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.
Cjunk, your critics have you beat. You might be right about Quebec appeasement, you might mot be. But the interviews Harper has given in the past demonstrate ample evidence that Harper is very skeptical of the chance of success for this mission, and I’m inclined to agree. Success is ALWAYS just 5-10 years away. I’m not willing to blow more money and troops on this thing. Let’s leave, and if they bother us again, use brutal means in the re-invasion. US troops probably should’ve left soon after they vanquished the Taliban and just re-invaded as necessary. Really, it’s their war.
I should note helping Afghans is NOT a moral responsibility of our or the American governments. Neither is avoiding civilian casualties.
MM: Yes
Cytotoxic: There is no evidence for your view point about Harper. At least provide a link to these interviews. He has said that their will always be an insurgency, he’s never said that Afghanistan can’t stand on her own with help from her friends.
The rest of your comment has nothing to do with my essay. I wrote about poltical process. We can get into Canada’s strategic interests at another time; or into tactics.
ps: brutal means … as in butcher great numbers of civilians along with the bad guys … nuke em? General area bombing of cities? Nerve agents? How quaint.
“… “…. abandonment of the mission before it’s completion.”
And when, pray tell, Mr. Bear, is that? ..”
No answer, Mr. Bear? just slag.
MM
MM, the mission is over when there’s peace. Clearly you’re too dumb too understand that.
I’m left with the feeling that only the mil parents get it.
MM, you can kma – you’re just a Conservative line toeing suck hole. You want the easy way out – defeat. You’re nothing but an ass kissing politically correct chickenshit with nothing to lose.
I didn’t waste the fall of 2006 sleeping 2 or 3 hours a day just so you could make foolish pontifications about how it’s not worth it ’cause it’s taking too long.
It’s Afghanistan NOT McDonalds or Tim Hortons there are no instant solutions. The lives you’re happily pissing away aren’t yours to piss away. They’re our sons & daughters you little excuse for a human being and you’re too much of gutless little coward that dare to walk away with the job 1/2 done? So you can do what? Win an election?
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, this country needs leadership not gutless pandering to the liberally correct.
I agree with you, ebt.
We sit at our computers typing; our soldiers are fighting terrorists. I sense a great weakness for defeat of the terrorists in the rhetoric of the American President…we could be sending our soldiers into a trap!
My Mom tells me about the horrors of Dieppe sometimes when she is remembering the days she ‘served so that men could fly’ in the RCAF in London. She has told me about some of the (few) men who came back alive – and who lived in a horrible kind of Hell for the rest of their lives. Mom, who knew those men in a far away past, still wonders what they would have done with their lives had they lived in different times. Canada lost the ‘cream of the crop’ in WWI and WWII to old battles in Europe. WWI was a slaughter of young men, no nation won that war; all nations lost and the Treaty of Versailles was the direct cause of WWII, IMO. We need to be wise in our deployment of our Forces. These soldiers are our defense against outside forces. When Mr. Bush was conducting the American end of the war against terrorism, he wanted to win: the not so new President; not so much, IMO.
I support our Prime Ministers plan to bring our soldiers home – they have fought and won the war for Canada; with honor. We are not the only country in NATO, this is a NATO mission, time for some other NATO members to send soldiers, IMO.
I want no part of being a cheerleader for a ghastly, bloody slaughter for nothing like the fiasco in Dieppe. We had a very poor PM in Canada at that time; that slaughter should have never taken place, a half decent Prime Minister would have never have allowed such an atrocity to be launched against our own soldiers.
I trust our Prime Minister, he is a thinking man and he is on our side.
“… MM, the mission is over when there’s peace. Clearly you’re too dumb too understand that…”
Oh no doubt, mr. bear, no doubt. But smart enough to know that there will be no peace in Af’stan while Pakistan remains “in play” for the Talliban.
There has never been “peace” between Islam and Christianity (or Judeaism) — only truces.
So, soldier bear, if you want the Canadian public to sign on to your war — you better be straight with them and tell them what they’re signing on for — an endless war – anywhere and everywhere that militant Islam shows its ugly head.
Personally – I think that war has to come – sooner rather than later – but to blame PM Harper for parliament’s “concenus” of the withdraw date is pathetic on your part.
You and Cjunk may believe that PM Harper is just “pandering” to Quebec — but he is doing so with far greater shrewdness and honesty than King did in the WW2 years.
As for being a Conservative mouthpiece, toady or whatever — if you only knew the facts you’d realize what foul-mouthed food you actually are.
Do you know me? Have you met me?
You keep pushing for that “peace”, son. But you won’t find it Af’stan.
MM