As I’ve been driving around this fine province of ours, I have been noticing something interesting. There are these ribbon shaped magnets that people are sticking to the back of their cars, and, by and large, they say “Support our Troops”. I want one of those magnets.
Unequivocally, I support our brave men and women who serve in our armed forces. I proudly count members of my own family amongst those who have answered the call of duty. What I do not understand is the tendency of people to claim that you do not support the troops if you do not support the mission. To me, these are diametrically different things. It is not as if we are personally insulting the troops if we decide that the mission that they are doing is no longer of value to the nation. The troops did not choose that mission, but were ordered to it. As such, I think that any claim to that effect falls outside the realm of intelligent or conscious thought.
What is, however, not supportive of the troops, is any attempt to commit them to something without due diligence. The vote held in the House of Commons was a joke, and does not show the proper respect to the people who would be put into harms way by that action. What message was the Canadian government sending as they voted to send our troops into Afghanistan for two more years? I think, clearly, the message was “Six hours is all the time we are willing to spend on you.” To think that some people in our Liberal caucus shared that sentiment was absolutely unthinkable.
By agreeing to vote in favour of this motion, Michael Ignatieff and Scott Brison failed to defend that which makes our country function, the parliamentary process. I support the Mission in Afghanistan. I do not support putting our troops in harms way on a whim. Diligent debate was required. Stéphane Dion supports the troops, but he voted against the mission. Here, he defended two primary principals – our necessary defense of the Canadian government structure, which the Tories made a mockery of, and the respect for our armed forces. He was unwilling to put them in harms way after think about it for six hours. It is this type of deliberate and principled thought that we need in out next Prime Minister.