Ottawa
Canada’s new Conservative government this week blocked the public from seeing images of four Canadian soldiers’ flag-draped coffins being returned home from Afghanistan. Canada has lost 16 soldiers since it sent troops into Afghanistan in 2002. It suffered its worst one-day combat loss since the Korean War last week when the four soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb. “The repatriation of our fallen soldiers is a private and solemn event,” said Defense Minister Gordon O’Connor. Liberal critics said the government had “lifted a page from the Bush book,” and was trying to keep the dead “out of sight” to keep an evenly divided public from turning against the country’s role in Afghanistan.
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