Over the transom: Fifteen Days

I don’t know what to say about Fifteen Days, a chronicle of Canadian soldiers in the combat zones of Afghanistan. Christie Blatchford’s tales of young men and women fighting and grieving for each other are just plain heartbreaking. Depressing. Infuriating. And inspiring. The book doesn’t try to be balanced or a work of historical analysis, it just presents the accounts of Canadians of different stripes — including Blatchford — trying to cope with a strange and hostile land. Trying to cope with the loss of comrades who fall for a cause most Canadians don’t even think about on a daily basis. Trying to cope with the loss of husbands and wives and children. It’s not a fancy book, not a Dispatches or D-Day. It’s not a record of large, history-changing battles fought with armies, it’s a photo album of people’s loved ones fighting and dying in random, unnamed patches of dust on the other side of the world. And it’s exactly the sort of book that needed to be written right now. Here’s a video of Blatchford discussing a firefight she got caught in:

Abducted CBC journalist released

Melissa Fung was kidnapped in Afghanistan on Oct. 12, but the news was kept secret over fears for her safety. She was released in Kabul today.

CBC journalist Mellissa Fung was released into the custody of Canadian officials in Kabul on Saturday, four weeks after she was abducted.

Fung was taken by armed men who approached her in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul on Oct. 12. The journalist, who was stationed at the NATO military base in Kandahar but was visiting the Kabul-area camp to report on a story, was then taken to the mountains west of the Afghan capital.

As news of her release broke on Saturday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that she was in good health and undergoing a medical examination.

News of the abduction was kept secret over concerns about her safety.

“In the interest of Mellissa’s safety and that of other working journalists in the region, on the advice of security experts, we made the decision to ask media colleagues not to publish news of her abduction,” CBC News publisher John Cruickshank said. “All of the efforts made by the security experts were focused on Mellissa’s safe and timely release.”

Mexico is Canada’s top source of refugees

One of my neighbours fled Mexico a while back after a relative was kidnapped and killed by a gang. It turns out there are a lot of people like him in Canada.

A record number of Mexicans are fleeing to Canada, claiming their own country cannot keep them safe as it struggles to contain a grisly narcotics war that is spilling into nightclubs and restaurants.

There are currently 9,070 Mexican refugee claimants waiting to have their cases heard, the largest number yet from one country since the Immigration and Refugee Board was established in 1989.

“We all know and love Mexico and Mexican beaches, but that is not the real Mexico,” said Doug Lehrer, a Toronto lawyer. “Mexican authorities are completely overwhelmed and can’t offer ordinary people a reasonable level of protection.”

“Things got worse — a lot worse”

The Post‘s Scott Deveau writes about surviving an IED attack in Afghanistan:

The IED hit us in mid-sentence. Flipped the vehicle, hanging us from our seatbelts. The blast had blown my helmet and my glasses clear off my head and honestly, I had no idea what had happened until I heard Tobi screaming “Holy shit! Holy shit!”

I popped my seatbelt and fell to the ground. The vehicle was on its side and, to their credit, the soldiers had the presence of mind to know that everyone needed to get out.

Tobi turned to me and said, “I think you’re bleeding.”

I reached up and felt my head was wet. It wasn’t blood. It was gasoline, presumably dripping from the remnants of the IED or from the busted vehicle.

I was reaching around for my helmet, when one of a soldier started yelling at me to get out of the vehicle.

I said there was no way I was getting out the vehicle without my helmet, thinking our convoy was likely to come under attack next.

After fumbling around in vain for my helmet the soldier screamed one more time for me to get out of the vehicle, so I did, without my helmet and holy terror blazing in my eyes.

Canadian Press writer Tobi Cohen was also in the vehicle and files her report.