"Fisking" Rosie DiMoron's Steaming Pile of Crapola on Afghanistan

Keep watching this space if you're interested. If you haven't read her stream of nonsensical gibberish, here it is.

Bye for now.

AND WE'RE BACK! ...

I don’t have any respect for Rosie DiManno. None whatsoever. I’ll admit that it’s gratifying to read her trashing the moronic thug, TPS Chief Bill Blair over his atrocities at the Toronto G20 Summit, but I don’t give DiManno much credit for her stance. In that case, it’s simply that the truth is so obvious that even Rosie DiManno gets it. Nope. I don’t have an iota of respect for this psychopathic windbag. I’ve heard the theory that The Toronto Star features DiManno as a one-woman freak show because she generates “controversy” and, therefore, readership. I would like to say again, that one of the reasons that I won’t pay for the Star is because they feature this useless, babbling idiot.

KANDAHAR

We don’t listen to soldiers in Canada.

Oh boo-fucking-hoo. You know who else doesn’t get listened to in Canada? The left. The social justice activists. The free trade critics. There are all sorts of occupations that don’t get listened to: teachers, climate scientists, social workers. Why should we listen to soldiers above everyone else? If soldiers feel ignored, they can take a number and get in line with a lot of other people.

Furthermore, just to remind you Rosie; Canada is not a military dictatorship. We’re a democracy. We don’t base our foreign policy on the wishes of our soldiers. To the contrary, our soldiers are technically supposed to quietly obey orders and go wherever we tell them to and do what we tell them to. Personally, I’m quite prepared to listen to what soldiers have to say about something. Not that I believe that their individual, isolated experiences in a war zone inevitably gives them a greater understanding of issues and events than people studying events from afar. I’m just pointing out this important aspect of democracy for Rosie’s sake. You see, Rosie is a quasi-militarist. She swoons over authoritative men in uniform. She’s quite prepared to let democratic decision making go out the window if some steely-jawed guy in a fancy uniform tells her it should. I doubt Rosie has the self-awareness to apply her own thesis here to the documented example of soldiers not being listened to: the soldiers who complained about the Afghan military and political personnel who were raping children. They were all told to shut-up about it. That says volumes about “the mission” right there. And, furthermore, while Rosie is self-servingly taking the side of “the troops” in whining about how they’re ignored, she also neglects to mention how when soldiers speak-up about certain issues, such as the way they’re nickeled and dimed by Veterans Affairs for disability pay and medical expenses, they’re harassed and slandered. It is ever thus with these right-wing militarists: Can’t do enough for “the troops,” unless they get wounded and become useless. Then, it’s pull down the blinds on my train window, they’re disturbing my dinner.

Oh, we honour them and praise them and always include that disingenuous disclaimer — “I’m not criticizing our brave men and women’’ — when otherwise slamming the military mission in Afghanistan.

That’s right Rosie. And criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is always raging, Nazi-level anti-Semitism. I know! Let’s try something Rosie, ....whaddaya say? Check this out:

People who go on about building democracy and protecting women’s rights in Afghanistan all just want to dupe us into their policy of killing as many Afghan men, women, and children as we can.

How d’you like that one Rosie? Is it really the case that all your turgid prose about “the troops” and whatever other moronic nonsense you’re going to spew here is all just a cover for your infernal bloodlust? Hey! Where you going?? Are you the only one who gets to make the sleazy accusations here? Coward!

But if we truly bent our ears to what soldiers have been saying for the past decade, there would be little reason to ask: Was it worth it?

Oh, really? Well, let’s see ...

War is part of the human condition, a vestigial tic.

Oh for fuck’s sake. How about rape Rosie? What about stupidity? Fine, fine. Let’s see where you plan on going with this drivel ...

It will never be erased from our DNA, despite conflict resolution classes for school yard squabbles and UN mediation diplomacy for combatant states.

Ha-ha! Yes! All those silly, pinko, faggy, GIRLY things that “liberals” use to try to stamp out human nature! All of it foolish nonsense, right Rosie? Not like the war-mongering of geniuses such as bush II, Jean Chretien, stephen harper, Hitler, Attila the Hun. Boy! We could learn something from those he-men who recognize that war is something we’ll never get out of our system!

As long as there’s a bully with an army or an oppressed constituency yearning for freedom, kinetic confrontation is inevitable.

Oh. Are those the only causes of war? OTHER bullies with armies (as opposed to ourselves) and our attempts to quench yearnings for freedom around the world? Idiot.

There are mostly good wars, defensible, and mostly bad wars, unpardonable. Sometimes only the passing of time can render a distinction or even provide a verdict: Who won? Who lost? And does it even matter?

Sure it does. Go on.

I believe it does matter. I believe there is far less grey in right versus wrong than proponents of moral equivalency would argue.

Yes. But you believe all sorts of stupid things based on your mammoth ignorance and pig-headedness Rosie. That’s the whole problem (as we shall see) ...

I believe in liberal evolution and using might prudently to liberate — the antithesis of international isolationism. I believe the left has lost touch with the ideals it expounded in the Spanish Civil War and the right has lost any credibility in justifying invasion of Iraq (under a Republican president) while urging dramatic troop withdrawals from Afghanistan (under a Democratic president).

Okay. So, the invasion of Afghanistan was like the Spanish Civil War because, ... because, ... oh right: Both sides shot at each other.

Sigh. No, Rosie. The invasion of Afghanistan is nothing like the Spanish Civil War. Even people who would denigrate the left’s version of the Spanish Civil War would say so. Defending an elected socialist government that was attacked by fascist rebels is nothing like propping-up a corrupt puppet-government that was installed by a super-power after the original government of religious fanatics was toppled. They’re not similar in any important ways. You’re just an idiot Rosie. You seriously believe that they’re the same because there are two sides shooting at each other. You want to remind any leftists who have forgotten (or never knew) that, once upon a time, leftists believed going overseas and fighting for a cause was worthwhile and noble.

And, I’ll give you the credit of consistency with regards to your condemnation of the obvious hypocrisy of the US Repugnicans who are only re-discovering the rights of Congress to declare war, and worrying about the costs of the USA’s many wars, only because a Democrat is in the White House. Unlike them, your bloodlust stays constant, no matter who is ordering the killing.

I believe in nation-building.

Then you might want to have a fucking talk with the neo-liberal, imperialist scum behind this squalid adventure. They’re the ones who think that imposing a government of corrupt, thieving rapists upon a people is a good idea. They’re the ones who have enabled the Karzai-Warlord government as it has plundered and abused the people of Afghanistan, especially the Pashtun, and created the alienation and anger that has produced a constantly growing insurgency.

You know, the funny thing is Rosie, that you claim to believe in nation-building, while at the same time you’ve turned a blind eye to torture. What sort of revolting nation-state do you believe we should build in Afghanistan? (Never mind. You’re offerings here are incoherent and stupid enough. I’m not interested in hearing more from you.)

War should never be about partisan political currency, though Ottawa has been just as guilty of that as Washington, only more sanctimoniously.

Rosie’s accusing others of being sanctimonious! Hilarious!

What a society has the right — indeed the obligation — to demand is that any deployment of its armed forces into an active battle space be rigorously debated, even if parliamentary approval isn’t required.

That’s funny Rosie! Because all the time you’re ranting and raving about how criticism of “the mission” is just an under-handed attempt to trash “the troops”! “Rigorously debated” is just a catch-phrase for you. You don’t want “rigorous debate” you want blind affirmation. Every time someone has tried to “rigorously debate” Afghanistan you’ve attempted to mock and slander them.

Canadians didn’t get that originally, when the first battle group was dispatched to Kandahar for a whole host of reasons — from not wanting any part of Iraq to multilateral obligations among allies to a desire to re-grow the military after years of neglect and drastic funding cutbacks, a kind of disarmament by fiscal sabotage.

Rosie’s getting a little ahead of herself folks. She careens straight from the obligation for “rigorous debate” and how we didn’t get it, to a tirade about the under-funding of the military, all in the same paragraph! All in the same sentence! What a nut-bar! (Unless she really meant to pay mere lip-service to “rigorous debate” and couldn’t wait to get on to the subject of the military again.)

Subsequent governments did a poor job of explaining why we’re here and what the objective was, ...

I’d say that they’ve done about as good a job as you’re doing. They’ve tried to lie and dissemble, because why we’re there, our objective, has always been pretty unpalatable. Please the US-Americans to defend their corrupt, fraudulently elected, misogynist, rapist, warlord puppet-government until the outcry or financial costs become too heavy to bear or the US government says that we can go home.

... even as those aims shifted when fluid realities were encountered. The core assignment didn’t change, however: to extend the writ of Afghanistan’s nascent central government in the spiritual heartland of the Taliban and strengthen security.

That’s another way of putting it. “Afghanistan’s nascent central government” is corrupt Rosie. It’s underpaid police officers kidnap people and hold them for ransom. It’s governors are often warlords of a different ethnic group who lord it over their subjects like feudal despots. The insurgency has grown (and Afghan men have run to the Taliban-led resistance) because we’ve burned their crops (of opium poppies) with little or no compensation, and left them to the depredations of the “nascent central government.” That’s it, right there. There’s the failure of “the mission.” There’s what you and all you imbecilic defenders of “the mission” can’t argue your way around: The government we are trying to impose upon the people of Afghanistan is hated by many of the people of Afghanistan because it is brutal, corrupt, and dictatorial and they don’t want it and it’s a matter of life or death for many of them.

This is not quantum physics, people. Everything else was an add-on or a optics pitch — reconstruction and re-development, opening schools, building roads, alleviating the misogynist misery inflicted on females, all that humanitarian stuff that makes Canadians feel so good about themselves and, frankly, superior.

You’re such a babbling idiot Rosie. All of the good stuff “was an add-on or an optics pitch” the core assignment was to prop-up a corrupt dictatorship???? You fucking idiot. No, seriously, ... you complete fucking idiot. And furthermore, fucking idiot, what is it with you and your contempt for “humanitarian stuff”??? And why do you think that you, of all people, gets to criticize other people for feeling superior about something? You know, I “GET” it. You have contempt for pinkos and lefties, who try occasionally to feel some sort of pride in their worthy causes, so you deride us as smug, elitist, namby-pamby, whatevers, .... but for you, Rosie DiManno to criticize people for giving off vibes of smug superiority is really quite rich. You give off a constant stink of smug superiority.

The media, at least, did explain it, repeatedly; most particularly those who came here to witness events with their own eyes, draw conclusions, rather that sit home blowing polemical smoke rings and conspiracy theories out their arses.

I see. You’re awesome if you do say so yourself. Yeah right fuck-face. And you and your sister-in-stupidity, Christie Belchforth were quick to slag Richard Colvin for speaking the truth about Afghanistan weren’t you? Colvin spoke the truth from a position of knowledge and experience and you disgracefully jumped at the chance to join the prime minister’s campaign of demonization and slander against him. You’re a twisted fucking joke.

Task Force Afghanistan has been too easily, disgracefully, usurped as a whipping-post for pre-existing agendas, particularly a long-held — though latterly figleaf-covered — revulsion for the military.

Oh there you go again. The same old bullshit. The same old ignorance and dishonesty. Chretien and Martin and harper sent “the troops’ to prop-up a corrupt dictatorship in order to curry favour with the US-Americans. End of story. Finito. That’s all there is to say and that’s why “the mission” has been a failure. Because the Pashtun majority of Afghanistan hates the government we’ve imposed upon them. The sooner you get that through your fat head, the sooner your mystification and your insane spinning about looking for scapegoats will end. Dumb-ass.

If you still don’t know why Canada was in Afghanistan, then you’ve just not been paying attention, or you don’t actually want to be informed, merely have your misperceptions reinforced.

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

And the Taliban did take succour from this. Spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousaf Ahmadi put out a statement via email Friday, applauding Canada’s formal end-of-combat this past week, claiming the withdrawal from Kandahar had been “compelled’’ by the mujahedeen resistance — though of course the Taliban are not mujahedeen and were violently opposed by the greatest mujahedeen of them all, Ahmed Shah Massoud, until Al Qaeda assassinated him — a quid pro quo arrangement with Mullah Omar on the eve of 9/11.

Here comes a lengthy attempt from DiManno, equating the peace movement in Canada with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Again, Rosie, anybody can play the game of sleazy accusations. Perhaps I should equate you with the boy rapists in the Karzai-Warlord government?

“In addition to the life loss, the heavy economic burden of the war dawned on the people and members of the Parliament of Canada to press the ruling regime in Canada to withdraw their forces,’’ Yousaf Ahmadi says. “While appreciating the responsible step of the people of Canada, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan calls on the people of other invading countries to realize the ground realities of the illegitimate and worthless war of Afghanistan and oblige their government to put an end to the aimless war.

“The people of Canada have to ask their government and military chiefs what are the objectives and achievements that they have obtained during the past decade, apart from the innumerous losses in life and equipments. If they have no answer, then why they allow them to continue their illegitimate intervention in Afghanistan under another title in the name of military training?’’

There are some Canadian newspaper columnists who should sue Yousaf for plagiarism.

Really Rosie? Maybe you, so brave, noble and true, could go up to the families that have joined the insurgency and explain how all the “humanitarian stuff” they want is stupid and that the core truth is that they should continue to support the government which abuses them and robs them. Try your stupid bullshit on them Rosie.

As a matter of fact Rosie, since you see an equivalence between the people who say we should stop defending a corrupt, rapist government against an insurgency led by the fanatical psychopaths, and the fanatical psychopaths who are leading the insurgency; would it be fair to say that there's an equivalence between you and the torturers and rapists in the Karzai government? You both want to keep fighting the insurgency after all. That should be enough to make you completely indistinguishable from each other, right?

Why did Canadian men and women die in Afghanistan? Because they chose to be soldiers, and continued enlisting as the mission got hotter and bloodier, one segment of the population that didn’t cower and look for the exit sign as casualties increased.

You skipped a part Rosie. They chose to be soldiers, AND THEN THE CHRETIEN GOVERNMENT SENT THEM TO AFGHANISTAN. And, yes, some CF have re-enlisted. Do you honestly believe it was because they believe in the Karzai government? Or do you think maybe it’s because the military is in their blood, or they want to stay with their fellow soldiers in harm’s way? And, regardless, do you think that Canada’s foreign policy should be decided by the Canadian Forces?

A battle group is all about the combat. Their profession is fighting. They didn’t come here as naifs. They don’t need you to watch their backs or look over their shoulders. And they know many of you don’t have their backs, not really. Some appropriated their sacrifices and called it a “waste.’’

Um, ... actually, we’re OBLIGATED to look over their shoulders. It’s called democratic accountability. Something this war has been used to justify the shredding of. Not that you recognize the importance of that, you stunted, twisted creature. And their injuries and maimings and deaths were a waste. If and when foreign troops leave, the country will fall to pieces because our psychopathic leaders didn’t give a shit about what they were imposing on the people of Afghanistan. It’s all been about a corrupt government upon them. A waste if ever there was one. And you cheered it on Rosie. The blood of tortured and murdered Afghans is on your hands. The blood of “the troops” is on your hands. (This blood is on all of our hands as voters and taxpayers, but it’s thicker on some people’s than others’.)

What have Canadians accomplished here? Bluntly: They held the line against the Taliban in Kandahar, despite never having enough troops to push back and hold. While insurgents reclaimed many regions that Canadian soldiers died in seizing — a recent UN report identified only five districts in the province accessible to their staff — they too were never able to solidify or exploit their gains. And they couldn’t take the prize most coveted — Kandahar City, symbolic capital of Afghanistan re-mediaevalized. If Kandahar had fallen, Kabul would have been next, a replay of the Taliban’s black-turbaned march to power in the late 20th century.

Wow. So the Green Team fought the Red Team to a stand-still, is that it? Or, is it more accurate to say that Canadian soldiers fought, killed, and died, to resist an insurgency led by a monstrous band of religious fanatics and misogynists, which is in revolt against a corrupt, fraudulently elected puppet-government of rapists and plunderers and we managed to contain them?

That didn’t happen because Canadians were here and prevented it.

Big. Fucking. Deal.

Afghanistan is opaque, at least in parts. The north and west are generally calm, the south and east are generally volatile. The insurgency managed to regenerate itself after the Taliban was toppled in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition but is nowhere near as formidable as many accounts suggest. What insurgents have mastered is the art of the spectacular — lethal strikes against soft targets such as hotels and medical clinics and town markets. They have never won a battle. They have certainly not won the war.

Yeah. And the Aztecs were defeated by the Spaniards. And the Zulu were defeated by the British. And the Vietnamese suffered appalling casualties at the hands of the US-Americans. It’s called technical superiority Rosie. It’s actually an old story.

Canadian troops arrived in Afghanistan ill-prepared, institutionally, for the challenges that loomed — recall the jungle-green camo and vulnerable open-air Iltis jeeps. Only in early 2009, following the Manley Report, were Chinooks reacquired for the safer transportation of battle companies to forward operating bases, with Griffins as aircraft protectors. Belatedly, the troops were kitted up properly. But throughout, they acquitted themselves as arguably the best small army in the world.

Maybe. You’d know better than me. I’ll give you that much. But to what end? (Never mind. You’re incapable of answering coherently.)

It feels like a lifetime ago, that first roto deployment in 2006 by the Princess Pats. For some of them, and for many more who followed, it was a lifetime ago: 157 soldiers, one diplomat, one journalist and two aid workers killed.

Was it worth it?

Sometimes, watching the mess of governance being made by President Hamid Karzai’s corrupt regime, I too have doubts.

WHAT???? But that’s the “core assignment”!!!! Get this troop-hating dog out of my sight! She’s a disgrace! She’s appropriating the sacrifice of our glorious troops and calling it a waste!!!!

Karzai’s escalating anti-Western outbursts are deplorable, even when weighed in terms of appealing to a domestic audience. “They have come to our country for their own goals and interests and they are using our country,’’ he fulminated during a recent speech, a man of many faces, none of them honest.

Actually Rosie, Karzai, to his credit, has constantly deplored the cowardly NATO airstrikes which, some years, have killed more Afghan civilians than were killed by the insurgency. In that, at least, he’s right. And, furthermore, the uselessness of his demands that these cowardly airstrikes halt is testimony to his powerlessness as a US puppet. When the “sovereign” President of Afghanistan calls again and again for a halt on the airstrikes that are killing his people and he is ignored, everyone can see that he’s a figurehead. Finally, Karzai’s corruption and thuggery don’t detract from the truth of his criticisms. The USA is NOT in Afghanistan for the good of the Afghan people and neither is Canada or any other NATO power. We’re all in it for our own self-interest. The US wants bases in Central Asia and wanted to surround the inconveniently autonomous Iran with supportive US client states. Canada is there, as militarist-historian Jack Granatstein says, to placate the US-Americans in their demand for allies in order to keep goods and services flowing across the Canada-US border. If we gave a shit about the people of Afghanistan we would not have tolerated such a brutal, unpopular government, and would have done the hard work of building a genuinely democratic, honest government. (Please note: I’m aware of the ridiculousness of the idea of either the USA or Canada building a democratic, honest government, since we’re incapable of doing so ourselves.)

Billions of dollars in donor funds have poured into Afghanistan — $1 billion from Canada in aid — yet accountability for it remains sketchy.

Yeah. Brilliant Rosie. It’s too hard to follow where your money is going. Best to just kill people. (And spend $9 billion doing it.)

When in an inclusive mood, Karzai describes the insurgents as “brothers and compatriots’’ who must claim their rightful place in Afghanistan’s political life.

As opposed to Hillary Clinton talking about her family friend Hosni Mubarak? Or Ronald Reagan talking about how the cowardly torturing murderers in the Contras were the moral equivalent of the founding fathers? Not really. Karzai is making an acknowledgment that the vast insurgency against him contains many of his countrymen and he can’t simply pretend to expel them from the population if he’s ever to survive after NATO leaves.

Even President Barrack Obama has acknowledged that U.S. contacts with Taliban-allied individuals have taken place as a prelude to possible negotiations. But war is always a prelude to negotiations, ...

WTF?? Don’t you have an editor? War is good because it’s a prelude to negotiations???

more so when no formal ceasefire is anticipated. If the coalition— the International Sec2urity Assistance Force — has been battered over the past five years, so have the Taliban and their associates, from Al Qaeda to the Pakistan-based Haqqani network.

Again Rosie. Yes. The two teams have battered each other. But that’s no reason to cheer mindlessly for “our” team. “Our” team includes the corrupt Karzai, and the imperialist US-Americans.

Disaster is still as likely as success in Kandahar, even in the narrowed area of operations, Panjwaii, where Canadians have effectively focused their counter-insurgency efforts since 2009. This last Roto conducted 3,000 patrols, 130 operations, 900 shuras, found 300 weapon caches and 250 IEDs.

Americans have now swarmed into that terrain, assuming responsibility for all of Kandahar province. But it’s alarming to hear Gen. David Petraeus, as he takes leave of the Afghanistan overall command, talk about a shift eastward in the coming months, from Taliban strongholds in the south to the lawless border where insurgents have close ties to Al Qaeda and other militant organizations, in what is an undeclared but intensifying war with Pakistan.

Some have snidely opined that Canada has tried to put a veneer of victory on its operations in Kandahar, just as the Americans are now doing to justify Obama’s drawdown of troops. Yet it’s even more mendacious to proclaim a veneer of defeat.

I’ll just note here that Rosie does nothing to back up her idiotic assertion that it’s mendacious to proclaim a defeat. It’s just some empty words that sounded good to the dunce. So she wrote them.

Further, the equation is not only what did Canada do for Afghanistan but what did Afghanistan do for Canada?

Oh, this should be good ...

Off the top it laid to rest, forever, the dewy-eyed concept of peacekeeping. A blue beret military had its place, an honourable one, in history. But that era has passed, unlikely ever to return.

Fuck off Rosie. It’s great that we’re no longer peacekeepers, even though it was honourable that we were, but things have inexplicably changed and now we get to blow the fuck out of rag-heads and who knows who else in the future, ... is that it? Moron.

From the ashes of tacit demobilization, a robust Canadian Forces arose, Phoenix-like — a military fit to stand on guard for righteous wars in distant lands.

Yeah. Let me know when we find one. Actually, scratch that. Rosie, you don’t have a clue what constitutes a righteous war. So just forget about it.

Something that was lost has been found.

They are soldiers.

Nutbar.

Do you want to know what else Afghanistan did for Canada?

It got 157 soldiers killed and almost 2,000 wounded in the cause of propping-up a monstrous government.

It increased the influence of bloodthirsty war-mongers in this country.

By refusing to spend the money on our own prison system (or even going in on one with fellow NATO allies) it made Canada complicit in the torture of our prisoners. A war crime.

The cover-up of our war crimes compelled our asshole "NOT" prime minister to force yet another constitutional crises. One which inspired his shit-head followers to say such things as "the honour of the Canadian military is more important than the rights of Parliament." [!]

The attempt to quash the constitutional crisis produced the second abuse of the power of prorogation of the harper government. A year and a half's worth of legislation died so that harper could avoid public scrutiny into his war crimes. Then, harper offered as an idiotic excuse that his prorogation was motivated by a desire to focus on the economy. This insult to our collective intelligence was uttered at the same time that harper was patting himself on the back for having ridden out the storm and that, consequently, he was "winding down" his response to the economic crisis.

harper has successfully used bullshit "national security" arguments to weaken the power and the prestige of Parliament, especially when it comes to the most basic oversight of our conduct in a war-zone.

The Afghanistan "mission" has disgraced this country Rosie. In the Somalia Scandal, the torture and death of one Somali teenager tore this country apart. Now, in Afghanistan, the armies of drooling idiots of the right-wing are happily wandering around saying "La-la-la! I can't hear you! We won the election! Parliament has no rights! La-la-la!" We don't care about torture and we behave like wretched cowards, deliberately turning our heads away from it.

Afghanistan has disgraced us and mortally weakened our democracy Rosie. You're too debased and stupid to realize this.

In a better world, absolute idiots like Rosie DiManno would not have national newspapers giving them a steady gig to fart out their evil-smelling absurdities. I find that I have little time for "blogging" these days, and often times, little motivation, what with the irrelevance of the entire leftist critique of present-day insanities. But the Afghanistan "mission" has been so disgusting, and its defenders so irredeemably stupid, that when one of the queen bees of Canadian imperialism produces such a ridiculous summation and attempted justification for the whole debacle, I am thankful that I have the opportunity to respond in such a way that at least ten or twenty people might be able to read it.

(Note: "Blogger's" formatting appears to be having conniptions and I gave up trying to create some sort of font type and colour consistency as every change seems to fuck up something else.)