Harper says he couldn't live with himself if he reduced Canada's mission in Afghan

[Northboy]

I don't honestly have enough of the facts to provide an opinion.

Who exactly are we fighting?? Is the Taliban a tribal faction with historic ties to the land, a tribe of warlords who wish to control the poppy industry or a proxy force of glorified mercs. fighting for a rival power who likes to punish the Afghan People?

Can anyone answer this accurately? If not, we should leave...

 

[BitWhys]

you know, semantic word games don't help, just write a post longer than three sentances if you want to make point about a large topic.

what semantic word games? I've been succinct. Its unfortunate if you have a problem with that.

 

[ottawabill]

I don't honestly have enough of the facts to provide an opinion.

Who exactly are we fighting?? Is the Taliban a tribal faction with historic ties to the land, a tribe of warlords who wish to control the poppy industry or a proxy force of glorified mercs. fighting for a rival power who likes to punish the Afghan People?

Can anyone answer this accurately? If not, we should leave...

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html there is some info on the Taliban..they harboured and protected bin Ladden et al before and after 9/11 making the country a training ground for terrorist

what semantic word games? I've been succinct. Its unfortunate if you have a problem with that.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html

I agree you have to write more then one line if you want people to wither agree defend and reject any of your opinions.... I for one think we should have gone to Afghanastan but no clear on how to get out..but I don't believe for a sec that we should just hide our heads and hope the problem either goes away of someone else..i.e. the U.S. deals with it as we sit back and complain about how they did it!!

 

[mabudon]

It's an odd choice of words for the PM, sounds more like emotional hi-jacking than actual sentiment/principle

And by odd I mean cos there's at least 44 folks who can't live with themselves thanks to our "efforts" over there, and 44 families who can't ever be the same- I would hate for other lives to be saved if the cost was Stevie losing sleep, perish the thought

And the notion that he is "standing behind" our military- he kinda CONTROLS the military, they do what HE tells them, so the whole celebration of this trait is kinda disingenuous. Out of curiousity, can anyone name some PMs who did NOT "stand behind" our military?? Was, for instance, Chretien "letting our military down" by not jumping on the Iraq bandwagon?? If the situation in Afghanistan becomes CLEARLY a lost cause and the decision is taken to withdraw and cut our losses rather than keep throwing money and bodies into a bottomless pit, would that be some sort of "betrayal" of our military??

I just don't get the "Harper supports the troops" line, not being flip or anything

 

[ottawabill]

oh my...all the liberals ever did was not stand behind the military...remove funding, not add equipment..hell we even first sent our army to Afghanastan with forest uniforms...the place is a desert but we didn't have funds to buy a uniform that would actually let them blend in...rather send them as visible targets from 3 miles.... No transport, hitch rides with other nations..and you can tell me all governments have stood behind them?? HA!

 

[BitWhys]

...I agree you have to write more then one line if you want people to wither agree defend and reject any of your opinions

really?

In this thread alone one sentence alone yielded one person relying on non sequitur argument to appear to disagree with me and another agreeing with him. So much for that theory.

 

[Zzarchov]

And the disagreement was apparently not to a point you made.

This is because your posts are waaaay too vague and its hard to find out what you are actually trying to say.

 

[ottawabill]

ohh was whys trying to say something? didn't know that hehehehe....

I just you do whatever it takes for attention..even if that is write very little on a written forum

 

[BitWhys]

ok

I'll spell it out one more time...

Harper is basing his policy on the false dichotomy that a change in the mission means a reduction of the current military role instead of, for example, a redefinition of said role. Doing so proves he's not up to the task of dealing with the problem properly. Enough said.

 

[ottawabill]

maybe.... I can say one thing about Harper..he's a chess player..his moves are 5 steps ahead..this may have more to do with positioning the quebec vote...MAY?

 

[elevennevele]

I don't honestly have enough of the facts to provide an opinion.

Who exactly are we fighting?? Is the Taliban a tribal faction with historic ties to the land, a tribe of warlords who wish to control the poppy industry or a proxy force of glorified mercs. fighting for a rival power who likes to punish the Afghan People?

Can anyone answer this accurately? If not, we should leave...

We are mostly fighting a culture to the south. The Pashtuns who don’t really respect any border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and who tend to fight anyone they feel are an unwelcome invader of their lands. They have typically leaned to the Taliban as a political ideology, but I think it is more or less their ethical code and sense of sovereignty that they are fighting for.

We just say we are fighting Taliban because it’s a nice label to lump an enemy under. A label which somehow makes it seem to us, 'the masses', that we aren’t fighting the locals. As for the Pashtuns, these are the same people that have fought off the Russians, the British, Alexander the Great, etc. etc. and won.

http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/Islam/Pashtun.html


"The warlike Pathans [or Pathan, Pukhtun or Pushtun] form one of the world's largest tribal societies (about 16 million) and are divided into numerous sub-tribes and clans.... The Pathan hill tribes all have a passion for freedom and independence, and defend their territory and honor against all invaders. They are fearless guerilla fighters who know the hills and valleys intimately, are crack shots and wear clothes that blend with their surroundings (khaki is a local word meaning 'dusty, and it was as a result of the wars in this region that the British army abandoned its bright red uniforms for the inconspicuous dust-colored khaki). No one has ever managed to subdue or unite them: the Mughals, Sikhs, British and Russians have all suffered defeat at their hands."

"The Pukhtunwali (the Way of the Pukhtuns) is an inflexible ethical code by which all true Pathans traditionally abide. Pukhtunwali requires that every insult be revenged and, conversely, every guest protected. To safeguard his honor, o the honor of his family or clan, a Pathan will sacrifice everything, including his money and his life. He will return even t he slightest insult with interest. According to a Pathan proverb, 'He is not a Pathan who does not give a blow for a pinch.'"

"The Pathans are notorious for the family feuds, often the result of disputes over zar, zan or zamin - gold, women or land."

"In Lords of the Khyber (1984), Andre Singer illustrates this by recounting the story of a man he interviewed 'who proudly declared that he had killed seven male members of a Mahsud family for having insulted his wife, and so far only his brother had been killed in the revenge.'"

"Tales of the dangers of the Khyber Pass and the legendary ferocity of the Pathans stirred the English imagination and evoked scenes of gallant soldier defending the might of the Raj against the equally gallant but merciless Pahatns.... Nonetheless, if the British exacted revenge by razing whole villages to the ground, the Pathans retaliated with ambushes and slaughter, and even mutilated wounded enemies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

The Taliban movement derived mainly from Pashtun of Afghanistan and North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, but also included many non-Afghan volunteers from the Arab world, as well as Eurasia, and South Asia.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_...ghanistan.html

A strong attempt was made to keep the Pashtun leaders, who traditionally held the power in Afghanistan, out of the most important government positions. Kabul was besieged beginning in 1992, first by various mujahideen groups and then by the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, which sought to reestablish Pashtun dominance in the capital.

 

[elevennevele]

Our PM says he can’t live with himself if we were to reduce our troops in Afghanistan, but it seems he can live perfectly well with himself if we don’t have any troops to spare for Dafur in the face of genocide there.

Oh yeah, Dafur hasn’t become a political issue that will cost him an election. It always interests me the things someone loses sleep over. I'm still waiting on Harper to show more of that outcry on human rights with China. Not a peep since after that phone call from the business community. I thought he made it clear there was a cause there, and he was going to differentiate himself from other previous leaderships who have also addressed human rights in China.

Or did he try ennoble himself only after our reporters who were kept in the dark all that time, suddenly got word from the Chinese that they were going to snub Harper’s visit for some reason? Quick, let's make a grandiose speech on the tarmac before the jet lag sets in.

 

[L Gilbert]

Oh knock it off.

If he's not worthy of the job its because his Ideals suck. But he has thus far been a man who sticks to his ideals (that you hate) more so than the usual PM who has Ideals you like..but he never follows them when the going gets tough.

Right on, Z. That earns him a little respect in my books, but he's still not living up to the appelation "The Right Honorable" so-and-so. There hasn't been an honorable Canadian PM in the past 500 years. I have doubts if there are any more than a couple dozen pols who have been honorable.

 

[ottawabill]

AARRGGHH!! I hate so much when I hear about what we are NOT doing around the world..

Yes we should be in Darfur as well but we are not, that doesn't lessen the mission to Afghanastan. If we were to put loads more money into the military to allow us to go to other missions there would be screaming about the militarization and imperial nature of the country under the conservatives. But if we should be in Afghanastan and Africa we need to build the army by 100%

We should also not buy anything from China since there human rights record is so dismal. but we all want cheap T.V's don't we...

 

[BitWhys]

maybe.... I can say one thing about Harper..he's a chess player..his moves are 5 steps ahead..this may have more to do with positioning the quebec vote...MAY?

I dunno. For our troops sake I hope not. Besides, if that's what he's up to it would make him guilty of the very thing he was accusing Duceppe of just a few days ago.

 

[Zzarchov]

Actually Bit Whys (now that you have something I can comment on properly)

A redefinition of the role is far worse than a reduction.

Do you know the difference between being a UN peace keeper and being a soldier in war?

If there isn't a peace to be kept it involves a line of targets coming home in bodybags unable to defend themselves. If you don't want to be in a military mission take them home..don't leave them stranded in the middle of a warzone being specifically targetted and being unable to fight back.

 

[BitWhys]

...Do you know the difference between being a UN peace keeper and being a soldier in war?...

more false dichotomy

Redefinition doesn't necessarily lead to the assumption of previously defined roles. Solving Afghanistan is going to require a lot more imagination than that.

 

[elevennevele]

AARRGGHH!! I hate so much when I hear about what we are NOT doing around the world..

AARRGGHH!!

AARRGGHH!!


Not even a peep out of Harper.
Not even so much as a mouse sqweek.

Actually, as any politician knows, the more you talk about something, the more you are indebted to show leadership towards. Harper knows when to be as quiet as a mouse on a lot of issues. Especially those issues he plans to implement if we were foolish enough to give him majority.

AARRGGGGGGGHH!!

 

[elevennevele]

Actually Bit Whys (now that you have something I can comment on properly)

A redefinition of the role is far worse than a reduction.

Do you know the difference between being a UN peace keeper and being a soldier in war?

If there isn't a peace to be kept it involves a line of targets coming home in bodybags unable to defend themselves. If you don't want to be in a military mission take them home..don't leave them stranded in the middle of a warzone being specifically targetted and being unable to fight back.

Yes, I agree. Our soldiers are not ducks. We should stop lining them up as ducks.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Yes, I agree. Our soldiers are not ducks. We should stop lining them up as ducks.

So what would you suggest then? Reconstruction in a hostile environment or pull the troops out completely?