On the Bottom Half

Channel 9 Morning Show.

A bothersome comment was made by Channel 9's morning show yesterday.

*rant*

As you may or not may not know, Australia suffered it's first combat death in Afghanistan on 8 October. According to Today host Lisa Wilkinson, the apparent lack of combat casualties for Australian troops is due to the superior training and preparation of Australian troops compared to nations such as Canada, who have suffered far greater losses in the same combat theatre.

If I'm to believe a morning show host, apparently we and the rest of the NATO coalition offer our troops substandard training and preparation for their jobs on deployment, which accounts for the 71 Canadian deaths in Afghanistan since the start of the mission in 2001.

What she didn't comment about is that fact that though it was an IED that did the damage, the convincing majority of the loses to all nations in Afghanistan is due to IEDs and the last time I checked everyone was still trying to figure out how to mediate this threat. Also, set aside the fact that Canada was responsible for leading the operation for 18 months of the total deployment (so far), that we have 2.5 times the number of troops on deployment than Operation Slipper (the Aussie codename for the Afghan deployment), and that 6 of our deaths are due to friendly fire.

The news article read by Ms Wilkinson is demeaning to Australian, Canadian, and the rest of the NATO contingent of troops serving in Afghanistan. They are all doing a very dangerous, challenging, and in some cases disillusioning job. It does not do to invoke differences in the training regimes of the defence forces of Australia and Canada to account for the disparity in combat losses. Nor does it imply that any one country is doing a harder job than any other.

This sort of reporting drives me up the wall. Ignorant comments by uninformed newsreaders have to be one of my pet peeves. Stop with this buddy-buddy faux 'I'm your friend' newsreader rubbish and give me the news without the misinformed personal perspective.

Gahhh!

I'm not done yet... There's several other nations, and one in particular, who are for some completely, bewilderingly, unsensibly obtuse reason trying to assert that Canada doesn't, all of the sudden, have sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. Pardon me for noticing, but a strip of water far less than 200 nm wide, bordered on all sides by land and sea of unquestionably Canadian control, ownership, and heritage is still Canadian.

There is no question of sovereignty here. I implore our government to firmly and vigorously sever all the grubby, scrounging diplomatic tendrils dendritising their way across Canadian High Arctic sovereignty. Assert our ownership. The governance of the sea of this passage is Canada's and Canada's alone.

Picture this - climate change unexpectedly causes a massive change in rainfall patterns over central Australia and the Outback becomes one of the most fertile breadbaskets of the world. Then, given this new and proximal source of future wealth and prosperity, Indonesia and New Zealand crow loudly that they have territorial ownership of Outback Australia. Absurd. Just as is this issue of control of the Northwest Passage.

In thinking that international diplomacy is well thought and considered, I'm obviously mistaken. Even conceiving that there is a control question smacks of bare and incomprehensible farce. Get stuffed scroungers.

Gahhh!

*/rant*

posted by Kyle @ 19:26