Here's Gratitude For You!

The fag end of Bushism in Ottawa keeps out George Galloway, but Grant Havers has the tale of the gratitude from the old court broadcaster:

While few paleoconservatives would be surprised at the rock-bottom standards of journalism on FOX, leave it to this network to build a new basement just below their all-time lows. On March 17, the panelists on the “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld” ridiculed Canada’s military involvement in the Afghanistan conflict. What provoked this sophomoric bantering was Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie’s announcement on March 9 that Canada’s forces will have to take a “short operational break” in July 2011, perhaps lasting one year.

This announcement sparked great feelings of hilarity on Gutfeld’s program. Gutfeld remarked that Canada’s soldiers are taking a breather “to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white capri pants.” Co-panelist Doug Benson added this pearl of wisdom: “I didn’t even know they were in the war…I thought that’s where you go (Canada) if you don’t want to fight—go chill in Canada.” One panelist even intimated that General Leslie’s name did not sound masculine enough for a soldier.

Now this story caught the attention of Canadian media on the same week (following March 17) in which 4 Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. To date, 116 Canadian soldiers have lost their lives, and almost three times that number have been wounded. All told, the Canadian casualty rate has been 4 times that of the American equivalent in Afghanistan. Canada’s soldiers have been shouldering a disproportionate share of the fighting while her NATO allies have been sitting on the sidelines. Given this context of sacrifice, outrage in my country has been both predictable and justified in the extreme.

I would boycott FOX over this idiocy if I had already been a former viewer, desperate enough to watch this sensationalist propaganda machine for news. (As it turns out, I caught this news story on other, more respectable networks—which pretty much includes the rest of the world’s media.)

Still, one factoid might hit home even on FOX. if this story reveals FOX’s idea of humor, perhaps they will find it even more hilarious that their president is sending more American troops to defend a failed narco-state. These soldiers will discover, like their Canadian comrades, that they are fighting and dying to build a liberal democracy in a wasteland dominated by drug lords and jihadists. No empire since Alexander the Great’s Macedon has ever tamed Afghanistan.

How amusing is a desert version of Vietnam?