Most of the rage regarding the deaths of the Canadian soldiers who were attacked by a US F-16 in Afghanistan has been directed at the US government and George W. Bush. Most people concern themselves with the fact that Canadians probably shouldn’t even be there.
Bush’s conduct seems to have displayed where Canada lies on his agenda. He made no specific comment at all right after the event until this afternoon, and even then without showing sincere remorse. The fact of the matter is that in his government Canada is an also-ran that can be taken for granted..
The bitter pill for Canadians to swallow is that this is probably the truth.
When the anger dies down, maybe our gaze will turn North of the border. Can someone please explain to me the logic of conducting a live-fire exercise, in the dark of night, in the middle of a war zone? If Canadian soldiers still need training to brush up on their tactics when they’re actually stationed in the battle theatre, will they ever be ready?
Who’s the buffoon who ordered the exercise and didn’t ask the US to create a No-Fly zone around the area of the exercise, or to alert the AWACS controllers that all those tracer rounds are likely to be from Canadians shooting at practice dummies?
If Art Eggleton (Canada’s Defense Minister, formerly humiliated as Canada’s Justice Minister and other cabinet positions) has any balls at all he we cop to the Canadian military’s general lack of readiness for anything short of target practice (as the targets) and to the inexperience and arrogance of its commanders.
Sad as it is to say, Friendly Fire incidents are just as often the fault of the victims, most specifically their commanders, as they are the fault of the attackers.
All in all it’s probably safe to say that the operation in Afghanistan is likely to have been more effective at injuring Canadians than it has Al Queda.
-Ian.