"The daring suicide attack in Kabul on May 18 that killed Canadian Col. Geoff Parker and 17 others served to illustrate not only the limitations imposed by embedded media reporting, but also the skewed punditry and jingoistic overtones that result from such an imbalanced base of knowledge.
"In their efforts to hype the brazen Kabul attack into more of a surprising setback, some journalists reported that this was the most significant insurgent activity in the capital since six Italian soldiers were killed on September 6, 2009.
"This nonsense, of course, stems from the fact that some embedded reporters only cite those attacks wherein NATO soldiers are killed or wounded. Those with a more objective viewpoint will recall that on Jan. 18, 20 Taliban gunmen ran amok throughout the city, engaging in a series of suicide bombings and running gun battles. In these incidents only Afghan officials and security forces were killed, with no international casualties sustained.
"While it borders on racist to discount or dismiss the non-NATO casualties suffered in this conflict, it was definitely self-deceiving jingoism that led some Canadian editors to denounce the suicide bomber in this instance as a "coward."
"You can label him a "fanatic" or an "extremist" but to drive a vehicle into an oncoming convoy of enemy soldiers with the intent of blowing yourself up and taking as many of them with you as possible takes an incredible amount of courage by any martial definition."