Besides the Fact That Michael Den Tandt is an Idiot, There Can be Some Merit to His Comments

Now that the Kingston Whig Standard is part of Sun Media we get the usual right-wing round up, gracing the editorial pages.

And it's quite interesting what they have been doing with Harper's one-man decision to extend the Afghanistan war by three years. They are twisting the story, deflecting the criticism away from the King, and putting it on the leader of the opposition, since Ignatieff has actually been supporting a training, non-combative mission, something that is not viewed well by all members of his caucus. This is allowed and actually welcomed in a democracy. Go Libs.

I wish the Cons would stand up their leader once in a while.

This week, columnist Michael Den Tandt presented his twist on the story. He uses the usual Conservative talking points, "Ignatieff languishing in the polls", despite the fact that he's technically doing better than the man leading the country, and making this out to be Ignatieff's War, admonishing his caucus for not bowing to their boss.

Had this gone to Parliament perhaps Den Tandt would have a valid argument, but it didn't.

However, his column does reveal more of our democratic deficit.

With something as important as an annual 500 million dollar expenditure, not to mention training people to kill human beings, this should not have been a decision left to one person. It should not have been a partisan issue, and it should have been debated endlessly.

Because this should be OUR decision to make. Not Stephen Harper's . Not Michael Ignatieff's. Not Michael Den Tandt's. OURS.

If King Harper won't take it to Parliament, we need to take him to task. Parliament is all we have. It enables us to lobby our MPs and express our displeasure.

But who do we express our displeasure to now? Den Tandt is expressing his to the Liberal caucus for listening to their constituents. Get a grip. I'm sure there are people in Conservative ridings who are battle weary and want to see an end to this too.

Afghanistan has been just named one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It is being run by drug lords and war lords, while the West is guzzling the country's natural resources.

The wonderful Malalai Joya, a former member of the Afghan Parliament, says that we are being lied to. She is advocating for the poor in her country, whose situation will not change until all foreign soldiers are gone.

We need to help clean up the mess by offering funds for a legitimate attempt at rebuilding. Karzai is not a legitimate President and his government is not respected by the majority of the Afghan people. We don't need to train soldiers but workers. We need to lay down our guns and come home.

A little blast from my past, a song shared on Unseat Harper, 'One Tin Soldier', reminded me of something that is of vital importance. We need to become war protesters again.

And since we can't protest to Parliament, seeing as how they are out of the loop, we must take our protest to this government.

Two seemingly unrelated stories this week: Harper squashing the climate change bill and extending a war, may actually not be unrelated at all.

All that oil guzzling is helping to cause Global Warming. Listen to the lyrics of the song.

The people of the Middle East wanted to be able to control their own oil, selling it at a price, to benefit their citizens. A Caliphate. But as early as the 1950's Canadian oil execs suggested that they may have to engage "in a war for survival of its oilfed economy", (in case Russia tried to get to it first) while American General Tom Metz compared a Caliphate to Adolf Hitler. Go figure. You can read about it here with sources.

On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own

And in a case of being careful what you wish for, our oil addiction could be our undoing, especially when we are allowing greed to trump common decency, and ignorance to trump necessary action.

And all that loss of life in war will only mean more loss of life, due to the effects of Climate Change.

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there

And the secret they wanted to share was the most valuable of all:

Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said.

Enjoy the song but listen to the message.

A Change Must Come in Afghanistan Now That Harper's Bored With It

Stephen Harper has had a pattern of running away and I think he would have liked to have given up on the War in Afghanistan long ago, if it weren't for having to keep up appearances.

When he was first elected in 2006, he had a buddy. And to show his buddy that he could play, he put Canadian soldiers in the worst places, where the fighting was the fiercest. George Bush said that he wasn't going to follow the Geneva Convention, and Harper said what Geneva Convention?

And with the mission supposedly winding down, and despite all of his bluster, things are worse in Afghanistan than they were when we first invaded.

What a waste of lives.

Looking closely, it’s a mission we should run from

THE DRASTIC developments in Afghanistan in recent days have certainly left the self-proclaimed "pro-mission" lobby spinning in all directions.What they propose now is to end the "combat" phase of the operation, but to continue providing as many as 1,000 troops to act as trainers for the Afghan security forces.

Their main selling point is that after sacrificing so much in both blood and gold, that it would be a national shame if Canada were to cut and run just as the NATO chefs are putting the icing on the victory cake.

CTV says All We Need is a Credible Partner. What we need is a credible government.

The NATO mission in Afghanistan will not be successful without a credible partner leading the Afghan government, says a former UN envoy to the country, who called the campaign "a waste of resources" if soldiers are unable to do their jobs.

I thought all that money was going to create a credible partner. Training the Afghan police and military. Harper threw billions of dollars into that 'mission'.

Unfortunately, he spent far too much money in training our media, so to learn of the protests against us from the people of Afghanistan, we have to read U.S. papers or the U.K. Guardian

KABUL -- Afghan protesters torched NATO supply vehicles in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, hours after allegations emerged that U.S. and Afghan troops had killed three civilians, including two brothers, in their home.

The demonstration occurred in Logar province after a nighttime joint patrol of U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan soldiers fatally shot three people and arrested two others. NATO officials said the men were insurgents who had displayed "hostile intent." One of those captured was a low-level Taliban Commander who planned suicide bombings, they said.

"Hostile intent"? What the hell are we displaying?

Is President Karzai Ready to Call it Quits

With NATO planning a major spring offensive, the largest since the war began eight years ago; it would appear that president Karzai has had enough.

During a visit to Southern Afghanistan he threatened to join the Taliban, if NATO goes ahead with their plans.

When President Obama visited the country recently he warned the Afghan President to clean up the corruption, and I don't think he took to kindly to the remarks.

Karzai was a former member of the Taliban government from 1995-98, before Unicol hired him as an insider to try to clinch an oil pipeline deal.

The Afghan president toured one community where dozens of residents died in an explosion several weeks ago. Local residents said they lived in constant fear and sharply criticized him for not doing enough to stop the violence.

Later, community leaders told Karzai they were worried about NATO's planned spring offensive, when troops are expected to launch the largest operation in the eight-year-old war against the Taliban. But Karzai told the local leaders there wouldn't be an offensive.

I think we should get out of there. What are we fighting for now? Bin Laden's dead and the drug trade is stronger than it ever was.

It's time to stop this nonsense and bring our soldiers home. Harper's lost interest anyway, since Bush is out of the picture.

Enough is enough.

If Obama Can Denounce the Corruption in Afghanistan, Why Can't Harper?

U.S. President Barack Obama made a surprise

visit to Afghanistan recently, and is committed to cleaning up the corrupt Karzai government.

We have been receiving reports of this for the past few years, and yet where's the debate over the issue?

Of course, we can't ask Harper himself because he doesn't take questions, and if anyone brought it up the House, they would be shouted down as a "Taliban dupe."

Isn't living in a fascist country grand?

From Washington:

PRESIDENT BARACK Obama yesterday arrived in Afghanistan on a surprise trip intended to push the government of Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption and drug trafficking.

From Kansas City:

But, the American President added, Karzai could do a bit more about corruption, and the rampant drug problems in Afghanistan. Corruptions after all helps build Taliban support. Afghans figure that if the legitimate government is cheating them, why not back the illegitimate one. And, of course, drugs, poppy crops and opiate production, directly funds the Taliban, and al Qaida.

Apparently most of the drug trade is being run by Karzai's own family, and yet according to the Harperites, he's the best thing that ever happened to the country.

We need to get out of there now. Too many lives lost for nothing.

We Knew in 2008 That the Harper Government Was Making a Mess of Afghanistan

On May 22, 2007, Alex Panetta and James McCarten of the Canadian Press informed readers of the security precautions taken for Stephen Harper's trip to Afghanistan:

"Only upon leaving Europe were the journalists informed of the final destination. They were warned in a briefing by security officials that they risked arrest and prosecution under the National Defence Act and the Official Secrets Act if they did one of two things: mention the prime minister's itinerary during the next layover, or describe the location of that layover to anyone. Reporters were told they could wind up in handcuffs for breaking the rules."

Nine months after Stephen Harper's trip, Liberal leader Stephane Dion and deputy leader Michael Ignatieff went to Afghanistan to meet President Hamid Karzai. While there, Helena Guergis, Conservative MP and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, informed the press that, "I think [Dion] should apologize to our troops while he is touring the PRT." Dion was scheduled to visit the PRT - the Provincial Reconstruction Team - twelve hours later.

Said opposition MP Andrea Matrosovs: "In her petty attempt to criticize the efforts of Mr. Dion and Mr. Ignatieff, she put their lives at unnecessary risk, revealing in advance that they would be leaving the base to visit the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the south where Canadians are working."

"Ms. Guergis complains Mr. Dion didn't go soon enough, but then insists it takes time for the department in which she works to plan these trips because of the necessary security. Her flippant comments then undermine Mr. Dion's security. That's shameful.

It was also dangerously incompetent.

Helena Guergis may not be terribly bright, but her actions speak volumes for the incompetence of the Harper government. And after the visit in question by Dion and Ignatieff, revelations from that visit, were just as alarming.

Harper was in over his head, as he tried to control the war and it's messaging. It became more about public relations than the safety of our soldiers or the Afghan people. And by aligning himself with the corrupt Karzai government, he undermined attempts to win favour with the locals.

Much of what Michael Ignatieff reported in January of 2008, has since been validated by others.

Harper failing to lead Afghan mission: Ignatieff
January 27, 2008
CTV.ca News Staff

Recent gaffes surrounding the military transfer of Afghan detainees shows how badly the Harper government is mishandling the Afghanistan war, Deputy
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says.

"The very least you can say is that Canada's soldiers deserve better civilian leadership than this," Ignatieff told Question Period on Sunday .... Ignatieff said he was concerned about Prime Minster Stephen Harper's mismanagement of military operations there .... said that the public and Parliament have not received "honest
answers" from the government ...

The comments stemmed from a series of public miscues following the release of the Manley report on the future of the Canada's mission. In November, the Canadian military stopped transferring detainees to the Afghan military after diplomats found clear evidence of torture. But the Harper government stayed silent on the subject until the facts came to light last week in government documents filed in a lawsuit by human rights groups opposing the handling of detainees.

Sandra Buckler, director of communications in the Prime Minister's Office, this week blamed the military for not telling the government that the practice had changed. She later claimed she "misspoke." The opposition has accused the government of not revealing the change mainly to protect itself from embarrassment.

Military leaders have reportedly been furious, saying they kept the government in the loop. Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier both declined to appear on Question Period.

... NDP Leader Jack Layton told Newsnet on Sunday that two cabinet ministers now appear to have lied to the House of Commons on the Afghan detainees issue (NDP defence critic) Dawn Black asked on Nov. 14 whether prisoners were being transferred -- and that they shouldn't be, given the evidence -- and the minister didn't tell the truth," he said.

Did Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan Know About the Widespread Corruption?

On the first of November, an article appeared in the New York Times entitled: With Karzai, U.S. Faces Weak Partner in Time of War

WASHINGTON — With the White House’s reluctant embrace on Sunday of Hamid Karzai as the winner of Afghanistan’s suddenly moot presidential runoff, President Obama now faces a new complication: enabling a badly tarnished partner to regain enough legitimacy to help the United States find the way out of an eight-year-old war.

It will not be easy. As the evidence mounted in late summer that Mr. Karzai’s forces had sought to win re-election through widespread fraud (aka: Karl Rove does Afghanistan) to defeat his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, administration officials made no secret of their disgust. How do you consider sending tens of thousands of additional American troops, they asked in meetings in the White House, to prop up an Afghan government regarded as illegitimate by many of its own people?

Veteran journalist Arthur Kent (shown in the above video) raises similar concerns about Canada's promotion of this corrupt government, and lays at least some of the blame on our former ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani:

He was the smooth-talking Western ambassador who gladly accepted trinkets and praise from the enfeebled president of Afghanistan.

Indeed when Canada’s Arif Lalani was marking the end of his Kabul posting on July 31, 2008, he made sure that a Canadian photographer was on hand at the presidential palace to snap him receiving a medal from a gushing Hamid Karzai.

By that time most other foreign governments were distancing themselves from Karzai’s teetering regime.

Western diplomats, including Canadians, were advising their political masters to discipline Karzai and his ministers, or risk seeing the government's tenuous legitimacy collapse completely.

But Arif Lalani and his superiors in Canada’s Conservative government were staunch in their support for Karzai - and busy staunching unflattering facts about his ministries and security services, as has now been confirmed by a Foreign Affairs whistleblower. (Meaning Richard Colvin)

The Canadian Press also reported that the Harper government personally backed a man who had a reputation for torturous acts. This would of course have put our troops in even more danger. Those same troops that Harper and his gang of thugs are now trying to hide behind.

OTTAWA–A former governor of Kandahar who is accused of personally torturing Afghans might have been removed from office as far back as 2006 if Canadian officials hadn't defended him, according to diplomatic memos that have never been made public by the Canadian government.

The revelation about Asadullah Khalid, who stayed on as governor two years after concerns about his notorious reputation were raised, opens up another embarrassing avenue of inquiry over Afghan prisoner abuse.

So is is possible they didn't know?

That seems highly unlikely, given their tight control on communications. But Arthur Kent also reveals that he interviewed Lalani soon after his arrival in Afghanistan, and was very clear about what was going on. And yet we continued to give the Karzai government millions of dollars in 'aid' without any records of what he was doing with our money. This is unacceptable.

This reporter’s meeting with Ambassador Arif Lalani in May of 2007 revealed much about the man and his remit from the Harper government. He was new to Kabul, and responded to my request for an interview by suggesting that we meet for tea.

I invited him to the Serena Hotel, which at that time had not yet been targeted by Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen.

At first, Lalani was all questions. But gradually, he became pensive and aloof. He clearly didn’t enjoy hearing about the exploits of the regime’s rogue Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet, or the harrowing experiences of Canadian law enforcement advisers, who were trying to trace police funding under Interior Minister Zarar Muqbul.

I told him about the heroin trafficking scandal at Kabul Airport, just down the road. And was he aware that the Pentagon was filling the pockets of Hamid Wardak, the son of the regime’s defence minister, with contracts for his father’s Afghan National Army?

It's definitely time to RETHINK AFGHANISTAN!

Why Aren't We Questioning the Corrupt Karzai Government? These Children Deserve Better.

As we listen to these Afghan children we realize that they just want the same things we want. A green environment, a liberal society, an end to poverty, access to education; and above all peace. So why are we backing the corrupt Karzai government?

As Canadians, we do support our troops but shouldn't part of that support be about questioning our role? What are we accomplishing there? Are these children really being listened to?

With Karzai, U.S. Faces Weak Partner in Time of War
By DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times
November 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — With the White House’s reluctant embrace on Sunday of Hamid Karzai as the winner of Afghanistan’s suddenly moot presidential runoff, President Obama now faces a new complication: enabling a badly tarnished partner to regain enough legitimacy to help the United States find the way out of an eight-year-old war.

It will not be easy. As the evidence mounted in late summer that Mr. Karzai’s forces had sought to win re-election through widespread fraud to defeat his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, administration officials made no secret of their disgust. How do you consider sending tens of thousands of additional American troops, they asked in meetings in the White House, to prop up an Afghan government regarded as illegitimate by many of its own people?

The answer was supposed to be a runoff election. Now, administration officials argue that Mr. Karzai will have to regain that legitimacy by changing the way he governs, at a moment when he is politically weaker than at any time since 2001.

“We’re going to know in the next three to six months whether he’s doing anything differently — whether he can seriously address the corruption, whether he can raise an army that ultimately can take over from us and that doesn’t lose troops as fast as we train them,” one of Mr. Obama’s senior aides said. He insisted on anonymity because of the confidentiality surrounding the Obama administration’s own debate on a new strategy, and the request by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan, for upward of 44,000 more troops.

“Needless to say,” the senior aide added, “this is not where we wanted to be after nine months.”

That is a huge understatement.

In the early days of Mr. Obama’s presidency, he and his aides searched desperately for a plausible alternative to Mr. Karzai. They found none. Since the spring, there has been little doubt that Mr. Karzai would remain in the presidential palace after the election was over. The question was whether that vote would demonstrate that a desolate nation that has always been at the mercy of larger powers would show it could find its own way.

Mr. Obama’s decision last March to add 21,000 troops was justified in part by the need to assure a relatively peaceful, fair election. The idea was to bolster Mr. Karzai’s credibility so that his authority would reach beyond Kabul, the capital.

Here in the United States, Mr. Obama began scaling back American ambitions. With the advice of his defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, he dropped the Bush-era talk of turning Afghanistan into a Western-style democracy. He carefully avoided the word “victory,” which Mr. Bush had used so often. He narrowed the United States’ military objectives to destroying Al Qaeda — which is thought to be based largely in Pakistan — while simply subverting the Taliban’s ability to once again take over the country.

“All we need to do is degrade the Taliban enough for the Afghan Army to be able to deal with them,” one of Mr. Obama’s top national security aides said recently.

James Dobbins, who tried to formulate an Afghan approach for the Bush administration — and wrote of his frustrations as attention turned to Iraq — told Congress earlier this year that the objective should be to “ensure that fewer innocent Afghans are killed next year than this year.”

“In a counterinsurgency campaign,” he said, “this is the difference between winning and losing.”

But even Mr. Obama’s most limited goals require a legitimate government in Kabul, one with the authority to manage the army and to rebuild an incompetent and corrupt police force. It also needs the ability to install competent governors and spend Western aid effectively.

Before the election was effectively ended with Mr. Abdullah’s withdrawal from the Nov. 7 runoff, Mr. Obama asked his national security aides and the State Department to come up with an agenda they could press on Mr. Karzai. It included reaching out to his political opponents, cleaning out the worst of his governors and ministers, and announcing a major new push on corruption. And it included peeling away — through whatever inducements work — the least committed of the Taliban, or at least those with no links to Al Qaeda.

“If this is to be a turning point,” said Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who helped twist Mr. Karzai’s arm to accept that he must go along with a runoff, “we must strengthen the capacity of the Afghan government and insist that its leaders embrace lasting reforms.”

The United States has already spent nearly a quarter-trillion dollars in Afghanistan, all the while talking about those lasting reforms. The Bush administration made periodic efforts to warn Mr. Karzai that his own family’s reputed links to corruption threatened his government. It sent mission after mission to teach good governance (Bush teaching good governance? No wonder they're so corrupt), some of which succeeded and some of which ran into what former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called “the Afghan allergy” to dictates from foreign occupiers.

For eight years, the United States and its allies have been struggling to train an Afghan Army; while it currently has a force of more than 90,000, American commanders put the number who can sustain themselves in a fight at closer to 50,000.

And in the end, that force — an Afghan Army that can be trusted to defend the central government — is Mr. Obama’s route out of the country. If that army emerges as a trusted one in Afghanistan, able to control significant areas of the country with the cooperation of the local tribal leaders, Mr. Obama may be able to declare that the country cannot again be overrun by militants. Only then could he pull back from what he termed over the summer a “war of necessity.”