say it: canadian and u.s. troops in afghanistan are cannon fodder (updated with video)

I was very sorry to learn the Quebec Women's Federation anti-war video was removed from YouTube before I was able to post it.

Some Canadians who lost children in Afghanistan were offended. But war should offend all of us. Endless war for profit is the outrage, not those who speak out against it.

It shows an actress playing the part of a grieving mother. As she fills a military-issue bag with her children’s personal belongings, including a rifle, she explains that her eldest son has died in Afghanistan and, as she places a red, flowery bra in the bag, that her youngest daughter has just been recruited in school.

“People say, ‘Make love not war,’” the actress begins. “But you should say, ‘Make love for war,’ because you need a lot of children to make an army.”

“If I’d known that in giving birth I was going to supply cannon fodder,” she continues, “I might not have had kids.”

I found an excellent post about this at the blog Zero Anthropology: "Memo to the Parents of Cannon Fodder".

The conservative and pro-war mainstream media in Canada, which is releasing more and more articles featuring grieving parents requiring more war to validate and vindicate the deaths of their children, has marshaled a selective group of parents to express outrage at the video. The FFQ, I am very happy to say, stands by the video and its message and refuses to take it down.

Quebec is Canada’s leading anti-war province in terms of the overwhelming majority that has consistently opposed the war in Afghanistan since the start. That is one of the things that makes Quebec a great place in which to live and work. In addition, Quebec has been the site of recent armed action against a Canadian Forces recruitment centre. Résistance Internationaliste has claimed responsibility for that and other actions. The Canadian Forces are not allowed to recruit on university campuses, but can recruit at the university-preparatory schools known as CEGEPS as well as high schools. In other provinces, especially in impoverished zones, Canadian Forces set up tents on campus and focus on students graduating in areas where employment prospects are very dim. The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has devoted increases in funding to Canadian military recruitment via a media campaign, and even the guide to new citizens stresses the “nobility” of serving in the military.

Here is an old anti-war hit song, sung by Marilyn Horne in 1915. Will it be protested as well? Is there a Facebook page that has been launched to rail against it too?

Many thanks to Zero Anthropology for posting this moving song.

Update

Maximilian Forte, who writes Zero Anthropology, has re-posted the video. Many thanks.