War is Hell

[Oscar]

Published in the Wakaw Recorder, June 14, 2007

War is Hell

Each time we hear of a "killed in action" of one of our Canadian soldiers, we who are safe here in Canada cannot help but think how we would feel if that person was one of our own children.

We hardly ever hear about our soldiers who been severely injured, or have been physically incapacitated, or have been mentally affected, because it is not normal to seek out those who we the people of Canada have deemed to be the enemy, in order to kill them.

For those who believe that war is abhorrent, and wonder about Canada's presence in Afghanistan, our government says we are not supporting our troops there. We are accused of wanting to "cut and run" My response to that is this: perhaps we should "cut the killing” and “run" with the reconstruction and social programs for the people living there.

The Afghan people have been subjected to years of foreign control through armed intervention. After a long struggle they were able to unchain themselves from their British colonizers.Then in more recent times 8 years of war against invading Russian army of 100,000 troops. This was followed by an American invasion to find Osama bin Laden, who among other pursuits, was a shareholder in the Carlyle corporation along
with the Bush family. Bin Laden was not even a citizen of Afghanistan!

Every war has to have the "good guys" and the "bad guys" Every once in a while we hear that our brave soldiers have killed a number of Taliban fighters. Unfortunately, sometimes civilians get in the way. This is known as collateral damage.

I've often wondered when a Taliban fighter is killed, does his family say,"We're so happy he got killed. Now we women may not have to wear that ridiculous veil over our faces, and maybe our boys and girls can go to the same school".

War is hell, even if it is only about oil.

Yours sincerely


Leo Kurtenbach
Cudworth, SK