That a Canadian soldier should die for the guano that passes for politics in Canada today makes me cringe. What kind of morally bankrupt country sends its men to die while at the same time telling the enemy the date they are quitting? Harper and the other party leaders make President Obama seem like Patton. Even most of Canada’s NATO allies, who have far less domestic support, are for now sticking it out.
When I said goodbye to my son last winter, I was potentially bidding him farewell forever … I was witnessing a willing young man entering a field of battle for his country, for Afghans, and for himself and his mates. I watched the weeping mothers and girl friends and children, clinging to their warriors for perhaps the last time, and I realized then how utterly undeserving the bickering hacks that abide in Ottawa are of those who do their bidding.
Imagine being the parent of a child fighting in a deadly conflict where your own government has already issued a best-before date.
Minority Parliaments are a bitch.
Gotta give PM Harper credit though, the Parliament made the decision and he is standing by it, not like the never-endum-referendum in Quebec. I don’t agree to cut & run but if the PM makes up the rules as he goes along we would be no better off than under the “da proof is da proof” leadership (or lack thereof). I just hope they don’t give into the opposition and their “blue beret” role ideas.
CJunk – military campaigns are not always military actions; they can also be political actions. Why are you blaming Harper for the announcement of the end of military action in Afghanistan?
Harper was obliged by the opposition to bring to Parliament the decision about the length of Canada’s military committment to the NATO operation in Afghanistan. This made it a political rather than military decision. The Liberals, NDP and Bloc were opposed to Canada’s participation. It was this parliament, which includes all parties, that set the date.
Imagine being the parent of a child fighting in a deadly conflict where your own government has already issued a best-before date.
Imagine your child embarking to fight in a deadly conflict where you and they already know that the new government that your own government helped install is an Islamic Republic based on Sharia.
ET: I blame all parties. I also blame Harper for not making any attempts to foster public support for the mission … and believe he did this as a calculated move to NOT offend Quebecors. Nothing he does is by accident; and thus he abandoned the troops for the cheapest of domestic politics and left the stage to the pacifists and leftists. Who can blame Canadians for wanting out when the head man walked away and gave hardly an utterance of support.
While Harper’s government is spending billions to kill the Afghans, the cadet organization is told that starting the fall the new members will have to PAY $75 to join.
Curse on me if I’ll ever vote for them.
Perhaps the children of all politicians should be required to serve for a time in the military. Might help lead to the making of DND/CF-related policy decisions that are based on conviction rather than politics.
cjunk – that’s your opinion and is different than my opinion. Both of us can, I suppose, come up with ‘points’ to bolster our different views. Kind of a dead end to a discussion.
Oz: “Imagine your child embarking to fight in a deadly conflict …”
1. I don’t have to imagine it
2. Your point is a strategic one that had nothing to do with the abandoning of the mission, nothing to do with the rationale presented by supporters and detractors in The House, and was never a part of the national debate … there was really no national debate of substance. That’s the point of my essay.
Harper’s in a tough position. He simply can’t do what he’d like to do.
Tough position my azz.
He seems pretty comfortable spending billions on things the Canadians neither want nor need, while throwing bones worth a couple millions to the conservative support base from time to time.
Scrapping funding to SOW was applauded by all w/o exception on this blog. Where did it get you? Exactly $1,998,000 in the red after G20. Boo hoo.
Long wars will continue until the day they kick out the PC cr@p and allow the armed forces to do their job.
Kill the bad guys, break things and make it so these fools won’t try it again. I worked in Germany & Japan.
Honestly I think the rhetoric on Afghanistan has become overblown.
This is not the war to end all wars.
This is about a bunch of ungracious idiots in the desert who have not shown one *shred* of ability to run a country, and yet our soldiers are dying for them.
Karzai still walks around dressed like he stepped out of a time machine from the 15th century.
We should take our soldiers out, period.
The fact that we announce the date when we are leaving is becoming a trivial talking point compared to the bigger picture.
“Your point is a strategic one that had nothing to do with the abandoning of the mission…
~Cjunk
The mission, whatever that is*, wasn’t worth fighting for the minute the new government was allowed to be an Islamic Republic.
It was Islamic values plus the cultural practice of the Pashtunwally that led to the 9/11 attack in the first place.
Democracy isn’t culturally any less Islamic than not having Sharia as the basis of all law in Afghanistan or Iraq.
The reason there has been no national debate is that it would inevitably lead to a discussion of how a synergism of the tenets of Islam and Pashtun culture may have caused the majority Pashtuns of Afghanistan to play host to terrorist training camps just as they are doing right now in the Pakistani Northern Frontier.
Any “Canadian debate” would be moot anyway.
It is up to the U.S. to define what “the mission is” strategically and how, tactically, it is to be accomplished because the rest of NATO are only there in a support role to the U.S. who were attacked on 9/11.
Having a unilateral Canadian debate, in the abscence of an American initiated one, would cause a political rift between Canada and the U.S.
It is inevitable that Taliban types will eventually hold all the seats in an Islamic Republic because they are “Scholars of Sharia Law”-which is what ‘Taliban’ means- no matter how long or short NATO’s stay in Afghanistan is.
What do you suppose a “win”(mission accomplished) would look like in Afghanistan anyway?
“Even most of Canada’s NATO allies, who have far less domestic support, are for now sticking it out.”
~Cjunk
A player doesn’t get tired when all they’ve been doing at the game is sitting on the bench and watching from the sidelines.
It’s easy for “most NATO allies” to “stick it out” when they haven’t been “hanging it out” in Kandahar, Mullah Omar’s home town and the cradle of the Taliban.
(*perhaps you could articulate “the mission” which you think is being abandoned?)
Davenport, you amaze me. That is actually sensible.
It’s very Leftist of course given an all-volunteer army, yet still has sense to it.
For my own part I saw this handwriting on the wall at age 17 as a militia volunteer. My answer to Trudeau’s crippled meals-on-wheels military was “No thanks dudes!”
Cjunk’s point about the distortions and contortions inflicted on our national life by the presence of Quebec in Confederation and the kowtowing of politicians to those ingrates is valid. The antidote to this is the growing economic and demographic strength of the West. The day is near when Quebec will cease to be the tail wagging the Canadian dog.
In the meantime we can make it clear to Quebec that we don’t give a sh*t what they think. Quebec will have a hissy fit and vote Bloc but they will not leave because the economic price would be too great. I hope they don’t leave. I hope we in ROC one day have the privilege of being the ones doing the leaving.
anyone that excuses the leaderless politics we have in this country should be ashamed. Politicians in this country prove day in & day out that they do not hold our nation in the highest regard. The best before date is just another shining example of the spineless willingness to do what’s convenient rather than whats right.
There are fundamental disconnects everywhere when it comes to understanding what is involved in defeating islamist terrorism in every part of the world. What seems obvious as a baseline is that no terrorist friendly host states, terrorist threatened unstable states, or terrorists permanently controlling areas of failed states can be ignored if the results are attacks elsewhere in the world.
Pull the troops now and surprise everyone!
Get out of the region which has no shred of every becoming a democracy while we try and run and gun the enemy.
Once everyone is pulled out, send in the missionaries. The love of God is the only way to win this war!
But, politicians won’t go there as they have to try and keep all the immigrants, leftards and atheist from soiling themselves with this solution. Taliban Jack has it right that we need to talk with the leaders of the regions, but they have to be willing to talk and not shoot. If they are unwilling to talk, let them be, they know where we live. Of course they are a brutal and power hungry lot, (much like our own politicians on the left) who want to keep the liberty of the people restricted and controlled.
This political-military strategy worked wonders in Vietnam.
Our enemies knew exactly how long they had to hide, and exactly when to attack. It brought national unity and peace… Under the banner of communist oppression.
Oh, but I forget Vietnam’s subsequent wars with Cambodia and China.
Glacier man said: “Once everyone is pulled out, send in the missionaries. The love of God is the only way to win this war!”
That’s a royal hoot. Make sure you send every missionary with his own plow-share or at least a shovel, instead of a rifle. The locals will probably need one to bury him with…
OZ: Your arguement has nothing to do with the essay, but rather is an expression of your opinion of strategy; precisely the thing that was never discussed nationally.
The leader of a Majority Liberal party, Jean Chretien sent our troops to Afghanistan without even a debate in the HOC to avoid going to Iraq. He sent them there poorly equipped, without proper uniforms, they even had to hitch rides and borrow pots to cook their food in.
This PM cares about the military and what they do and has improved things for them far beyond anything done in decades. He got the support of the Liberals to extend the mission because they had to save their own faces as the ones who sent them there.
PM Harper said the COMBAT role will end in 2011 and has not faltered on that decision supported by the majority in the HOC. We are a tiny army doing more than our share, some of our soldiers are doing four tours of that hell hole because of it.
The term combat is rather loose, hard to apply dodging roadside bombs to combat.
You’ll permit me to observe that this is not our war. This is Nato’s war, and we are in it as loyal Nato allies. If Nato can’t be arsed to win the war, or even to fight it intelligently, with our assistance, we sooner or later reach the point where our loyalty has been amply demonstrated and shown to be unappreciated, and it’s time to cut our losses and let Nato squander somebody else’s lives playing games in the sandbox.
I don’t think we’ve reached that point quite yet. But I’m not going to condemn anyone who decides that we’ve been making heroic sacrifices for people who have wasted them.
Liberal puffin Guano from the Ziffy/Rae Liberal party.
PET Cemetery Report: Liberal PET’s multiculturalism is Dead.
…-
“‘Honour killing’ nets life sentence
BRAMPTON, Ont. – Honour killings have no place in our society.
That was the message from a hushed courtroom Wednesday as Kamikar Singh Dhillon was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years for the “brutal” knife slaying of his daughter-in-law Amandeep.
“Kamikar Dhillon displayed a chilling mindset in terms of his motivation as he tried to justify his actions as the right thing to do,” Justice Bruce Durno said, in accepting a joint submission from Crown attorney Steve Sherriff and defence lawyer Maurice Mirosolin.
“It is not now and never will be the right thing to do. Anybody inclined to do so will be given a life sentence,” Durno said,”.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2010/06/10/14331846.html
http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2010/06/10/tabloid-journalism-rampant-in-canada/#comment-83362
Cjunk, I’ve called you out previously – in private emails – on your relentless drum beating about the Prime Minister and the Af’stan mission. I respect that with a son in theater you have more than an intellectual stake in this arguement, but for the life of me I fail to see how you can fail to see that every war (some non-declared) Canada’s has ever been engaged in has had a heavy political component – from Sam Hughes and the Ross rifle to Canadian participation at Dieppe – and the troops always suffer for politics and political wrangling. I have yet to hear you offer one concrete alternative Cjunk. Mr. Harper and the Conservatives did NOT abandon our troops in Af’stan. They have taken heat again and again in a minority parliament for everything from rushing procurment of C-17’s to Leopard II’s with air con, to better armoured trucks from Navistar. I think it’s time you painted us a picture of your Af’stan mission because right now you’ve sounded like a broken record for about six months.
Regards,
Michael Maltby
Toronto
Skip at June 10, 2010 1:43 PM
If they are going in with water treatment systems, agg & livestock development systems, and overall health improvement initiatives, the whole while building relationships with them, they have a whole lot better reason to listen to the learn. It is about the children and the next generation, which they are just as interested in as we are.
Well Mr. Maltby it was nice to have the government catch the military up to where it should have been in the first place but it doesn’t excuse it’s abandonment of the mission before it’s completion. That my dear friend has a name, it’s called defeat.
My biggest fear is if someone compromises with the Taliban. If anyone, anywhere, gives the Taliban what they want then- unfortunately- all these soldiers will have died for nothing. I don’t like saying it but it’s true. The thought of dealing with those mongrels while ignoring the hardships and sacrifices of Canadian soldiers makes me mad.
Just my thoughts.
“you’ve sounded like a broken record for about six months.
… that’s because not one single person who’s debated me can come up with anything better than can be summarized with “minority governments are tough” or “nuke the ragheads”.
As far as material support … to even suggest that a LPC government wouldn’t have done the same is tribalist balderdash… but now, as you know, Harper is cutting military budgets even while our guys still have one year of dying left to do. He can bail out the auto unions … but not get our military budget up to what is even a “low” level compared to our NATO allies.
I get such a kick out of all the people who were calling the US Democrats surrender-monkies when they were trying to cut short the Iraq mission … funny, how those same people now support The House in what is a cowardly act of whoring for pacifist votes in Quebec.
Anyone that tells the enemy when they are quitting is not only an idiot but a traitor to those that have given their lives. As I have said here for months, get the hell out when it becomes a political war with politicians calling the shots. Giving the other side that comfort zone and knowledge has to be a large boost of confidence. How stupid. Even if you are planning on leaving you don’t tell the other side. Idiots all.
Keep thumping your chest, big guy.
There are political realities that are f**ing up our troops.
A majority Conservative government seems the best long-term solution.
For now, they can only play the cards dealt them.
Great essay C, the sad part is all political parties use our military to score cheap political points, MSM have been against this mission from the get go and frankly their negative reporting pisses me off. A seven year old child was hanged by the Taliban yesterday for being a spy, how the phuck do we negotiate with these animals is beyond my comprehension. MSM doesn’t report the acid attacks, the rapes, the systematic butchering of innocents Afghanis and you have to ask why?
If you think Harper is turning his backs on the military then I concur, try dealing with Veterns Affairs and you’ll soon realise our military members are being bound up by red tape and snivel servants that don’t appear remotely competant. An insurance company can pay out a claim in mere weeks why does it take Veterns Affairs 10 to 12 months to activate a disability pension from partial to full disability? How are our vets suppose to feed their families whilst snivel servants toil with a disfunctional system and a nine to five arrogant attitude? No one seems to care, least of all Harper and his band of MPs.
cjunk, you are attributing a motivation to the government pulling out that it has not publicly voiced. You are positing that the PM is appeasing Quebec public opinion but you don’t have any evidence of that.
That being the case, you can’t cast aside those commenters noting what a waste of blood and treasure Afghan is. Maybe the PM took a look at history and realized that the Afghanistan of today looks pretty much like it did 2000+ years ago when Alexander rolled through. Maybe he realizes that educating Afghani girls (although a worthwhile endeavour) isn’t worth fighting a war over. And maybe he hasn’t voiced those misgivings publicly because doing so would make our allies look foolish for hanging around building playgrounds (or whatever it is the mission is today).
Of course, I am just speculating. But so are you.
slaw: “you don’t have any evidence of that”
It’s blatantly obvious … there is no other logical reason for the silence. 1. There is no majority without Quebec 2. There is no Quebec if one voices overt support for the mission.
“you can’t cast aside those commenters noting what a waste of blood and treasure Afghan is”
… that’s a completely separate issue; it’s part of the strategic debate which has hardly been touched on by The House and has been avoided like HIV by our PM.
set you free: For now, they can only play the cards dealt them.”
That’s called passive governance … what ever happened to dealing some cards for a change?
cjunk, your post was all about the motivation of the government in pulling out. How is it a completely separate issue when others suggest there might be an alternative explanation? That seems right on point to me.
As for the silence, well, if you object to the government sending troops over there when it has already announced a pullout (as do I), how would it be better if the PM announced he wanted the pullout in ’11 cause the Afghan war was a pointless waste of time? How can any leader make that argument with troops in theatre?
I’m not a Harper fan but it is unfair to suggest he can’t possibly have any good faith reasons for wanting to get our troops out.
Nobody really bothered to notice, but PM Harper started essentially giving up on the mission as early as Dec. 2007. From an interview with Maclean’s:
‘…
On Afghanistan, the dominant defence and foreign policy file, Harper again looks ahead to tough choices. Rather than talking up the military mission in Kandahar as an inspiring undertaking, he used the year-end sit-down to vent frustration at slow progress in building a self-sufficient Afghan government. “You know, the United Nations and our allies will have been in Afghanistan 10 years in 2011. For God’s sakes, Germany was basically fully restored within four years; Germany joined NATO ten years after it was conquered.”
He does not seem to be willing to accept anything like an open-ended commitment in central Asia. “To say that Afghanistan would need decades and decades just to do the basic security work, I think is pushing credibility,” Harper said. “Not just pushing the patience of the Canadian public and the military, pushing the credibility of the effort. A sovereign government must, at some point, say, ‘We can actually deal with this on a day-to-day basis. We can be responsible.’”
Still, he signalled he doesn’t expect the panel he set up to advise him on Afghanistan, chaired by former Liberal Cabinet heavyweight John Manley, to suggest Canada try to withdraw anytime very soon. (Manley’s panel is expected to deliver its advice early in 2008.) The whole point of the panel, he said, was to avoid “some very wrong decision here that would hurt our security, hurt our international standing with our allies, and that could, I think, do permanent damage to the Canadian Forces.” What Harper seems to be hoping for is a plan for remaining an active military player in Afghanistan, while demanding the Afghan government somehow move toward standing on its own…’
I wrote at the time:
‘It seems to me…that Mr Harper is losing his own commitment to the Afghan mission; maybe he never really was that serious about it, imagining rather along the lines of Paul Martin that it wouldn’t be that big a deal and would provide domestic political (remember that first visit to Kandahar in March 2006?) and international diplomatic rewards. The reality has proved rather different and difficult. Perhaps that’s why the prime minister is so ineffective at “selling” the mission.’
Mark
Ottawa
“…. abandonment of the mission before it’s completion.”
And when, pray tell, Mr. Bear, is that.
MM
Glacierman said:
“Skip at June 10, 2010 1:43 PM
If they are going in with water treatment systems, agg & livestock development systems, and overall health improvement initiatives, the whole while building relationships with them, they have a whole lot better reason to listen to the learn. It is about the children and the next generation, which they are just as interested in as we are.”
Ok, I’ll bite. We’re already doing that. The troops are there to see that they don’t get blown up, destroyed or stolen. What’re your missionaries going to do, beat off the miscreants with Mr. Gideon?
“That a Canadian soldier should die for the guano that passes for politics in Canada today ”
No honor in political ;eaders, no honor in their motive or values…very little worth defending there.
I’ll defend my country to the death but not it’s degenerate political class or ther political wars or self-serving agendas. AFAIC these mutts have never been a necessary or contributing part of the Canadian fabric. Most of the adversity Canadians experience on a personal level comes from their own government or its cronies. Why would I defend that?
Cjunk, I must agree with michael maltby. I think you are wrong on Harper and the set date to pull out in 2011. We as a country have spent billions on Afghanistan as part of NATO and Harper has spent billions on improving and supplying our military. Contrary to your opinion the Liberals and their related scum the NDP and the BLOC would never have spent money on the military and have been draining it since Turdeau.
Our military and police are working hard to train Afghans to take over the role of NATO. Karzai is now wanting to discuss terms with the taliban and have them as part of the government.
I fully agree with Harper that our commitment is not open ended. How long do you think we should remain there, 15 years, 20, forever?
Dave: About 5 to 10, which is what most military analysts think is needed. A lot shorter time than most of our “Peace Keeping” missions, but a long time nevertheless … enough time to raise the first ever educated generation so that the country can at least have its first bureaucracy and enough time to fullfill the very clear guidelines set out by DND and the Manley commission.
Trouble is, any party that advocates this can’t win the Quebec pacifist vote … that’s why no Canuck party ever mentions the Manley commission, with it’s very clear guidelines. I expect more from my party though.
Maltby, your entire denial of the truth of the situation would be laughable if it weren’t so obvious.
Now, be sure to kiss your dear leader’s feet and tell him you’ve completed your mission. Albiet, a failure. Thanks for helping the Taliban win, Apeasy Stevey & Taliban Jack.
It’s called a Hand Off Jim…….If the forker you hand off to is to forkin useless to take it and run then TFB.
Dave:
You might take a look at this, which I wrote elsewhere, about Gen. Hillier’s memoirs:
‘It is also stunningly clear that Gen. Hillier was much more impressed by former Prime Minister Paul Martin and Minister of National Defence Bill Graham than he was by their successors’ government:
-Martin, Graham and I got along superbly, right from the start…[p. 325]
-My relationship with Paul Martin was, I thought, exceptional. [p. 346]
-…A key part…was the incredible relationship that we had with Prime Minister Martin, first and foremost, his cabinet, and, most importantly, the Department of National Defence.
Bill Graham was confident, incredibly smart, and sage…[p. 352]
On the other hand nothing so, er glowing, about the next government, certainly not Prime Minister Harper:
-Despite all the rumours around Ottawa about how much we hated each other, Gord [O’Connor, MND] and I got along and worked well together, most of the time. [p. 395]
-The [Conservative] staffers wanted me to change the way I was doing the job of Chief of the Defence Staff and I was determined not to let that happen. [p. 404]’
Mark
Ottawa
the bear: “Apeasy Stevey & Taliban Jack”
… you got me thinking. Conservatives savaged Jack, hence Taliban Jack, for daring to suggest we negotiate with the Taliban … yet some of these same individuals find it completely fine for their leader to simply walk away from the fight and refuse to demonstrate open support for the effort … hmmm.
5 to 10 years? Really? Again, the area now called Afghanistan hasn’t changed much in 2000+ years and you’re going to transform it in 5-10 years? What is the evidence to date that is feasible? We are closing in on a decade already and the current government barely has control of its capital.
Have you been to Afghanistan? It is like being transported to the 3rd century with cell phones. We aren’t changing anything over there cause they don’t want it changed. If you left 50 years from now, the day after you left they would be back at war. Canadians are dying for nothing. Forget ’11, bring them home now and let the barbarians go back to massacring each other.
Slaw…visit
http://www.afghana.com/Photographs/Photos.htm
It wasn’t like this for the past 2000+ years.
I understand your feelings Cjunk. My wife and I had some of those same feelings as our son deployed. When you hear the cowards and traitors speak it makes one question. But then the point is to demoralize us. That’s what the left does.
“…. About 5 to 10, which is what most military analysts think is needed.”
5 to 10 MORE, is that what you’re saying?
MM