Are you ready to wave our flag?

Are you ready to wave our flag?
From the Toronto Sun
By JOE WARMINGTON

A Canadian flag costs $8.

How many will go this weekend and buy one in support of our men and women in Afghanistan? How many will then stick one on their front lawn in memory of all our troops who have already died fighting for freedom over there?

"We sell at least one a day," Akeem Segree, 21, said last night at the Canadian Tire at Yonge and Church Sts., which has been selling flags since 1922.

It would be nice if thousands were sold across Canada and displayed so the troops over in Afghanistan would see we are behind them 100%. But are we?

It's not clear. This became evident to me while guest co-hosting with Craig Bromell on his radio show on AM640 yesterday. A poll question asked whether Canada should pull out of there? The results showed 84% said yes.

If this is how Canadians really feel, this may be one of those times of truth in Canadian history that expose what we are really made of. The question is simple, really. Do we have the resolve? The Taliban doesn't think we do and is counting on weakness. This is the time for strength.

Four more Canadian soldiers are dead and almost two dozen have already been killed and there's bound to be more. The numbers are sickening but so is the suggestion it is time to cut and run.

Political agenda

But you can see some planting that seed --- enhancing an agenda to hurt Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the next election -- despite the fact it was a Liberal government that put the troops there in the first place. But the politics doesn't matter. What matters is the soldiers on the ground; the memory of all those who have been killed or injured; and that we back them in this fight.

Every time our left-leaning media and politicians talk about running away, it gives the Taliban a giant morale boost. It could result in more Canadians being killed.

"We were very worried about the handover from the Coalition forces to NATO because of this kind of thing," a senior NATO official told me. "We have the ability to win but do we have the will?"

NATO officials have faith that Harper does have the will. They are not so sure about some other countries. They had better find the guts because the alternative is the Taliban getting back in control and maybe even Osama Bin Laden being allowed out of his cave.

All of this has to be put in perspective, Conrad Winn, president of the Compas polling company assures me. "Wanting people to (say stay in Afghanistan)is absurd."

Nobody, he says, is going to want to see our kids coming home in caskets.

Yet, the majority don't want to turn tail and run. And if you commissioned a poll that asked people just that, "the same people who said we should come home would say we should not leave," says Winn.

Dumb question

"It's like asking people, do you want to help single mothers or have lower taxes?"

The real question, he adds, is this: "When it comes to terrorists, where do you want to fight them? In Mississauga or Afghanistan?"

It doesn't matter how the opinion polls swing, he says, the reality is Canada is there and will continue to be. "Realistically speaking there's not a chance an NDP government would pull us out, either," says Winn, who has been doing polls for two decades.

Meanwhile, where is our patriotism? Where are the people across Canada letting the enemy know we are not going to budge and have the backs of our troops?

Coach Don Cherry has been wondering the same thing. "Some of them think they are forgotten," he told me last night, ironically while writing letters to soldiers. "Ron MacLean and I run into them in airports and they appreciate the support."

And Cherry agrees with me on the flag: "There is a Canadian flag in front of my house and it is there 12 months a year."

How many will be placed on lawns in Canada this weekend?