Linda "Shoot the Hippo" lashes out

Ms McQuaig unleashes all her barrels. The Kingston Whig-Standard reporter (or his editors) might just have tried to provide a bit of, er, context--such as the UN's working with ISAF, the UN Secretary General's strong support for ISAF, including combat, and the repeated authorization of ISAF itself by the UN Security Council.

Toronto writer Linda McQuaig isn't into bumper stickers, but even if she was, she wouldn't put "Support Our Troops" on her car.

It's not that the author of a new book criticizing Canada's assistance to U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan doesn't care about Canadian soldiers and their families.

The yellow ribbons urge Canadians to support their soldiers, not the Afghanistan occupation, but McQuaig worries the real message they are sending is to support the war.

"In fact, the people promoting them are often supporting the Afghanistan mission and hoping to make that confusion in the public's mind," she said in an interview following a meeting yesterday with the Whig-Standard's editorial board.

"I think that confusion has been deliberately created by some people who want to get more support for the mission than is out there."

McQuaig, author of Holding the Bully's Coat: Canada and the U.S. Empire ["Idiocy of the day"], spoke at a free public forum in Sydenham Street United Church [where else, eh?] on Thursday night with fellow author Cathy Crowe. The event was sponsored by a dozen local community and Christian groups.

Before heading home to Toronto yesterday, McQuaig visited the Whig to speak to the editorial board about a number of issues, including the need for Canadians to start having more debates about Canada's occupation of Afghanistan and the nation's transition from a globally respected peacekeeper to the U.S.'s war-mongering assistant [!?!--emphasis added]...

Journalists and the Canadian public are not debating Canada's role in Afghanistan as they should, she said [what in heaven's name was this all about?].

With the lives of so many Canadian soldiers and Canada's international role and reputation at stake, it's essential that Canadians take a hard look at what their military is doing in Afghanistan and the subservient military role this country is playing to the U.S. military, McQuaig said.

"The idea that you don't debate these things and that you shut up and go along with whatever your government decides, that's a dangerous, dangerous thing to fall into," she said.

In Holding the Bully's Coat, McQuaig argues that Canada must reject the role of "adjunct to the U.S. Empire," which broke international law to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and must find the courage to find its own way.

Continuing to play servant to the "U.S. bully" is hurting Canada's international credibility and its ability to act as an effective peacekeeper, she said [want to go here, here or here, Ms McQuaig? What about this?].

"The [political] right in Canada loves to portray us as kind of a nothing country in the world, a two-bit has-been," she said. "It's not true at all. We actually reached our pinnacle of influence in the world in the Cold War years, from the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s."

McQuaig doesn't expect Canada's occupation [!?!--emphasis added] of Afghanistan to end before 2011, the earliest Parliament has said Canadian Forces can come home [ain't that a deep insight]...

As BBS so well put it:

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

I feel better now.