Time to change to a different game
The Canadian effort began, in a muddled fashion, just over seven years back when three warships set sail for Afghanistan. No matter that the country is landlocked, because in the beginning the whole thing was to be a show of solidarity. When you break a mirror, the bad luck is supposed to end after the ordained period. Our involvement in a so-called foreign war should do the same.
Step two on the timeline was our first round of casualties, back in 2002. Canadians are more than polite; we took the news that the four soldiers died after an allied plane dropped bombs on their position as the result of the famous “fog of war” and other such rubbish. Our soldiers did what the government required; they soldiered on.
For seven years now, we’ve received the bulletins in the doublespeak of the war office, learning that two, or three, or four more soldiers were “killed in a roadside blast”. Over and over again. The same scenario, like a game caught in some fiendish loop, waiting for the player to master the Up Down A A B sequence needed to move on to the next level. Except. The count reached 117 last weekend, and the game isn’t any closer to that promised “next level”.
When my kids play a war game, and they “get shot”, they spawn and start over within seconds. In Afghanistan, just like any other real war, the start over doesn’t exist. We’ve been playing the same chapter, for seven long years. More than a World War, which is where the illusion that our side always wins seems to have been written down for future generations.
This weekend, it could have been one of the kids that has hung out here with a case of beer and a rented game. My sons have a friend “over there”, and one of his cohort (a young woman from the Gaspé coast) was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Another IED by the side of the road. The game is more personal than before, but just as unpleasant as ever.
Meanwhile, our government continues to feed the story that we’re there to help improve human rights and access to democracy and education. Pity the same good story isn’t playing for our friends in Saudi Arabia, where women are just as oppressed, albeit with a bit more pocket cash. Seems that oil can distract the policymakers, even as Canadian soldiers continue to die for reasons that are less and less valid.
