Of Poppies and "Peacekeeping": Remembrance Day 2015

On the occasion of this year's Remembrance Day, Rick McGinnis notes how the word "Peacekeeping" is bookended on the cenotaph outside Toronto's Old City Hall and comments:

I understand that we have a lot invested in the "myth of Peacekeeping." Canadians like to imagine ourselves as the nice guy, the good friend, the designated driver, the burly but amiable dude who wades in to break up the fight. Like so many national myths, it says more about how we imagine ourselves than the reality.

Never mind that those carved brackets of Peacekeeping, pleasingly symmetrical as they might be, are redundant. There's the simple fact that at least 159 Canadian soldiers have died since we first sent troops into Afghanistan. That's more than the total 122 Canadian fatalities on various UN peacekeeping missions.

Afghanistan might not be anyone's idea of an unmitigated military or political success, but not all of our peacekeeping missions have ended well.

They deserve to be remembered. Perhaps it's time to replace one of those stone slabs and get out the chisel.

The chiseling should have been done under Harper. Now that "honest broker" Justin's the prime minister, the "myth of Peacekeeping" is pretty much taken as gospel (again).
 
On another sour note, Mark Steyn has a few choice words re the Islamization of Remembrance Day in the U.K. (poppy hijabs--give me a break!).