Oh, Canada

An Appreciation of a Good Friend

A few days ago, a memory came and infuriated me. It was about 12 years ago, at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan. KAF was built by the Canadians—it had a Tim Horton’s and a roller hockey rink!—and would soon be transferred to us. There was still a strong Canadian presence, however, and at dusk one day I heard mournful martial music. A ceremony was taking place. Flags were being lowered. Two Canadian troopers had been killed in action. I stood with their comrades, overwhelmed by grief and gratitude for their sacrifice. I held my hand over my heart as the Canadian anthem was played.

The Canadians were in Afghanistan because they were our allies. They were part of the NATO presence there, acting in compliance with Article 5 of the treaty: We had been attacked on 9/11. They were bound to come to our defense. All 30 NATO allies were there, some in more robust fashion than others. (I remember patrolling Mazar e Sharif with the reluctant Germans one afternoon; it was safer than The Bronx, but at least they were there.)

I think the memory popped to mind after J.D. Vance derogated the “free-loading” Europeans, during the infamous Houthi chat. But Afghanistan wasn’t free for the Canadians or the Brits or the French or the Danes or any of the allies who came to support us there.

JD Vance served in Iraq, not Afghanistan, and NATO wasn’t officially involved—we foolishly invaded; we were not attacked—so possibly he wasn’t aware of the losses our allies suffered in our defense. He should have been, though. His ignorance, and his attitude toward our allies, is a cavalier obscenity.

The way Trump is treating Canada now is also obscene. They are excellent neighbors. They don’t deserve the anxiety he’s inflicted upon them with his on-again, off-again tariff mania. Some tariffs, to bolster national security industries, should be tolerable. But Trump is playing games. According to some excellent reporting in Politico, even his closest advisors aren’t sure what’s going to happen on April 2, the day new tariffs are threatened:

“No one knows what the fuck is going on,” said one White House ally close to Trump’s inner circle, granted anonymity to speak freely. “What are they going to tariff? Who are they gonna tariff and at what rates? Like, the very basic questions haven’t been answered yet.”

The casual callousness of this Administration is appalling. It is evident every single day, if you look for it. Actually, you don’t have to look very hard. The coddling of Russian evil in Ukraine is blasphemous. The crude attempt to pillage Ukraine, the ever-shifting goal posts when it comes to a mineral rights deal shakedown, is appalling. I am proud that many military veteran members of Congress, led by Republicans like Don Bacon and Democrats like Seth Moulton, are making a forceful stand against Trump’s disgraceful sellout. But then, military veterans know that we are not playing around here: we are making life and death decisions. We are thoughtlessly dishonoring the memory of those two Canadian troopers whose memorial I attended.

Most Americans don’t understand this. They might if they were told, but we in the mainstream media haven’t done a very good job of that. Or maybe nothing can help at this point: the American people are easy to anger; they are infuriated by trivialities. They have been buffered from horror—with the exception of a few days in September 2001—and, I fear, see the Trump Administration as entertainment, a retributive reality TV show, No Truth and No Consequences.

But there will be consequences. They are coming soon. The dilettante conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gotten rid of the man who supervised Operation Warp Speed, one of the few things Donald Trump ever did to save lives. It will be interesting to see how Americans react to a revival of unnecessary plagues like Measles or Polio or whatever is coming down the pike. People like Robert Kennedy Jr. are a disease of comfort and affluence; they are conspiring to undo the great good that scientifically-tested medicine has done. I can see where right-wing populist-radicals might oppose the Woke arrogance inflicted by the left, or the straitjacket regulatory state that the lawyers created, or the lawlessness at the border and in the streets. I cannot see how any good-hearted person can abide the churlish brutality of this regime.

It is not a tv show when a child dies unnecessarily. Or when the Russians violate a cease fire they never intended to observe. It will not be a tv show when excessive, and unnecessary, tariffs make autos impossibly expensive. It is thoughtless and gratuitous. And yes, there will be consequences.