Canadian Military in Kandahar

The Canadian Military has served in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  They have lost lives. They have kept the peace. They have served the Afghan people and fought the Taliban and terrorists. They have been wounded. They've lived in daily fear.  They have had many equipment failures and many unreasonable demands.

 It seems that little has been said about their noble self sacrifice and international service by the Canadian media. Maybe I'm listening to the wrong reports.  I ride to and from work listening to the National Radio, CBC, that I pay taxes for and wonder.

Instead of praise and thanks and reports on the incredibly hard work in war, we have heard ad infinitum that Canadian soldiers have transferred prisoners to the Afghan authorities.  Canadians are part of an international group and their actions have been the same as the British and Dutch. The Afghans are themselves in a major civil wars.  Canadian soldiers have not been torturing Afghans though to listen to the Canadian media they are guilty by association. Afghans have  been torturing Afghans.  They have indeed been trying to hide this. There have been all manner of measures taken to reduce the likelihood of prisoners being tortured who were transfered to the Afghans by Canadians.  Canadians are guests in this country to some extent.

The Taliban do torture prisoners. I 've not heard anything about the torture of prisoners by the Taliban on CBC radio.  The Taliban tortured western journalists.  The Taliban tortured Taliban.  The Taliban from all accounts make Americans and George Bush look like Saints.  Stephen Harper compared to Taliban leaders is God Incarnate.

Canada, in general, is a pretty nice place compared to war torn Afghanistan.  Afghanistan is poor and tribal and has a brutal history stoked with poppy seed going back hundreds of years.  In contrast to Canada no prisoners in Afghanistan have colour tv, conjugal visits, free legal advice, three square meals, clean bedding, exercise facilities, libraries, computers, health care and the capacity to get a university law degree while serving time. 

We have just learned that three retired judges got 12 million dollars for writing a report that said that Canadian soldiers were good guys.  In future could somebody given 12 million dollars to the military to ensure less Canadian get killed and more get to retire in Canada.  I am further looking forward to the Canadian military return to Canada so that perhaps they can talk to the Canadian media which continues to make Canadians out to be the bad guys. 

Actually I would suggest that in the final months that Canadians serve in Afghanistan, any Taliban that are caught be sent directly to the CBC so that they can take these lovely, poor, misunderstood people into their homes to live with their children in their communities. I wonder how long, or how many hours, a CBC journalist will last without thinking about torture when having a suicide bomber who has had no education but propanganda saying kill westerners, living in their home.  I don't condone torture. Neither does the Canadian military.

Could the CBC and other Canadian media stop psychologically torturing me and other Canadians and simply thank the Canadian military for their amazing service in such difficult times.