Can't have it both ways
Posted By Michael Gaspar
Posted 3 months ago
(Re: Hillier had his priorities straight, in the Nov. 2 edition of the Examiner)
Cheerleaders for this miserable war, like Peter Worthington, can’t have it both ways.
On the one hand they will argue that Canada/NATO, armed with our superior social and democratic values, is nobly engaged in Afghanistan to reform a backward people.
On the other hand where we fail to live up to our own ideals, well…so what? What’s a little violation of the Geneva Conventions when there’s a war to be fought?
Who cares if POWs are tortured or denied vital medical care? After all, “Our mission in Kandahar is not to force cultural changes that have been rooted for generations in the region.”
The list of things we’re supposed to turn a blind eye to just seems to be getting longer and longer - the indiscriminate taking and rendering of prisoners; the torture and summary executions of POWs; the resurgent heroin trade and drug profiteering; the cover-ups of civilian mass casualties; now another round of corrupt elections.
The question for Canadians is not whether we will win or lose in Afghanistan. It is how much of ourselves we will lose in the ugly process.
