What was that I was saying about biases shining through?

Oh, yeah: what the reporters choose to report, and how they choose to report it shows a lot about their own agenda - conscious or unconscious. Jessica Leeder, case in point (ht:Tony):

And so, in my mind, this base is one part developing country resort and one part hellish native reserve. But it has a third element, one that I would liken to a steroidal summer camp.

Over the weekend, at the centre of the base, the Brits held a strongman competition (a good-sized crowd gathered to watch sweaty, shirtless soldiers grunt over dead-lifts and lop tractor tires end over end), while more shirtless soldiers played beach volleyball in the sand nearby, their weapons set aside.

On most days, soldiers drive around in armored tanks, Toyota SUVs and camouflaged Humvees (although the speed limit posted on base roads is a conservative 16 km/h). They think nothing wrong with slowing their vehicle to gawk at rare passing women -- one soldier guarding the gate, who apparently checked his manners there, had no qualms about offering me an extra thorough search (I managed to decline the little git, who seemed barely old enough to shave, without using expletives, which is a personal advancement for me).

They let off steam at the shooting range or pump iron in the well-stocked gyms and when they're ready to treat themselves, they can hit the PXs. These are stores that at first pass seem similar to camp canteens - they sell 50 cent freezies and a good assortment of candy and comic books. But they sell other things: fierce looking pocket knives, movies with suggestive titles like 'The Babysitter' (the package of which shows the half naked torso of a teenaged girl in the midst of pulling off her shirt), Trojan condoms, and a wide assortment of devices with names like 'Pistol Leash'. Yikes. [Babbler's emphasis]

Let's look at some of the characterizations, starting with "steroidal summer camp." I'm not sure what's more insulting, the insinuation that fit soldiers must be on the juice despite regulations and testing to the contrary, or that a military base at the heart of a dangerous insurgency is just a place to play away the summer holidays before heading back to school.

That attitude carries through to the author's assertion that "on most days, soldiers drive around in armoured tanks," as though they're just burning gas, cruising up and down the drag like kids on Yonge Street. Or to her idea that going to the range and the gym serve no more purpose than to "let off steam." Because what use could marksmanship or fitness serve to a soldier deployed on a dangerous foreign operation?

Even the choices at the American PX come under ridicule from our cynical correspondent: toys for boys like "fierce looking pocket knives," and "a wide assortment of devices with names like 'Pistol Leash'." Note that the knives aren't fierce, they're "fierce looking." Likewise, the disturbing thing about the Pistol Leash isn't its function - which is pretty sensible, all things considered - but its name.

Nowhere, absolutely nowhere in the piece do we get any sort of a sense that the reporter has even the slightest clue about the purpose of all the activity around her. Fitness and marksmanship aren't a game, they're life-saving skills in the field. Esprit de corps and morale aren't just fun times for the kids at a camp, they're what hold together a unit under pressure. Soldiers don't get to drive around in "armoured tanks" - as opposed to all the unarmoured tanks out there, right? - for fun, but rather for function. Knives aren't sold at the PX as baubles, they're sold because a knife is just about the most basic tool there is, and you can never have enough of them when you're on your own in bad-guy country.

This isn't remotely comparable to a third-world resort, as Ms. Leeder suggests, where spoiled western urbanites can pretend they're not propping up a brutal, oppressive dictatorship with their tourist dollars as they quaff Pina Coladas at the poolside bar.

KAF exists to support a military effort in a country that still needs help securing its own territory. Everything and everyone on that base is pointed towards that effort in some way.

The fact that the Globe's reporter can write an entire post - an entire string of posts, it seems - that gives the impression all the bustling activity on such a military installation serves no purpose other than testosterone-charged entertainment shows just how profoundly out her element she is.

Oh, and that young soldier who showed such poor judgment in making a half-heartedly obvious pass at Ms. Leeder, the one she dismissed as a "little git, who seemed barely old enough to shave?" He signed on the dotted line to give up his life if so ordered, and had the proverbial shit hit the fan at that exact moment that he was offering to feel her up, I have no doubt he would have put himself in between her and the danger without a second thought.

You're a sheep, Ms. Leeder. A sheep among wolves, and you don't even have the good sense to recognize the patrolling sheepdogs for what they are.