It's Just Not Funny

Some "comedians" on Fox's overnight Redeye show made fun of Canadian forces in Afghanistan. Some might say they "had fun with" the idea that Canadian forces need a rest. But their "humour" was, at best, not funny. And I would not be alone in saying that their "joking" was in poor taste.

I wasn't going to write about this for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't want to spread the moron-icity any farther or otherwise publicize the network. I'd never heard of these people or the program before this, and now they're getting a huge amount of attention, and "no publicity is bad publicity." I hate that.

Second, they embarrass me. It's one thing for individual Americans to be ignorant but for ignorant Americans to get together in a pack and laugh about their ignorance is something else again. I know I have my own areas of profound ignorance, but I don't celebrate them in front of the world and go on to wonder "why do people hate us?"

Third, I am a bit of a starry-eyed idealist about "censorship = bad." While nobody likes hate-mongering on radio or television, the world has survived with the likes of these dopes for decades now. The more attention you give them, the louder they get.

And finally, I was going to leave it alone because it seemed that the show's timing was particularly unfortunate. The show was taped a week ago. It aired at a time when Canadians were wounded and killed in Afghanistan, and it's been covered in the same news broadcasts that showed flag-draped coffins. I wouldn't have liked the comments at any time, but they're particularly wince-inducing this week.

Though as long as I'm writing about this, I have to say that when armed forces are fighting, people die, and surely someone at Fox might have imagined that perhaps, just maybe, people would die at the same time that they were cracking these jokes, and perhaps, just maybe, these jokes were a Really Bad Idea.

But I decided to write about it because I kept thinking about the relationship between the shots of coffins and the "jokes."

And I wondered: What if Americans saw coffins covered with their flag carried into transport planes by weeping men in fatigues who were members of the same platoons as the dead soldiers? What if those coffins were repatriated on this side of the ocean by means of a motorcade on public highways?

Would the public--friends, veterans, perfect strangers--assemble to honour those in the motorcade, as happens here?

If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were public events in the U.S., as the war in Afghanistan is in Canada, would Americans be so quick with the jokes?

Maybe it wouldn't matter. Americans--and Canadians, if it comes to that--can be plenty insensitive.

But maybe it would matter. Maybe if Americans saw the human cost of their wars regularly, as Canadians do, they would learn something.

I can always hope, anyway.