,500 military men and women took part.

As requested by the military, many of those who came to watch wore red articles of clothing to show support for the soldiers. Some wore red shirts, others red gloves and still others protected themselves from the rain with red umbrellas.

Whatever the colour, it was clear they were there to show solidarity...

In keeping with tradition, Mayor Harvey Rosen inspected Hazleton's honour guard and then proclaimed the force worthy of entering the city.

"Whereas the mayor and city council, together with all Kingstonians, acknowledge and appreciate the contributions that the more than 30 units that make up the Kingston Garrison have made and continue to make to the Kingston community," Rosen said, "Therefore be it resolved that freedom of the city be exercised on October 28, 2006." With that, Hazleton's honour guard fixed bayonettes in unison and raised the Canadian flag and the flag of the Canadian Forces as the national anthem played...