Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
The long answer is: you do a lot of studying from a number of sources and compose a balanced position based on the available evidence and the history you have accumulated on the trustworthyness of the sources. The short answer is: it depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. The wrong answer is: you decide based on some sort of a-pragmatic ideology or some other abstract model disconnected from reality.
Don’t believe anything unless you see it with your own eyes.
Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Iberia. For example, I believe that Mount Everest exists, yet I have never seen it with my own eyes.
And, for that matter: ZiLLa, I believe that Yma’s youtube.com/watch?v=pdO-8OwjV1Q is good music, even though I’ve only heard it, so it’s not the case that I can’t believe something just because I’ve only heard it.
On the other hand, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj4xWuM86GE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CST7XOxw4Dk are a different matter because I’ve not only heard them, I’ve seen Grace and Nina with my own eyes, which makes it a more cut and dry case, as Iberia alludes to.
Real life is a complicated problem; rhetoric (much as I love it) only goes so far, as we often see at blogs, when the rhetoric becomes detached from the dialectics, and in politics and the mainstream media, when barratry and champerty raise their ugly heads.
Fortunately, as Mr. Zolf recently noted, Canada has found herself the most noble, honourable, moral, and ethical Prime Minister in fifty or more years, Mr. Stephen Harper, which is, for all practical purposes, rather more important, at least to living Canadians, than my 2000-year old dead-Roman blathering, so I’ll stop now. Or at least for now.
the other story on PMSH(totally unreported) is the respect he his earning on the international stage…..after having to deal with the poll reader(cretin) and mr dithers, anyone who deals with PMSH comes away knowing they have dealt with a man of principle, and have heard the truth(like it or not)…..from Lebanon, to Chinese human rights, to Afghanistan, the global community has noticed, and Canada will reap the benefit….it will be a great honor to campaign on his behalf next election
In order to get information you can believe on a place like Afghanistan, you need to find out how Afghans feel (as opposed to how Jack Layton feels). You do this by finding out how many Afghanis feel they are benefitting from NATO’s involvement versus those who think things were better under the Taliban. As a backdrop, use facts like employment figures, warlord activities, and infrastructure situation (education, housing, roads, etc).
Then, contrast the views of those Afghanis who support having NATO forces there with those who are against it by looking at what the people in each group do for a living. Those who are opposed to NATO and work in poppy fields under the watchful eyes of the Taliban can be summarily dismissed.
Next, talk to the soldiers who have/are serving there and find out if they think it’s a cause worth risking their and their comrades lives over.
But, there’s no need to do this. The MSM has given us a short-cut to finding the answer. The fact that they don’t do any of this coupled with the fact that they have gone from reporting the news to condensing the news to pre-interpreting the news for us…well, this tells us all we need to know doesn’t it?
Much of what you read is politics. Newspapers especially take the party line, their party lines. Thats how we know the TorStar is leftist socialist… look at their spin (Carol Goar) on the multiculturalism doesn;t work story –ole ‘ Carol essentially says thats our fault. we didn;t try hard enough. we must spend more and yada yada yada.
So the Afghan mission is nothing more than a political football here at home… ergo the media’s psychotic desire to film coffins under flags. The entire coverage of the Afghan mission has an undercurrant of “Jeeze we hate that friggin’ Harper and his abortion and his Jesus and all…lets screw the crap out of him on this Afghan thing!!” that – is what it is all about. The massive lumpen proletariat who are only comfortable getting nakked in the presence of Liberals and the Hard Left. THis huge force can only be gelded when their boys and girls have become SO corrupt and SO disliked that they know there’s no hope and desert them. as happened with Mulroney’s coronation. Hopefully the new Criminal Code charges against the AdScam whores will produce similar results by spring.
Mesntime, we have a Moral Man leading us -one of our own kind and belief – we should celebrate.
Someone at the Red Star is falling down on the job; for once, they’ve printed a story that DOESN’T put the mission in Afghanistan in a bad light, and is actually likely to INCREASE support: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/170952
“Adscam Whores” Aptly put!
And Canadian MSM – the Adscam whore enablers!
As far as I can see the biggest problem we have here is media concentration. As long as the MSM is controlled by the lib/left end of the spectrum you will never receive balanced unbiased reporting. A few columnists in the Post give it a go but when your owner is firmly in the leftover camp it’s really an up hill battle.
At one time you could go from cbc to CTV and get some separation of opinion, now with ownership changes that to is lost. I still long for the day when some young and ambitious reporter follows a cbc crew around to record their gathering of the facts, interview the same people, and show pictures of the “spontaneous crowds” that gather.
If we are ever to receive a balanced view of events some very strict laws on media concentration and ownership must be enacted.
Both war raging in the ME are a hotbead of disinfo…in Iraq the CIA is screeining every MSM report and I;m sure the Afghan conflict is no different.
I see this conflict as unwinable unles our politicians do what Canadian staff officers have asked for….destroy poppy production and kill the opium money that finances insurgency and go into Pakistan and root out the taliban’s restaging/recruiting camps….both items are road blocked by politics…the CIA ( which is running operations in the Afghan theater) refuses to let Canadians destroy the opium trade ( surprise surprise…seeing how they finance their little wars with drug money) and we have a PM too lame to tell the Paki PM to get of the pot and get the paki army into the hills removing Taliban fortressess or we will do it alone without his say so.
Otherwise we are just treading water there. I think it’s shameful for politicians to set conditions where the troops have an impossible job in producing a decisive victory.
I’ve written it before, and I’ll write it again, I believe the poppies are the key to securing A’stan.
The private armies of the Warlords need to be gelded, and the best way to do that is to take their financing.
I read and listener to the media very carefully, looking for what they didn’t say.
It does not matter what the MSM says. It was wrong for canada to get involved in Afganstan in the first place and it would be wrong for canada to pull out now.
Troups were sent to make the weasel look good and harper extended the commitment to make harper look good.
Our political system has been run by ego-maniacs for as long as I can remember, my memory goes back to definbaker.
Like a lot of you I had gerat hopes for the reform party, you’d think at age 60 I’d know better. Even so I held my nose and voted for what turned out to be the Regressive conservative of old.
To say that any of them are honorable, moral, or honest, yes this includes harper, means that you are like the rest of the sheeple of canada.
Politicians have one thing in mind. Get into power and stay there. As the good old boys in Georga say, 1 term in office and your set for life.
Troups were sent to make the weasel look good and harper extended the commitment to make harper look good.
Armchair quarterbacks make me sick You figure that because you are 60 your opinion makes us quiver? Everstop to consider you have been wrong for 40 years? I have seen what we are doing in Afgahistan. People there genuinly want us there to stabilize their country so that it can thrive.
Say what you really mean Tony…It is all Bushes and Harpers fault. Thats easier than actually thinking about the real geopolitical situation in Canada and the rest of the world. Utopia does not exist and will never exist except in the deluded minds of the great Canadian hypocritical whiner! Stick your head in the sand and pretend the world is rosy. YOu just revert into your cabin in the mountains and hide your money under the mattress aand continue to bitch and moan as that is your right!
“It was wrong for canada to get involved in Afganstan in the first place”
So you don’t mind that AQ murdered Canadians when they collpased the twin towers?
Usually wisdom comes with age, not in your case.
Bit OT here,but with regards to all the “media whores”,something I found a bit unsettling,was the grab for opportunity to slam PMSH/Cons,around the death of the young man in Mexico.I saw few different Libs(McTeague in particular),ramping up the rhetoric about Con.Gov’t not doing enough to get answers etc.Now that new info has come to light,that it doesn’t appear to be a murder after all,where is the backtracking,and “maybe we spoke too soon”…none of these hounds are anywhere to be seen.Maybe,just maybe,PMSH?Gov’t,HAD more info,and didn’t want to turn this boy’s death into media circus..not so with Libs/media.I am in no way trying to minimize this death,just wondering why the silence from opposition now???
Odie I said we should not be in Afganistan for 2 reasons.
I do not beleive that killing a relative few telaban or AQ will do anything. The area religion will not change as the dominate males don’t want it to.
More important to CF they are not equiped for this task. I give you jungle BDU’s and toy jeeps. How many aircraft, fixed or rotary wing are there right now? Of all the troups there how many ar combat (I beleive less than 40%) and how many are support? How many officers are with combat troups and how many are sitting safe and secure sucking back tim horten laties and getting combat credits? In a past life, more years ago then I care to remember I was there (RCN).
If you read into what I wrote that I am a Harper Bush basher then you are just one of the sheeple like the ones that vote lib/dip. They are all the same, different pile same stink.
Vitruvius:
I suppose I wasn’t too clear, but I was refering specifically to the reporting from Afghanistan and by extension, anywhere there is a war going on. “The first casualty of war is the truth” has been said so often that it’s become a cliche, but judging by the way things are panning out in Iraq (and perhaps also Afghanistan), I don’t think that there are many people who actually know the truth.
I suggest you take your head out of your nether regions and actually put up some facts to back up your allegations concerning our troops in A-stan.
Sounds like a huge chippy on the old shoulder there Tony…a little dinosaur malice towards the officer corp? That old dinsaur view of us verses them has disappeared from the CF. Officers lead from the front in the army.
As for the equipment, some of the best in the world has been procured for the trrops in Afghanistan. As for air assets, too many years of liberal cutbacks are the reason we have no helo assets available for TFA. That is all changing.
As for officers sucking back timmy’s and getting battle creds as you put it, is completely false.
I can see where your hostility comes from though. You were RCN…..my sister is in the Navy…her favourite saying is this “RCN, 100 years of tradition, unimpieded by progress”.
Odie your right I only speak from first hand knowledge. Not from what someone else has told me.
I still maintain that we have no business there. I’m sure that lots of Afgans want us there, especially women and girls. I’m also sure that as soon as we leave the husband and fathers will beat that out of them.
It was the liberals that changed the BDU’s and the toy jeeps, I have seen thoes peices of junk have not seen a G-wagon. I think sending the tanks was a good idea however have some concern that they will not preform well in the hills.
As for tradition along with it comes pride of service. Your sisters saying sounds very liberal because they sure killed tradition in 1968.
My thought’s on the officer core were reinforced this passed fall when I went aboard Algonquin. It was same old same old.
WL Mckenzie Redux: “and we have a PM too lame to tell the Paki PM to get of the pot and get the paki army into the hills removing Taliban fortressess or we will do it alone without his say so.”
Excuse me, but if Richard Nixon had told Trudeau prior to the October Crisis to get off the pot, get the Canadian army into Quebec and get rid of the PLQ, or the Americans would go ahead and do it on their own… well, I wouldn’t have blamed Trudeau one bit for telling Nixon to “fuddle-duddle”. Canada itself is under no threat from the Taliban, and for us to arrogate extra-territorial authority to ourselves is to make exactly the same mistake the Americans did, and would have exactly the same results – isolation from the rest of the world, increased security problems (not decreased), and decreased freedom within Canada.
No thank you.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Lets remember–this is a United Nations sanctoned NATO mission.
The previous governments sent our troops to places like Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, etc…the previous governments made sure they went with little and poor equipment, all the while selling the “Big Lie” to Canadians that our soldiers don’t need equipment because they’re “peacekeepers”.
When I speak of previous governments, I’m being non-partisan, because I am quite aware that Mulroney was just as guilty as Cretien for the dismantling of the military. However, in my humble opinion, Cretien carried it even further with outright, unhidden condemnation and vilification of our soldiers.
Does the military have all the equipment and personnel they would like to have–probably not–it takes a while to turn around decades of neglect by the government, and dare I say, many Canadians.
Things are changing–and I personally don’t care which government it is that has spearheaded that change–as long as its happening.
I have friends who have been, are, and will be in Afghanistan. I also have friends who have been in Bosnia, Iraq (1990s), and elsewhere.
My husband goes to Afghanistan in 2 weeks–and knowing what I know, I’d rather have him in Afghanistan right now, than Bosnia in the early 1990s.
KevinB, your example is silly because not only was the US not threatened by the FLQ, but Canada had control of that territory and was able to enforce the law there. That is not the case in parts of Pakistan. Canada itself is under no threat from the Taliban
Tell that to the dead Canadians at the WTC. Do you really think leaving the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, giving Al Qaeda a safe haven and the resources of a state, would have been safer for us?
My thought’s on the officer core were reinforced this passed fall when I went aboard Algonquin. It was same old same old.
I have a close relative who is the only individual I can recall who has been a member of all three messes on HMCS Algonquin. He says it’s a damned good ship, with a damned good wardroom, and I’ll take his word over yours any day of the week, Tony.
The CF is by no means perfect, and I still think the Navy is a little too quick to eat its own young, but your biases are sadly out of date. Furthermore, your specific criticism of a fine crew is misplaced.
“Canada itself is under no threat from the Taliban”
My question is, then, is anyone or anything a threat? Was Germany a threat to Europe in 1936? Is Canada in AQ’s hit list. We are, and were, before 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan.
If we were to leave Afghanistan now (I understand few of you agree we should do this), we will send an unmistakable message to Islamic fascism: even though we have the means right now to degrade and destroy you, we lack the political will.
We will be playing right into the hands of AQ/Taliban/Hez/Hamas/Syria/Iran/Saudi et al. Islamic fascists are, if nothing else, patient.
We can leave Afghan and the US could leave Iraq now; we are risking future disaster from a suicidal group fighting a millenial war with us. We had better be prepared to deter them, now and in the future.
Stay in Afghanistan and get the job done. It can be won if done properly (Yes we can get rid of poppies eventually, but militarily we can’t right now).
Development will curtail recruitment and give us a chance to win this struggle, or at least enhance our security.
God bless the Canadian combat soldiers, the loggies, communicators and others who support them. They are the finest in the world IMHO.
Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
The long answer is: you do a lot of studying from a number of sources and compose a balanced position based on the available evidence and the history you have accumulated on the trustworthyness of the sources. The short answer is: it depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. The wrong answer is: you decide based on some sort of a-pragmatic ideology or some other abstract model disconnected from reality.
Don’t believe anything unless you see it with your own eyes.
Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Iberia. For example, I believe that Mount Everest exists, yet I have never seen it with my own eyes.
And, for that matter: ZiLLa, I believe that Yma’s youtube.com/watch?v=pdO-8OwjV1Q is good music, even though I’ve only heard it, so it’s not the case that I can’t believe something just because I’ve only heard it.
On the other hand, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj4xWuM86GE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CST7XOxw4Dk are a different matter because I’ve not only heard them, I’ve seen Grace and Nina with my own eyes, which makes it a more cut and dry case, as Iberia alludes to.
Real life is a complicated problem; rhetoric (much as I love it) only goes so far, as we often see at blogs, when the rhetoric becomes detached from the dialectics, and in politics and the mainstream media, when barratry and champerty raise their ugly heads.
Fortunately, as Mr. Zolf recently noted, Canada has found herself the most noble, honourable, moral, and ethical Prime Minister in fifty or more years, Mr. Stephen Harper, which is, for all practical purposes, rather more important, at least to living Canadians, than my 2000-year old dead-Roman blathering, so I’ll stop now. Or at least for now.
the other story on PMSH(totally unreported) is the respect he his earning on the international stage…..after having to deal with the poll reader(cretin) and mr dithers, anyone who deals with PMSH comes away knowing they have dealt with a man of principle, and have heard the truth(like it or not)…..from Lebanon, to Chinese human rights, to Afghanistan, the global community has noticed, and Canada will reap the benefit….it will be a great honor to campaign on his behalf next election
In order to get information you can believe on a place like Afghanistan, you need to find out how Afghans feel (as opposed to how Jack Layton feels). You do this by finding out how many Afghanis feel they are benefitting from NATO’s involvement versus those who think things were better under the Taliban. As a backdrop, use facts like employment figures, warlord activities, and infrastructure situation (education, housing, roads, etc).
Then, contrast the views of those Afghanis who support having NATO forces there with those who are against it by looking at what the people in each group do for a living. Those who are opposed to NATO and work in poppy fields under the watchful eyes of the Taliban can be summarily dismissed.
Next, talk to the soldiers who have/are serving there and find out if they think it’s a cause worth risking their and their comrades lives over.
But, there’s no need to do this. The MSM has given us a short-cut to finding the answer. The fact that they don’t do any of this coupled with the fact that they have gone from reporting the news to condensing the news to pre-interpreting the news for us…well, this tells us all we need to know doesn’t it?
Much of what you read is politics. Newspapers especially take the party line, their party lines. Thats how we know the TorStar is leftist socialist… look at their spin (Carol Goar) on the multiculturalism doesn;t work story –ole ‘ Carol essentially says thats our fault. we didn;t try hard enough. we must spend more and yada yada yada.
So the Afghan mission is nothing more than a political football here at home… ergo the media’s psychotic desire to film coffins under flags. The entire coverage of the Afghan mission has an undercurrant of “Jeeze we hate that friggin’ Harper and his abortion and his Jesus and all…lets screw the crap out of him on this Afghan thing!!” that – is what it is all about. The massive lumpen proletariat who are only comfortable getting nakked in the presence of Liberals and the Hard Left. THis huge force can only be gelded when their boys and girls have become SO corrupt and SO disliked that they know there’s no hope and desert them. as happened with Mulroney’s coronation. Hopefully the new Criminal Code charges against the AdScam whores will produce similar results by spring.
Mesntime, we have a Moral Man leading us -one of our own kind and belief – we should celebrate.
Someone at the Red Star is falling down on the job; for once, they’ve printed a story that DOESN’T put the mission in Afghanistan in a bad light, and is actually likely to INCREASE support: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/170952
“Adscam Whores” Aptly put!
And Canadian MSM – the Adscam whore enablers!
As far as I can see the biggest problem we have here is media concentration. As long as the MSM is controlled by the lib/left end of the spectrum you will never receive balanced unbiased reporting. A few columnists in the Post give it a go but when your owner is firmly in the leftover camp it’s really an up hill battle.
At one time you could go from cbc to CTV and get some separation of opinion, now with ownership changes that to is lost. I still long for the day when some young and ambitious reporter follows a cbc crew around to record their gathering of the facts, interview the same people, and show pictures of the “spontaneous crowds” that gather.
If we are ever to receive a balanced view of events some very strict laws on media concentration and ownership must be enacted.
Both war raging in the ME are a hotbead of disinfo…in Iraq the CIA is screeining every MSM report and I;m sure the Afghan conflict is no different.
I see this conflict as unwinable unles our politicians do what Canadian staff officers have asked for….destroy poppy production and kill the opium money that finances insurgency and go into Pakistan and root out the taliban’s restaging/recruiting camps….both items are road blocked by politics…the CIA ( which is running operations in the Afghan theater) refuses to let Canadians destroy the opium trade ( surprise surprise…seeing how they finance their little wars with drug money) and we have a PM too lame to tell the Paki PM to get of the pot and get the paki army into the hills removing Taliban fortressess or we will do it alone without his say so.
Otherwise we are just treading water there. I think it’s shameful for politicians to set conditions where the troops have an impossible job in producing a decisive victory.
I’ve written it before, and I’ll write it again, I believe the poppies are the key to securing A’stan.
The private armies of the Warlords need to be gelded, and the best way to do that is to take their financing.
I read and listener to the media very carefully, looking for what they didn’t say.
It does not matter what the MSM says. It was wrong for canada to get involved in Afganstan in the first place and it would be wrong for canada to pull out now.
Troups were sent to make the weasel look good and harper extended the commitment to make harper look good.
Our political system has been run by ego-maniacs for as long as I can remember, my memory goes back to definbaker.
Like a lot of you I had gerat hopes for the reform party, you’d think at age 60 I’d know better. Even so I held my nose and voted for what turned out to be the Regressive conservative of old.
To say that any of them are honorable, moral, or honest, yes this includes harper, means that you are like the rest of the sheeple of canada.
Politicians have one thing in mind. Get into power and stay there. As the good old boys in Georga say, 1 term in office and your set for life.
Troups were sent to make the weasel look good and harper extended the commitment to make harper look good.
Armchair quarterbacks make me sick You figure that because you are 60 your opinion makes us quiver? Everstop to consider you have been wrong for 40 years? I have seen what we are doing in Afgahistan. People there genuinly want us there to stabilize their country so that it can thrive.
Say what you really mean Tony…It is all Bushes and Harpers fault. Thats easier than actually thinking about the real geopolitical situation in Canada and the rest of the world. Utopia does not exist and will never exist except in the deluded minds of the great Canadian hypocritical whiner! Stick your head in the sand and pretend the world is rosy. YOu just revert into your cabin in the mountains and hide your money under the mattress aand continue to bitch and moan as that is your right!
“It was wrong for canada to get involved in Afganstan in the first place”
So you don’t mind that AQ murdered Canadians when they collpased the twin towers?
Usually wisdom comes with age, not in your case.
See here for the different headlines the CanWest papers gave the same story–giving significantly different impressions to a reader:
http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,40238.msg511164/topicseen.html#new
Mark
Ottawa
Sorry–correct URL:
http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,40238.msg511164.html#msg511164
Mark
Ottawa
Bit OT here,but with regards to all the “media whores”,something I found a bit unsettling,was the grab for opportunity to slam PMSH/Cons,around the death of the young man in Mexico.I saw few different Libs(McTeague in particular),ramping up the rhetoric about Con.Gov’t not doing enough to get answers etc.Now that new info has come to light,that it doesn’t appear to be a murder after all,where is the backtracking,and “maybe we spoke too soon”…none of these hounds are anywhere to be seen.Maybe,just maybe,PMSH?Gov’t,HAD more info,and didn’t want to turn this boy’s death into media circus..not so with Libs/media.I am in no way trying to minimize this death,just wondering why the silence from opposition now???
Odie I said we should not be in Afganistan for 2 reasons.
I do not beleive that killing a relative few telaban or AQ will do anything. The area religion will not change as the dominate males don’t want it to.
More important to CF they are not equiped for this task. I give you jungle BDU’s and toy jeeps. How many aircraft, fixed or rotary wing are there right now? Of all the troups there how many ar combat (I beleive less than 40%) and how many are support? How many officers are with combat troups and how many are sitting safe and secure sucking back tim horten laties and getting combat credits? In a past life, more years ago then I care to remember I was there (RCN).
If you read into what I wrote that I am a Harper Bush basher then you are just one of the sheeple like the ones that vote lib/dip. They are all the same, different pile same stink.
Vitruvius:
I suppose I wasn’t too clear, but I was refering specifically to the reporting from Afghanistan and by extension, anywhere there is a war going on. “The first casualty of war is the truth” has been said so often that it’s become a cliche, but judging by the way things are panning out in Iraq (and perhaps also Afghanistan), I don’t think that there are many people who actually know the truth.
I suggest you take your head out of your nether regions and actually put up some facts to back up your allegations concerning our troops in A-stan.
Sounds like a huge chippy on the old shoulder there Tony…a little dinosaur malice towards the officer corp? That old dinsaur view of us verses them has disappeared from the CF. Officers lead from the front in the army.
As for the equipment, some of the best in the world has been procured for the trrops in Afghanistan. As for air assets, too many years of liberal cutbacks are the reason we have no helo assets available for TFA. That is all changing.
As for officers sucking back timmy’s and getting battle creds as you put it, is completely false.
I can see where your hostility comes from though. You were RCN…..my sister is in the Navy…her favourite saying is this “RCN, 100 years of tradition, unimpieded by progress”.
Odie your right I only speak from first hand knowledge. Not from what someone else has told me.
I still maintain that we have no business there. I’m sure that lots of Afgans want us there, especially women and girls. I’m also sure that as soon as we leave the husband and fathers will beat that out of them.
It was the liberals that changed the BDU’s and the toy jeeps, I have seen thoes peices of junk have not seen a G-wagon. I think sending the tanks was a good idea however have some concern that they will not preform well in the hills.
As for tradition along with it comes pride of service. Your sisters saying sounds very liberal because they sure killed tradition in 1968.
My thought’s on the officer core were reinforced this passed fall when I went aboard Algonquin. It was same old same old.
WL Mckenzie Redux: “and we have a PM too lame to tell the Paki PM to get of the pot and get the paki army into the hills removing Taliban fortressess or we will do it alone without his say so.”
Excuse me, but if Richard Nixon had told Trudeau prior to the October Crisis to get off the pot, get the Canadian army into Quebec and get rid of the PLQ, or the Americans would go ahead and do it on their own… well, I wouldn’t have blamed Trudeau one bit for telling Nixon to “fuddle-duddle”. Canada itself is under no threat from the Taliban, and for us to arrogate extra-territorial authority to ourselves is to make exactly the same mistake the Americans did, and would have exactly the same results – isolation from the rest of the world, increased security problems (not decreased), and decreased freedom within Canada.
No thank you.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Lets remember–this is a United Nations sanctoned NATO mission.
The previous governments sent our troops to places like Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, etc…the previous governments made sure they went with little and poor equipment, all the while selling the “Big Lie” to Canadians that our soldiers don’t need equipment because they’re “peacekeepers”.
When I speak of previous governments, I’m being non-partisan, because I am quite aware that Mulroney was just as guilty as Cretien for the dismantling of the military. However, in my humble opinion, Cretien carried it even further with outright, unhidden condemnation and vilification of our soldiers.
Does the military have all the equipment and personnel they would like to have–probably not–it takes a while to turn around decades of neglect by the government, and dare I say, many Canadians.
Things are changing–and I personally don’t care which government it is that has spearheaded that change–as long as its happening.
I have friends who have been, are, and will be in Afghanistan. I also have friends who have been in Bosnia, Iraq (1990s), and elsewhere.
My husband goes to Afghanistan in 2 weeks–and knowing what I know, I’d rather have him in Afghanistan right now, than Bosnia in the early 1990s.
KevinB, your example is silly because not only was the US not threatened by the FLQ, but Canada had control of that territory and was able to enforce the law there. That is not the case in parts of Pakistan.
Canada itself is under no threat from the Taliban
Tell that to the dead Canadians at the WTC. Do you really think leaving the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, giving Al Qaeda a safe haven and the resources of a state, would have been safer for us?
My thought’s on the officer core were reinforced this passed fall when I went aboard Algonquin. It was same old same old.
I have a close relative who is the only individual I can recall who has been a member of all three messes on HMCS Algonquin. He says it’s a damned good ship, with a damned good wardroom, and I’ll take his word over yours any day of the week, Tony.
The CF is by no means perfect, and I still think the Navy is a little too quick to eat its own young, but your biases are sadly out of date. Furthermore, your specific criticism of a fine crew is misplaced.
“Canada itself is under no threat from the Taliban”
My question is, then, is anyone or anything a threat? Was Germany a threat to Europe in 1936? Is Canada in AQ’s hit list. We are, and were, before 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan.
If we were to leave Afghanistan now (I understand few of you agree we should do this), we will send an unmistakable message to Islamic fascism: even though we have the means right now to degrade and destroy you, we lack the political will.
We will be playing right into the hands of AQ/Taliban/Hez/Hamas/Syria/Iran/Saudi et al. Islamic fascists are, if nothing else, patient.
We can leave Afghan and the US could leave Iraq now; we are risking future disaster from a suicidal group fighting a millenial war with us. We had better be prepared to deter them, now and in the future.
Stay in Afghanistan and get the job done. It can be won if done properly (Yes we can get rid of poppies eventually, but militarily we can’t right now).
Development will curtail recruitment and give us a chance to win this struggle, or at least enhance our security.
God bless the Canadian combat soldiers, the loggies, communicators and others who support them. They are the finest in the world IMHO.