The Afghanistan Tap Dance

I have yet to watch Chicago all the way through, but my favorite line belongs to Taye Diggs: “And now, ladies and gentlemen—a tap dance!” Then Richard Gere uses his tippity-tapping toes to ensure that people pay attention to what he wants them to.

In the past three years, I’ve noticed that Canadians tap-dance a lot. You could also call it finger-pointing. Mostly, the finger points at the U.S. But as we all heard on the playground, every time you point a finger at someone else, three fingers point back at you.

Here’s an example. Recently, The Fifth Estate, CBC’s investigative news program, ran an episode that examined the leadup to the Iraq War. It’s good reporting and you can’t argue with what it says. Yes, the Iraq war started in a testosterone-driven fit of Oedipal insanity. A high percentage of Americans and nearly all Canadians believe that now, and many of us knew or suspected as much at the time, though no one in power was willing to use his or her spine.

And yes, the focus of public discussion in the U.S. needs to change. Unfortunately, the U.S. is at war in Iraq. That’s the sad reality. Although examining how it happened serves a purpose, a more pressing activity now is figuring out how to stop it.

Tippity tap, tippity tap. Look at those Awful Americans! How terrible it must be to be involved in such a purposeless war! I wonder how they’ll get out of this mess!

But here’s what’s happening north of the 49th parallel while everyone’s tuned into the Awful American show.

Canada is leading the NATO forces in Afghanistan. A mission that was sold as “peacekeeping” has become anything but. Casualties are mounting. Six soldiers were killed just this week by a roadside bomb, bringing the total to 66 Canadians killed. Eradicating the Taliban is not the same as building roads and schools and hospitals, which is how the mission was sold to Canada.

Yet Canadians are making many of the same mistakes Americans did. Canadians are encouraged to “support the troops” by wearing red on Fridays. The Prime Minister of Canada, mimicking the petulant tone of all White House speeches, says that the politicians who are out of power are undermining the soldiers by questioning the purpose of their service.

Here’s the biggest mistake: nobody is talking! Nobody is asking questions! What kinds of tasks should Canadian soldiers do in Afghanistan? What is an appropriate role for Canada in the “global war on terror,” as the Americans and Brits call it? People don’t even ask what it means to “support the troops.”

Questions are unpatriotic—apparently north of the border, too.