Canadian Values

In the print version of the Friday Globe & Mail (free copy - I refuse to pay for a newspaper that employs Margarent Wente or Jeffrey Simpson) I noticed a report on poll results for Canadians' opinions about Afghanistan.

The majority of the respondents doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of prisoner abuse allegations.

More interesting (and depressing) for me was the reporting that 4/10 Canadians support CF personell being allowed to beat prisoners.

Forty percent.

It's my confirmed belief (once again) that 30 percent of any given population are too stupid and disgusting to be bothered with. That other ten percent are probably likely to respond well to education (like the former bush II supporters who have drifted away in response to that loathsome freak's serial fuck-ups everywhere).

But just what sort of "Canadian Values" do these half-wits imagine they're upholding when they give their approval of the beating of prisoners?

Remember this: Our own governments (and numerous international human rights organizations) have said that the primary cause of the Taliban's resurgence in the area under Canada's responsibility in Afghanistan has been the corruption and brutality of our puppet government in Kabul.

These poor peasant farmers would like nothing better than to live in peace, but the depredations of Karzai's police force has pushed them into the arms of the local resistance, which, because this is AFGHANISTAN and NOT CANADA, is the Taliban (a creation - anyway- of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States).

To defend themselves against a corrupt regime, they take up arms and Canadian soldiers are sent in to teach them the error of their ways.

And if in the stress of combat, our forces lash out against helpless prisoners, ... well, big fucking deal apparently.

And if it's our standard operating procedure to turn over our prisoners (often farmers pushed to armed resistance by a brutal, thieving government) over to that same brutal, thieving government, where they will quite likely be tortured, perhaps murdered, ... well, big fucking hairy deal II , I suppose.