In case you're running out of tinfoil...

The Toronto Star can always be counted on to spare some.

Media cheerleaders miss story
Apr 08, 2008 04:30 AM
Linda McQuaig

To listen to the media tell it, Canada scored a victory last week at the NATO summit. We got the extra 1,000 troops that the Harper government said were needed to continue our involvement in the Afghan war.

So the fact that we're going to continue to fight in Afghanistan – which most Canadians oppose, according to the polls – has been transformed into a victory. We did it! We got the extra troops for a war Canadians don't want! Bravo!

Actually, the media have confused the Harper government achieving its own objectives with the national interest being advanced.

Yes, the staunchly pro-Washington Harper government cleverly manipulated the weak Liberal opposition into supporting the Afghan military venture, largely by presenting it as an international duty mandated by NATO.

In fact, the countries that make up NATO have no more interest in fighting in Afghanistan than the Canadian public does, which is why the 1,000 extra troops are coming from the United States – the one country that is keen to fight over there.

Nothing like a stirring round of anti-American pot shots to rally the anti-war crowd.

Once you're done lining your bird cage with McQuaig's latest, settle in with your beverage of choice and read Terry Glavin's The Cairo Clique: Anti-Zionism and the Canadian Left. It's thirteen pages, but well worth the read. With anti-war activists in Canada stepping up their efforts of late with actions like the CF/DND media ban at the University of Ottawa's newspaper and last weeks defacing of the Peacekeeping Memorial, Glavin's piece is a timely look behind the "peaceful" facade of various Canadian anti-war groups, led by the Canadian Peace Alliance.

(H/T Out of the Driver's Seat)

Cross posted to Blue Blogging Soapbox