By Dick Field
Thursday, august 10, 2006
In 6 months since the new mission to Kandahar began, Canada has had 14 combat soldiers killed by the enemy (1 every 13 days) and 62 wounded. Two of the killed and seven of the injured were attributable to road accidents. Many wounds were minor.
all honours to those who have died in afghanistan, for them it was total war.
However, one would think the media would have the decency to stop this propaganda of tear jerk, anti-Harper, anti-american flag-draped coffin hysteria.
We are in the beginnings of a Jihadi world war against the West; in fact it has being going on for some 30 years. The shallowness of the "hearts and tears" campaign of the media is nothing more than a projection of the Liberal, NDP and Block Quebecoise distaste for defending principle versus standing for our fundamental Canadian values of individual freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
ad nauseam we have been deluged with print and video showing the same fallen soldier being ceremoniously paraded before his fellow soldiers as he or she is loaded on to the airplane for the long sad trip home to Canada. Then again we must witness the arrival at the airfield as the body is once again paraded from the airplane to the receiving hearse and grieving family. Then we are indulged in personal stories and opinions of the war of each soldier's wife, girlfriend and family, sometimes even his padre or minister. Then we are invited to the ceremonies back at the soldiers home regiment, coffin flag and all, and finally we are present at his burial in a private or military cemetery.
all this, over and over again, as each death occurs.
Think of the insult to Canada's WW2 combat veterans who over the 2160 days of that war lost, on average, some 22 soldiers, sailors and airmen every damn day. 46,000 killed by the end of the war and nobody lowered a flag, paraded coffins or commiserated like a bunch of panty waste wimps as the media now presents our country to the entire world, including our enemies.
Think back to the days when Canada stood tall and proud. Back then Canadians took their lumps and while aware of the sacrifice of their warriors, they did not beat themselves and wail to the skies.
Think of the difference in our behaviour. When our guys were killed in action, they were first wrapped in their own blanket and buried in a temporary grave (if the body could be found and identified). More often than not they were buried along with dozens of their fallen comrades. The ceremony was usually a brief prayer by the regimental Padre. Weeks or sometimes months later they were reburied with a brief ceremony in a military gravesite, in situ, no flying home (or shipping home in coffin ships) to Canada and no parade of hundreds of their comrades. Nor were there media stories of their personal thoughts and those of their families and friends and no opinions extracted on their training, preparation and even their support of the war.
In Canada, the sole mention of a fallen soldier might be a picture in the paper with a note as to their hometown. There were no magnificent ceremonies or lowered flags on Parliament hill. There might be a private memorial service by the family. as far as the country was concerned, casualties were rightly considered a price of winning the war. We would get to the ceremonies after the war, once a year.
What we are witnessing today is a form of media "ambulance chasing," not only to sell newspapers but with an obvious political purpose. That purpose is to undermine the morale of the Canadian public and support the left liberal appeasers. Our leftist value free media cannot tolerate a government that actually believes that Canadians should fight for their hard won inherited values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
In fact, through the years 1965 to 1995 it was damn hard for the CBC and most of our left-lib electronic or print media to bring themselves to respect Canada's war veterans and our strong military history. We are peacekeepers they said, we have no military background they said. We are neutral referees they said; we don't take sides.
There again they fooled themselves and the public because they do take sides. The side they took and still take is that of the appeasers, the pacifists and the excusers of pure evil. according to the leftist media and their political allies all we heard for years about our values were that Canadians were somehow uniquely blessed with bags of kindness, tolerance and compassion.
Our warriors in Kandahar are there as participants in an international fight to help afghanistan rebuild its war torn country into a peaceful constructive society. The Taliban and other enemies of this attempt are out to stop them. Maybe our soldiers will win and maybe they won't but there is no honour in not trying. There is certainly no honour in running away from our commitment.
Israel also is in a fight for the survival of western values - our values! We are part of that fight as well, whether we like it or not. Would the media and their left wing political friends rather see six thousand dead military and civilians (on both sides) or the death of six million more dead Jews? Leading to what, WW3, and maybe a 100 million dead?
The Canadian ambulance chasing media must get with the program. Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinians, the Taliban, al Qaeda and most of the arab world has stated quite clearly that their objective is to exterminate the state of Israel and kill every Jew. Many of them also want to see all of us "infidels" exterminated.
The media is the message in this electronic world.
The media is how most of the public comes to believe what the World and particularly Canada is all about. Our politicians read and watch the media. They conduct biased and prejudiced polls to assess public opinion. The cycle of circulation of opinion is thus warped and bent, especially in multicultural countries such as ours where large portions of our society have little appreciation for our Canadian parliamentary heritage.
It is the duty of our media to report accurately against the background of the historical fact of Canada's inherent freedoms and the hundreds of years of our fight to win and preserve those freedoms, rather than warping and bending their message to the emotions of the moment.
The truth is that that our leftist ambulance chasing media must re-examine its collective soul before it is too late!