Monday, April 26, 2010

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?

2 comments:

  1. I love Sam Cooke's voice. Thanks for the music.
    As for hostility, apparently it is instinctive. It's taking me a long time to finish, because I only read "African Genesis" when I run out of mystery novels, but yesterday I learned there is something to be said for aggression and the use of weapons being built into the human genome, or into humanity's genetic memory.
    Hominids like Australopithecus used weapons a million years before Homo Sapiens evolved.
    Mammals have been defending their territory for much longer than that, and witness the African lion -- territory doesn't have to be geographically defined, it can be a mobile area aggressively defended as a lion pride moves in search of food.
    "Hostile intent" might be what the Taliban has in mind, but aggression might just be as much instinctive as defense. How awful is that to contemplate?

    ReplyDelete