Lest We Forget
Spotlight on William Turner
In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, Orlando Bloom played the character Will Turner, a noble man who earnestly fought for moral principles. He later befriended the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow and discovered his late father had been a pirate. Coming to grips with this revelation Jack helped Will realize that despite the fact that his father was a pirate, deep down he was a good man.
Many Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan. Today I want to remember one of these soldier, Lieutenant William Turner who was a letter carrier from Edmonton. Politics is a dirty business and there is no good war as there are always innocent casualties in war. Nevertheless, some causes are more just than others. I spoke out profoundly against the Iraq war not because I thought Saddam Hussein was a good guy. Hussein was a deviant. My opposition to the Iraq war was because of the false information about Iraq and the American involvement with Hussein prior to the war which helped create the manufactured emergency.
Occasionally when I spoke out against Bush and the invasion of Iraq, people would argue that they crashed planes into the world trade centre and killed thousands of innocent civilians. My response was, that was Afghanistan, not Iraq. Enough has already been said about the American involvement with Hussein in helping him become president and selling him chemical weapons to use on Iran. Not that I support Iran. It's just that this extremism has fueled their insane fire. Canadian MP Libby Davies pointed out the American double standard on WMD.
I do not believe in peace at any price. My grandfather was wounded in the trenches of World War I with mustered gas and lived out his days with the pains of those scars. Yet something good came from it. He met his wife who was a Canadian working as a nurse in London during the War. Nevertheless, just because some of my ancestors stood for certain principles does not mean I necessarily will nor can I claim credit for their actions or sacrifices.
My point is this, the war in Afghanistan is problematic. Doing nothing is not the answer. Peace at any price is not the answer. Canadian troops are in Afghanistan because they believe in the cause not because they want their oil. We can debate the effectiveness and the challenges of that mission until the cows come home. I am leery of political opportunism on either side of this debate.
However, to me the saying lest we forget does not mean that we throw away everything that has been fought for and adapt peace at any price. Nor does it mean we adapt the policy of fighting every fight because not all fights are right. To me, lest we forget means we honour the dead by remembering their nobility and we remember the innocent who always suffer in war. The very least we can do is remember them and vote. And please... don't piss on a soldiers grave with your bad politics. That will start a fight quicker than anything. Word.
| Trevor Greene, Canadian soldier and Vancouver journalist originally from Nova Scotia who was hit in the back of the head with an axe in Afghanistan says he would go back in a heartbeat. |
4 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan
[CUPW New Vision] [In Flanders Fields]