Problem with the little ribbons

“Support your troops! Go out and buy yellow ribbons and stick them all over your bumper to really piss off the spineless, anti-war, immigrant liberal terrorists who take all our freedoms for granted.”

That's right, the same brand of oppressive flag-waving patriotic ignorance that has plagued America since their self-inflicted wound five years ago is starting to poison Canadian society.

According to recent polls, most people in Canada are still opposed to the war in Afghanistan. The problem is that our corporate-controlled media has intensified the spewing of our neo-conservative government's propaganda, which is intended to confuse us back into supporting the war.

Everyday there is another grieving mother who, between sobs, re-affirms the “support your troops” line. She goes on proudly telling us that her son died defending Canada and our freedoms, while fighting to liberate an oppressed people. This is a very simplistic perception. However, you can't blame these mothers for buying into this fabricated fairy-tale, because no grieving parent would like to believe the opposite. The sad reality is that the opposite is the truth.

The first issue that needs to be addressed is the claim that “Canadian soldiers are defending us.” In order for this to be true, Canada would have to have been invaded by Afghanistan. We have not even been threatened, let alone attacked in any way. If Canadian soldiers were trying to defend our freedoms they are certainly in the wrong place. The greatest threat to our freedoms is Bush's mini-me in Ottawa. Harper is his name and boosting military spending while cutting social services is his game.

The war in Afghanistan has already cost us in excess of 4.1 billion dollars, which adds up to over 135 dollars per Canadian citizen. Don't you feel ripped off? Of that 4.1 billion, only 460 million dollars has gone into humanitarian aid and reconstruction. That's 12 percent; the other 88 per cent has been spent on bullets and bombs.

So what do we have to show for the 4.1 billion dollars and nearly 40 Canadian lives we've lost? Not a damned thing. The government currently running Afghanistan is largely made up of drug-running warlords who are just as notorious for human-rights abuses as the Taliban. The new Afghan government's military and police forces have been implicated in widespread rape of women and children, murder, kidnappings, forced marriage, forced displacement, and human trafficking.

The entire Afghan economy is now dependant on opium and heroin trade, while the majority of heroin on North American streets now comes from Afghanistan. The Taliban is still operating; their ranks are swelling, and they are starting to symbolize the Afghan resistance to the occupation.

But facts don't matter. Only yellow ribbons and simplistic notions such as freedom and patriotism matter. It doesn't matter that Canada has no moral justification whatsoever to be at war in Afghanistan. It doesn't matter that Canadian troops are knowingly transferring “combatants” to Afghan custody to be brutally tortured. It doesn't even matter that Canada has helped install and protect a repressive puppet government so that Canadian energy companies can make billions of dollars building the Trans-Afghan pipeline. The only thing that matters is that you support your troops…by keeping them in the line of fire on the other side of the world for no good reason.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.