POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
"...stay course..."?
More stupid American war speech infecting Canada like a contagious disease.
Some Canadians now say "the boys" and we have the brainless McGuinty offering of "the Highway of Heroes."
And, of course, the pathetic, stick-on plastic yellow ribbons.
Our CBC Radio in its decline produced and broadcast an idiotic series called Afghanada. Every word and sound of that propaganda could have passed for something from America, save only the actor with the phony Newfoundland speech.
These are all signs of how destructive this business has been to Canadian values.
The Pentagon is like the fabled tar-baby. You can't touch it without pitch stuck to your hands.
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"... I disrespected parents of dead soldiers?"
Sorry, but there's another example of trash American speech.
There is no such word as "disrespected." You "show disrespect,” unless you come from Arkansas or the streets of Detroit.
Further, if parents have the sheer arrogance to beg the government to stay in the killing business just to make the loss of their children somehow more meaningful, they themselves are opening the door to justified attacks on their judgment.
Having lost someone doesn't give you a special right to advocate like that. It is shameful and abusive.
It is exactly the kind of non-think we see in America’s professional-victim society.
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"Sorry, old bean. Disrespect may also be used as a transitive verb"
Only by those who also use barbarities like "flied out."
War is, if you will, the secret life of chimpanzees. It is when humans drop all the rules and decencies we have patiently built up over time and set out to murder, rape, and destroy.
That's why, for example, soldiers in Afghanistan are warned by the Canadian authorities to ignore the bloody rapes of boys that take place regularly in this place we're supposed to be saving.
Many have witnessed our own allies and workers like interpreters literally leaving children bleeding on the ground from gang rapes.
I point out that I believe the corruption of language reflects this corruption of values.
America has been a society dedicated to war for decades. It has killed millions needlessly, three million just in Vietnam.
Propagandists now are working overtime to alter our culture in the same direction.
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"Most of us have the power to use logic and factual information. Use it."
Thus says someone whose entire comment shows little of either.
The Taliban were the government of the country, and they attacked no one. The U.S. invasion drove them out.
The very word "insurgents" is a weasel-word. The Taliban are not invaders. They are not foreigners. They are a large portion of the population of the place.
The governors America has put in their place belonged to the Northern Alliance, people every bit as backward as the Taliban, their former opponents. Indeed, it was the Northern Alliance who permitted bin Laden to reside in Afghanistan.
After the Russians withdrew, the Northern Alliance took power, and ran the country the way a bloodthirsty mafia would. There was chaos in the streets. Fighting everywhere. Injustice everywhere. Corruption everywhere.
The Taliban actually were formed as a "clean government" party, and they did clean things up on taking power, as for instance by totally stopping opium production.
They are not to our tastes, but, believe me, none of the parties in Afghanistan are. They all have 14th century views because the country lives in the 14th century.
Indeed, the drugs are pouring out of Afghanistan, completely ignored by the U.S. because it is some of their people profiting.
You want modernity? You help the economy develop. You do not bomb people.
America went there to kill, it went for vengeance. Everything else is window-dressing. And Canadian soldiers are part of the decorations.
