I know that since we are very close to New Year's Eve you want lots of cheerful messages from this broadcast. You will have some. But not before I talk to you about a story that broke on the weekend that deserves to get more attention and simply hasn't because much of the media is in holiday mode. The "B" teams are on the field, and the expectation is that far fewer people are paying attention.
I am asking you to pay attention to the story of 14 children in Afghanistan. Fourteen children aged between eight and ten. I am talking about fourteen kids who were about to attend their final day of class and find out whether they would be advanced to the next grade. I am talking about kids in Grades 3 and 4 and 5. Is there a human being listening to the sound of my voice who has any reason why these fourteen children should not be allowed to get their schooling and get their chance at tasting the fruit that comes from the tree of knowledge, at tasting what life can be like for the curious, the thoughtful, the hardworking? Is there a human being listening to this right now who thinks these children are not worthy of having a life in which they grow up and get married and have children who have a chance to walk to their neighborhood school and have the life cycle play out as it does in this country every day, this blessed country called Canada? Well as you know, Afghanistan is not Canada, even though more than one hundred of Canada's finest children have paid a heavy price to allow their children to have lives so that what happened on Sunday December 28th, never happens again. Here's the way Associated Press reports what happened on Sunday December 28th, 2008 in the Eastern Afghan province of Khost.
"A single-file line of school children walked past a military checkpoint Sunday as a bomb-loaded truck veered toward them and exploded, ending the lives of 14 young Afghans in a heartbreaking flash captured by a military security camera.
The video shows an SUV slowly weaving through sandbag barriers at a military checkpoint just as a line of school children, most wearing white caps, comes into view. They walk along a pathway between the street and a wall, several of them pausing for a few seconds in a group before moving forward again. The vehicle moves toward the security camera while the children walk in the opposite direction, nearly passing the SUV when the footage ends in a fiery blast.
Photos of the bombing's aftermath showed bloodied text books lying on the ground beside small pairs of shoes.
A doctor at a hospital near the blast, said the children were aged 8 to 10.
U.S. Gen. David McKiernan, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, said he believes the militant network run by warlord Siraj Haqqani was responsible for the attack.
‘The brutality and disregard for human life by terrorists is sickening, as I continue to witness innocent men, women and children being killed and maimed in the pursuit of this pointless insurgency,’ McKiernan said in a statement.
The blast in Khost province came only hours after a late-night rocket attack in Kabul on Saturday killed three teenage sisters. McNorton said that attack ‘also reminds us of the true impact this conflict has on those who play no part in it.’
Violence has spiked across Afghanistan the last two years, and the U.S. plans to send between 20,000 and 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next six months to reinforce the 32,000 U.S. forces already in the country.
More than 6,100 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count of figures from Western and Afghan officials.
The year has also been the deadliest for NATO soldiers since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.
In the south, a roadside bomb killed two Canadian soldiers and two Afghans working alongside them in a dangerous region of southern Afghanistan, Canada's military said Sunday.
In addition to those killed in Saturday's roadside bomb attack, four Canadian soldiers and one Afghan interpreter were wounded, the military said.
The two Afghans killed in the blast in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar province included an interpreter and a police officer.
NATO officials have said that Canadian troops have suffered more deaths per capita than any other foreign military in the country. More than 100 Canadians have been killed."
Ladies and Gentlemen just a few things before we move on.
1) The video of the blast is on our blog beside some of the words that I am offering you today.
2) Canadian troops, it is being acknowledged all over the world, are suffering more deaths per capita than other foreign military in Afghanistan. Those who know Canada's proud history of helping those who cannot help themselves know that we own this statistic. We did more than our fair share in World Wars I and 2, in Korea and many other missions.
We aren't just known around the world for how fiercely we play hockey. We are equally fierce in our protection of the children of the world. I know that some people who listen to this program enjoy emailing me and calling me names - Right Wing, Far Right wing and terms I won't repeat on the air. What aggravates them more than anything it seems, is my unflinching, unwavering support for our Canadians in Uniform who don't need me to tell them about what went on in Afghanistan over the weekend, who don't me to tell them about 14 children who just wanted to go to school to find out whether or not they were advancing in life, when their lives were stolen by the forces of darkness who don't believe in advancement, who don't believe in progress, who don't believe in human rights, who don't just believe its ok to murder their own children, but its ok to celebrate it. They believe that dancing to celebrate life is a vice, but that dancing to celebrate death is a virtue.
This repulsive ideology which imprisons millions, is what our Canadian Military fights against. And we win most of those fights. They may not get publicized by a media that is coffin centric. If one of our boys comes home in a box, there will be publicity. If our boys rescue children who are being boxed in by medieval evil, that's generally not considered worthy of the iris of the media lens. Thousands and thousands of children are advancing in Afghanistan and will have a better shot because of what we do there. I make no apologies for supporting them. For me it's not just national, not just about my citizenship. It's personal. Not one member of my family would be alive today if it weren't for the contributions made by Canadian men in uniform in World War II. Not one.
And whether or not you embrace or oppose what I have to say here, you can fairly conclude that I would not be alive today and I would not be the luckiest man in Canada with access to such a coveted national microphone, if it were not for what our Canadian troops did six decades ago, helping to liberate the countries of Europe where members of my family and many millions of others were marked for death. They were no different than those children who weren't asking for much by Canadian standards. It's not like these kids needed to have the latest X-Box games in order to be content. It's not like they needed to have all the material possessions that Canada's children found under the tree just a few days ago. Those fourteen little kids in Afghanistan, on Sunday December 28, were looking for a simple sign that their lives were moving forward, from Grade three to Grade four and from Grade four to Grade Five. What kind of rotting, ridiculous excuse for a human being would even contemplate the idea of turning those 14 precious children into particles of dust? And what particle of humanity is coursing through the veins of the political parasites in our country who try to convince our countrymen that what our troops are doing in Afghanistan doesn't really make a difference?
This is a free country, and they have the right to say it and the right to campaign on it. But I too have a right to speak my mind. I am a son of Canada. And I also happen to be one grandson of a great old gal by the name of Elizabeth who told me back in the days when she was able to speak to me over tea, that if I ever encountered a Canadian soldier active or retired that I should thank them for her life. Thank you Soldier. On behalf of Grandma Elizabeth and all the other fine men and women who are as grateful as she is, I want to say in the remaining hours of 2008, that no Canadian in uniform died in vain this year or any year. Not one drop of Canadian blood has been shed on those distant battlefields in vain. Every one of those missions had a purpose. It was always centered on defending the defenseless, containing the callous, and restraining the ruthless. God bless our sons and daughters who serve in the Canadian Military. May 2009 give them much success in their noble and worthy mission. May they do as much as is humanly possible to give the children of Afghanistan a chance to advance.
I'm Charles Adler
Click
here to watch the video of the blast that killed 14 Afghan children.
