Here’s what you get when you cross a hippie with a not-so-closet Communist:

“Our aggressive military activities in Afghanistan are foolish and wrong,”
[…]
“The Pashtun (people) have extremely different values than ours, values we may not agree with in any case, but it’s not our business to try and teach them lessons with weapons,”
[…]
“Because, in fact, they’ll be the ones teaching us lessons.
“We’re going to have to leave the place or there’ll be nothing left of us or of whatever we’ve done, except the blood we’ve lost there after we leave. So it’s better we leave now.”

Personally, I prefer Patton:

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

RAWLCO asks us what we think should be done … poll in right sidebar.

Has the increase in fuel costs dampened your love affair?

However many SUVs there are to choose from, our love affair with these mighty vehicles is in danger. Soaring gas prices threaten to eliminate any vehicle posting less than 12 gallons per mile. Moreover, Darwinian Law dictates that a vehicle unable to corner at speeds over 17 MPH may indeed succumb to natural selection. Nevertheless, however shaky the future of the SUV may look, we can rest assured knowing that at least one French inventor is spinning in his grave as he looks over what has become of his cherished creation.

This has New Coke written all over it.

3 Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan today. What caught my attention was that the last several Canadian deaths have involved soldiers on their third rotations to Afghanistan. Being somewhat familiar with the way things work in the CF, I know that not a single Canuck serving in Afghanistan is there against his or her will. In fact, Canadian soldiers are lined up to go in numbers too great to accommodate … there are that many who want a chance at the mission.
What amazes me more than the heroism and willingness of our soldiers, is the continued view by some that soldiers are either victims or felons. I suppose it’s a natural reaction for those who can’t fathom the fact that there are those among us who rush in when most flee … and who stand fast when most recoil.
For Canadian soldiers though, the mission has long ago ceased being just about 911 … and has instead become about helping the people of Afghanistan. That is, without a doubt, the single most common theme expressed by those who have been “over there“.
Junker @ Cjunk contemplates the issues in Might, Will, and Sacrifice:

So where does the tally of might, will, and sacrifice leave us? To be sure, might is most visible, and leans heavily in the west’s favor, even though eastern asymmetrical warfare has dealt deadly blows in the past. A mere 60 years ago western societies had the will to see through the bloodiest conflict in history, whether or not they could do it again today is uncertain. Most worrying of all is the modern day West’s threshold for sacrifice. Can a society willing to give up so little overcome another that is destined to be much more numerous, and willing to give up so much more? Only time will tell.

Last week, the Taliban murdered civilian women in Kandahar who were there to deliver aid – and with it some degree of hope – to the Afghan people. They subsequently released an open letter to the Canadian people, threatening more such vile action if Canadian troops aren’t withdrawn from Afghanistan.
One of those troops, Col George Petrolekas, has replied with a letter of his own:

You purport to speak for Afghans and Afghanistan yet your only questionable legitimacy comes from the barrel of a gun, the slaughter and intimidation of innocents supported by the profits of the opium crop that you protect. You do not answer for the night letters you send, the people you behead, or the villages you hold hostage whose only crime is that they do not agree with your views.
And yet you dare say that we come to kill your innocent, equally forgetting the deaths of thousands of innocents committed by your fellow travellers in crime; so conveniently forgetting the slaughters of Bali, Madrid, London and New York City. Your words may sound high and mighty, but your actions and deeds betray the truth of what you are: a movement committed to the enslavement and servitude of those whose voices cannot be heard. You revile America forgetting that it gave you more food, flour and wheat than any other nation while you were in power; what did you do for the Afghan people?

That’s just the beginning. Do yourself a favour and read the whole thing.
One of the things I love about soldiers is that, while they understand nuance, they know instinctively that directness has its own virtues as well. Not only in words, either…