When is being "right" at the expense of being right, Wrong?

I hate war.

I hate losing young men, who die in the service of this nation in order to do some degree of good in a part of the world that the vast majority of the Canadian population will never visit within 1000 miles of.

It turns my stomach a little bit when I watch those on the left make an attempt to make politicians who are right of center in their political leanings either war mongers or somehow guilty of war crimes.

The concept that anyone in power regardless of political stripe takes any sort of pleasure in sending soldiers into harms way is perhaps the greatest slander and most epic insult that can be volleyed onto a person.

It implies they are somehow subhuman, when in reality we know that regardless of who makes the discussion; it’s never easy.

As I sat watching the Sunday talk show circuit that pits a left of center and right of center rhetoric machine against each other in an attempt to see who can make the most fantastic and utterly ridiculous claim against the other side, and comment was made that stuck with me.

“You need to do the RIGHT thing”

I don’t recall which side it came from, nor could I pick the guy who said it out of a line-up but it caused me to dwell on the word “right”

What is the “right thing”?

As a Canadian the topic that is most discussed when the matter of war is raised is that of the ongoing Afghan War,

I have watched the typical partisan ballet;
The Liberals who entered this conflict in 2001 where in favor of the conflict till January 24th 2006 which interestingly enough is the first day that the Conservatives took power in Canada.

After that every attempt was made to paint this as “Harper’s War” and to make out anyone who was the Minister of Defense as some sort of trigger happy war monger.

If you took a poll today it would swing a few percent one way or another but both sides tend to hover around the high 40’s or low 50’s depending on the poll, which as far as I am concerned pretty well puts us at a tie.

In 2001 when Canadians were asked if we should go into Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks, the numbers were in the high 70’s to low 80’s in terms of percentage.

This is where the “right” thing comes into effect,

30% of Canadians have gone from pro to con over the course of the 8+ years this conflict has raged on.

What I have ask them is very simple:

What do we owe the Afghan people? Should we not finish the job?

We walked into their country with our NATO allies, we kicked the Taliban to the curb, we beat back insurgents in the streets, we have got them to a point where they have at least the most rudimentary democracy in place, and then we lost interest, because we started losing soldiers.

I can’t blame Canadians for wanting to take our troops out of harms way, but at the same time I have to wonder why we are so quick to be willing to trade lives.

How many Afghan lives are worth that of one Canadian?

It may sound like a harsh question, but its one that the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democrats, as well as BQ have indirectly asked me as a Canadian to decide.

How many Afghan Civilians do I feel are worth the life of a single Canadian troop?

There are two ways to approach that simply morbid question;

You can be right; or you can be politically right.

The see the difference I can cite a very simple example.

In the early 1990’s the UN sent a Peacekeeping team into Somalia to attempt to stop a pending civil war, this mission ended after the Battle of Mogadishu when news footage of the dead U.S. soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu found its way back to the people of the United States in 1993.

Public opinion of the conflict in Somalia plummeted, and President Bill Clinton did the politically right thing and pulled out the US soldiers from the Somali mission after 19 US soldiers were killed during the Battle of Mogadishu (31 for the entire mission), which resulted in the collapse of the mission, and Somalia falling into a continued state of Civil War.

The Somali Civil War still rages on, and has resulted in the death of about 400,000 people, with well over a million displaced from their home.

The question of how many Somali lives are worth a single American life was answered:

31 Americans died,
The American people wanted out.
They got out
400,000 Somali's are dead

400,000 / 31 = 12,903 Somali’s died in exchange for every US solider that did.

But;

Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996 by one of the largest margins every won by a Democrat in a Presidential election.

He made the “right” call, politically speaking, he was “politically right”.
But that call resulted in the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Somali citizens,

The question then becomes, was it the “right” choice?

Was there any obligation to finish what they started?

George W. Bush is often called a War Monger because he oversaw the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Stephen Harper is often call the same for his support of the Mission in Afghanistan, but it should be noted that roughly 8,309 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since October 2001, with estimates as high as 16,000, Iraq based on IBC’s numbers have experienced 104,119 civilian deaths (as the high estimate, roughly 96,000 as the low)

Even if I am being generous; the inaction in Somali led to roughly 4x more civilian deaths then the direct action of invading two nations.

But there seems to be this mentality that if its not on CNN then it didn't really happen. If a child is murdered in Africa, and various international news agencies don't bother to cover it, does it count? Clearly to those on the left, it does not.

As a fairness test;
If I stand by and watch a man drown or;
If I drown a man,

The man is just as dead at the end of the day.

I understand that politicians can draw a line between civilians who die when we are watching, and then those who die when we are not.

I however, do not.

Civilian death seems to be different depending on your party line; and while that may pass salt in Washington or Ottawa, it doesn’t work with me.

If we held the withdrawal from Somalia to the same loose international legal standard that is being used by pundits to damn all Conservatives, Republicans, and Labour Party Members over Iraq & Afghanistan; Would Bill Clinton not be subject to the Yamashita standard?

I don’t think so; but he was a Republican I can assure you that it would at least be a hot topic of debate on the Sunday talk circuit.

Why is the opposition in Canada in such a rush to potentially have our own withdrawal which could potentially lead to civil war weighing on our conscience?

Will it win them an election?
Perhaps.

Damning our troops and the government who supports them may be “politically right” but I have to wonder what the consequences of being “politically right” would be for the average Afghan?

We went in there, and we need to finish the job.

Scoring points off our troops who are in harms way every day from the confines of the Parliament buildings may score you political points;

But I still have a hard time as an average Canadian when I am asked to indirectly answer how many Afghan lives are worth that of a single Canadians?

Because that is what a withdrawal, and calls for withdrawal basically amounts to.

And that is when bring “right” vs. “politically right” becomes the choice of every Canadian.