"Lest We Forget"

To my family and my forefathers whom sacrificed themselves and their futures for all that I have enjoyed in my life, I hope you hear this as my words; defending your gifts:

Remembering our dead and actually learning form their suffering and sacrifice are not the same things. Remembering Canada’s fallen, although sentimental and poignant, is one thing; I have lost family in all the great wars of Canada’s history since 1831 defending our world from those whom would impose their beliefs at the point of a gun or tank turret, a principle for which my grandfather fought and spent four years as a German POW in Bavaria, leaving his infant sons and wife to cold fortune and hope. Remembering these men’s sacrifice, however, (there were no women in combat roles at this time) without “learning” from their sacrifice makes their deaths, their solitude, their pain and the emotional agony they endured pointless.
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One hundred and twenty-seven soldiers dead. That’s the causality count (to date) of Canadian solders in Afghanistan… for what could possibly be the biggest most costly renovation project that Canada got suckered into. We’re fixing up Afghanistan folks, but the tenants don’t want us to.

Seven years ago. This whole thing was sold to the Canadian public as a war. The war on terrorism. While not a conventional war, we were still behind it. We were part of a global initiative to make the world safer. For us, them, and everyone. And we were going to kick the Taliban’s butt to boot. Sounded good. Right?
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Testifying before Canada’s national defence committee on the Hill two days ago (Monday, 9 February), Defence Minister Peter Mackay claimed that progress was being made in Afghanistan, albeit at a slower pace than would be ideal. Coupled with this unfounded rosy assessment of slow Afghan progress, Mackay also acknowledged a $331 million increase in Afghan war costs for this year.

Mackay’s insistence that progress is being made in Afghanistan goes against substantiated reports made by the British foreign ministry and President Obama’s new civilian proconsul for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The British now acknowledge that NATO forces are in a stalemate with Afghan insurgents. The new American administration prefers the term ‘mess’ in describing the situation. Both statements are true, unlike Mackay’s, but ultimately fail in describing the real problem in Afghanistan. The fact of the matter is that a majority of the Pushtan, a pro-Taliban ethnic group straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border that makes up about a third of Afghanistan’s population, will not stop fighting the established Afghan government until the Taliban is recognized as a legitimate force in Afghanistan politics. At least one British general has stated that progress cannot be made without making peace with the Taliban. The Taliban insurgency, which made more attacks against Western forces in the last year then in any other year of the war, has repeatedly shown that it cannot be stopped by military means.
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