-Caveat Lector-
http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.33/toy_soldiers.htm
Canada's Toy Soldiers
by Peter Topolewski
Lethal contaminants. Shredded files. Unwitting victims. Mysterious
illnesses. Is it beginning to smell like a Clinton scandal around
here or are these the ingredients for the latest episode of the X-
Files?
Neither. These are keys in another case of the hierarchy in the
Canadian Armed Forces abandoning its soldiers. And in the recent
history of giving short shrift to the men and women who volunteer
their lives to the whim of the Prime Minister and the minister of
defense, this shrift is the shortest of them all. The lack of respect
for human life that has become institutionalized in the military has
evolved from years of neglect � neglect that has let the condition of
the military sink to new depths.
The military in Canada rightly lays claim to a storied history. During
the First World War the federal government could avoid making a
decision on the touchy subject of conscription largely because until
1918 volunteers were plenty. By 1918, 600,000 Canadians had
served in the wartime army and another 9,000 in the navy.
Canadian pilots constituted nearly 25 percent of Britain�s Royal Air
Force. All tolled over 60,000 Canadians died in the World War One.
When it was over they all, living and dead, had built for Canada a
reputation for spearheading Allied attacks with marked tenacity and
courage.
During the Second World War conscription again strained relations
between English- and French-speaking Canadians, and again great
numbers of volunteers delayed its enactment, this time until 1944.
By the end of the war Canada, with a population of 12 million, had
raised a military force of 1 million people. The Navy, which grew
from 5,000 to 100,000 men, protected the Atlantic supply convoys
to Britain, while the army played a major role in freeing the Scheldt
estuary in the Netherlands, through which the Allies entered
Europe on their way to victory.
When the Nazis surrendered in May 1945, they did so to the
Canadian command. Since the Second World War Canadian
troops have distinguished themselves in the Korean War and in
meeting a great number of NATO and UN peacekeeping
obligations. Most recently during NATO air attacks on Kosovo
Canadian CF-18s flew a disproportionately large number of
missions.
While the quality of Canadian troops has never slipped, and the
military to this day meets Canada�s NATO and UN obligations
shiningly, Canada�s forces offer little protection from an attack
against the home turf. Canadians and interested observers openly
acknowledge that the military is wholly inadequate to protect the
country�s people and land. It is reasonable to argue that no army in
the world could capably protect Canada�s huge landmass, nor any
navy properly patrol the largest coastline in the world; nevertheless,
since the end of the Second World War, Canada has come to
maintain a force of about 60,000 regulars with less than 200 CF-
18s. Upgrading a thirty-year old fleet of rescue helicopters has
become a shameful embarrassment to the government � bickering
over dollar signs has sent several crewmen to their deaths in
antique aircraft and rendered the rescue forces virtually useless.
The penny pinching has understandably hurt morale. No wonder.
Perennially low wages trap many soldiers below poverty level. In
the last year national television newscasts have run stories on
soldiers who are forced to visit food banks to feed their families.
Two soldiers in Winnipeg, Manitoba garnered some much needed
media attention for their food-drive � they promised to camp out
atop a few stories high scaffold for food donations for their base.
Well-wishers and supporters stopped at the foot of the scaffold and
gave what they could.
That the Canadian military could come to this is hard to conceive.
Yet the wonder grows greater when we see the politicians so
willing to send this military on UN missions. In the early 90s
Canada shipped troops to Somalia, a hell on earth so volatile and
confused that a Somali prisoner sadly, but not surprisingly, was
beaten and killed while held in custody by Canadian soldiers. To
the hate war in Bosnia, Canadians went as unarmed gatekeepers
and to stuff body bags. Their role was much the same in Croatia,
enforcing peace in a place where nothing was what it seemed �
even the dirt.
The UN, Dealer of Death
Six years after Canadian troops went to work in Croatia on behalf of
the UN, they are learning that they made their bunkers out of earth
contaminated with PCBs and bauxite. These days scores of those
who served in Croatia are sick. Some are going blind, other
deteriorating at the joints. Who has stepped forward to treat them,
to provide them with a pension? Not the organization (the UN) that
sent them to Croatia. Actually, since the story has hit the media,
the military is grudgingly offering some assistance, but this story
gets much worse. In 1993 a doctor had a memo placed in the files
of all soldiers who served in Croatia that year, stating that they
might have been exposed to harmful substances and faced a risk
of illness. Those memos were systematically removed and
shredded.
With overwhelming predictability, the Ministry of Defense has
convened an inquiry to determine the source and nature of possible
illnesses caused by materials or events in Croatia. A separate
criminal investigation into the memo shredding has also
commenced. Meanwhile, Matt Stopford, a former Canadian soldier
who served in Croatia, is leading the charge for compensation.
Already blind in one eye and swallowing handfuls of medication a
day, he�s lived through six years of zero progress with his onetime
employer. He claims that he�s been contacted by more than 30
people just like him, and 70 others have spoken with veterans
groups and another soldier who is compiling a list of sick former
servicemen. Not surprisingly, Stopford says that none of the
affected are contacting the military, not only because the Forces
are downplaying complaints, but the soldiers don�t trust the military
leadership.
Maintaining the armed forces is one of the few duties the federal
government should consider an obligation. Somehow the best
fighting force Canada can produce in the 1990s is a bunch of
soldiers who do not believe their leaders will look out for them. A
defense budget that has armed soldiers with outdated equipment
and left them in the poorhouse might reflect the priorities of peace-
loving Canadians. Other ventures and adventures and programs are
more important to the voters, you can almost hear the politicians
saying. And so the obligation to maintain a national defense has
instead become very much more like a luxury.
This might be how it is, but it is totally wrong. The "luxury"
spending on the military comes at cost to the men and women who
volunteer to offer their lives for Canada�s protection. If the
government cannot properly pay and supply its soldiers it cannot
justify sending them on peacekeeping missions. In these
circumstances the Canadian contributions to UN and NATO
missions look more and more like efforts to maintain a cherished
reputation in the international community. I find it hard to believe
that any human could send others into such danger easily, or
without the decision weighing heavy in the heart. And yet the
evidence shows, at the home base and the on the peacekeeping
mission, that the Canadian leadership treats Canadian soldiers as
if their lives have no value. This cannot be tolerated. They must
have proper supplies, whether that means more money or fewer
soldiers.
Though treated like it, these soldiers are not toys.
Peter Topolewski was born in Canada in 1972. Against the odds
that seem stacked against everyone at birth, he is just now
beginning to learn that the society and system of authority one is
born into is not the society and system of authority one must
accept. He lives and works in Vancouver, where his corporate
communications company is based.
-30-
from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 33, August 23, 1999
Kathleen
"You can't let one million Englishmen rule one hundred million Indians with terror if
the one hundred million wouldn't allow it". - Gandhi
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