We Canadians Can Take a Joke-When It is Funny!

There has been much made of the tasteless, wholly insensitive and grotesque segment that aired on Fox News' semi-satirical crapfest known as Red Eye. On the same day that we as a nation lost four more soldiers to the conflict in Afghanistan bringing the ignominious total to 116, some pinheads over at the "faux news" network decided that it would be a laugh riot to ridicule Canada's contribution to the military struggle in that hellhole of a country. Well, guess what Big Brother? We here in the Great White North aren't laughing. We find it difficult to laugh at the images of flag-draped coffins coming home. We tend not to chuckle when our contributions to aid our allies are lampooned. It is true that we are quiet, peace-loving, hockey rabid, and a bit pedantic, but we tend to get pissed off when such blind ignorance to our existence is shown by our nearest and supposedly dearest friends. While it may be true that we are not a country that is well-known for our military prowess, we have a long and proud history of  engagement that would make the morons at Red Eye blush with ignorance. 

• Canada enter the fray in both World Wars ahead of the Americans. In World War I, we followed Great Britain (we were bound as a subservient) to arms in August of 1914. While we were not at liberty to refuse the call, we did have the independence to choose our level of involvement. The United States did not enter the war until April of 1917. The per capita death casualty rate for Canada during the Great War was approximately .9% while the US had a per capita loss rate of approximately .54%. During World War II, Canada declared war on Germany a mere week after Great Britain did following the invasion of Poland in 1939. This time, it was not incumbent upon us to follow the British, but we did and in huge numbers. 1.1 million Canadian men served with the allied forces, and more than 45,000 lost their lives. The Americans didn't come into the war until after Pearl Harbour in December of 1941. On June 6th, at the Battle of Normandy, Canadians landed on Juno Beach. Resistance was fierce and casualty rates were high, as much as 50% in the first waves. "By day's end, however, the Canadians had made the deepest penetrations inland of any of the five seaborne invasion forces."
• We were a major part of the UN forces in Korea. Almost 27,000 troops were deployed to Korea and there were over 1,500 casualties. 
• We have a long and proud history as participants in peace-keeping deployments from Somalia to The Balkans to the Middle East.
• It is true that we did not actively provide military support in either Viet Nam or Iraq, but that was mostly because a case could not be adequately made to Parliament that our chief ally was being threatened by either country.

Canadian forces have been deployed in Afghanistan since the very early days of the mission. Our soldiers have been in one of the most dangerous regions of the country and have suffered 4 times the casualty rate of any country with troops there, including the Americans. We are sensitive about this war. Thinking and feeling people should be. So forgive us if we find it a wee bit difficult to laugh at the shit that was spewed on Fox.