Do you see what I see?

Well I knew something was coming when the media began reporting on the whole Afghan prisoner thing.

I knew there was a reason, that after nearly seven years in theatre, the media all of a sudden tells the world about what happens to prisoners once the Canadians turn them over to local authorities.

It’s been like a thunderstorm in the far distance. A barometric pressure change in the government’s attitude towards the military. It was coming. I just couldn’t put my finger on the extent.

At first I thought; “Ok – some tit-arse hippie in Ottawa is just stirring the poop.” But the more I’ve seen in the media, read in newspapers and heard through the military spouse grapevine (by far the most reliable source of the three) I began to see that this was the governmental spin doctors at work.

What I failed to understand, at the beginning, was the truly Machiavellian mechanizations of the Canadian federal government.

After 9-11 people began to appreciate the military. They started Red Fridays. Support Our Troops ribbons popped up on businesses and homes. And the government, sensing that they’d better get on the bus, threw their support to the men and women in uniform and began to do what they should have been doing for the previous twenty years.

Outdated equipment was replaced. Recruiting was improved. The image was improved. All in the hopes to gain popular support for the government that was sending the boys overseas.

A bit of flag waving is always good for the polls.

But now the Afghan mandate is almost up.

And the world’s economy is in the toilet.

Along with Harper’s approval rating.

Hmmm – I wonder how to tie this up in a nice big package?

Well – first you villainize the heroes. If you discover your heroes have clay feet then you don’t care how they’re treated – do you?

That way, once the combat mandate is over in 2011, you have the public approval, or at least their indifference, so you can claw back everything you’ve given to the one group of loyal employees who can’t protest back.

The military grapevine is ripe with budget constraint rumours and we’re months away from the fiscal year end.

History appears to be repeating itself.

The last time this happened was in the early 1990s. Bases were closed. The military was scaled back. Equipment contracts were cancelled, and soldiers’ pays were frozen so that some poor buggers had to go to food banks to survive.

I wonder how much further it will go this time.

After all – the greatest soldier advocate, Gen. Rick Hillier, was put out to pasture.

Now they’ve got their yes-men - their “corporate-minded” political monkeys who don’t care about Cpl. Canada, as long as their own jobs are safe.

They’ve got their distraction for the Canadian people. They’ve got their scapegoat. And now they won’t have to answer for the $50-trillion dollars they’ve spent on…what? Signs made in the US?

And tra-la-la the feds can continue to spend money behind closed doors like gambling addicts all the while sacrificing the pride, loyalty and good name of the men and women who have done so much and asked for so little.

Maybe I should start a little campaign of my own. I won’t need the $10-million dollars that the federal government is spending on the junk mail that’s being bombarded into my mailbox every week to ask whose socks are better or which party has their bread buttered better.

I’ll just need some support.

Let’s stop this train now.

Who’s with me?