Friday, October 08, 2010

Cannon fodder

Quite an uproar over the "cannon fodder" video.

It involves a fictional mother of a Canadian soldier lamenting that she might not have had children if she had known that they would be used as cannon fodder.

Lots of anger over that, including one nonfictional mother of a slain soldier who said, “Because they died in combat, [these women] have the nerve to describe them as cannon fodder.”

Nerve?

Yes, I suppose it takes nerve to break the veneer of patriotism that tells people that their children died a great and wonderful cause when in reality they're dying for no particularly good reason.

But if it's true that the war is pointless and wrong, and no one says anything, more children are going to die.

Seriously. If you want to convince the rest of us that you're right. If you want to convince us that the war in Afghanistan is worthwhile and winnable, then show us how you're going to win. Show us how you're already winning. Show us what you could possible hope to accomplish.

I see a lot of nothing. I see the schools we built being used for storing and shipping marijuana. I see our money ending up in villas in Dubai. I see the government we set up mistreating its women as badly as their enemies did.

That's not worth dying for.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

53 years ago, Lester Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize. This year, we're not even sure we'll get a seat on the UN security counsel.