About this soldier thing...

This is the other side of the argument that nobody wants to hear. So I'm gonna say it.

Upon the death of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, our government decided it was a good time to announce they would not be lowering flags to honour them, reverting to the older tradition of honouring soldiers collectively on rememberance day. This is actually the preference of many veterans, but the timing was so inapproriate. They should have just lowered them for these soldiers and announced that in the future they wouldn't be doing it any more.

If that didn't give the media a reason to lose their shit, the government then decided to ban the press from showing the caskets return. Everyone is going ape shit because, as one man who lost a son in war said, "they're taking away our ability to grieve." I feel for those families, deeply. I can't imagine what a slap in the face this must be.

But as for the rest of us, are we grieving when we see these images? No. The real issue is that we're terrified of opacity because we don't trust our government. Most Canadians aren't experts on politics, foreign affairs, the military, etc. But when a soldier dies, all of us just "know" that it was in vain.

Canadians forget that these soldiers volunteered to go, knew that there was a risk, and believed in what they were doing. Let's be honest, we don't want to greive the soldiers. We want to say that they died in vain, that the mission should be aborted and that the soldiers were duped. But that's not true. They knew what they were doing. The families are always devastated but often proud, because they believe in what their loved one stood for, and died for. If we can't do the same, then we have no business at their funeral.

Having said that, if I lost a loved one, I would find comfort in knowing the entire nation was honouring him and his sacrifice. I would want the press there if it was to celebrate my loved one. But if it was to question his sacrifice and to trivialize his death, I'd say fuck off.

As for losing transparancy, it doesn't really bother me. I may be naiive but I trust the government, and I'm glad Canada is participating in important foreign affairs. I'm not an expert on the military, and neither are you. That's why we elect people to make these decisions, and we shouldn't criticize them and flip out every step of the way.

It's a bold move from the Conservatives. I completely understand why a lot of people find this scary, even fascist. I was shocked at first, but then I realized it's not information being blocked, just the imagery. As a very wise person pointed out to me, this is simply the media exploiting the deaths of people who truly believed in their mission. As long as true, accurate information is still getting through to us, we should relax. When Harper starts actually hiding things from us, then we can freak out.