Support Our Troops

If I see one more “support our troops” bumper sticker, lawn sign, or button I am going to scream! I have never been comfortable with them, to be fair I spent too much of the 80s and 90s as a peacenik protester to ever feel good about “supporting our troops”, but I was at first at least a little conflicted. Weren’t we in Afghanistan doing some good? Driving out the Taliban? After doing some reading and some thinking I have decided no. We aren’t doing good, we are making things worse and I am sick of the freaking sentiment.

I recommend a book I just finished called “To Afghanistan and Back” by Ted Rall first published in 2002 and recently again in an updated edition. Mr. Rall’s book makes for exciting first hand reading, ire raising political commentary, and serves as quite an eye opener. Certainly it was written in the early days of the war in Afghanistan, and things may have changed, but the basic facts and background still hold. The U.S. going there wasn’t really about 9/11 and as far as I can tell, Canada is just there to help the U.S. out. His book lists several others for further reading.

Ted Rall

So, support our troops? Sure, I support paying them a living wage (everyone deserves a living wage.) I feel for the families of the enlisted women and men who are putting their lives on the line for a wrongheaded, dangerous, and fated to fail mission. But mostly, I support bringing them home.

The links below touch on the same subject, and are far more eloquent and informed than anything I can rant here. Don’t be taken in by Harper’s pro-war line and don’t let anyone try to tell you that you are being unpatriotic, or unCanadian by not going along with the line being doled out by the Department of Defense or the Government.

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/05/19/OutOfAfghanistan/

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis20.html

http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/Afghanistan.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060303.wcomment0303/BNStory