One of the first images to confront visitors when they enter the new Canadian War Museum is not about war but about shame.
The painting of a dazed Kyle Brown, the only Canadian soldier imprisoned in the 1993 fatal torturing of Somali teenager Shidane Arone, is set on the portrait wall between a drowning sailor, a laughing war bride, a decorated war hero and a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Its prominence is a clue that this is a museum with a difference, one that doesn’t shy away from the painful, the shocking, the controversial. One that tells stories of ordinary people and turns heroism on its head.
No, the only legitimate history today is the Revisionist, Morally Relative History.
These people are pigs. Absolute pigs. I don’t think I’ve ever been as ashamed of my country as I am today.
Via Neale
If you are strong you will be disliked. If you are weak you will be despised. I don’t remember who said that but,in view of the current Armed Forces and Bananada’s status in the world, it’s pretty obvious where we are going. This is just one more nail in the coffin from Mr. Strong and his quest for UN world domination.
Photos of the landings on Juno beach are great Canadian moments, as famous as Paul Henderson scoring his goal.They should be proudly displayed at the entrance to such a museum, as a testament to Canada’s strength and history.Instead, we get something like this disgrace.I would hope that all legions and Vet affairs branches are notified of the contempt with which Canadian sacrifices are held by Ottawa mandarins.
It looks like all the people who died don’t count based on the description. The left continues to push there agenda on to the masses, which only has the result of pissing them of more.
Let’s not have pride and honor for what people died for, but show the bad few examples in history of extreme. The vets must be outraged, as it totally diminishes there efforts.
What a waist of space……
Hey, and don’t let it slip out that “peacekeepers” aren’t at war. They don”t generally ahve the authority to fire first, fire with a larger weapon than they are attacked with or even intervene in a dispute. Yet, the Somalia episode is an example of “Canada At War”?
If they had been at war, they could have simply shot the little thief when they first spotted him.
What gets lost in all our outrage at the Liberals’ criminal pilfering of the public treasury is just how utterly, criminally incompetent they are at governing. Do any of Martin and Chretien’s money-laundering activities (for which may they both do jail time) compare to what they’ve done to the Canadian military? And to the ethos they are attempting to instill in the citizens of this once proud and spirited country by “celebrations” of our military traditions like this one? Have they ever considered just what things like this do to the souls of our young people? Not only could we not defend ourselves now if our very existence depended on it, what are the chances we’ll ever be able to raise an army again when the need arises (as at some point, it surely will)?
Thanks for defending our freedoms, but dying for our rights is sooooooooo 1940’s.
Today, the chic thing to do is gather round the UN and have debates, pass resolutions, commit panels, write papers and try to comprehend our misunderstood despots and dictators. Sure they bombed the world trade towers, but what did WE do to prompt it. Yes evidence of mass graves are uncovered in Iraq, but we shouldn’t have toppled the regime, we only needed to really understand Saddam’s lack of self worth and how that was caused by Western influence. As for Rwanda, if we’d only commissioned an international focus group soon enough, perhaps we could have sent more observers to study the situation, or even set up a committee to monitor our commission. We would have been able to save millions of lives. I’m sure if we just explained to the warring factions that hacking entire villiages with machetes is not the answer to their problems they surely would have stopped.
We don’t need more soldiers in this world, we need more academics, scholars and bureaucrats.
Problem is, we tell our youth not to forget the WW’s for a reason in an attempt head off history repeating itself. So now we diminish that statement by putting emphasis on a couple of unrelated incidents involved in a media feeding frenzy, for a few guys that were trying to do there job in a hell hole. We wouldn’t dare focus on the millions that died due to a fasicist regime.
So now we say, rise up Hitler, teach us another lesson, for the moonbats know not what you stand for. … hmmm great message…. are all academics, scholars and bureaucrats just plain dumb asses, or were they genetically modified.
For more on academics, scholars, bureaucrats aka “intellectuals” search for:
“La Trahison des clerics” (1927) by Julien Benda.
The Treason of the Intellectuals (an essay)
And when are we going to get a UN At Peacekeeping Shame, Genocide, Child Prostitution, and Rape museum???
Way to go Kate…. there goes another 4 billion taxpayer dollars…
You know there going to take your ideas and run with it to get political points.
What is often forgotten is that Kyle Brown demonstrated significant courage in coming forward to report the murder of Sidane Arone. Ironically, despite that fact, he was the only individual to be convicted and serve time in the military prison (somewhat different than the club fed that I only hope that M. Chretien gets to experience) Only in Canada does the whistleblower do the time!
Canada- the perfect post modern country.
Um, how many of you actually read the whole article? Not many, judging from comments such as these:
howie meeker said:
“I would hope that all legions and Vet affairs branches are notified of the contempt with which Canadian sacrifices are held by Ottawa mandarins.”
rob said:
“The vets must be outraged, as it totally diminishes there efforts.”
If you think true military history has anything to do with glory, drums, trumpets and great commanders then you’re mistaken. War is hell. War is a legacy of lives torn to shreds. Do yourself a favour and read the whole article instead of just kissing Kate’s ass.
Joe Geurts
Chief Operating Officer and
Senior Vice-President
(819) 776-8231
joe.geurts@civilization.ca
Facsimile (819) 776-7122
This is the contact information for the man(?) in charge.
Matt attacks; coward.
###################################################
Muslim Refusenik: Irshad Manji.
Out from behind the Veil!
http://www.64.23.89.161/index.html
A Woman of Courage.
Bravo!
Matt, there’s a difference between “war is hell” and “soldiers are shameful”.
Our Canadian War Museum was built by Essroc, ( a subsiduary of Italcementi Group. Estimated cost was 80 million dollars- now estimated to cost 109 million dollars. (Note: this is the only museum in Ottawa which used contributions from war vets)>
Question: How many construction companies in Quebec worked on this, and how much of that cost was funneled through Quebec advertising agencies?
Matt,
By Canada’s definition, Somalia wasn’t a war, along with a lot of others. It was a peacekeeping action, because it may have been interpreted as being to harsh for the public to comsumption. So by there own definition, why is it in the war museum? Not that I’m against it, and yes, war is horror and glory, but why pick that for the center piece. Why not follow the actions of the timeline, and leave them with the horrors and the glory of defeating a world wide menace.
If you were faced with the option of kill or be killed, I suspect your outlook would be vastly different.
Personnally I felt anyone penetrating a security zone was fair game. I don’t care their chronoligical age. In that country the thief was the equivalent of middle age. The troops/peacekeepers were threatened and dealt with it. This was not a boy scout camp, period.
But political correctness being what it is(one arm tied behind your back) we ate our own.
Better off next time letting warring parties finish each other off. Clean up the mess afterwards. No more Browns or Matchee’s.
And there is no reason display that on any wall. One of those situations that are not appreciated by people who WERE NOT THERE!
Airborne is NUMBER ONE!!
I agree Jeff, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. The very fact that we wish it didn’t is the primary reason why we must not forget. We all know what happened in Somalia, and it would be very naive indeed to think somehow that this was unique to Somalia. So Rob let’s not debate the definition of the conflict (let’s leave that up to the suits at the UN).
I think you guys are missing my point here. The veterans seem to approve of this modern, raw depiction of the reality of war. It’s not for everyone, but we owe it to them to get it right. We see the shame of Somalia as blighting a proud military history. The veterans see it and they say “never again.” If they don’t believe that the Somalia affair somehow demeans their accomplishments, then I think there’s a powerful lesson there.
Page 2 of the article states “…In fact Somalia #2, without Conscience was purchased and donated to the museum by Friends of the Canadian War Museum, a group made up largely of veterans…”
I wonder, though, if the vets intended the picture be the first thing to hit you walking in the door?
“Airborne is NUMBER ONE!!
Very much agreed, but this museum picked the one black eye in Operation Deliverance, instead of picking all the heavily armed gangs, often under the influence of a local drug Khat, obeyed no laws and were quite willing to kill whoever stood in their way, which was the REASON for going there in the first place. Instead they picked up an image that say’s “Those Canadians are animals”, and used the incident as an excuse to disband one of the best units in the world. The left wing MSM played it until they got there way, picking up every little scrap of dirt they could get there hands on.
My Blahg has the correct thinking on this one. The truthful truth is therein presented, not the other “bad” truth.
What say My Blahggers, shall we let the Imams walk in here and establish their theocracy (after they blow up your children), or shall we stand at the borders, hands on hips, all in a fury, and call them racists and trolls. Ya, that’ll get them.
Grow up already.
It’s a shame, but not a surprise, that Kathy’s reaction to a bit of honesty is to be sick, and to be ashamed of her country.
It does tell you something about the kind of simple minded world she would prefer to occupy. I’ll take the Canada that has the courage to show the real faces of war…that’s “faces”, plural.
I pay no attention to mewling pacifists who claim that all they care about is “Never again”. There is no such thing as “Never again” in war – like the poor, it will always be with us. And throughout history it has been recognized as both horrible and glorious. It’s as much a lie to claim that the weeping and the horror are the only story to be told as it is to claim that it’s all marching bands and fancy uniforms. Of course, both sides who do this sort of lying think that they’re justified by the purity of their cause. Only nowadays in Canada, it’s the lying anti-war types who have it all their way. If war is all hell and all horror, then I can’t see any reason for respecting veterans. Pitying them, maybe (and maybe that’s what pacifists are really doing when they say they ‘honour’ our veterans). But they can’t be heroes. They must be fools or criminals – nothing in between. The faster they all shuffle off into their graves, the better, so we won’t have to keep pretending that we admire them.
balbulican, sorry to rain on your fuzzy-minded parade, but somalia was not a war. therefore, i see no reason for it to be prominently displayed in a war museum. why not include the poor fellow in the “peacekeepers monument”, that silly thing that glorifies several people (of both sexes) standing around doing nothing. he could add a bit of spice and after all, he was peacekeeping, right?
rob, sorry missed your post, you had made this point already. cheers.
“There is no history with a capital H writ large,” he says. “There is no ‘This is the way it happened.’ There are various interpretations of history.”
Uh huh.
So Hitler didn’t actually invade Poland on September 1, 1939. From “some” perspectives, it was a “liberation”, right? Liberating the Poles from their freedom and in many cases, their lives. No wait, technically Hitler didn’t invade, it was the army. Those eeeevil armies.
This is a great day for dictators, dictator wannabes, and islamofascists everywhere, as they watch their work being done for them. Let’s ensure that entire countries, no, entire continents believe there is never any reason to fight.
Not even defensively.
I agree with Kate, Rob and Keith. Canada had one of the most respected militaries in the world. What is wrong with celebrating that! To disband the world-class Airborne because of three rogue soldiers involved in a peace-keeping mission and not a war, is reprehensible. One of Mulroney’s darkest moments, in my opinion. To highlight this incident out of the millions of gruesome war atrocities that happened in this century, demonstrates what is wrong with Canada today.
Canadians do not glory in their heroes and celebrate their victories. Instead, we delight in flagellating ourselves nationally and internationally. For example, our PM is not attending the VE Day ceremonies to celebrate Canada’s role and commemorate our valiant soldiers. Oh no, he is running all over Canada like a rabid dog foaming on and on about Liberal scandal and begging us to trust him. And you wonder why Canada is becoming irrelevent!!!
Actually old Mother, the Regiment disbanded in 1995 which would have been two years into Chretiens time in office. I believe it was he and Collenette who disbanded the unit. But I agree with all you said.
Mike, Thanks for the clarification on that date. So, now I get to blame the Liberals yet again. Pity!!
Interesting to note the common thread mentioned above: Romeo Dallaire’s post traumatic stress due to his experience in Rwanda, as well as the mentions death of Shidane Arone in Somalia. Both were UN peacekeeping mission.
Given the current accusations about sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in Congo, plus the issues above you have to think there is a bad trend here. Would anyone want to be stuck in that situation?
Maybe the curators could set up a section in the museum focusing on the the moral dangers of UN Peacekeeping.
Next time Kofi calls, just say no.
I’ll add to this discussion the overlooked truth that the majority of Canadian veterans who actually served in war are now dead.
It is an affront to portray their very real sacrifice in the context of “shame” of _any_ kind.
How absurd that there are people who actually confuse sacrifice with waste, who believe that in celebrating heroism, that we ignore the horror that was inflicted.
Only in Canada would an ex Prime Minister under fire for massive corruption in his party and government, who was responsible gutting the military, be escorted by RCMP to be on hand while two Canadian gay men recieve a “Heroes Award” – while those who actually displayed real courage are smeared with the failings of a UN “peacekeeping” farce that has become synonymous with corruption, abuse and complicity in genocide.
Thank you Kate for putting into words how I feel. I served in the armed forces for over twenty years and I met and worked with some of these men from the Airborne Regiment. During my time of service I never saw war, luckily, but if I had, these are the men I would want on my side.
For those museum people to give prominence to the Arone incident not only insults all those men and women who fought in wars but its a knock against all Canadian peacekeepers who have performed so well when called upon. Even today in places like Afghanistan and Bosnia our troops are doing their best and serving Canada well. I am with you, this is sickening.
Perhaps bloggers should take matters into their own hands and create an Internet museum that properly honours Canadian war heroes?
If war is Hell and it should happen”never again”,then why was a war museum built? If there are no heroes in war why build edifices to commemerate it.Maybe we should build a museum for the people who have drowned in our lakes and rivers,the people who fell and were killed,accident victims of all kinds, even those who perished from natural causes, it would make as much sense.Naturally there were heroes in war,every one who climbed into an airplane and flew to meet the enemy, soldiers that left there homes and families to defend their countries and eliminate the aggressers,sailors that braved the cold and dangerous oceans to take food and supplies through U boat blockades and air attacks.I have only contempt for those that think that there were no heroes in war.Its because of those heroes that we can put our thoughts down and not have a visit from the secret police.The never again people used to be called fifth columnists as they were to prepare the populace for the invaders.And a govt. that sends soldiers into a war situation and prosecutes soldiers that kill people is some of the worst slime on earth.
It would not take a rocket scientist to know that any kind of structure the Liberal/ND outfit(s) would build would downplay the defense of Freedom because the people running Canada have nothing but distain and hate for the people they want to govern. The socialist elite are not proud people and they are incapable of Courage in a selfless sense. They cannot understand how a generation of young Canadians would be generous enough to sacrifice their own young lives to defend and fight for enslaved and murdered people that they did not know. Our soldiers were 95% volenteers. We ARE proud; our sorry sallies in power are the brain childern of the Turdo who ‘went to school’ and then to Cuba, when life there didn’t fit his idea he came home to sit out the rest of the war. When Stephen Harper is P.M. ‘restorations’ will be high on the orders of the day papers. Stephen Harper will never allow this smear to remain. Thanks for telling us about this abboration – we don’t hear about things like this out west unless someone tells us – we just watch MSM for anger management excercises.
“You may not be interested in war, but, war is interested in you.”
Attributed to Leon Trotsky, Red terror master.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/search.aspx
Damn.
I liked the old war museum, it was an old fashioned sort of place as I recall. Some attempts at “modern” museum intrepretation, but it seemed nice sort of a dusty place where you could spend of couple of hours, and soak up the atmosphere, and understand things.
I liked the old museum of civlization ( or whatever they called it) too, which I’m informed was a terrible place. I thought it informative.
In keeping with the theme outlined at the new war museum I suppose we can now expect the Canadian history museum to have at its front door a depiction of Jean Chretien stealing from the public purse. Fair’s fair.
Are you kidding? “Shaming” criminals is considered inappropriate in the Canadian Justice system. It lowers the self esteem and makes them more like to reoffend.
This country is being run by crazy people.
AIRBORNE FOREVER.
Down w/ the Liberals once and for all.
” I’d rather eat shit with the AIRBORNE than steak with Collenette”
Take a few deep breaths. I have a suspicion that the majority here could not be more wrong in their impressions. I’ll wait until I get a chance to actually visit to comment in detail (unlike those here I guess), but I suspect this is much ado about nothing. A single painting is hardly grounds for dismissing the entire museum, and no one seems to know anything about what’s inside with respect to Somalia.
I happen to have some small experience with what will actually be displayed, having attended a seminar with the historians involved, outlining the major themes of the display spaces and the messages they intended to convey. They are real military historians and made it quite clear that they would be concentrating on history and the critical role that warfare has played in the development of the country. They explicitly intended to eliminate the mushiness that had crept into the old museum. The other military historians that they were soliciting opinions from shared their outlook. While I didn’t attend any others, I believe this seminar was the first in a series with this type of crowd, and while it’s not impossible, I’d be shocked if they went badly astray.
Like it or not, Kyle Brown is part of the military history of this country, and requires that some hard questions be asked. Despite the name, military history is the museum’s mandate, not ‘war’. Intelligent people who support the military and the preservation of its history can reasonably ask themselves how the entire organization ended up where it did in Somalia. Veterans have a good idea about the crazy sh1t that goes on and don’t share your outrage at its frank discussion. Kyle Brown could be an excellent starting point in the debunking of our myths about peacekeeping. Don’t sell the museum short.
The dismissal of the museum as a whole was/is not the intention here. The displays have obviously provoked some heated discussions, most notably with those of us whom served w/ this proud Regiment.
I did enjoy reading your opinions, which I respect.
AIRBORNE
eastern Paul:
“Personnally I felt anyone penetrating a security zone was fair game. I don’t care their chronoligical age.”
You’re not far off the mark.
Our squeamishness about shooting teenage Somali thieves points out the daffy moral dilemma we get ourselves into with these sorts of operations.
Just as an example, had Shidane Arone and his accomplices successfully stripped some hydraulic lines from a helicopter, a wounded Canadian might well have died because the casualty evacuation could not take off.
We would have been completely justified popping off Arone breaking into the camp; but there was of course no justification for his brutal murder once in our custody. The former would have been a disciplined response to an incursion; the latter was a clear breakdown in discipline.
Here’s another place where our UN peacekeeping moralizing meets reality: deploying Canadian troops to certain countries would most probably mean that, at some point, they will be faced with armed children and will have to kill them.
Bloggins, you are THE MAN!!! That was a kickass sign and the picture of that sign will remain a cherished memory of mine forever. I still wanna go to that plac,e but Pet’s a long way away from me and I have no time to travel down there.
I have also seen a bumper sticker (back in ’95-’96) on a truck that read “KEEP THE AIRBORNE – DISBAND THE LIBERALS” and I couldn’t agree with that more. Since that happened, the liberals have been SHIT to me. Pure SHIT.
And Rob, Somalia wasn’t Peacekeeping, it was PeaceMAKING. There IS a difference, and that’s the ROEs that were issued to the troops.
I was as shocked as most of you were when the MSM showed the �shameful� photo of a fall guy taking the heat for this Somalia affair. And it is the first thing you see as you enter the place, so why would it be there? If I�m not mistaken this single act was used by the �holier than thou� Liberals as an excuse to disband Canada�s best military unit. Do you suppose that this had anything to do with its prominent location?
The museum should of course portray history as it occured, and not in a romanticized manner.
The Sheila Copps’ of this Canadian World who wanted to turn the museum into a “Holocaust” exhibit have, in the typically Canadian milquetoast way, watered down that stupid, ridiculous concept, but have desecrated the meaning of “National War Museum” with inane Socialist social dogma.
What’s a war museum for?
I was worried about the new Canadian War museum before, but I’m quite a bit more worried about it now:PROMINENTLY displayed in the new Canadian War Museum, which opens to the public next week, is a 10-foot painting of a…