There is a lot of chatter in the domestic media right now about a certain cabinet minister who appears to have exaggerated his role in a certain military operation in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Yes, he was there and yes, he played an important role, but his characterisation of himself as \u2018the architect\u2019 \u2013 that is, the top level designer and strategist \u00a0\u2013 of the whole operation is apparently completely false.\u00a0 Accordingly, he has apologised, frequently and profusely.\u00a0 For now, the PM is supporting his colleague, but the opposition, needless to say, is having none of it and are pressuring him to resign.<\/p>\n
At this point, who knows how that little drama will play out but the bigger question remains: why would he say<\/u><\/strong> such a thing? What was he trying to prove?\u00a0 And to who?<\/p>\n As a child of the Canadian military culture, I probably view this situation through a slightly different lens than the average observer.\u00a0 What went wrong, I wonder, wherein this celebrated, decorated and no doubt courageous individual jettisoned years of military discipline and decided to grab glory over guts.\u00a0 Because at its root, that is what this discussion is all about.<\/p>\n Listen: my dad was an officer in the Canadian navy for most of his working life.\u00a0 My entire childhood was an exposure to military culture, from the slightly rarefied view of an \u2018officer\u2019s kid\u2019.\u00a0 I enjoyed certain privileges that came with the rank \u2013 especially during the few years I spent on base (or even more memorably, the few weeks on board). \u00a0But there were lessons to be learned as well.<\/p>\n One of the strongest messages I got from my exposure to the \u2018officer\u2019 class was the importance of respect and responsibility for the people serving under you. \u00a0A good military officer \u2013 like any competent manager \u2013 would be quick to credit their troops for doing the real work, the heavy lifting, in any campaign.<\/p>\n So what faulty mechanism prompted the warrior\/minister to claim not only credit where none is due, but credit that overturns this time-honoured credo? To ignore and overlook the life-threatening work done by all those under his command, and state \u2013 on more than one occasion \u2013 that, yep, that was me, I did that?<\/p>\n The answer, I fear, is simple: he has turned, from soldier to politician.\u00a0 As we know all too well in this time and place, politicians manage their own realiites.\u00a0 Facts, precedent, tradition are all pushed aside.\u00a0 What matters is currency, relevance, and \u2018likes\u2019. \u00a0That is the only explanation I can think of that would compel a professional soldier to abandon his ethics and morals to pursue such an unworthy goal.\u00a0 And that\u2019s kind of sad.<\/p>\n Not sure how this will all play out, but one thing is clear. This individual has surrendered his military and moral authority.\u00a0 Now, he\u2019s just playing to the voters. \u00a0So move along; there is no war hero here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a lot of chatter in the domestic media right now about a certain cabinet minister who appears to have exaggerated his role in a certain military operation in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Yes, he was there and yes, he played an important role, but his characterisation of himself as \u2018the architect\u2019 \u2013 that is, the top…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-filosofy-c","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}