Doomsday Always Sells

Professor Granatstein is an authority on military affairs, a prolific author and one of the band of senior academics who provide intellectual support to the Conservative party and government. His last book, Who Killed the Canadian Military? (the Liberals, of course, but ultimately the voters who elected them) was a best seller. No doubt he, his agent and publisher hope for a similar success with this volume, which would explain why they have wrapped serious content in horror fiction and chosen a gimmicky title.

At the same time that we pose Granatstein’s title question, “Whose war is it?,” we also need to ask “Which war are we talking about?” Afghanistan would seem the obvious answer because there is an ongoing debate about whether our troops should be there at all. Granatstein would be just the man to make the case that the war in Afghanistan is our war. Indeed, he does think that war is our war—but that’s not the war to which the title refers...