With Canadian troops fighting doing reconstruction work in Afghanistan, every once in awhile something happens to show that the theatre of war is not free from the political correctness that has infested society in recent years. Such an incident occurred last Sunday outside of Kandahar.
A vehicle was approaching a Canadian military convoy at a high rate of speed and the driver, for reasons only known to him, refused to stop or change direction. After hand signals and sirens refused to stop the car, a gunner fired one round at the vehicle. As is often the case in these life and death situations, the driver wound up relatively unscathed. But two children in the car; a 4-year-old girl and her 2-year-old brother were killed. The incident called out for comment at the highest level and Minister of Defence, Peter MacKay, spoke to the media.
Although media headlines appeared to the effect that MacKay defended the troops it sure didn’t sound that way. He described the decision that the gunner made to fire his weapon as a horrible circumstance in which a “horrible decision had to be taken”. A horrible decision? It wasn’t a horrible decision any more than it was a just peachy keen decision. Faced by a situation that could have literally been a matter of life and death, the gunner was forced to make a potentially life and death decision. Unlike the Minister the soldier didn’t have the luxury of sending that decision off to a committee for further study. The decision that he did make was either right or wrong. From the information that is now available, the soldier made the right decision despite the tragic consequences to two innocent children. If MacKay were defending his troops he would have said that. By characterizing what the gunner did as “horrible”, he was implying that the soldier did something wrong. After all, we don’t strive for horribleness, even in Canada.
More troubling was a report in the Canadian Press that quoted the Defence Minister as saying that soldiers are “human”. Of course we all know that they are. So are politicians and there’s even a rumour floating around, although unconfirmed at this time, that Stephen Harper is human. Announcing to the country that soldiers are human was just another way of saying that the soldier made a mistake by firing on the car. This is hardly the way to defend the troops.
Assuming that Peter MacKay really does support the men and women in Canada’s military, then why did he choose to characterize what transpired in Kandahar Province last weekend as horrible and throw in the fact that gee, soldiers are human and make mistakes? He was of course bowing to the gods of political correctness by making a neutral statement in order not to offend those Canadians who are against the war and may even be rooting for the other side. What he should have said is that based on the information that we have now the soldiers in the convoy acted properly. The end.
Political correctness also dictates that the poor Afghani driver of the car that refused to stop when ordered to not be blamed for his action. Placing the blame upon the driver for not stopping the car would be imposing a standard of individual responsibility that disappeared with ten cent coffee. Only the actions of the government, in this case the military seem to matter. There will be investigation upon investigation of this matter and the actions of the driver of the vehicle will be unimportant compared to the actions of the military. If the military is forced to play defence like MacKay did in his statements to the media we might as well just listen to Jack and bring the troops home. It is unfortunate that two small innocent children lost their lives; but assuming the facts are as they were reported, the troops should be praised for making the decision that they made.
“Support our troops” – it’s not just a bumper sticker.
