Canadian Destiny

In “Dates with Destiny” (Geist 67), Daniel Francis meets Elio, whose father made a torpedo in a factory that sunk a ship carrying Francis’s mother-in-law; thus Daniel says to Elio: “So, your father tried to kill my wife’s mother.” Canadian taxpayers pay for weapons, ammunition and soldiers that are used in the Afghan “mission”; in this way of thinking, each and every one of us is personally responsible for the killing of Afghan fathers and sons. I think any Afghan person burdened with a death initiated by the Canadian military would likely agree. Our date with destiny may not be found as an entry in the “annals of coincidence”; rather, it may be a simple result of cause and effect. Oh, and by the way, if the war in Afghanistan is a mission, then Canadian soldiers are missionaries.