Vote starting tonight (if you wish)

From my other blogging persona, the Canadian military blog The Torch has rather amazingly become a finalist in the American 2008 Weblog Awards section for "Best Canadian Blog".

From Christie Blatchford in the Globe and Mail:

After Somalia, Forces prove ‘open and transparent'

...As one writer wrote recently on The Torch [Damian Brooks, that was], a blog about the Canadian military, “Nobody who's thought about it for any length of time wants soldiers freelancing as to how they apply force. That makes them no better than an armed gang. The fact that they are controlled by a lawful government authority is what makes the violence they apply morally acceptable.”

That is the standard to which the Canadian soldier must be held. As Colonel Ian Hope once told a group of the troops under his command, this almost three years ago at a hideous little base called Gumbad, “We need discipline and we need to keep up our professionalism,” he said. “That's what distinguishes you from every other guy with a gun in this country.”

Mark C.

Update: More from Damian Brooks on democratic rights.

Upperdate: Voting is open; one can vote once every 24 hours (should one wish).

Posted by markc at January 5, 2009 03:28 PM