Given that many of this blog’s readers do not reside in the National Capital Region, there’s a good chance you haven’t read this story. It’s in this week’s Hill Times (for those who don’t know, Hill Times is an Ottawa weekly that is said to be very well read with politicos and the like).
I strongly encourage all of you to read through it (it’s long but worth it). Historian Desmond Morton makes a point that I and my fellow Scouts have made numerous times in MediaScout. Says M. Morton:
“I think there’s been a colossal media failure. There was a clear presentation of the change of mission. I read it in Hansard, I went and checked. This made no difference to the media. They didn’t report it.”
As someone who has read the same passages in Hansard, I’m really glad to see someone with some credibility raise this story. For me, the most depressing part of this saga was following one of my aforementioned MediaScout posts a few months ago. One of the reporters who is actually covering this story for more than one major Canadian daily e-mailed me and took me to task for suggesting Canadians are fighting under US auspices. I was told (in a condescending way, I may add) that it’s a NATO mission and that I should check my facts before I write such scathing criticisms.
Thing is, I had checked my facts, at least as far as the DND website would allow me. The Hill Times article supports what I – and the folks at DND – thought all along.
Canada’s current activities in Afghanistan now fall under the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom mission. The operation could be transferred to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force by the summer of 2006. Even though the new mission, Operation Peacemaker, has only just begun, they already found themselves dodging more and more ambushes, roadside bombings and rockets in the battered country, with an increasing number of casualties.
I hope that reporter reads the Hill Times, cause he sure as hell never responded to me when I sent him my research.