Afghanistan: Why we should be there (or not), how to conduct the mission (or not) & when to leave

[T.M.]

I think that this article directly and clearly defines our role in Afghanistan. Good job!

From reading this article, as well as following the news for the past while, people should reevaluate their positions on the issue.

We can see that the insurgency is fierce and determined and there are many more in Afghanistan who hold radical ideals but do not participate in the insurgency. As the foreign occupation continues and more insurgents are neutralized, there are always more to take their place. It will be quite near impossible to neutralize half the country in this way, so I think we need to take a slightly different approach to the mission. We are indeed fighting to defend the interests of the Afghani people, but what if those interests are contrary to what we envision? North America is the richest, most powerful region in the world and I think we need to use our marketing skills and a pro-democracy campaign to convince the population of Afghanistan that they have the power to invoke change. If we can give them examples of how the democratic system has benefitted us in many ways (financially, socially and influentially), we can then use that to our advantage to neutralize the insurgency in a much more peaceful way, rather than have such a large occupying force in their homeland and divert from 'fighting' to 'diplomatizing'.

That's my opinion. We're so smart and bright that we should use more brains than brawn to get the job done. We spend millions of dollars on our own political campaigns. If we do something similar in Afghanistan, maybe we'll see change faster than by what we have been doing so far.

T.M.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

That's my opinion. We're so smart and bright that we should use more brains than brawn to get the job done. We spend millions of dollars on our own political campaigns. If we do something similar in Afghanistan, maybe we'll see change faster than by what we have been doing so far.

T.M.

Ahhh, crap!  Why didn't we think of this sooner?

Thanks, tips, but we have been helping the Afghan gov't (specifically) and it's people (more generally) for the past few years in exactly this.  It's just, well, these pesky Taliban types keeping shooting at us and blowing up things that we build, so we thought, just for a lark, that this fall, we would maybe get rid of a few of them, so that we can get back to being "oh so nice Canadians" again.  I hope that you can be patient with us?  :

Look, TM, sorry for the sarcasm, but your post comes off as a bit holier than thou on a board populated with people who are personally familiar with the problems in Afghanistan.  Give us some credit, hmmm?

Welcome to Army.ca.  Please feel free to fill out you profile, if you feel comfortable doing so.

 

[Boxkicker]

Lets face it there is no debate to be had, This mission has been started by Paul Martin and continued as it should. I have personally emailed Jack Lyton and said if he wishes to support the troops, that he show some reality. Otherwise I just offered him a nice cup of SHUT the F**K UP. To bad he will never see it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Furthet to this, just a few posts away:

As an interesting supplement to the piece spotted by Edward Campbell earlier this year
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/43815/post-383154.html#msg383154

here's another account of how Canada got into K'Har, shared  in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act - http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409

The road to Kandahar
At an afternoon meeting in Ottawa, a decision was made that would cost soldiers' lives, billions of taxpayers' dollars and, perhaps, Canada's reputation
Bill Schiller, Toronto Star, 9 Sept 06
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157753409549&call_pageid=968332188774

It was the afternoon of March 21, 2005 — 48 hours before Prime Minister Paul Martin's first visit to the ranch with presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox in Waco, Texas.

Members of Martin's inner circle were filing into Room 323-S in Parliament's Centre Block, among them, freshly minted Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, a charismatic and articulate man hand-picked by the Prime Minister himself.

Martin had called the meeting to discuss an array of foreign-policy issues.

But Hillier and planners in the defence department were fixed on one thing and one thing only: Afghanistan.

The meeting was the perfect opportunity to win confirmation for an idea they'd been planning for months, one that had the potential to transform Canada's military and embolden its reputation worldwide.

Defence Minister Bill Graham had already confirmed Canada would be sending soldiers in Afghanistan south to Kandahar, the dangerous stronghold and birthplace of the Taliban. There, Canadians would run a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a military formation combined with small components of diplomacy and development. The goal: to help reconstruct the country.

But Hillier wanted more than that — and he'd already won backing from the government's foreign affairs establishment.

Hillier wanted a battle group — at least 1,000 soldiers strong.

...

"Is that what we signed on to do?"

Axworthy points to recent polls showing Canadians turning against the mission.

"There's an innate sense among the public," he says, "that this is not right."

An interesting bit of speculation, really, from Norman Spector in today’s (11 Sep 06) Globe and Mail, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060911.BCSPECTOR11/TPStory?cid=al_gam_globeedge

Tracing the roots of Canada's role in Afghanistan

NORMAN SPECTOR

It's no surprise that the resolution that provoked the most controversy in the lead-up to the NDP convention over the weekend was submitted by a British Columbia constituency association. Along with traditionally pacifist Quebec, pollsters say we're the least supportive of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Still, you have to wonder what was in the minds of the Nanaimo-Cowichan NDPers who prefaced their call for withdrawal with a warning that Canadian troops will be "acting like terrorists."

NDP Leader Jack Layton's office initially tried to play down the resolution and refused comment. However, the phone lines must have been burning up because, within hours, the riding association had dropped the controversial wording.

On the other hand, a resolution affirming that Canada was "participating in the occupation of Afghanistan" was duly debated and eventually adopted by youth delegates. No matter. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, it's healthy in a democracy to be discussing these issues.

With grim news nearly daily from Afghanistan, it's understandable that many Canadians are asking themselves why our soldiers are fighting and dying in that far-off country. In light of Canada's refusal to send troops to Iraq, they're finding it especially difficult to understand how it came to pass that our country suddenly appears to have enlisted in U.S. President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.

Today -- the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- is a good day to look back at how all this came about.

It's not, as Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has said, and as I suspect the Prime Minister will repeat in his televised address this evening, that 24 Canadians died in the attack on the World Trade Center. Those deaths were regrettable, but Osama bin Laden was not targeting Canada. Although our government has a responsibility to help Canadians in difficulty abroad, it has no obligation to go to war because some of us were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Let's be clear, however: Canada did go to war after 9/11.

Immediately after the attacks, Canadian representatives participated in the decision to invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, declaring that the attack on the U.S. was an attack on all members of the alliance.

A month later, then prime minister Jean Chrétien announced that we would send troops to Afghanistan. And Canada's elite troops, J2F2, did in fact help the U.S.-led coalition depose the Taliban government that had harboured Mr. bin Laden.

In contrast to the Iraq war, these troops were operating under a United Nations mandate. Unfortunately, in light of subsequent events, neither we nor other NATO partners committed sufficient resources to complete the job. Rather than defeating them decisively, the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies simply retreated tactically and waited for a better day.

In fairness, the NDP opposed Mr. Chrétien's decision to go to war in 2001, and the party is now being consistent with its principles, if not with Canada's international obligations. Wavering Liberals, on the other hand, are not being consistent with either. From the minute that Canada joined the coalition to depose the Afghanistan government, it became our obligation -- morally and under the laws of war -- to restore stability and try to set the country on a path to self-sustaining prosperity.

Toward that end, Mr. Chrétien deployed aid workers to Kabul. He also sent troops in an effort which, according to former minister Sheila Copps, was designed in part to stave off any request from the U.S. that we participate in the Iraq war.

Be that as it may, in 2005, then prime minister Paul Martin -- encouraged by the Canadian military -- decided to beef up our operation. Jack Layton was among those who cheered when the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, said that the mission of our troops was to target the "detestable murderers and scumbags" behind the rise in international terrorism. In November of that year, the base in Kabul was shut down and our forces relocated to Kandahar in the dangerous southern region of Afghanistan.

Mr. Martin could have opted, as have the Germans and the French, for a less robust role, which would have been more appropriate to Canada's size and the size of our military. His aides are now saying that he never saw Afghanistan as "a natural fit for Canada," but viewed it as an "obligation" from the Chrétien era.

In supporting the extension of the mission, Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff stated that it had not changed under the Harper government. The fact that the dangers have increased beyond all anticipation does not in any measure diminish the obligations Canada assumed under successive Liberal governments.

nspector@globeandmail.com

I have a few quibbles:

• Although 9/11 was not an attack on Canada, per se, Osama bin Laden did designate Canada as one of the target countries.  In effect he declared war on us.  That rather than Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is why we are, indeed, at war;

• Spector, like most Canadians I fear, has forgotten that there were two deployments:

1. The honourable one in 2002 – decided because only the most base would deny help to our good friends and neighbours when they went to root out the den of snakes who had attacked them, and

2. The sneak out of Iraq deployment to ISAF in Kabul when, later, morphed into the current mission in Kandahar.  Spector, quoting Sheila Copps, is quite correct when he says that going to Kabul was aimed ” to stave off any request from the U.S. that we participate in the Iraq war.”  It was an act of supreme cynicism; and

• Mr. Martin could have opted for a ‘safe’ PRT in the North if, big, Big IF he had the capacity to make a decision.  They didn’t call him Mr. Dithers for nothing.  By the time he had made up his mind all the nice, safe provinces were gone – to more politically nimble Europeans.

 

[McG]

Here is what the Ruxted Group suggests Mr. Harper, as Head of Government should say:

. . . and here is what he said

Text of Prime Minister Harper's 9/11, fifth-anniversary speech

Good evening. Today is the fifth anniversary of the terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001.

I am speaking to you from the Hall of Honour in the Centre Block of Parliament.

With me are some Canadians whose lives have been touched by 9-11 in ways that most of us can't even begin to imagine.

Men and women who lost loved ones in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Tanja Tomasevic, who lost her husband, Vladimir; Danny Eisen who lost his cousin, Danny; and Maureen and Erica Basnicki, who lost their husband and father, Ken.

I asked them to join me because words alone are not enough to express what needs to be said today.

As we pay tribute to the 24 Canadians who lost their lives on that infamous day five years ago, their family members remind us that they were real people with real lives.

Lives that were cut short -- deliberately so -- by a murderous act of terrorism.

Like most Canadians, I have a vivid memory of that morning.

As my wife, Laureen, and I watched the second tower collapse on television, as the enormity of the events began to sink in, I turned to her and said: "This will change the course of history.''

And so it has.

In the years that followed, terror struck Bali in Indonesia, Madrid in Spain, London in Great Britain. And security forces in many countries -- including Canada -- have foiled alleged terrorist plots before they could be executed.

The targets and tactics were different in every case, but the objective is always the same. To kill, maim and terrify as many people as possible. Not in the name of any idealistic cause, but because of an ideology of hatred.

And while this war of terror has displayed some of the worst of which humanity is capable, so too has it revealed the greatness and generosity that lie at the core of so many ordinary people.

Something which was on display for all to see when Canadians opened their arms and homes to thousands of travellers whose flights were diverted on 9-11.

And because of this war of terror, people around the world have come together to offer a better vision of the future for all humanity.

For this vision to take hold, the menace of terror must be confronted.

And that is why the countries of the United Nations, with unprecedented unity and determination, launched their mission to Afghanistan to deal with the source of the 9-11 terror and to end, once and for all, the brutal regime that horribly mistreated its own people while coddling terrorists.

And that is why I invited the families of some of the Canadian soldiers who are currently serving in Afghanistan to join us here today.

I want to thank Raquel Hounsell, Janice Shaw and Jane Hill for being here. Their husbands are currently serving in Afghanistan. And Capt. Edward and Judy Kosierb, whose son is serving in Afghanistan.

Their presence here reminds us that real people -- Canadian men and women with families and children -- are courageously putting themselves forward to make that part of the world a better place.

It is the desire to make a better and safer world which compels our soldiers to put their lives on the line.

There are Canadian heroes being made every day in the desert and the mountains of southern Afghanistan.

These are the stories we don't hear -- the countless acts of courage and sacrifice that occur every day on the battlefield.

And in the towns and villages where Canadians are reconstructing the basic infrastructure of a shattered nation.

Because of their efforts, the Taliban is on the run, not the charge.

Women now have basic rights as human beings. Youngsters are getting a chance to go to school. And many -- but not yet all Afghan families -- are beginning to rebuild their lives with our help.

Because we are a country that has always accepted its responsibilities in the world, from two great wars in Europe, from Korea to the Balkans, Canada has acted when the United Nations has asked.

And as the events of Sept. 11 so clearly illustrate, the horrors of the world will not go away if we turn a blind eye to them, no matter how far off they may be.

And these horrors cannot be stopped unless some among us are willing to accept enormous sacrifice and risk to themselves.

I would ask that, tonight, you keep in your thoughts and prayers the victims and families of 9-11 and all those ordinary people who have died or lost loved ones in related acts of terror.

I would ask as well, that you keep in your thoughts and prayers the personnel and families of the extraordinary people in Afghanistan and elsewhere who have put themselves on the line so that the world is a better and safer place for all of us.

Good night.

Unfortunately, it seems more may still be required.

Fighting terrorism requires sacrifice: Harper
Updated Mon. Sep. 11 2006 7:47 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

...

Analysis

In recent polls, Canadian support for the Afghanistan mission has been tepid. In a poll conducted between July 13-16 by The Strategic Counsel for CTV and The Globe and Mail, 39 per cent of respondents said they supported sending Canadian troops to Afghanistan versus 56 per cent who opposed the move.

CTV's chief political correspondent Craig Oliver told Newsnet the prime minister tried to emotionally link the events of 9/11 with current Canadian involvement in Afghanistan.

Oliver said the speech comes at a time when the Canadian mission in Afghanistan is in a bad patch.

"If you and I were in a street fight and we had to turn to onlookers and say, 'please give us help here', we wouldn't be said to be winning.

"And we've been forced to go to NATO and say, 'we are up against it here'," he said.

A year ago, the Taliban operated in hit-and-run raids. Now they are fighting in large groups, almost like conventional warfare, he said.

With the current talk of bringing in tanks, Oliver said military told him four years ago that tanks shouldn't be used because they separate our troops from Afghan population.

While Harper made an effective presentation, he didn't address many of the questions that should be asked about this mission, Oliver said.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060911/harper_speech_060611/20060911?hub=TopStories

Hopefully, the television networks are mandated to carry the next speech (and to carry it live).  Too much of relevance was edited out when I finally saw it.

 

[PigPen]

What is Canada's Real Role In Afghanistan?
Posted: 09/12
From: Mathaba

On Canadian Television last week, the mainstream media showed our soldiers laying siege to a village in southern Afghanistan. They should be in Darfur where they could perhaps do something to stop a bloody genocide and do some good for a change.

By Mike Hoover

On Canadian television last week, the mainstream media showed our soldiers laying siege to a village in southern Afghanistan. They proudly showed views of American jets bombing and strafing this village. If one looked carefully the hills were barren and dry -- no vegetation to be seen anywhere. Then the television panned over to another province and poppy fields - lush and green as far as the eye could see. The only movement were laconic farm workers slitting the poppy bulbs in anticipation of this years opium harvest.

What's wrong with this picture? The way I see it is our Canadian war of genocide directed at an entirely different tribe and ethnic group than the ones participating in the opium business. We used to be such a peace-loving nation but now our leaders are following George W. Bush and his shadenfreudian policies.

When the reporter takes the time to interview a Canadian soldier, he's told matter of factly that the soldier "believes in his mission". As I understood it, a soldier's mission is to obey orders or face the consequences. The soldier never really gets around to stating what that mission is, in fact, all we hear is the same neocon prattle that the mainstream cheerleading media is foisting on us, ad infinitum.

I would like to personally congratulate Jack Layton, a leader of one of our major political parties for coming out strongly in favour of putting and end to this madness.

I can understand the need for Canadian soldiers to bloody the battalion in order to create heros and give out medals. But not in their present capacity. They should be in Darfur where they could perhaps do something to stop a bloody genocide and do some good for a change. Afghanistan is in serious trouble, it needs help in many ways, body counts seem to be all this presant mission is providing.

 

[Sig_Des]

I would like to personally congratulate Jack Layton, a leader of one of our major political parties for coming out strongly in favour of putting and end to this madness.

Well looky....it's a Taliban Jack lackey. Tripe.

Do you have a link to this?

 

[PigPen]

http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=542932

one more pot smoking freak

 

[Dognuts]

Wow Pigpen, your grasp of the situation in Afghanistan is truly staggering.

 

[x-grunt]

From Global Security:

Al Mathaba
Anti-Imperialism Center (AIC)
Al Mathaba (meaning center) is the Libyan center for anti-imperialist propaganda which has funded third world guerilla groups. The Anti-Imperialism Center (AIC) - also known as Mathaba - is used by the Libyan Government to support terrorist networks and thus plays an important role in Qadhafi's terrorism strategy.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/libya/mathaba.htm

Seems like PigPen may be working - perhaps innocently - on behalf of the enemy.


(Edit to correct a misspelled word)

 

[PigPen]

Thanks for that link, very interesting.

 

[x-grunt]

Your welcome. Web sources with extreme right or left views always make me suspicious. Information, or misinformation, can be a weapon too, and the web is a cheap delivery system.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Things might have been a tad less confusing, pigpen, if you had used a couple of Army.ca conventions like the quote function [ quote ] and [ /quote ] (no spaces) to start and end the al Mathaba bit, plus a link to the site from which you extracted it, plus a brief introductory or concluding sentence indicating that you do, indeed, think this is the work of "one more pot smoking freak".

You would still have been called for confusing an enemy propaganda statement with fairly typical NDP 'thinking', but people would not have started to believe that you, maybe unwittingly, are part of the problem.

 

[Sig_Des]

Bravo Zulu, x-grunt and Edward, on tracking this source down properly.

I think any on line "news" site that brings you such articles as "It's time to end the last "tabboo" and hold Israel accountable for it's actions." ( http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=539266 ), "Nuke Iran, Blame the Jews" ( http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=540835 ), and "The shame of being an American" ( http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=540798&all_ids=1 ), should be taken with a very LARGE grain of salt.

As previously stated....utter tripe.

 

[patrick666]

They should be in Darfur where they could perhaps do something to stop a bloody genocide and do some good for a change. Afghanistan is in serious trouble, it needs help in many ways, body counts seem to be all this presant mission is providing.

What the hell do they think is going to happen if the Forces showed up in Darfur? They're going to meet us on the run away with flowers, showering us with hugs and kisses? What happens when soldiers die in Darfur? "Oh, well then, let's get them out of there because it's a lost cause now!"

I think the whole NDP party has ADD, can't focus on a mission, can't sit still long enough to understand it.

 

[Lost_Warrior]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn't the government of Darfur specifically say that they did not want any Western soldiers in the country? (they only wanted African soldiers)  Had Canada gone anyway, it would have been an invasion and an act of war.

Afghanistan on the other hand.. Canada is there at the specific request of the democratically elected government.  Here Wacko Jacko goes on in front of the camera about what we should be doing in Darfur, when in fact he is advocating for the illegal invasion and occupation of a country.  The irony..

 

[Centurian1985]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn't the government of Darfur specifically say that they did not want any Western soldiers in the country? (they only wanted African soldiers)  Had Canada gone anyway, it would have been an invasion and an act of war.
Afghanistan on the other hand.. Canada is there at the specific request of the democratically elected government.   Here Wacko Jacko goes on in front of the camera about what we should be doing in Darfur, when in fact he is advocating for the illegal invasion and occupation of a country.   The irony..

Its one of the silly points about people who write these types of articles; they complain about how we 'invaded' Afghanistan, yet expect us to use the same tactics of 'invading' a country in order to stop the Darfur issue.  Their energy would be better used if they organized a letter-campaign to the Darfur government...  :

 

[54/102 CEF]

So far I am not informed about the odds of turning this around - other than it will be a long time changing a viewpoint of the state/village control ends at the camp gates. Refusal of insurgency suggests the local countries jumping past Religious Wars, Civil Wars, Depressions, and World Wars, to arrive at something like Great Britain. To me - I don't look for Deus Ex Machina - or as Len Deighton called it "a conveniant device for ending things." Welcome back to containment.
I see a huge porous border problem similar to South East Asia 62-72 that was never solved. All the SOF and all the Kings Men (REF A) couldn't solve it - because the political will to draw an iron circle around the regions borders wasn't there. Where do we hear the bad guys are? They're probably not that far away from Afghanistan.
A concept for you - the state of Pakistan is not a state and therefore their assistance is very welcome but it may not be sustainable - "Pakistan is generally a weak state. We don't think of it that way -- it's been ruled by military, it has nuclear weapons. But that's a paradox. It's a country that has nuclear weapons and a very proficient military, and is capable of staging coups, but the writ of the government in Pakistan does not run in large areas of the country. The penetration of power in rural areas is very minimal. It has to rely on all kinds of intermediaries in order to exert power." -- ref B. This was written 4 years ago and we keep hearing the same stuff on our admittedly mainstream medias who have an axe to grind.
The Taliban Philosophy has a track record - as nasty as it may seem to us and we've been back in the area for 5 years? Who has momentum? REF C and its financial roots REF D that links back to Saudi Arabia that hasn't seen how to turn its oil wealth into a renewable economy (dated, but I've heard this same story from Max Boot on Conversations with History from the UCAL Berkely Site) REF E
If you've been reading Michael Vlahos - you'll recall that he prescribes kill anyone with a gun and no deer tag who ain't from these parts.
If you haven't read Michael Vlahos REF F- at least try this primer Ref G called "Everything I needed to know about fighting terrorism I learned from George F. Kennan."
And if you read none of the above - there's always REF H the SI Swimsuit issue! 
Refs
A The Kingsmen Helo Coy - 101 Airborne Div Vietnam http://www.amazon.ca/Lest-We-Forget-Aviation-Battalion/dp/0804119171
B Pakistan is not a state - http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Nasr/nasr-con4.html
C Taliban Philosphic Roots http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/Deobandi_Islam.pdf#search=%22deobandi%20islam%22
D Taliban got its funding from a web of Mid East money http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/interviews/nasr.html
E Max Boot - author of Savage Wars of Peace accuses Saudi Arabia of playing a dangerous double game for several decades now http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Boot/boot-con6.html
F - Bio of Dr Mike Vlahos - wrote three pieces on dealing with Islamic terrorists - the ones you find in the bush - you kill - those are the dangerous ones. http://www.jhuapl.edu/POW/bios/vlahos.htm Read these - they are excellent.
G US National Intelligence Council Chairman, Robert Hutchings Speech on Why Anti Terror is another spinoff of the what we know as "Containment" http://www.dni.gov/nic/articles_x_+_911.htm
Dare I say? http://www.google.com/search?q=SI+SWIMSUIT

 

[MarkOttawa]

Nice piece by Richard Gwyn; his Brit background shows:

Canadian mood growing harder on terrorism
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1158011409583&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

...Peacekeeping belongs, sadly, to another age. In the Darfur region of Sudan, where at least 200,000 have been slaughtered, and an all-out genocide threatens, the government is refusing to allow in United Nations peacekeepers.

Aid is most worthy. But without security, it's an exercise in futility. The Taliban, who want people to be as miserable and as angry as possible, have deliberately targeted aid workers and projects...

...If we quit, we'll be turning our backs on our allies (35 nations are in Afghanistan) and on the Afghans themselves.

By going when it suits us, we'll be doing harm to the troops from countries like Britain, Holland, the U.S., that are already under strain there, and we'd do lethal harm to those Afghans left behind who've supported us.

There is, I believe, another factor. This summer, it seemed to me that Canadians were developing a tougher-minded and more resilient attitude toward the war on terrorism.

The discovery of the alleged plot by 18 Canadian Muslims to blow up buildings in Toronto and of the apparent plot to blow up a dozen passenger planes flying out of London's Heathrow have had an effect. In both instances, the targets were innocent civilians, not "occupying" troops...

But even if they fail, as, of course, they might, our soldiers aren't wrong. They are reminding us that some of the older virtues still have value — public duty and societal obligation, sense of solidarity and of comradeship, courage.

The young Canadian men and women in Afghanistan embody those virtues. We may wish they weren't there, but we cannot help but admire them.

As to harder, Churchill on Overlord, May 1944:

Gentlemen, I am hardening to this enterprise.

http://www.history.rochester.edu/mtv/overview.htm

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

As to Darfur, do those who want us out of Afstan want us also to invade Sudan?  Wouldn't we then also be war-mongering as Bush's poodle?

Sudan legislator sees conspiracy in UN move for Darfur mission
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/12/news/darfur.php

A senior Sudanese lawmaker on Tuesday accused Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, of spearheading a conspiracy against the African country over a plan to deploy UN peacekeepers in the war-torn Darfur region.

The United States is leading the conspiracy [my emphasis--and it is true that the US is trying, along with the UK, to get something done while other countries are really not doing anything], which "began as a political campaign in the UN and is now taking the form of a military intervention," Ismail Haj Mussa, a senior member of the Sudanese Parliament, told Radio Omdurman, a state-run station.

The United Nations has been trying to persuade Sudan to allow the world body to take over an African Union peacekeeping force that has been unable to stop the violence in Darfur. But President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has repeatedly rejected the proposal, saying that it would violahis ate the country's sovereignty. He has warned that his army would fight any UN forces sent to Darfur [my emphasis]...

Or maybe a little regime change might be in order--but is not that frowned upon too?

What a dilemma.

Mark
Ottawa