A Canadian soldier was killed in Afghanistan today

[yvr girl]

There was quite a long piece about it on the news - he's the 8th soldier to die since 2002.

Our PM made made a statement about it, and every member of Parliament stood for a moment of silence. (This in a VERY acrimonious House which is on the verge of giving the government of vote of non-confidence.)

I know 8 does not even begin to compare with the thousands of American soldiers who have been lost. But it does illuminate our different outlooks. I think that if members of Congress had to stand for a moment of silence for every soldier who died - the war would not be lasting as long as it is.

[melody]

1. mourning doesn't know a cultural difference

The members of our Congress (well, the Democrats anyway) have as many regrets over every single miltiary as do your members of Parliament. In fact, that's what much of our own "acrimony" has been about the last few weeks -- the mounting number of dead people.

I would never denigrate the deaths of each one of those Canadians. Please don't demean Americans by suggesting we honor our people who've died any less.

[dutchdemocrat]

8. Hmm....

I don't think she was trying to demean - she was noting a cultural difference if anything.

Secondly, the Canadian who died, died hunting for a rogue group better known as Al Queda - the people respsonsible for killing thousands of Americans on September 11, 2001.

He didnt' die to line the pockets of what now seems to be a corporate psuedo-theocracy at the helm of the battleship US.

I think everyone supports their troops coming home alive, but everyone should also support their troops not having to kill people overseas.

Everyone should support their troops not dying overseas figuratively or literally, physically or psychologically.

Everyone should support their troops coming home with their hearts not broken, retaining humanity and compassion essential to feeling true solidarity with those who confront tyrannical behavior abroad, or in their own countries - such as the US with its 30 million tyrannized poor.

So - Support your troops, bring them home, provide them housing, provide them health care, provide them socially valuable jobs.

Then there's always the http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0320-12.htm">contrarian moral argument...

Do we support the actions of people who have abdicated moral responsibility for their actions to higher authority? By definition that would mean abdicating our own moral responsibility by lending support to the potential moral outrages that have so often resulted from the abdication of moral responsibility in the past.... Do we care about the welfare of "our troops"? Yes, passionately - we wish no harm to them, or their victims - but we cannot support people who are following the orders of a largely unaccountable political system. This, for us, is a kind of moral insanity.... Their decision is not our decision - we will not sacrifice our sense of moral responsibility in deference to their decision. Why should the thoughtful bow down t o the thoughtless acting on behalf of the heartless? Who in their right mind would take orders from the likes of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Perle, Bush, Blair and Cheney? Why should we support individuals who freely choose so to do?

[melody]

9. I'm up late at a deadline and I should be working, but...

>we cannot support people who are following the orders of a largely unaccountable political system.

Forgive me, but we are all doing that every moment we live in the west. We are living in the suffering of third world people. We are living on the work of underpaid laborers and, in many cases, we are using the technology created by American people who did so without medical coverage or anything but the most minuscule security net. See, it's very easy to be imperious and imagine ourselves better than some distant, evil land of "others", when we're living comfortably ourselves.

Anyone who lives in the arms of the west and who honestly thinks they aren't equally accountable for every grave error (or for that matter, equally attributable with the positive things of European culture) made by any other section of it, is deceiving him or herself. I'm sorry, but I grow very weary of smug people from other countries trying to demean Americans and prop up their own nationals on our apparent defects, as if there was any measurable difference between any of us. We're all humans - human societies have equally flawed structures, they merely express the flaws in different ways.

The assertion that the American Congress-members (at least the wiser and kinder ones) are somehow less conscious of our dead than Canadian Parliamentarians is, imho, an unfair and unwarranted remark.

This isn't our problem in the individual, it's a collective problem. Until we face that, the problem will just escape to another country and reinvent itself, as it has done before.

[dutchdemocrat]

11. I don't

I don't see anything smug about the original post. Actually - I think you are showing a level insecurity by assuming that the poster's remark was inflammatory and anti-American in any way.

What I see is a poignant post on a scenario... what if the corporate tools in Washington had to stand up and recognize every soldier who died in Iraq?

Don't you think it would force them to come to grips with the true ravages of war? Imagine if... over 2000 times congress had to take a minute out for every soldier and THINK about the life that man or woman had... the children, the sisters, the brothers, the fathers, the mothers and all the family and friends that person had in the world that is in anguish over their loss.

But no. It would waste 'valuable' time. Or maybe the military industrial complex does really just have your country deadlocked to the point that bringing awareness to the tragedy of war is considered 'unpatriotic' somehow.

Don't read all Canadian comments through the lens of an anti-American, superiority complex - because that's just as disingenuous as assuming American politicians don't care about their soldiers.

[melody]

13. your assumptions

First of all, I don't have a "superiority complex" - that's yet another element of the American stereotype that is as incorrect as the "all French people are rude" and "all African people are athletic" stereotypes. To protest anti-Americanism isn't a superior position -- it's the position of someone who demands equal human dignity for everyone, regardless of ethnicity or national origin. Are women being "superior" when we ask to be considered equally human?

You're again repeating the same stereotype in your comments. You're also assuming positive correlations to the Canadian actions without reference. Those are cultural inferences you are making that have nothing to do with the information given. Canada and the US are two different cultures. They have the right to their own individual approaches without being thought callous simply because one doesn't equal the other in certain circumstances.

>that bringing awareness

If you had read any of my other comments on DU, you would know very well that I am quite aware (far more aware than most people) of the putative anti-patriotic nonsense thrown at protesters against this war in this country. I've been called anti-patriotic more times than I can count. It is no more correct than your converse depiction of my comments simply because I don't conform to your notion of what an anti-war person should sound like.

You're defending the other poster far beyond the point I made. I suspect that has more to do with the fact that I'm American and he/she isn't. We've crossed this bridge before, as I recall. I don't know what rationale there is for repeating the pathway.

A knock about the US Congress (simply because they're American) as a gross generalization by someone outside this culture is as incorrect and unfair as the idiots in this country who insist on "Freedom Fries" because of their ethnic stereotypes of the French. If someone had posted the same thing about Canadians or anyone else, I'd have made the same statement.

[yvr girl]

10. You misunderstand my thoughts

I have no doubt that family and friends of those who have died mourn them sincerly. I also think that some politicians do as well.

It's just that because the dead are almost faceless in your media it doesn't show the real cost of the war in Iraq. If your evening news had a 3-5 minute piece on every soldier who died, people (more people) would be marching in the streets to demand an end to the war.

If every loss of life was recognized by a moment of silence in Congress, there would be more members demanding that the troops be withdrawn.

Pictures of each flag-covered coffin that came home would have an impact. There is a reason these pictures are not seen.

[melody]

14. my reactions

First of all, the reactions of the Mainstream Media are quite apart from the reactions of the Congress. The MSM are only partly American (just look at the pedigree of Fox News) - it responds to economic pressure from a global platform. Our Media do not equal our people and vice versa. Our people are people like Bill Moyers and MarKos and Arianna Huffington out here on a daily basis trying to beat back the global war merchants' media voice. Pardon my high-handed approach here, but it really is beginning to wear on me, the knocks my peeps get for no real reason beyond sharing the same piece of property with the dim son. Yesterday, it was a field day on here.

>a moment of silence in Congress

We have a different culture, thus we have a different way of handling it. There are as many excellent people versus pure politicians in our Congress as there are in any world governmental body. The definite nature of human psychology based on crude numbers will show that.

[babylonsister]

2. yvr girl, I'm sorry for another lost Canadian soul-#8 is too much.

Our losses are unspeakable, and I would like to see our supposed prez try to do anything resembling honoring the people who have died.

[melody]

3. How about resign? All he can do to make a difference is that now. n/t

[babylonsister]

4. Resignation would make my heart

explode with joy, but I don't ever see it happening. This guy has no shame that I've seen. Events might inspire him though!

[Neil Lisst]

5. Yeah, but ever since those cowboys bombed and killed 4 in ...

... Afghanistan, it's been dicey regarding Canadian support and involvement.

I'm sorry for Americans, of course, but at least we are the ones who let Bush take over and take these steps.

[applegrove]

6. We are indeed fighting al Qaeda. Only we forwent the Iraq thing -

our intelligence agencies said the data didn't work out on Iraq. Martin himself skipped the missile shield.

We are at war with al Qaeda - you guys loose sight of this because of Iraq. But we are. Spanish bombers had the plans to the Montreal Metro.

We are at war.

And each and every soldier deserves a vast amount of thanks and their families all the respect and care in the world.

Sorry you are in Iraq.

We are at war with al Qaeda. Lots of Canadians died in the WTC bombings.

[oblivious]

7. Keep that propaganda coming. "We are at war" x 4.

And has Canada ever been given any proof that anyone in Afghanistan had anything to do with 911? I mean anything other than the word of a bunch of proven liars - anything that would stand up in a court of law in a country that respects the rule of law?

No. It was promised but never provided.

[enigma000]

12. It is conventional wisdom that al-Quada was responsible

If not, who should we be on guard against?

[applegrove]

15. Yes - everyone who is an expert says al Qaeda did it. Bin Laden said

al Qaeda did it. The Taliban did offer to hand him over. I don't know why that was not acted on - but I guess - Nato felt that someone had to pay with loss of power for supporting a terrorist.

There have been al Qaeda bombings in Thailand the phillipines, indonesia. Al Qaeda is trying to take control of any country that is partially muslim. Taliban supported him.

we are at war with them. And that is legit.

Sorry you think somebody else bombed the WTC.

[oblivious]

16. Yes, everyone who is part of the "war on terror" propaganda.

Bin Ladin denied doing it.

...Mr Bin Laden has denied involvement in the attacks on the United States, but says he fully supports such "daring acts".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1539468.stm

The Taliban offered to hand over Bin Ladin if evidence of guilt was provided. It was never provided to anyone. Tony Blair promised to provide it to the British people, but finally said he couldn't.

12 September, 2001
Bin Laden extradition raised
A leading spokesman for Afghanistan's ruling Taleban militia has said it would consider extraditing terror suspect Osama Bin Laden based on US evidence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1539468.stm

Al-qaeda in Asia is a crock of shit. The former president of Indonesia has said it is the Indonesian military or police behind the bombings. But blaming the fictional Al-queda benefits those same military and police groups.

Police 'had role in' Bali blasts

October 12, 2005
INDONESIAN police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C5744%2C16898139%255E29277%2C00.html

Al-qaeda links to other bombings in South Asia are so flimsy that you might as well say my dog is linked to al-queda. The Philippines military is deeply involved.

What right has Canada got to be involved in bombing and taking over a defenceless country that has never done us any harm. The alleged terrorists involved in 911 were trained in the US, some by the US military. The director of the FBI has even said they could find no links tying the 911 plot to Al-queda:

In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper—either here in the United States or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere—that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot.
- Robert Mueller - FBI director

Justifying our involvement in an illegal war by saying all experts 'say he did it' is unacceptable. This is hearsay, propaganda, BS. You just can't do something this serious without absolute proof. Shame on Canada. This "war on terror" shit makes me sick to my stomach.

I don't know who did 911. But I'd want to be damn sure before I started murdering people.

[applegrove]

17. Sorry. I don't know that we are supposed to be talking about denial

of 9/11 on the boards.

It is a done deal. As much as you want it to have never have happened it did. Bad people attacked the USA.

[oblivious]

18. I'm not denying it happened. I've just never seen any proof who did it.

That's why Chretian demanded proof before getting involved in the Iraq mess. He had taken their word for it re Afghanistan and too late realised that they were a bunch of liars. He wasn't going to get sucked into the propaganda again in Iraq.

The truth is gradually coming out.

You can keep promoting the Bush and Blair propaganda about the "war on terror" and about those bad guys in Iraq and Afghanistan, but if you really believed Canada was in any danger from Afghanistan, or that Afghanistan was responsible for 911, I guess you would have signed up instead of letting other young Canadian men and women go off and become targets in a country that never harmed us and that we have no business being in.

[applegrove]

19. Look - they aren't recruiting in desperation here. Chretien went into

Afghanistan with his eyes open to a very dangerous threat called al Qaeda. With his eyes open again - he choose not to go to Iraq.

He was not fooled. Al Qaeda had been mucking up the middle east for a bit and had been trying for a decade to hit an American target really hard (they ended up mostly killing African people in the two embassy explotions). Bin Laden was number one on the CIA hit list in the late 1990s. And then he did 9/11 and just turned into a much more dangerous monster.

Have you not heard of Spain or London?

Or Thailand, Indonesia, Phillipines and all throughout the middle east where they have been killing civilians.

[oblivious]

20. So now bin Laden is orcherstrating attacks around the world is he?

From his cave in Afghanistan? or Pakistan? or his grave?

Do you have any proof that bin Laden or any of his minions orchestrated the Madrid or London bombings?

Do you have any proof they were involved in Indonesia, Thailand or Philippines?

Indonesia: The former president himself has said he believes the Indonesian police and military are behind the terror attacks.

INDONESIAN police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.

In an interview with SBS's Dateline program to be aired tonight, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C5744%2C16898139%255E29277%2C00.html

Philippines: The link AP is always trying to make between Abu Sayyaf and Al-qaeda is actually a link between Abu Sayyaf and the CIA.

According to former Philippine Senate Minority Leader Nene Pimentel, the Abu Sayyaf are remnants of about 800 Filipino Muslim Moujahideens who, together with thousands of other Muslim jihad warriors from several countries, were recruited, trained and financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to fight the CIA-sponsored proxy war in Afghanistan against the Russians in 1980.

http://www.bayanimagazine.com/bayani.cover.html

Montreal: Your comment above that "Spanish bombers had the plans to the Montreal Metro." is just fear-mongering. They found this website on their computer:

http://www.metrodemontreal.com/index-e.html

You call this evidence that Montreal is targeted? And if he was a Spanish bomber, as you say, how come he was released after questioning? Enough, please. This unrelenting propaganda tires me. It's bad enough we have to read it in the corporate media. Must we be bombarded with it here as well?

[Disturbed]

21. I am not an admirer of the Taliban.

The overthrow of the Taliban was another land grab just as Iraq was. If the Neo Fascist Regime of Amerika wanted to fight al Q. they could have focused their efforts upon doing so instead of allowing hundreds of them escape, including Osama and his top personnel.

[applegrove]

22. I'm with you. Taliban gave cover to bin Laden after attacks on embassies

in Afriac and after the Cole bombing (so it was not civilians but american navy people who died - they had permission from covernmnets to be there).

The bin Ladens of the world are for the attacking of all civilian governments of the middle east. They tried to bomb civilians there and somehow got not a huge influx of muslim extremists for all their civilian bombings in the middle east - so in the 1990s they turned to attacking the US.

Just as it is. Taliban had much info that al Qaeda was attacking the West. You reap what you sow. Al Qaeda big picture is to control all middle east and Asian coutries with fundamentalist muslim regimes and make them all into one.

Why they & their men went after the US (to provoke) and Thailand, Phiillipines, Indonesia and all the attacks within the middle east & then attacks on America. You go to war - you get war.

Don't pretend that there is not an issue with islamofascist bombings all over the world. There is. Iraq has just made it look so fuzzy.