Canadians in Afghanistan Died in Vain

Canadians soldiers in Afghanistan died in vain. So says Colin Kenny, former Chair of Canada's Senate Committee on National Security and Defense.

When 157 Canadian soldiers have died fighting for what was advertised as a just and important cause, one is reluctant to say that the war didn't make sense. I, like others, hesitated in saying that at the outset, waiting patiently for an explanation from two prime ministers -Martin and Stephen Harper -as to why it did.

That explanation never came. It was never attempted, because it would have been picked apart by anyone with the least bit of strategic insight, and it might even have been picked apart by the Canadian electorate.

Most extraordinarily, these statements appear in the National Post, the NeoCon warmongering paper that has never questioned any war for Israel, oil or global empire.

Well, if Senator Kenny lacked the guts to say what he believed to be the truth about the war before 157 Canadian soldiers died in Kandahar and countless others suffered life-long physical and mental injury, at least he has the honesty to acknowledge his error now. Or is it the moral cowardice that prevented Senator Kenny expressing his doubts about the strategic logic of the war at the time Canada entered into it that now compels him to join the critics? Who, after all, wants to engage in the humiliating task of justifying a war that's been lost?

As for those of us who criticized the war from the outset, there is little satisfaction in seeing proof of the moral cowardice that lay at the root of this criminal war of aggression. For it has been evident throughout that it was only because members of the ruling elite lacked the moral courage to refute the lies that justified the war, for example, Stephen Harper's absurd claim that "they attacked us on 9/11," that such a war could have been launched in the first place or sustained for so long.

Well we'll take what satisfaction we can from this evidence of the moral cowardice of the ruling elite by drawing attention to some of the things we said during the conflict.

March 2 2006: Hey Folks: We're Just There as Good Ol' Canadian Peace Keepers

November 10, 2006: They should airmail tanks to Afghanistan

October 23, 2007: Making up the ranks of Canada's infantry

October 23, 2007:Canada's Afghanistan aid