News this week reveals the violent deaths of four young Afghan women separated by half the world, three in Canada allegedly at the hands of their parents and one mortally wounded by the gun of a careless Canadian soldier.
In the case for his defence, which will be unnecessary because he was only following procedure and will not be charged with anything, it is almost certain there was no premeditation other than he and his buddies-in-arms
volunteering to march trigger-ready into Afghanistan.
The three tragic drownings in the Kingston canal-lock may have been, according to police, an “honour-killing” in Middle-eastern tradition. There have been more than a dozen such women-hating murders in Canada, according to experts.
This is not to address the question already asked a hundred thousand times across Canada in the past 72 hours: what are we supposed to be doing in Afghanistan?
It is to recognise that the running-down of what is politically unsustainable can always be traced to events or situations which create a tipping-point.
Will it be this deathly culture-clash?
I can easily picture high-fiving going on in not just the Ignatieff war-rooms, these are good times for all ABCs.
Harper and his Cabal of Clowns have completely misread or mishandled our economy, National Security, medical-isotope supply and our international reputation as upholders of freedom and fairness.
The list is far too long to go into detail.
They have fed into the hearts(?) and minds of the greedy, xenophobic and racist in Canada. They have taken us away from traditional Canadian thinking and towards the path of fascism. At the outset there were accusations of “Hidden Agenda!” within the Conservative government and as these dismal years roll by, I’m more inclined to believe in their substance.
We were also surveyed this week to reveal that a majority of Canadians would like to see a majority government after our next election.
This preference also smiles on the Grits.
Obviously, it would be a waste of time assessing Harper’s chances without considering our folly in Afghanistan.
Canada’s armchair-warriors, who have no more idea of why our troops are in Afghanistan than my cat, are now outnumbered 56-44 by those who are slowly coming to the conclusion that this far-distant, undefined and expensive militarisation has been a mistake.
It seems the Harvard Hatter has to be vigilant on only one score: his own impatience. He dreams of leading with a Big Majority Hat, and Harper will deliver like gangbusters over the next two years as his incompetents stumble from one serious mistake to the next.
If Stephen Harper can turn the Conservative fortunes around during that time, I would be mightily impressed but I still wouldn’t vote for his lot.
I probably wouldn’t vote for the other one either, they equally and shamelessly warmonger while milking polls and media without ever showing a hint of integrity.
We have a long road ahead of us.
A Long Road Indeed.
I’m not sure what the “tipping point” will be…but those drownings could possibly qualify. If educated wealthy Afghans engage in this sort of thing…then why is our government telling us that building schools for the peasants is some sort of answer?
(Incidentally…just as an aside…I would argue that so-called “honour-killings” do not occur in “The Middle East”. Countries like Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon etc. have never engaged in such practices. Honour killings happen mainly in the tribal nations of South Asia – including Afghanistan, and the Indian sub-continent-just saying).
Umm… http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23162712/
Year 2008, Saudi Arabia executing a woman for witchcraft. Not one of the countries you mention, but isn’t it ME?
I take your point, it’s not an “honour-killing”, a grotesque expression RW should reframe to Misogynous Murder, but it’s an EVIL assault on a human being who had the misfortune to be born female in her “civilisation”.
Our Christian-rooted world was doing exactly the same thing until recent times, and still practices a modified version today in many catholic countries: see for instance the Magdalene Laundries.
I can’t bring myself to research if Afghanistan is above the same kind of state-sanctioned gender-based murder while we prop them up with money and candy.
As much as I deplore the Magdalene Laundries and consider them a shame on Ireland (a country to which I trace part of my ancestry), they can’t be equated with honour killings. Women in the Laundries were never killed. I believe this constant effort to always try to find cultural equivalence between “us” and “them” is irritating and, above all, dishonest.