CORRUPTION: Speaking Truth to Power

Thin Bruised Line chronicled the plight of police across Canada due to flawed recruiting, failed leadership cowed by political intrusion and a fractured social contract obliging the public to help them do their job. Sworn to "protect and serve" the rest of us, they are as good or bad as the politicians who oversee them and enact the laws. What hope exists then, for the police to preserve public order and safety in an alleged "failed state" run by a corrupt regime? The answer may come in Pakistan after a think tank urged transferring traditional anti-terrorist powers from the army and the ISI intelligence service to the police as -- the proper agency to provide domestic security in a democracy. Make no mistake, what happens there will affect us here.

Corruption debases universal human rights, women's rights, minority rights, free speech and, amid an alarming rise in missing and murdered journalists, a free press, which is the cornerstone of any democracy. To these fundamental issues, consider Pakistan's nuclear arsenal under threat by insurgents hostile to a regime nurtured by China when western aid faltered. Recall how Pakistani scientists fed nuclear secrets to North Korea, perhaps the most corrupt and unstable threat to the planet.

In this context, it seems clear that our unilateral military disengagement from that volatile region is not the last chapter in this ongoing saga of ethnic violence, religious extremism and corruption in high places. We have simply turned another page. As the Afghanistan combat mission ended and the troops rotated home, many returning men and women, military and police, observed that you cannot "save" that troubled land without grasping what is happening -- or not happening -- next door in Pakistan. Our role cost more than 11 billion dollars and 158 lives, plus "incremental" costs for the hundreds permanently scarred by missing limbs and shattered lives sustained in proud service to their country and the Afghan people. Freedom isn't free.

Such is the toll in the aftermath of war. But what is our legacy? Is victory defined by crushing a foe without toppling a corrupt allied regime? Which benefits the local population more? Which promises the greater hope for their future? And what is our future in South Asia? Will Christian nations, no matter how well intentioned, ever be fully embraced in a region overwhelmingly Muslim, Hindu and Sikh? Is the war on terror a battle for hearts and minds -- providing such staples as food, shelter, medicine, employment and a stable power source to run the factories -- or does it simply line the pockets of a corrupt elite?

These issues blurred the line long ago between police and the military when peace officers morphed into peacekeepers to fill gaps in the front-line ranks of troops assuming a peacemaking combat role. Tactics may differ, but strategies align, and our social contract with those who serve and protect us -- police and military -- expands abroad. To quote former Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier: "When a soldier steps on foreign soil in a high-risk environment, every single Canadian should be walking with him or her."

We abrogate our responsibilities to the police, the military, the federal government, NATO or the UN at our peril. We abandon those our men and women who put boots on the ground as well as the local heroes who conquer fear and step into harm's way in their own countries to defy high-level corruption for the greater common good. All have roles to play, as do we. Posting fact sheets and backgrounders, investigative features and analysis with the faces of heroic profiles of ordinary people, we will applaud courage, condemn corruption and provide context to better relate what happened, why it matters and what it means to you.

"Moving forward" is a loathsome expression spewed by overpriced motivational gurus, wordsmiths and spin doctors to feckless managers and their lackeys, long devoid of original thought, free will or even common sense. The odious catch phrase is duly repeated by the mainstream media without context or challenge as they scramble to "post first" online to meet what seem to be the constant deadlines of digital reporting. Just as history teaches us to forgive but not forget, we dare not move on without glancing back, not from fear or paranoia, but to understand that what's happening over there today will affect us here tomorrow. Today, we seek to challenge corruption by speaking truth to power. Your input is encouraged!