Christie Blatchford Lays Another Egg

Cluck. Cluck. Isn't war egg-citing? Just a few days after getting her journalistic feathers blown off, Crusty the Chickenhawk is back with another sucking chest wound of a column.

Not a word of apology for smearing Richard Colvin. And getting redacted retracted corrected.

Not a word to explain how she got the e-mails Colvin and members of the Canadian Parliament are not allowed to see.

Not a word about getting publicly spanked by her own newspaper.

Just this bitter nonsense.

I am not one of those smart Ottawa reporters who, having suffered through too many Question Periods, know what constitutes torture better than anyone else. Nor am I a mandarin, politician or aide, all of whom have endured the same, plus the practice of jackal journalism, which is what the modern game has become.

More drivel about her egg-citing tour of Kandahar, and all that manly manly musk.

The experience was one of the most significant of my life (if not on a par with the drama of being, say, in a budget lockup) and I treasure every minute of it. I made some lifelong friends, and I love some of these men.

This wild statement:

The first is that the hysteria of this week to the contrary, there is still no evidence that any prisoners taken by Canadian soldiers and handed over to Afghan authorities were tortured.

And this dumb observation, to pretend she knows what she's talking about.

Secondly, the MP didn't photograph the man purely to show he was in good condition when he got into the ANP truck. Canadians were routinely photographing every prisoner they detained, in part because most Afghans don't carry identification and sometimes have only one given name...

When she clearly does NOT.

We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over, to ensure that if the ANP did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition.

Because the soldier was pretty specific. About the MAIN reason he photographed the prisoner. And about what had happened to OTHER prisoners.

Gawd. Look I don't really care if Blatchford prefers to be a chickenhawk cheerleader, the toast of the Canadian Legion, and General Hilliard's little pet....rather than a journalist.

But she should be under no illusion that she is supporting the troops more than most Canadians do. Because she isn't. If she and some other journalists had done a better job of REPORTING on the war, we might not be in the mess we're in. And a lot of brave soldiers might still be alive.

I mean doesn't this chickenhawk even know that old military motto? The truth will SAVE us.

So please Crusty, spare us any more of your egg-citing adventures in Assghanistan. Or more of that sweaty Con propaganda masquerading as journalism.

Because the truth will come out whether you like it or not. At a public inquiry.

And in the meantime please try to remember that a journalist is a journalist eh?

And a cheerleader is a cheerleader...