Opinions are like assholes...

...and sometimes, so are opinion columnists.

Where to begin with Joey Slinger, expert on Southwest Asia and counterinsurgency operations?

How about this assertion?

While it is too early to say about their hearts and minds, we are definitely taking a lot more civilian lives – men, women and children – than the Taliban.

The latest totals for 2007, according to the Associated Press, are 210-plus killed by NATO and U.S. troops, while the Taliban have accounted for something under 180. [Babbler's bold]

So the AP report makes it "definite" does it? I guess the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, which puts the totals of Afghan civilians killed by NATO and the Taliban so far in 2007 at even is demonstrably wrong. Not to mention the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, which is obviously way, WAY out in left field when they count slightly more Afghans killed by insurgents than by the NATO forces. I wonder why AP themselves quote the dissenting figures since Mr. Joey Slinger is so damned sure about their numbers?

Cherrypick much, Joey?

What about his vaunted "Human Value Index" and the url he quotes?

For a while I thought it was clever of our leaders to arrange to fight their wars in other people's countries. I assumed it was nothing more than their desire to keep their own civilians out of the line of fire. That it was good politics.

Now I discover that what they actually base their decisions on is the Human Worth Index (discover this for yourself at humanworth.un.org).

So I type in the url - nothing. I type it into Google - and get Slinger's column as the only result. I type in "Human Worth Index" in quotes - and get Slinger again, along with eight other results that shed no light on the supposed source of his story.

Which makes me suspect that either Slinger is making this entire thing up out of his fevered imagination, or that he found some questionable source scurrying out from under a rock on the internet, but isn't worried enough about his own credibility to properly reference it so that others can examine his claims too.

Either way, that's some fine journalism!

But really, the slur against our serving soldiers has got to be the classiest and most professional part of Slinger's entire piece:

Now I hate to be the one to break it to Hamid Karzai, but the current value of an Afghan life is 22 cents, although this is likely inflated because none of the troops fighting there, including Canada's 2,500, have any idea why they're fighting there, and prefer to give the Afghans the benefit of the doubt. [Babbler's emphasis again]

I guess it just passes for accepted wisdom among the urbanista journalistic elite of Toronto that Canadian soldiers are too stupid to understand the strategic underpinnings of the Afghan mission.

Well, except for Blatchford, who's been there. Or DiManno, who has also, y'know, spent time with soldiers in the field. Or Campion-Smith, or Brewster, or Perreaux, or Wattie, or Graeme Smith, or any one of the myriad of reporters who have actually met and spoken with Canadian soldiers at some point in their lives, not to mention covered them in Afghanistan.

Because it stands to reason that a guy like Slinger would know far, FAR more about the geopolitical factors driving the international effort in Southwest Asia than the guys and gals who are risking their lives over there. I mean, what possible motivation would they have to educate themselves about the history, culture, and importance of Afghanistan - other than the fact that they're going to be living and working there for six to twelve months, of course. No, no, it stands to reason that a guy whose entire universe stretches from Bloor Street to Lake Ontario would know far more about that little corner of the world than the poor, stupid sods the generals and politicians push around as mindless pawns in Afghanistan.

Opinions are like assholes, all right. And anyone who swallows this irredeemably uninformed and pathetically mean-spirited tripe qualifies as one too.