Forgetting the Front Lines

There was a lot of wining, dining, and speech making going on in Ottawa last week. Paul Martin put out the welcome mat, turned on the charm and kept right on smiling while George Bush cheerfully placed a rock next to Paul's hard place on missile defense. Jack Layton, despite his party's statement that they didn't want to discuss the next arms race over canapés and champagne, did just that without so much as a hint of hypocrisy on his face; only tartar sauce. And Stephen Harper just seemed happy to have met the President...the way he kept stuttering afterward, you would have thought he'd just had a one-on-one with the Almighty himself.

Of course, you know all that. Big news all around; a meeting for the record books. But while we all watched the President and the Prime Minister talk about security, terrorism, and the tenderness of Alberta beef medallions, did you happen to hear anyone so much as mention our over-taxed troops in Afghanistan? You know, the folks on the front lines, out there battling Al-Qaeda, making the world safe, and carrying the lofty goals of Paul Martin's foreign policy on their overburdened backs, all the while doing masterful impressions of human Swiss army knives 16 hours a day, six days a week. No?

Funny, you'd think that would be worth a mention, wouldn't it?

Stephen Harper has been touting the need for increased military spending seemingly for longer than the average age of a Sea King helicopter, but when military ombudsman André Marin came back to Ottawa telling stories of troops pulling double shifts doing everything from reconnaissance and surveillance missions to guard duty and camp maintenance, and describing emotional and physical burnout that has reduced some of this country's toughest fighters to tears, you would have had better luck finding Jimmy Hoffa than a Harper sound bite on the subject. And after weeks of Layton chirping about the need for multilateralism as opposed to the heavy-handed, unilateral nature of US foreign policy, do you think the man could have perhaps found a few words to spare for the troops carrying out an actual multilateral mission between his samplings of shrimp dip and snack crackers?

He had more opinions to offer about the weather stripping of Paul Martin's house than he did the state of our multi-tasking, sleep-deprived troops that some personnel are starting to refer to as "Zombies."

Oh, and what did Paul have to say? Damned if I know. He hasn't been here long enough to find out.

Racking up enough frequent-flyer miles to make even jet-setting Adrienne Clarkson seem like a stay-at-home xenophobe, the man who spent a decade helping to reduce the Armed Forces to something resembling a child's Tinkertoy set has been spending untold millions zipping around the world drumming up even more business for our beleaguered military, perhaps unaware that coffee isn't quite as magical a cure-all for your average over-worked soldier as it is for your average caffeine-crazed Prime Minister.

Proudly crowing about Canada's role in the drafting of a new UN report calling on members to intervene sooner and more authoritatively in humanitarian catastrophes, a "responsibility to protect" in situations such as the recent Sudan crisis, Martin seems to have overlooked the small fact we have no one to intervene with. In Haiti, another one of his pet projects and a recent stop on the "Martin World Tour '04," total UN forces are half the authorized number, with lawlessness and killing rampant, and forces, including our under-funded troops, powerless to do much about it.

And he wants Canada to be a world leader? At what? Rhetoric?

Last week was a week of high-minded talk about world peace, arms races, and consequences of the invasion of Iraq. There were protests, demonstrations, rock tossing and Bush bashing, along with enough touchy-feely notions of brotherly love to make you want to break out a guitar, put a flower in your hair, and make like Joan Baez in a parka. Yet Iraq isn't going to be fixed by a song, Haiti won't heal itself with prayer, and it remains to be seen if Sudan will survive by negotiation alone.

Peacekeeping takes a lot more than good intentions. Just ask our troops. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to share their thoughts on the subject...if they can ever find the time.