Supporting the Troops

Thirty-eight Canadian soldiers have now been killed in Afghanistan. We have a "support the troops" movement underway, crowds in red shirts with appropriate banners gathering on Parliament Hill and elsewhere. What I wonder is this: does supporting the troops mean supporting the war?

Supporting the troops is one thing and that's fine. Supporting the cause for which they're fighting is another matter. Do these redshirts recognize the difference?

The Taliban were driven out before. If they're defeated again, which is problematical, they'll only re-appear, like dandelions. They don't recognize defeat, only temporary setbacks. It's not like they'll sign a peace treaty at some point, redraw the borders and go home. Time is on their side, the "great Satan" will shrivel and die at some future time, and meanwhile they have their holy martyrs. God is great. Religious fanatics are hard to deal with.

So why are the troops fighting for what seems to be pointless and hopeless?

After WW2, the U.S. did not revert to a peacetime economy. Using the Communist bogeyman as an excuse, they remained on a war footing and the defence industry profited handsomely. There was Korea to stop the Chinese hordes, Viet Nam to stop the falling dominoes. No-one remembered Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex. So we've arrived at the point where peace would be disastrous to the American economy. The space effort would not be enough to sustain all those industries.

So, in a nutshell, and at the risk of over-simplifying, this is why our troops fight and die.