Outstanding work.

What adds insult to injury is that yesterday Harper handed victory to the Taliban in Afghanistan by publically stating he is withdrawing the Canadian troops as scheduled by 2011.

The Taliban must be hand-bumping all over the place.

Maybe that is one of the election promises that will fall by the wayside?

My only objection to this is that we are not taking out enough filthy lefties with the terrorists.At least the terrorists have the guts to die for something.Lefties? They are a virus,and as such should also be eradicated as any other disease.
Per Ardua Ad Astra.

What to do, what to do...

Increase the numerator, or decrease the denominator?

Not happy with Stephen Harper giving a GIVE UP date to the telliban

The "give up" date is three years down the road. I doubt there will be any taliban left to kill by then.

Tenebris, both, not either or.
More air strikes and less boots on the ground.

With enough Hellfires in UpYerWazooistan we can make that a 20:1 ratio

Get some! Get some!

Outstanding start, lads.

During the VietNam War, body counts and kill ratios offended the easily-offended. Accordingly, the media, ever vigilant to the wants and needs of the overly-sensitive left, downplayed these statistics.

It would be interesting to know the ratio for Canadian troop deaths versus islamist nutjobs. One assumes the number would be even greater given (a) the Canadians came along behind the initial American surge into Afghanistan and (b) the Americans paved the way through and have maintained Iraq with their own blood.

As an example: do you think our guys have wasted more than 1000 Taliban? I think so. That would be greater than 10:1.

I'm not saying this to say Canadian forces are better than American, rather to point out that we are winning in Afghanistan too.

Remember, this is a UN/NATO operation. It's time for other NATO countries to step in; at the moment, it's heavily Canadian, US, British.

So, Harper's date doesn't mean withdrawal of military force; just withdrawal of Canadian military force.

By 2011, as in Iraq, it will be time for a different phase; the construction of Afghanistan as a self-reliant democracy. Now, THAT's a difficult task.

I think by 2011 Canada will have easily done our share in Afghanistan. The other members of NATO can step up and do their part for a bit. Also the US is redeploying troops from Iraq to Afghanistan in this timeframe as well.

Great comment ET - I agree with PMSH on this call - He has already told that corrupt UN outfit to send in help and now he is calling them on that request.

I agree with PMSH as well. Pull out in 2011, but with a "we'll be back" warning.

After ten years in Afghanistan, which was preceeded by about 8 years in the former Yugoslavia, the CF - for lack of a better term - is tired.

During any offensive operation, you use up men and materials, and a strategic 'pause' is necessary to reconstitute your forces.

I see withdrawl of combat troops in 2011 as the beginning of a reconstitution phase, where we can return home, repair and build up equipment, rather than buying anything in a hurry (remember the usefulness of the G-wagons?) But most important a long period to train and retrain the troops.

After a period of about 4-5 years to reconstitute our forces, the persons who had last been in Afghanistan as Privates would be going back as Master Corporals, leading their sections; the platoon commanders would be going back as Company Commanders, and so forth, all with better equipment that they are better prepared to use - rather than learning the hard way in battle.

So yeah, coming home - to rebuild - and then go back, if necessary, can be useful.

Let's just hope more of our NATO 'allies' step up to the plate to do some of the dirty work. After watching us from the sidelines, they know it can be done, they need the WILL! Let's hope they get it.

Interesting how he doesn't take into account the roughly 190,000 dead civilians.

No wonder he describes himself as a "frustrated economist". He's clearly not a very good one.

Dont let them take away our freedom in order to stop terrorists