I don't agree as Canadians that we should be fighting in Afghanistan.
We're a peaceful Nation who are suppose to promote peace around the Globe.
Since a very good friend of mine husband's will be in that part of the world on Christmas day?
I decided to blog that sad little story -
A Special Thought for the Christmas Season!
T' WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE,
MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY,
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO,
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY THE MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES,
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT,
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR,
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED,
A CANADIAN SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO,
OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?,
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES,
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE
SOLDIERS, WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE,
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM,
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN'T HELP WONDER,
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE,
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT BROUGHT,
A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES,
AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED,
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA, DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE.
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL,
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED,
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.
I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE,
ON THAT COLD, DARK NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOUR,
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE, SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT,
"MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."
This poem was written by a peace keeping soldier stationed overseas.
The following is his request. I think it is reasonable.
"PLEASE. Would you do me the kind favour of sending this to as many people as you can?"
Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our Canadian Service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.
Please, do your small part to plant this small seed.
11 comments:
You say we shoulnd't be in Afghanistan, then have a poem about soldiers fighting for freedom, which is it?
Charles, your freedom to post your views on anything and everything depends on the men and women who are over there fighting to keep Canada peaceful and secure.
You don't think so?
Think about the two dozen CANADIANS killed on 9/11 by terrorists who trained in Afghanistan.
Their freedom to exist peacefully was violently taken away from them.
Afghanistan was a failed state and now were helping put it back together after decades of civil war and strife. We're helping little girls go to school for the first time.
We're helping amputees, a veteran this week donated 500 wheelchairs to Afghan people on behalf of Canada.
We're building schools, wells, roads, hospitals, police stations, the infrastructure of society.
And we're killing those who would prefer to leave Afghanistan mirred in fear and hate. Those who would destroy the Afghan society in the name of a violent vision of Islam.
You pride yourself on thinking differently than the so-called mainstream media, but you fall into the same traps as they do. You can't see the big picture.
Do you think the soldiers going over there are stupid? They're all volunteers. They know the risks they face. Yet they go over. Ever wonder why they can believe in what were doing over there and be willing to die for it, but you and others can't and won't support helping Afghanistan.
Anonymous said "You say we shoulnd't be in Afghanistan, then have a poem about soldiers fighting for freedom, which is it?"
If you can't tell the difference between believing we shouldn't be there and caring about the men and women who are forced to be there, I feel sorry for you.
I support and respect the Peacekeepers 100%. The idea of selling Canadians a "reconstruction" mission and instead sending our men and women into heavy combat situation, on the other hand, makes me sick.
I am charles's good friend, and also the wife of a soldier who is being deployed to Afghanistan in February. My husband volunteered to go, and thank goodness we have people in this counrty that are willing to go. The soliders going over volunteeres, it is their job. That is what being a member of the Military is about, our soldiers need the support and we will give them the support.
Canadian soldiers are doing fine work over there, helping re-build a country that desparetly needs it, and at the same time giving hope to the women and children there for a better life. The Taliban needs OUT and Canadians are seeing this happens.
Wear red on Friday's, support OUR troops, and be very thankful you live in Canada, and never, never take it for granted.
It's no surprise that the conversation is all about what canadians think Afghanistan should look like. No surprise either that in every poll Afghani's want Canada and other countries out.
But imperialism is all about the idea of selling empire. The argument has always been how backward other people are, and that it requires we kill tens of thousands of them, and kill any more that want us out.
To repeat the facts, the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact most research shows the US has more complicity in it than Afghanistan. If a canadian shot up some americans in a mall does that mean that the US is allowed to invade Canada? Of course not, the Taliban told the US to give them proof that Bin Laden was behind the bombing and then they would proceed to trial.
Rebuilding of course means that Canada, like NATO, is responsible for the destruction in the first place, which is true. However, we are not rebuilding, that is easy enough to do with money and non government organizations like Oxfam and engineers without borders-you don't need military. That's far from the case. Like in Haiti we are an imperial power, and like any occupied people there are thousands of them who want us out.
Many people can look at the rampant poverty, prostitution, massive wealth of a small minority, and drug addiction in Canada, does that make Canada a failed state? Does that mean its right for some other country, say Thailand or Brazil to say "you're a failed state so for your sake we need to bomb the hell out of you and occupy your country". Of course not. First of all, you don't do like the states and put the Taliban in power in the first place. Second, if it were even true, then why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia or the Philippines where human rights are even worse than they were in Afghanistan?
I have direct family there as well, and they certainly weren't volunteers. In the military you do what you are told. In Afghanistan in the spring they put millions into building wells, all so they could get fresh water. Yet this fresh water wasn't for Afghanis, it was for the military to sell to the french and other militaries. If some are volunteers (and you'd need a transfer for that unless you're an officer in which case you are volunteering your men) then that's even worse because they are taking part in oppression by choice. There are already canadian air force pilots who can't go to places in europe or they'll be arrested for more crimes, supporting the military in this does them no favours.
If the military said "shoot that woman" to a soldier, they'd have to obey. Think that's good? Think we should be standing up and supporting that soldier and saying how wonderful it is? Telling people to 'support the troops' is another way of telling them to stop complaining about the war. Soldiers are the instruments of imperialism, so why support them?
Those soldiers in Afghanistan are no more looking out for your freedom than the soldiers in Haiti are. If you want to blindly support the military, that's your business, go ask the Somali's what they think of the canadian military. I wonder how many Afghan's are getting similar treatment, tied up and called names or even killed.
If you really support your military then lobby your MP to bring them home. If you feel so strongly that it is such a wonderful mission, buy a plane ticket and go over there.
If its canadian lives you are worried about, it makes more sense to have the canadian military at worksites around the country, since more canadians die in preventable industrial accidents every week than died in the WTC.
Who ever you are.....you are sorely making assumptions about what I wrote. Think what you will...
"A new study says that five Canadians die every day on the job. That is 1100 workers every year killed on the job.That does not include the number injured on the job or who suffer the health affects from workplace dangers."
AFGHANISTAN-THE BLOODIEST FIELD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
"Five years ago, America and their allies attacked Afghanistan in the name of bringing "Human Rights", "Democracy", and "Freedom" to our war-torn country. The Taliban regime fell and Hamid Karzai's puppet regime, which included the well-known Northern Alliance criminals or as UN envoy Mahmoud Mestri said, "the bandit gangs", took over in the name of a fake democracy. However, today, the deceitful policies of Mr. Karzai and his Western guardians have brought Afghanistan to a very critical situation where disaster is a ticking time bomb that can explode any minute. Treason and mockery have efficiently been used in the name of "democracy" and "freedom" in the past five years. The human rights situation in Afghanistan is a product of the painful deception of the warlord led government.
Northern Alliance criminals, backed by the US have their own local and barbaric governments. Just the increasing number of women who commit suicide by burning themselves is the best example of a human rights violation in Afghanistan. According to UNICEF, 65% of 50000 widows in Kabul think that committing suicide is the only option they have. Northern Alliance crooks raped an 11 year old girl, Sanuber, and traded her for a dog. In Badakhshan, a young woman was gang-raped by 13 Jehadis in front of her children, and one of the rapists urinated in the mouth of her children who were continuously crying. In Paghman, a suburb of Kabul, a criminal leader Rasol Sayyaf, who was the mentor and godfather of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, plunders our peoples' territory and tortures his opposition in his private prison. Despite many protest rallies by the unfortunate people of Paghman in front of the Parliament House, no one hears their painful voice. Instead the so-called police forces headed by infamous criminal warlords like Zahir Aghbar and Amanullah Guzar, attacked the protesters and killed 2 of them. These are all just some examples of thousands of crimes that are being carried out by the fundamentalists of the Northern Alliance. These evil men have high positions in the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the US-imposed government with some unprincipled intellectuals dancing to their tune."
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.
cfm?SectionID=49&ItemID=11619
Our "peacekeeping" is a joke: We now have just 59 military personnel devoted to UN missions. Canada, which virtually invented peacekeeping, once ranked among the top 10 contributors to UN missions in terms of military personnel. We are now 50th.
Equally important, however, is the actual nature of this farcical "humanitarian" effort. So few investigative journalists know the facts or will tell them, it is not surprising people are bamboozled by the warmongers. But one who does have the jam to tell the story is columnist Eric Margolis. He is worth quoting:
"Afghanistan's complexity and lethal tribal politics have been marketed to the public by government and media as a selfless crusade to defeat the `terrorist' Taliban, implant democracy, and liberate Afghan women. Afghanistan is part of the `world-wide struggle against terrorism,' we are told.
"None of this is true. In 1989, at the end of the Soviet occupation, Afghanistan fell into anarchy and civil war. An epidemic of banditry and rape ensued. A village prayer leader, Mullah Omar, who lost an eye in the anti-Soviet jihad, armed a group of `talibs' (religious students), and set about defending women from rape. Aided by Pakistan, Taliban stopped the epidemic of rape and drug dealing that had engulfed Afghanistan, and imposed order based on harsh tribal and Sharia religious law."
The Taliban stopped the production of opium and heroin -- except in the area controlled by the Northern Alliance: the thugs, drug pushers and rapists who are now Canada's "allies." The Taliban were hardly humanitarian and imposed an extremely harsh Sharia regime on the country. But with them gone, the epidemic of rape has returned and our "allies" are responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the world's heroin.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/05
/19/OutOfAfghanistan/
"The jostling for contracts for military transport aircraft for use in expanding missions such as in Afghanistan offers a case study of Canada’s very own military-industrial complex. The Lockheed Martin and Boeing companies are competing for Ottawa’s favour on these contracts. Patrick O’Donnell is a principal at CFN Consultants, the lobbyists for Lockheed Martin. Formerly a general in the Canadian military, O’Donnell was the superior officer of Canada’s new Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier. Gordon O’Connor, Canada’s new defence minister, is also a former general. After retiring from the military, O’Connor worked for Hill & Knowlton, lobbyists for the Airbus Military company, which is also seeking to sell military transport aircraft to Canada.
Some people buy the government’s argument that Canada’s efforts are helping to bring democracy to Afghanistan. But is there reason to believe that the people who engineered the David Emerson affair are any more interested in bringing democracy to Afghanistan than they are in practising it here in Canada? Furthermore, in our excitement about the advent of formal democracy there, we should not forget that a substantial number of the members of the country’s parliament who were elected in the widely praised 2005 Afghan election are warlords."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=20060428&
articleId=2342
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