Lest We Forget

At 11AM on November 11th, Canadians will remember those that lost their lives in military service to their country. With the current Canadian military involvement in Afghanistan, tomorrow’s Rememberance Day service will be that much more significant. Thus far, 97 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have lost their lives. Many more have been injured.

Improvised explosive devices (IED’s) have claimed 45 lives with another 12 victims to suicide bombers. Unlike past conventional wars when most soldiers were killed in combat operations, there have been 22 combat deaths. The remaining 19 deaths are related to accidents, incidents of friendly fire and other. Had this been a conventional war, the enemy would have been defeated long ago. History was shown that guerilla wars are the most challenging. The former Soviet Union stayed in Afghanistan for nine years and eventually withdrew their forces, but not before they lost approximately 15,000 soldiers. It has been estimated that 1 million people lost their lives in that war.

Some people will argue that Canada’s military should stay and finish the job. The hawks will add that if we don’t get them, they will eventually get us. Others will say that by leaving now, 98 died in vain. While most people will agree with the concept that you should finish what you started, perhaps this is a situation where we simply under-estimated the task at hand. U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama has indicated he will start withdrawing troops from Iraq in order to have more military available to address the Afghan problems. Throwing additional resources at a problem is not always the answer either. During his election campaign, Mr. Obama also expressed some interest in trying to establish a dialogue with his adversaries. Hopefully, he will be more successful than his predecessors in finding a peaceful resolution to some of the current conflicts.

We all look forward to a Rememberance Day service that is without the addition of new names. db