Just because I  believe carpenters are doing an important job, that doesn't mean I should be a carpenter.  I read his comments as trying to protect that soldier and his family --they have enough issues to deal with without the cause of his death being up for public discussion.

I suspect most people believe he probably committed suicide, which goes with the high number of  Canadian soldiers who have committed suicide after serving in Afghanistan.  But the particular cause of his death is not my business.

Suicides among Canadians who have returned from Afghanistan is something like 20 times higher (there was a report on it a couple of years ago and I can not remember what the number was exactly) than it is in the general population. Canada already has one of the highest rate in the world.

If suicides were at the same rate in among vets and soldiers than I would agree that they could claim them to be non combat deaths. But in reality would we have had so many suicides if these Canadians was not in combat, in a war we can not win.

i also find it is wrong to concela suicides for the very reasons it implies that a person who does so, shames his family. If we deshame suicides and mental illness people are more likely to get help and we will have less deaths.

While the intent is to protect the family they are in fact harming many more people.  It is wrong.

No. We mustn't bear tales. We mustn't talk about what is happening to the young people we sent. We must pretend they all died with a shout of cheer on their lips. We st not chatter about what really happens, about our responsiblity.

Do you know what this war is about? Do you know who insisted we take part? Was it  you? Why?

But, no. We mustn't discuss it.  We must think of the family. And we must keep sending our people to kill and be killed for....what .? Do  you know why we're bombing Libya? Please share your wisdom.

As for the chaplain, he is not just there serving the Lord, and preaching love they neighbour. He has said the soldiers are doing an important job. I take that as meaning that what they are doing is quite right within the framework of Christianity . I presume it must also be spiritually right in Libya.

A clergyman who is not interested in carpentry  certainly has no obligation to do it.

But this chaplain, as a Christian, has said our soldiers are doing an important job. It's important, presumably, within the meaning of Christian morality. I don't expect him to pick up a gun to kill an Afghani or to drop a bomb on a Libyan. I wouldn't expect an army cook to do that, either. But I would expect either of them to be willing (and to be trained and armed) to kill the forces of satan if necessary  And, in the case of the chaplain, I would expect him to kill joyfully in the name of the Lord.

You can't have it both ways. Either the chaplain is concerned about the wellbeing of our soldiers and therefore should tell us what is happening to them, or he is concerned about the welfare of oil companies and strategic planners.

To say he's protecting the family (at the cost of doing nothing about what is happening to thousands of his soldiers.) is a copout. I have no doubt Lutheran chaplains were saying similar things in the death camps.

However, if this war is really a Christian venture,which justifies us in killing, please explain it to me.

But no more of this Sunday school, "wouldn't this be a better world if people were just nice to each other?"

Is this thread about an army chaplain respecting the privacy of a soldier and his family or is it a chance for you to lecture (yet again) from your soap box?

It's about hypocrisy in the church. Try to follow the bouncing ball.

It's also about helping our soldiers, not simply standing on the road and waving as their coffins go by.

1. Do you agree we are doing God's work in Afghanistan? That is the only condition on which you can pat soldiers on the back and say they're doing an important job.

2.If thousands of solciers are suffering terrible mental damage, with greatly increased threat to life, itself. so you seriously suggest we should keep it quiet to protectect a grieving mother?

3. Do you seriously believe the mother doesn't already know what happened to her son?. Do you seriously believe she doesn't know the whole country knows it?

Do you ever have any information or argument to offer? Of do you always just call people names?

One can, I suppose, minister to the spiritual needs of soldiers without becoming a cheerleader for war.  That is what I find distateful about the chaplain's comment. 

Graeme said "And, in the case of the chaplain, I would expect him to kill joyfully in the name of the Lord."

This is offensive. Even in a just war, killing is not done joyfully, and neither does the Lord expect or commend that killing be done joyfully. (Even if it is the "forces of satan", which implies that this is the way Graeme views the Taliban, perhaps?).

I assume that this was just a poorly-thought-through sound bite more intended for its hyperbole than insight. It doesn't serve the argument.

I auite agree about the offensive part of the chaplain's statement. It is, however, by ignoring this ascpect of it, that Christians fail. I always remember the veteran  (French speaking) who attended a Catholic service led by a chaplain in a liberated French town. It was all about how God was on their side.

An old villager spoke to him. "Odd," he said. "That's what the German chplain said to his troops in a service here just before they retreated."

I wasn't referring to the taliban as satan. If there are satans, they wre the war mongers in our oil companies, mining companies (and our churches) who use us to inflict wars for t heir profit.

You don't think killing should be done joyfully, How can something done in the service of the Lord be unjoyful? How could you grouch about killing and now and then torturing for God? What are you, spiritbear, one of them taliban lovers? and maybe a secret terrorist sympathizer?

Maybe all chaplains should supply a copy of the Koran for every soldier to put in their pockets. After all the Taliban really do hold high regard for that book and would never destroy it. Always know your enemy.

Hopefully the Taliban won't figure us out and start carrying American Express.

I support the Chaplain for not discussing the nature of the soldiers death.  It is relevant to know that it was not combat related, but more specific information is not for him to provide.  That is not to say that suicide amongst those serving, or who have served, should not be discussed, researched, or acknowledged - it certainly should be.  Let the individual family decide if their grief should be made public.

I also think that people can support the soldiers without supporting the war.  Today, Christians don't fit into a box that defines all of them.  Some Christians of a certain 'bend' believe in just wars, killing for the right reasons, etc.  Christians of another 'bend' do not believe in killing for any reason (my particular bend).  This chaplain is of the former slant (more personal opinions withheld for a more pertinent discussion).

graeme, "How can something done in the service of the Lord be unjoyful?" - did Christ go to his death joyfully?  He was anguished by it until he gave himself up.

And the chaplain would say the roman soldiers escorting him were doing  an important job.

I can go along with the necessary war argument. So explain to me why Afghanistan is a necessary war. And, if so, why are we withdrawing before anything has been won?

le we areI agree it's not the chaplain's role to release the information in this case. It's the government's and the    army's job and the news media's job. But none of them ever shows much of an interest in talking about some things during a war. (Do you know now, almost a century later, that Canadian soldiers had a bad reputation  (among t heir allies) for beating and murdering prisoners?)

I certainly agree with sjupporting oujr troops. That is precisely why I don't support sending them to fight the wars of big business. Not in Afghanistan. Not in Libya. Not anywhere.

I have no respect for a chaplain who is a cheer leader for war.

I can have no respect for a church that can watch such a war and havie nothing to say, and no questions to demand answers to.

While we are bombing people and sending our own soldiers to die, the big debate in the religious section is whether hell is eternal. Next - are the streets of heaven covered with gold? Or just with gold plate?
 

Whil

Every war is a necessary and just war!  Just ask the ones leading it.

Every time.

And you are quite ignorant of the work of a chaplain. Of course he can't talk about the deceased soldier. It's not his story to tell. It is the family's story; it is the soldier's comrades' story.

In addition, the chaplain is governed by operational security and the chain of command. The soldier was part of our Special Forces, about which activities are confidential.

Your comment about oil companies is simply ignorant, which you then compound by invoking Godwin's law by somehow connecting wit with Lutherans and death camps.  

And by the way, a chaplain in the Canadian Forces is forbidden from picking up a weapon, even for personal defense. The only way they can touch a weapon is to make it safe. To do otherwise is, i understand, grounds for severe discipline.

And you have evidence for such a claim?

Oh, yes. You don''t even have to read military history to find it. Read the diaries of the British poet, Seigfied Sassoon. As fpr the second world war, check out General Dextraze who was there, and saw the bodies.  You'll find that in every war soldiers on both sides torture and kill prisoners. I had the pleasure of discussing this with an American veteran who enjoyed throwing Japanese prisoners out of a plane over the Pacific.

As for oil, of course it has been a factor in war. Why do you think we're bombing Libya? Why do you think the US and Britain invaded Iraq. Why do they want Iran?

As for Afghanistan, you tell me what it's about. Tell my why it's a just war. Llet's see how ignorant I am compared to you. Let's see if you can write a post that does more than call me names. Come on.  I look forward to it.

( I don't waste my time being polite to yahoos who are rude to me. Very UnChristian, I know.

I'm glad to hear our chaplains are under military command. God forbid they should be under God's command.

Oh, the reference to Nazi death camps was because the soldiers who worked in those camps were also served by Christian chapllains. They, too, didn't pass on word of what they had seen. Security, you know.

Before I even read a post...The title caused  me to remember that song...(in the early forties)

and I wondered then if it wasn't  weird for Clergy to be gunning people down...

'twas a very popular song...

Yes! ... and I'll be lookin' for those personal withheld opinions -- I think

I'll prob'y agree

Some ponderings I have atm:

What feelings go through a person when they kill?

Is it different from killing an animal?  A treasured pet?  A human being that is a stranger?  A familiar human being?  A human being in authority?  A member of one's own family?

When one kills, these feelings, do they ever change?  If so, how?  Are these changes universal?

Is there a substantive difference between being unattached to the feelings and being attached to them when killing, in the sense of Buddhist detachment?

Are there feelings that are more socially acceptable in these various killing instances?  Any that are more or less socially acceptable?

Do we have social mores against killing because we don't want people to experience it and become addicted to it, if it feels 'good', if it actives the pleasure centres?

It has been known for at least half a century that people don't like to kill each other. That's why it took the US army 60,000 bullets to kill on enemy in World War Two. That sort of willing missing seems to have been common for at least two centuries.

Armies after World War Two took this seriously enough to train their soldiers to see the enemies as things, not as people. Calling Vietnamese slopes was a step in that direction. So was the reference to people as "soft targets" - and the deliberate provoking of contempt for women. This sort of training was particularly highly developed for snipers - who average very economical kills at one per less than two bullets.

 We are now seeing a gratifying drop in ammunition wastage among regular troops, as well.

So what explains, what I heard, aboot the neighbour turning on neighbour in Bosnia?

That, too, is a situation created by convincing people that their neighbours are not really human. I often happens in war quite naturally. Take a look at comics of the 1940s. The racism in them - and in newspapers - is stunning.

Just as Vietnamese becmae slopes and Argentines became Argies, so  Japanese became yellow-bellies and little brown. To the nineteenth century British who invaded Africa and machine gunned people who fought with spears. they were sub-human - as were the Black slaves in the US and Canada.

These hatreds have always been manufactured. There are two differences, now. The remoteness of wars makes it harder to stimulate the necessary hatred. And our generally pacific life in the west has softened us.

Fortunately, psychology has risen to the challenge.

That' why the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, back in the 50s, blessed bombs that were to be dropped on Cuban rebels.

graeme,

When I said talebear, I did not mean "keep silent". I simply meant that anyone talking before the autopsy is done is out of order and nothing but gossip or conjecture or breaking a confidence.

We must talk about PTSD and what "non combatant" deaths mean. We must know war is not a board game or pins placed in a map. Everyone's children die.

Do I know what war is about? My grandmother had an infant ripped out of her arms and tossed into a fire. It is one of many Shoah stories. My step-dad was in Vietnam before becoming a VVAW  (Vietnam Veteran Against War) and has PTSD as well as Agent Orange related Hodgkin's. I have heard his honesty about what war is and is not. The elderly men and women who lived in our home all served or loved someone who had served. I heard stories about war without a flag waving high, without political spin, human stories. Stories about how it feels to leave your best friend dying or to "humanely" end their suffering. I heard about husbands, brothers, fathers coming home a shell of who they were. I heard men tell of losing their wife or family, drinking too much... I saw a man who had PTSD (called shell shock in his day) who was in the bombing of England and how he could not even eat a meal without being "attacked". My National Guard enlisted cousin dealt with GWS (Gulf War Syndrome) for years before she died of non-smoking related lung cancer and left two young children. She never wanted to go to war. She enlisted in the National Guard to help in disasters and to have income to raise her kids. My brother-in-law deals with PTSD and GWS.  Many of my high school classmates went ROTC to get help with continued education. They had no idea war would begin. Their parents told them it was a good move. It is a story many generations have told.

We must discuss war and killing.

Yes, this young man enlisted in the Canadian military, but he did not enlist for me to ride as a personal or political hobby horse. He did not volunteer to be the poster boy for soldiers suicide or anti-war rhetoric.

If it was suicide, do you know why, graeme? Are you sure?

A factory worker or a homemaker can put a gun in their mouth. It is not because "war is hell". The reason does not have to be war or seeing the things soldiers have seen. A dear John letter at home or overseas can be deadly. Depression strikes in all kinds of situations and it can happen when life is all sunshine and flower petals and not just in war-torn territory.

Do we want a chaplain playing psychiatrist, mind reader, wild guess guy? Do we want anyone doing it? Do we want to hear, "maybe he was secretly gay?" Would that be acceptable? Do we want to hear, "maybe he has a mental illness"? Is that acceptable? Just because we want to hear "war sucks" does not mean it is why or that it is acceptable for the person in that position to say.

Can someone enlist to provide aid and find themselves in war? Hell yes!

When you join the military, grunt or chaplain, you do not get to pick and choose which endeavours or skirmishes you will take part in and which you will not.

Ask Eddie Slovik's family about what happens. Ask Augiustine Aguayo or Ehren Watada. Ask Mark Wilkerson or Ivan Brobeck.

Those are American names, you might say.

We cannot however pretend Canada is immune from deserters or that Canada simply allows soldiers to leave the military when they object or it becomes too much or to wander off in the midst of a battle.

Desertion is a big problem in the military today, another issue we need to talk about.

In doing so, we also are aware what punishments are on the table. We know governments are cracking down on deserters or those who speak too loudly, because "this cannot be like Vietnam". We might not judge so harshly...

We need to know why some went and why they stay and not assume they support anything.... (some are there because it is the only job they could get or that a judge basically said "choose- military or jail?" We might not think they are gun crazed mercenaries....

The government who sent you there does not need your permission or your approval. You cannot, as a soldier with a gun or a noncombatant chaplain, take a stand speaking out against the mission or spilling secrets. There are things like desertion, cowardice, insubordination and treason laws stopping you.

We can debate personal responsibility. It is a great conversation to have.  

Those wearing the uniform, as armed combatants or as noncombatant chaplains, however have agreed to some speech restrictions under penalty of law.

We can debate whether that aspect of military law is an evil.

Saying "you are either with us or against us" was an ugly Bushism and it is no prettier when uttered or framed by you that Christians either do ----or they ain't Christians.

Saying,  "if you love God you will don a uniform and die for your country" is rhetoric. Saying, "if you love God you would not enlist" is also rhetoric.

SG,

As you say, there are many varied reasons why people enlist.

But for most of us - whether to enlist or not - is governed by a central conviction (rhetoric?)

Mine is that I like to seek the face of God in everyone I encounter. (Makes killing them a problem).

SG - what is your point? That we should do as we're told? That we should never question our leadership?

I can easily say in response to both of those points is that doing as we're told and never questioning our leadership can be very unChristian, indeed.

Graeme,

ANYTHING BUT!

I am simply saying that demonizing people and picking one to use them as a whipping post and a stand-in to make a point or to scapegoat is - IMO- wrong.

You think war is so ugly that anyone involved in any way is not Christian.  I ask whether you pay taxes, because if so, you too are involved IMO. We are all involved. It is out actions, our inactions, our greed, our desires, our ignorance, our wants, our air of superiority.... all that leads to war not only in our own countries but around the globe... If today the air con is on, dare we think it leads to violence and oppression? If we hop in a car?

Your call or your hobby horse or your passion (take a pick) is war.

To prove your point or sway your audience, there is a length you will go to. It is not one I would go to.

I would not go on an anti-homophobia rant and lift up some televangelist's name and ask anyone and everyone to have a go at them.  Read my posts of eons ago about the death of Jerry Falwell.

You are dragging a chaplain across the coals and nailing him and saying you do it because you are a caring kinda guy.

I am saying we can have the same conversation differently.

We can have serious, meaningful, thought and feeling altering discussions about war, the body counts, the unspoken casualties, the evils of war, propaganda, nationalism, suicide, PTSD, Agent Orange, GWS, the depth and breadth of military law.... without dragging anyone across the coals or through the mud.  

"I wear black for the thousands who died, believing God was on their side.  I wear black for all the hundreds of thousands who died believing we were all on their side"

-Johnny Cash.

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

SG - as you now explain your point, I don't disagree with it. I quite recognize that we all make war possible, if only by paying our taxes.

The chaplain I referred to went further. He took sides in the war by saying our soldiers were doing a necessary and important job. I disagree with him first because the job is not necessary - and if SG thinks it is, I would be delighted to hear an explanation of why it is necessary. I disagree with it secondly because it is not the chaplain's job to tell t he press that God is on our side. (Gott mit uns).

The starting point of all this was the army's refusal to announce the cause of death. As they explained it, it was either a suicide or a death ray from outer space. The notion that concern for the family was an army priority is drivel. It is just as savage for a family to learn of a death in combat. Why keep this one a sort of public secret?

Could it have something to do with the army's refusal to announce how many cases PTSD disorder Canadian soldiers have been suffered in this war? (A safe estimate would be close to 2000). One of those two thousand or so committed suicide near hi home just a few days ago

I'm sorry the family is caught up in t his. But we all need to know fully what the cost of this war is. And we have to think much harder about the wars we are being slotted to fight through the coming years in Libya, Iran, Syria, Pakistan and wherever else American leaders decide we are cheaper and  useful than mercenaries.

I am not calling you names. I am suggesting you are simply lying to support you nonsensical position. I asked for documented claims of Canadian war crimes. You offered none other than a vague reference to Gen. Dextraze (yes, I know who he is) and a reference to documented American war crimes. All in support of your hobby horse.

I have no need to tell you all about Afghanistan. You know all there is to know about it, apparently. My query was your inaccurate construction about the role of a chaplain in the Canadian Forces; again, something you apparently know little about.

And what about the Canadian soldiers who were caught in the middle?

We all know what the cost of war is. We've always known what the cost of war is. And it is a price the government and citizens appear to be willing to pay. What they are not willing to pay is the price of that combat, which is, as you correctly point out, PTSD (we call is OSI or Operational Stress Injury in Canada). And some of us are doing our best to be more aware of that price and to help mitigate effects. Not to excuse war, but to recognize it always has a cost... on soldiers, wives, husbands, children.

Well said. Very well said.

DKS-

1. I gave you sources. It's not hard to find the writing of Sassoon. I know general Dextrase saw the bodies of Germans killed by Canadians because he told me about it. You may also find a reference in M. Weisbord, The Valour and the Horror. (I know her, too. She was my date for college graduation.)

2. Most of us do not know what war is. (I don't even pretend to know.) But we need to get all the information we can - and it does not comes to us from our government or mainstream news services. They have not, for example, given us information about the severity or extent or pts or about suicides related to it. The Mainstream did not tell us about torture. In fact, it has still not told us about the extent of it.

3. The mainstream still hasn't told what Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are about.

4. over the 40 years or so, US armies (plus mercenaries) have killed at least (very conservative) four million people.) The majority of refugees all over the world are fleeing from American invasions.

What does the score  have to be before we are allowed to discuss it?

Oh, yes.

6. I usually don't have sources lying around for every casual comment I might make in a chat. However, since you seem to  have difficulty with Siegfried Sassoon, I suggest you read "A Canadian Soldier in the Great War". You can find it on Google. It was written by Desmond Monton, probably Canada's outstanding military history, and also one very protective of the army's reputation (as are most military historians I have known.)

He mentions early in this piece that war propaganda invented the story of 6 Canadian soldiers crucified with bayonets by the Germans. Belief in this myth, says Morton, is what caused    Canadian soldiers to mistreat and  often kill their prisoners.

Graeme,

 
It seems you were thinking the Padre refused to speculate about the incident and maybe should be a soldier if he thinks soldiering is ok work.... That is where you started from.

People dared say maybe there were confidentiality issues, no completed autopsy, just gossip and conjecture, there was a family to think of, etc... and you then get right pissed.

You go on to say the Padre went further and question his Christianity....

So, let’s not talk about what we think he said, what we understood him to say,  and look at what he actually said. If you have another quote, feel free to paste it. This is the one I found.

Is this the exact quote in question from Padre Grahame Thompson of Toronto when he was asked  © Postmedia News 2011 ?

"I don't know what any of the circumstances are," he said. "That is not my forte. My forte is to support the men and women of the Canadian Forces who are here doing a tremendous job. I'm not an investigator. I am a chaplain. I am going to talk to you about the living. The living have an important job to do."

Is that such a horrible quote?

Perhaps to those who think all the military does is shoot and bomb, it is.

To those who think he might have been speaking of building schools, roads, training forces... perhaps not.

To some, perhaps they can consider that perhaps he sees The Canadian Armed Forces as “tremendous” or “important”.

To others, perhaps he was saying what he feels he must say. Those in uniform, chaplain or otherwise cannot say much, legally.

Each person will read that and see what they see. I do not argue that you take what you take from it. You do.

You however said he went further and took sides, like he is supposed to be a neutral member of the Canadian Armed Forces. How does that work?

Graeme, wearing the uniform is a choosing of sides. Thompson has worn the uniform for 20 years of military service and is the senior ranking of six padres attached to Task Force Kandahar. You take an oath when you put on a Canadian Forces uniform. He chose to put on that military uniform and to chaplain Canadian soldiers. He serves where he is sent, whether he agrees with the length or breadth of the mission it or not. That is how it works.

You said, "The chaplain I referred to went further. He took sides in the war by saying our soldiers were doing a necessary and important job. I disagree with him first because the job is not necessary."  

I read him talking more of a soldier’s death and living soldiers than a mission's justness. In the quote from Thompson, the word "necessary" is not present. That is your interpretation. One can do a tremendous job at what one is assigned to do without saying the job itself is necessary or the scope of it is good, fair of just...

It is important that people wear the uniform. I know few who want a country without those in uniform. Yes, what missions they are sent on and how they are told to carry them out is also important. That is for the citizens and the government to decide, support, be willing to fund… It is easier to blame the soldier with the gun than look at self and the sending of them to be shot apart.

I did not and do not read in his quote any inference that God is on anyone's side. That is more of your putting words in the Padre's mouth.

In reading the article the quote was culled from, I read mention of suicide and read that the military does not publish such information. One might take the stance that it is because of an agenda and that they should release. I doubt that same person thinks banks, schools, Walmart... should step forward and talk to the press and say their staff died of suicide and I doubt we would want that done when the family did not or if it was our child, spouse, sibling,… who committed suicide.

One can certainly look at the military not revealing to the press as insidious. If the people demanded it, it would be public. In many ways, it already is. Non-combatant means what it means. If the details of some accident are not forthcoming, we know what it means. We prefer to turn our heads than demand the government talk about morale, suicide and PTSD. Some care more about those killing themselves before being mustered out. But what of all those who return home in what seems one piece, but are in a million little pieces, shattered?

Labelling a death a suicide means many things. One thing it means is that those who survive do not get benefits they might have otherwise.

One also has to understand that suicide in the local newspaper is also cloaked "died suddenly at home" or "died suddenly" or even "after a short illness".

Why we send teams into schools after a suicide is because of rashes of them in the wake of one. So, what are our thoughts on other soldiers? Do we put it on the news so some soldier sitting at home with little safety net and PTSD thinks “what the hell”? If we want to debate the war, the costs, the damages, the PTSD rates, the fate of soldiers…
We could discuss proper medical and mental screenings after deployment. We can do that without plastering a suicide on the news. We can do that without making Padre Thompson a whipping boy.

My thoughts are in line with Padre Thompson, who said in the same interview "the members' closest friends are the ones that the chaplains are most concerned about."

If Master Cpl. Roy took his own life, he is the second in a month following Bombardier Manning. Does that need talked about? You are damn right! IMO It should have been talked about almost 4 years ago with Maj, Ruckpaul.
It should have been discussed when the name was Maj. Michelle Mendes… One life is one life too many… one life from enemy fire or friendly fire or self-inflicted is too many…. One on either side is one too many…

Master Cpl. Roy, even if his death is confirmed as a suicide, did not take his life –nor did any soldier- for me to hoist their dead body for more anger, impatience, violence (even if it is verbal).... If their lives are to be honoured, let it be in meaningful and serious debate and conversation and not in rhetoric.

We each need to be the peace we wish to see.....

My opening note gave the Chaplain's words. Our soldiers are doing an "important job." That steps well beyond bringing spiritual comfort. This is a justification of killing.

There are a lot of clergy that I would do that too. Cardinal Spellman blessed bombs that were going to be dropped on Cuba. There is a vast repertoire of "God is on our side" sermons and speeches. I also came across "God is our Commander in Chief."

You cannot do anything without plastering the problem, as  you put it, in the news. You can't convince the public they should do something when they don't know anything about it. The calm discussion you long for would just be a lot of mumbling of theological abstractions.

we are now killing people in Libya. Do you know why? Please tell me.

The chaplain said they were doing an important job in Afghanistan.  Do you know what it is that is important about it? Please explain ti to me (without the nonsense that we're there to build schools for little girls or to build democracy

We are lined up for wars for a generation and probably more. They are wars that have nothing to do with us, was that will kill by the million, and create refugees by the tens of millions.

I have no interest in polite chats over tea about it.

We are aides to aggression, murder and exploitation all over the world. It's very nice our churches send out food and clothes. I would be even better if we were to look at ourselves, and recognize what we have become.

Asking Graeme for references is a waste of time.  Won't happen.  He won't post links or mention book titles or authors.

Also, he thinks he knows everything and we should take his word on faith.

(Been there, done that with Graeme on other topic)  PS I know nothing about the topic under discussion in this thread and I freely admit it.  Would that Graeme would admit it when he knows nothing about a topic.

Read the posts, EO; you'll find I sent two references.

I really don't have time to spend looking up references for everybody. I t's particularly a waste of time for some people who don't really know what a reference is and is not.

The article on war crimes in WW1 was written by Des Morton - who you probably never heard of, anyway. He's a highly respected military hisrtorian, and was head of Canadian Studies at McGill until his retirement.

General Dextrase was a highly respected officer who talked, while being interviewed for The Valour and the Horror, of the World War Two murders of masses of German prisoners. (He was criticized for this this by warriors of The Senate - who never wore a uniform of any sort).

I was asked to testify for the Senate committee on this.  Didn't they ask you?

You can probably find what I said by looking up Senate records. But  you won't.

Graeme,
 

I am not so naive as to think we are there building schools or saving women... that romanticizes war. People are there shooting at each other and trying to kill each other in whatever way they can. That is war.

As far as why NATO is there, the best I have is because the Afghani government requested the UN authorize a security force to maintain security (which is code for kill those who are not on "our" side). Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was "to destroy the Taliban shield that was protecting Al Qaeda's infrastructure in Afghanistan." OEF became the International Security Assistance Force (ISF), whose mandate was to protect the government from its "enemies".

At the time of the invasion, the government of Afghanistan was the Taliban. I don't think they requested a US invasion.

There is no Al quaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan. The CIA has repeatedely said so, and said so publicly. They list some 50 to 75 Alquaeda "types" in the whole of Afghanistan. I don't see the killing of thousands, the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, the destabilization of Pakistan, the lost of 175 Canadian lives, the mental and physical crippling of a couple of thousand more as being any reasonable response to the fairy tale of Al Quaeda under every bed.

It is also quite clear that the Taliban had nothing to with 9/11.  They are certainly oppressively religious. So the King of Saudi Arabia, the Emir of Bahrain, and the government of Israel.

The government they are protectinig is not only undemocratic; it is also recognized by the UN as the most corrupt government in the world.

So why are we there?

1. The US, which cannot get its own people to volunteer for the army - and which knows the draft would be political suicide - and which realizes it cannot afford to fight all these wars - is doing what Britain did, getting its empire to fight its wars for it. Canadian business wants to please the US because it makes money out of our relationship with the US. That's why Canadians have died in Afghanistan.

Why is the war being fought in the first place?

1. Bush lied about a connection to 9/11, just as he lied about WMDs in Iraq.

2. No credible reason has ever been given. The following are the leading guesses

a. to build a forward base against China.

b. tp be a ;launch area for attacks on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

c. for the natural resources of Afghanistan - said to be substantial.

d. for a gas pipeline to control the supply of energy to    southeast Asia.

None of rhe above is worth the cost. But we are payinig the cost, not the corporations who want the above. So they don't care what it costs in money or lives.

Much is the same for all the Bush/Obama wars - Iraq (daily fighting still going on.), Yemen (underattack from drones and special forces. Libya (where Canada is happily killing civilians for reasons that have never been made clear), Somalia (drones and special ops), Afghanistan,, Pakistan (drones and special ops.)

That's why I object to chaplains who babble that our soldiers are doing an important job.

Military history is your specialty.  I defer to you on this topic.  (In fact, my position regarding our involvement in Afghanistan in much closer to yours than you might imagine). 

But the history of the sixteenth century native encounter and the science of infectious diseases is not.   Still waiting for references on that topic.  I would like something a little more substantial than "you need better judgement."   In some circles that is known as an "ad hominem" attack, resorted to when the speaker has no facts to back up his position.

EO - have tried so many times to explain this you.

Anne Frank died of disease. And so a statistician might list  her as well as a large number of the Jews killed in internment camps.  Yes. She died of disease. But she was vulnerable to disease because of conditions in the camps. Anne Frank really died because of Hitler, not because of disease.

Native peoples on the Canadian plains died in large numbers AFTER  they have been moved to reservations. They died of disease, not of direct killing. So the statitistical authorities might write it up. But they were also starving - and starving made them vulnerable to the diseases they died of.

After five centuries of exposure, native people still die of European diseases. Of course. the living conditions are appalling - so they are vulnerable to disease.

Counts of African dead in the slave trade run as high as sixty million. They weren't killed directly by the traders. Why would the traders deliberately kill them? They were worth money.

But they shipped the slaves under terrible conditions, malnourished them. Owners worked them brutally, badly fed them, beat them.... So they died - of disease.

History is full of the millions of whole nations that have died of disease. But there was always a reason why they caught the disease - and it wasn't entirely a matter of lack of resistance.  There are conditions that make people highly vulnerable to disease.

You will readily find authorities who will tell you that drinking increased in the prohibition era - and therefore prohibition caused drinking. The  problem with that statistic is that drinking began to increase over then years BEFORE prohibition.

A recent authority on the history of alcohol in Canada says alcohol is no longer a problem because we have learned to control it. I don't know where he got that nonsense from. But he's an authority. (I panned his book in a review.)

Statistics will show that something like half of all females cannot bear children. Of course not. The half is made up of those too young and those too old.

Many authorities on Canadian history will tellyou that French Canadians of the early nineteenth century had the largest families of any "white" people. That's very unlikely. Protestant families of the time in North American were probably just as big. But the Catholic church kept better records.

There's a book on Quebec history (Petit manuel d'histoire du Quebec) which was widely used from high school to university. That's pretty authoritative. Actually, I studied it quite closely - well - about half of it. I found a major error of fact in every paragraph I read.

Always question authorities.

Not good enough.  We have been through this before.  The dying started well before the Spanish got the upper hand.

Your argument could apply to more recent history--I agree.  But not to the very initial stages.

This is really a science issue, not a historical issue.   Infectious diseases (especially serious ones like smallpox) cause large death rates in virgin populations.  How do you explain 25%-30% of the population of an isolated Farose Island (north of Scotland) dying of smallpox in the nineteenth century?  Simple:  they were very isolated, they had not had smallpox for 2-3 hundred years.  No one was mistreating these Faroese Islanders.  A boat with smallpox just arrived one day.

This from the Cambridge History of Medicine.  They have a section in the book on the new world encounter and conclude, along all other scientists who have studied it​ and 95% of the historians, that the natives were simply doomed.   The only thing that could have saved them was a delay in the European discovery of North America until modern medicine and vaccines.

It does not seem "fair", but when you look at the Old World, as many people died of these diseases over the long run, but it was spread out over a period of several millenia.

The Oxford History of Medicine, like all histories, is based on estimates, interpretations, guesses....

Millions of African slaves were not killed by diseases - not even in the early stages. They were killed by brutality.

Native peoples in Canada still die younger than most Canadians. Writing it off to disease is more than a little facile.

Showing that people died in t he Faroes of disease tells that people died in the Faroes of disease. Nothing more.

The coming of the Spanish and Portuguese, even in very small numbers, had a very wide and immediate impact. The Incas, an advanced civilization, collapsed almost in days.

Looking for the causes of disease and sickness is not a simple matter of collecting statistics. It is even worse when those statistics are based on guesses.

The culture change alone was devastating. Our own native peoples have never recovered from it. It happened very suddenly in South America. It was a change so profound it devastated people who never saw a westerner.

I know how wonderful it is to find authorities who explain everything so reasonably. I've also learned to be very cautious of them.

When NATO received a request it was the Karzai government.

In 2001, that was the US, UK and Afghan United Front that overthrew the Taliban.

I also think the US made it pretty clear they were there to overthrow the Taliban and set up a  government more to their liking.  

Now, I am well aware that although Congress gave approval, war was not declared via the US Senate... that would mean Geneva conventions apply and pesky things like turning over POW's and due process...

It was months after the U.S.-led attack began, that Canada sent troops. The UNSC authorized the creation of an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to take all measures necessary to fulfill its mandate of assisting the Afghan Interim Authority in maintaining security. Canada was commanding nation of the ISAF. Command of the ISAF passed to NATO in August 2003

We can certainly discuss Canada's initial role and the morph it took. We can discuss whether government overthrow is right or wrong. We can discuss the bizzarro linkage to 9/11. We can discuss how the change took place between Operation Athena (ISAF lead) to Operation Archer (US lead)....

I simply cannot talk about a chaplain who is committed to the military and chaplaincy to military personnel being "not a Christian" or demonize him for supporting those he is employed to support and trusted to support.

So the chaplains who told Nazi soldiers that God was on their side (Gott mit uns) were quite right to do so.

As to the origins of the war, it began with US Bombing, and then with a US invasion. Both were illegal under international conventions  That, not democracy or popular will, is what created the Karzai government which is now rated the most corrupt in the world and can win elections only by fraud so massive that even the US is embarrassed by it..

No NATO country was required to contribute - and some did not. NATO has no right or authority to commit anybody to war. No organization has any more right to declare and illegal war than an individual nation does. that means it has none at all.

There are international conventions on justifiable reasons for war. Afghanistan does not meet any of the requirements. There is no evidence - nor is it likely - that the Taliban had anything to do with 9/11. This is an illegal war of aggression being waged for reasons we have never been informed of.

So, tell me. Exactly what is this important job our troops are doing? Please don't tell me it's rebuilding. You don't use guns to rebuild. what, exactly, is the important job?

It's surely not to protect a corrupt government which is thoroughly undemocratic and has no popular support. So what is this important job?

As for the chaplain, who or what does he serve?  military morale? army leadership? Canadian politicians? Perhaps I have the wrong idea of who it is a chaplain serves.

Gott mit uns.