Military aircraft fly over Queen's Park during yesterday's parade - Photo, J. Treloar

Here is what the press release for yesterday's parade from Fort York to Queen's Park had to say:

Formal Unveiling Ceremony to be preceded by one of the largest military parades since the Second World War. The parade will begin at 12 noon and will travel from the Fort York Armoury up University Avenue to Queen's Park. A 15-gun salute and inspection of the Guard of Honour by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario will follow at 2 p.m. Fly past will include vintage and military aircraft - Lancaster Bomber; Hawker Hurricane; Harvards, as well as present day CF 18 fighters and Griffon helicopters.

There is a disturbing trend recently towards the celebration of military action and military hardware on a scale we haven't seen, as the press release says, since WWll. While many of us agree that we owe a great debt to previous generations for their military sacrifices, our recent sabre-rattling seems oddly out of character given roughly two generations of Canadian neutrality.

1. If we owe a great debt to the military sacrifices of previous generations, then we owe an equal debt to the sacrifices of our own. Thirty-two Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the current Canadian role began there in 2002, and their memories are as precious as those of any other soldier who has died in service. Regardless whether we support or question the current mission, we should honour their lives.

   As for neutrality, Canada’s peacekeeping roles do not reduce to a policy of indifferent bystanding. The Afghanistan mission may be considered broader in scope, but is not otherwise altogether different from Canada’s decade-plus-long role in the various parts of the former Yugoslavia.

   If Reading Toronto readers are interested in supporting humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan or elsewhere, please consider donating to the Red Cross (http://www.redcross.ca), World Vision Canada (http://www.worldvision.ca), or to another registered charity of your choice.

   Posted by  on  09/18  at  10:34 AM

2. Hi Amy, thanks for your comment. Does that figure include the 4 who died this morning? According to the CBC, Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are far more likely to be killed than US soldiers in Iraq. That is not fair to them.

   I fear Canada will lose its long admired position in the world as a fair arbiter while becoming embroiled in a religious war that will, in all practical purposes, never end. If the British Empire and Soviet Union at the height of their military powers were forced to leave Afghanistan, why do we think we can prevail over people who have lived there since before Kubla Khan?

   I worry that we are being sold a fictional cause at the expense of the secular modernity we in the west struggled centuries to achieve.

   Posted by  on  09/18  at  11:16 AM

3. We have to be careful to recognise that there are good cultures, progressive cultures and really savage cultures like the Taliban in the world. If we pull out , we might as well send for the Taliban leaders now and hand over the country to them and let them bring back their culture of repression and fundamentalism.
   If we don’t stop them who will?And why should we not participate in that effort. If you don’t believe in violence then believe this; be prepared to be subjicated. I think we can unfortunately, as Robert De Nero’s character said in The Untouchables, “Get further with a kind word and a gun and we can with just a kind word.”
   Frank Dwyer
   Toronto

   Posted by  on  09/18  at  04:00 PM

4. Hi Robert et al;

   I learned of the four new casualties immediately after writing the above comment. Thirty-six Canadian soldiers have now died serving in Afghanistan since 2002. I don’t know how the CBC calculates its claim; presumably using a crude ratio of total casualties to total members serving in theatre. I’m not sure such a ratio tells us very much, except to remind us that the defence of freedom for others often comes at great personal cost.

   I think Canada’s role as a fair arbiter is more likely to be weakened by inaction and indifference than by its involvement in difficult conflicts. I don’t believe that we can simply stand by, like subway passengers idly watching someone being beaten on the adjacent platform.

   Are Canadians doing good in Afghanistan? Does that good exceed the cost to Canadian lives? These are difficult questions, but their difficulty does not mean we should not ask them. And sometimes, no matter what we decide, it will involve cost and loss, one way or the other. I wrote here last week that sometimes it doesn’t matter whether you are holding a dove or a grenade, because carelessness with either can make you a killer. We also risk culpability by doing too little.

   I do know that the Afghanistan government has asked that Canadians continue to maintain a military presence there. I do know that there have been small but measurable improvements in the prospects for women. I would like to see a much larger country-building effort follow the military one. And in the long term, I’d like to be able to click through this online forum every morning over to ‘Reading Kandahar’. Any takers?

   (One of the many reasons I love Reading Toronto is because it’s possible to discuss even very difficult subjects here in fully cordial ways.)

   Posted by  on  09/18  at  05:20 PM
6. Pace Frank Dyer, peace does not come at the cost of subjugation, but it does not come without a personal cost. Ignoring the Taliban will not make them go away. Nor will it remove the threat they pose to the freedom of women in Afghanistan, or the challenge they pose to our own values. It seems to me fatuous, and not a little offensive, to deny the extraordinary price soldiers pay to keep us free and safe, or the price we will have to pay if we ever hope to replace military violence with a peaceful accommodation of our differences.
   
   Posted by John Spragge  on  {comment_date format=’%m/%d’}  at  {comment_date format=’%h:%i %A’}
Posted by John Spragge  on  09/19  at  08:12 PM

<< Back to main