Some people have issues with anger. For many, their anger makes them unable to carry on healthy relationships or hold a job. A few, however, find a niche in society where their issues are afforded more tolerance, such as professional tennis. Or the military's officer corps.
Recall that Canada's main man in Afghanistan is General Vance. We saw back in June that Vance flew off the handle when a young boy threw a rock at the general [2] as he rode by in a convoy. The boy was of course merely voicing an increasingly common sentiment, repeated since time immemorial in Afghanistan. Indeed, the general is probably in the company of Alexander the Great; no doubt that ancient general's convoys endured more than a few child-thrown ripostes.
But if Alexander was as cool as he was portrayed in that Brad Pitt movie, I suspect that, when similarly attacked, he would not have jumped off his elephant and chased the boy who threw the rock.
Recently General Vance was at it again, this time getting angry at local elders in Dand district. He demanded a meeting with them following an incident where a Canadian soldier was badly wounded by an IED in their district. Vance evidently thinks that the elders are not doing enough to stop such incidents. Not shy about sharing his feelings, Vance told the assembled elders that he sometimes feels that "I am more concerned about Dand district than you."
"There has to be a change starting now and we need to make sure the roads stay clear of IEDs," he said, referring to deadly improvised explosive devices that have repeatedly caused Canadian casualties.
"If we don't start getting some serious cooperation from the people ... then I wonder whether or not it's worth another Canadian life."
Deh-e-Bagh [i.e. the village where the IED attack took place] is the centrepiece of the Canadian counter-insurgency strategy in Kandahar province... (link [3])
Vance's patronizing words and negotiation-by-threat seem ill-suited to improve what are evidently already strained relations with the elders.
Links:
[1] http://rabble.ca/taxonomy/term/1879
[2] http://stopwarblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/natos-popularity-wanes.html
[3] http://www.thestar.com/canada/afghanistan/article/702377
[4] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/davemarkland/2009/09/maybe-general-vance-needs-anger-management#comment-1067056
[5] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/davemarkland/2009/09/maybe-general-vance-needs-anger-management#comment-1180315
[6] http://rabble.ca/print/blogs/bloggers/davemarkland/2009/09/maybe-general-vance-needs-anger-management#comment-1181147
[7] http://rabble.ca/user
[8] http://rabble.ca/user/register
Vance sounds just like the US politicians that berate Iraqis for their lack of gratitude to the USA for the destruction of their country.
These military types build and then live in their own delusionary world in which war is noble and soldiers are heroes. Powerful cognitive dissonance factors then prevent them from realising how evil, brutal, hated and disgraceful most of their actions are.
Yes General Vance is hot-headed when trying to deal with an unwinnable situation in which we have placed he and his soldiers though, like many soldiers, he has no illusions about the nobility of warfare - quite the opposite. The previous poster is just as deluded as the military and has built for herself the same sort of delusionary world based on her perspective (don't we all?) - there is however, a level plain where these worlds meet and it is here where we have seen in the past Canadian troops having to fight the soldiers of Nazi Germany and a tyrannical Imperial Japan. In our own time the Canadian Army has enforced the peace in the Balkans and providing the organisational knowledge to sort out the effects of the ice storm and the regular floods in the west.
Safe in this wonderful country where human rights and the rule of law applies, the poster has every right to air her beliefs without ever having to suffer the horror and confusion that we ask our soldiers to endure as part of their job. The poster may not support military types, but all things considered our Canadian Army is made up of Canadians just like her, doing what the Canadian Government has asked them to do - in our name - and they do it pretty well indeed. All the best to our men and women of our Forces overseas and godspeed to your return to Canada - I am proud you.
Pardon me while I puke:
