Whether you folks like it or not we need the private contractors to stay in Afghanistan for a good while till after we leave. If the private contractors are pulled out before we leave, it will complicate things alot cause we cant leave that much slack lying around and stretch our allies to the max. You people may hate America and the UN Resolution that brought us to Afghanistan but cant leave them hanging dry.
Personally i want us to leave by 2011 and i will be upset if we do stay longer, but id rather commit to our allies than turn our backs to them....
And exactly how long would you be willing to not turn your back on them? The mission for us has already been extended a couple of times now..... shall we extend it again and again for another 10, 15, 20 years?
We're not the only country with plans on pulling out around 2011, and with a mission such as this with no real objectives or tangible goals.... it can continue on forever.
That's the problem with wars like this..... in order to have it end, you need to know what the target is, what the objectives are, how to accomplish those objectives and have some sort of time line to accomplish those objectives......
BEFORE you start the war..... otherwise you end up with this sort of mess that has no clear objectives other then to continue the "War on Terr'ism"
The excuse of not turning our backs on our allies have been parroted and used since we sent our troops over there and was the excuse used to extend the mission as long as we have already.
The problem with the Mercs being used in the country is that like in Iraq, there's very little accountability on their shoulders for their actions and when they do something stupid..... somehow the red tape states they're out of legal jurisdiction since they're not in the countries they originated from...... and while various changes over the years have been made to show the public there's some level of accountability, in the end, very few are ever charged or somehow held accountable for their actions.
That's why the Afghan government wants them out of their country.... and regardless of how it may or may not complicate our troops withdraw from the country in 2011, imo, too damn bad...... that's the date, as Harper said, it's set in stone...... perhaps they should have thought about this complication long ago by looking at what happened in Iraq with their mercs.
And regardless if they try and keep most of our troops there with some stupid technical label of "Assist & Advise" or "Training" they're not fooling anybody..... they'll still be sent into combat situations to "Assist & Advise" the Afghan troops leading the charge...... even if they're not leading the charge for the Afghans, they'll still be in or very near a combat situation and will most likely take fire from the Taliban from time to time....... and if something like that happens, you can bet a lot of Canadians will be a tad PO'd about it.
I think it's high time we stop thinking and worrying about other country's best interests and start thinking and worrying about our own interests and our own troops.
As far as I'm concerned, we did our part for much longer then we originally planned to and extended it twice already...... if our allies can't figure their sh*t out by now, what makes you think they ever will?
