``All our good American friends have the blood of innocent people on their hands``
Not so. Bush and his ''elk'', which represent only a minority of Americans, have shed innocent blood.
Canada is currently in Afghanistan. Are all Canadians responsible for the deaths of innocents there??
Absolutely!
Canada's role in Afghanistan has been declared by the "powers that be" as one of killing the "enemy" as opposed to reconstuction and peace-keeping. That decision was made by a conservative government that's supposed to represent the will of the people of this nation. NOT acting to hold our government and our military accountable is tantamount to complicity in the deaths of innocents at the hands of a government trying to "make nice" once again with our neighbors to the south. Why is it that Canadians appear to accept the machinations of the Harper government when it comes to facilitating trade with the Columbian government but takes a much different stand when it comes to Afghanistan? One if not THE major source for funding the local warlords and supplying weapons to the Taliban is the continuing opium production. In Columbia that government has been complicit in corruption closely associated with the cocaine trade. Canada has continued to take the position of the United States with respect to the dynamics involved in Afghanistan. The U.S. of A, the dog being wagged by its tail in response to edicts from Israel and petroleum interests. While it is well known that the Taliban use the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan as an escape route, a supply route and a back door that permits more insurgents into Afghanistan and accepts this situation because the United States lacks the moral integrity to acknowledge that once again its position.."nations which harbor terrorists will be held accountable" is a hypocritical and ethically situational compromise when it comes to Pakistan. Taliban able to gain respite from any action in Afghanistan by scurrying across the border into Pakistan is entirely similar in effect as were the supply lines you may recall as the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Is it reasonble to expect that a radical Islamist gang operating in Afghanistan against Canadian troops can be effectively interdicted when they have support in and access to Pakistan through the excuse for border control that the government of Pakistan uses to sweat Washington for money and arms? I'd suggest to you that like Viet Nam, Taliban forces are receiving support and materiel through this nonfunctional border....
It is reasonable therefore to engage in the "classical" type of warfare with the Taliban? No more reasonable than it was to engage the VC while they were supplied by China. Is it acceptable today as it was in the Nam to pooh-pooh civilian losses when napalm and chemical weapons destroyed villages farms livlihoods and burned women and children alive?
It certainly appears that a similar devastation visited on the people of Afghanistan by Canadian and American forces, by the Taliban and opium warlords seeking the favor of the Taliban is an acceptable circumstance to the majority of Canadians. If it weren't, surely the "True North Strong and Free" would send a clear message to Ottawa and our child-prime minister that the U.S. be pressed to end complicity in the Afghanistan debacle by cutting off relations with Pakistan, destroying the poppy fields to end the warlords drug traffic and take action against the root of the problem instead of killing innocent bystanders.
