So Let's Get this Straight

Steve Harper has $28-million to blow on 200-year old triumphalism for a war between Britain and the United States but he can't come up with $5-million a year to cover the funeral costs of impoverished Canadian soldiers.

Remember when that greaseball was the Canadian soldier's Best Friend Forever, back when he could squeeze buckets of political capital out of their blood and bones?   But then Afghanistan didn't go the way Steve had promised and, ultimately, embarrassed Steve and someone has to pay, even if they're dead.  So 1812 is definitely in and Afghanistan and those who wound up serving there are just as definitely out.

I wonder how many destitute soldiers we can bury for the cost of just one F-35?   Or how many burials could we have funded if we only had back the money that "Toney Tony" Clement splashed around his own riding for the G8/G20 summits?

Of course you could bury the entire Tory caucus for just a few thousand bucks.   You can pack an awful lot of sphincters in just one coffin.

Canada Wasn't Ready For Afghanistan Casualties

Then again it's not like we're not in our tenth year of the Afghan War.   Harpo's Veterans Affairs minister, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, admits his department wasn't prepared to handle the 'influx' of wounded from Afghanistan and is now 'scrambling' to meet the new demands.

And Blackburn places the blame squarely where it belongs - on his staff.  “This department was functioning with traditional veterans. With the Afghanistan situation, this department was not ready.”

What?   They only had 'traditional' veterans? What in hell is this jerk on about?  Wait, there's more:

“Now we are doing those changes to be sure that our new modern veteran will obtain all the services that they should obtain.  The situation in 2010 is not the same one in 1945 or 1953,” he said, referring to World War II and the Korean War.

Oh yeah, of course.   A guy who gets his foot blown off in 2010, he's not remotely like a guy who got his foot blown off in some French forest or some Korean hillside.   He's a  modern veteran or, as we like to call them, a "ModVet."

Blackburn is right, though.  The situation in 2010 isn't the same as 1945 or 1953.  Back then we understood that war generates a lot of severely wounded soldiers and we prepared for that.  In 1945 and 1953 Canada and our soldiers didn't have to contend with both fighting an enemy abroad and the Harper government once they got home.   That greaseball Harper made full and shameless use of our soldiers for partisan advantage while he could but now it's all he can do to force his lips to say "Afghanistan."