Sunday, May 13, 2012

Exploiting the ultimate sacrifice

Trevor Greene now believes he understands what it means to make the ultimate sacrifice to allow loved ones back home to live in a democracy.

His insights on the matter have come at a considerable cost. Greene, a former Captain in the Canadian Forces, was grievously injured while serving in Afghanistan in 2006. His reflections about what he almost died for appear in today's Toronto Star.

It is one of two stories about our heroes making the ultimate sacrifice that appear in the Star this Mother's Day. The other is a front page feature about Trooper Marc Diab, poet and musician, who died in Afghanistan in 2009. His story has been made into a documentary, If I should fall.

The Star reminds us several times that our fallen are making the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedom. These stories fall into a grand narrative in which every scared kid who steps on an IED is instantly a hero, we are unquestionably the "good guys", the people we are liberating from themselves are "the evildoers" and so on.

In every case our fallen are in Afghanistan to preserve our freedom and our democracy.

In truth, the Afghan people are the worse for our meddling, our soldiers have died and been maimed for nothing, and the entire exercise has cost billions while undermining the very freedom and democracy we are supposedly defending.

Responsible media should tell the truth instead of spreading propaganda.

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