Jeffrey Simpson, Rick Hillier and Brian Platt

I don't have a whole heckuva lotta time for Jeffrey "Public Healthcare is Expensive!!!!" Simpson, but yesterday he had something interesting to say. It seems there's a bit of a difference between how former CF head Rick Hillier sees his contribution to Canada's getting mixed-up in Afghanistan and how Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang see it.

Here is where the tale – or, rather, non-tale – of the Hillier book gets interesting. Eugene Lang, chief of staff to Bill Graham, Mr. Martin's defence minister, co-authored a book with the University of Toronto's Janice Gross Stein that reported in considerable detail how the general had argued for and planned Canada's entry into Afghanistan. Mr. Hillier's book suggests he took a secondary role in those decisions.
Politicians made the decisions, he says, an assertion that is correct in practice but that surely plays down his role in urging not just participation, but in the dangerous province of Kandahar. ... Mr. Lang and Prof. Stein's book is the best outsider's account of how Canada got into Afghanistan, although Mr. Lang was an insider for some of that time. Other officials with knowledge of the inside debates have argued that the authors didn't get everything right. They probably didn't. But no one looking for greater insight should turn to Mr. Hillier's book.

If it is in fact the case that Hillier argued strongly for Afghanistan, but is now hiding behind the weasel words that technically, officially, politicians make the decisions (with the inference being that no matter how loud he brayed about the benefits of sending the CF to shoot Afghans - both "detestable scumbag" Taliban AND poor farmers resisting our corrupt, brutal puppet-government -- he can't be blamed at all for the debacle) then it says something about the man's character.

I've heard a couple of things about how injured CF people have to wait forever to get any sort of medical treatment, and how harper and others dick them around financially, to make me think that the CF is as callous about the troops we're all supposed to worship as the scandals in the USA paint the US military. ANYONE who rises to the top within the public sector in our dysfunctional federal government might be more schooled at butt-kissing than looking after their rank-and-file.

If Hillier is really trying to dodge his responsibility for the insanity he advocated, then he's pretty pathetic.

Speaking of pathetic, I decided to drop in on "Brian" of the "Canada-Afghanistan Blog" to read his rationalizations in the face of the recent news of Karzai's brother being a CIA asset and an alleged druglord and Karzai's farcicial "re-election." I wasn't disappointed. Observe:

The election roller coaster is over, and we can get on with the business of building a democracy in the face of a vicious, depraved insurgency.
Obviously, nobody is overjoyed about how things went. Abdullah probably did the right thing by conceding now and avoiding the logistical nightmare of a run-off which he almost certainly would have lost.
...
Let's hope this election is a learning process, that the mistakes are fixed for next time, and that Karzai puts at least some action behind his talk. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is going to inevitably involve some amount of trial and error, and this election was quite the trial. It's been said before: considering the situation, it's a miracle an election was pulled off at all.
So, onward we push.

(That last link is to the ridiculous Terry Glavin. As of this writing I have no intention of reading that sputtering lunantic.) Anyway, Brian's mewling prompted me to ask the following:

Hey Brian,If the Pashtuns are 40% of the population, and only 5% of them turned out to vote (because of insurgents' threats, and their own disgust or apathy over their choices), how big a factor would that have been in the 30% election turnout nationwide? (I was never good at math.)And if 1/3rd of the ballots were fake, has that been counted against that 30% turnout?And doesn't all of this make Karzai's leadership a total fraud?And if Karzai's brother is a druglord on the CIA's payroll, as is Karzai's Interior Minister, what can we say about his chances for removing corruption?And given all of this (including the Shia wife-rape law that you initally denied the existence of, before saying it was unconstitutional and wouldn't pass) why are we killing and dying over there again?

"Brian" responded with unusual invective.

Read the fucking blog, you idiot. I grapple with these questions every day, and face them head on. Don't bother replying to this. I'll delete it. Your reputation precedes you.

I suppose it'll be deleted, but I felt compelled to say this:

Temper, temper Brian.Actually, I am curious. I do read your deluded drivel from time to time, but not consistently.Did you ever get around to contemplating the significance that you were totally wrong about the Shia wife-rape law? It did exist, and it has passed and is now part of the culture.

Doesn't that show that you don't know what you're talking about, that you're always wrong, and that the people you presume to criticize (left-progressives) are more sensitive to reality than you and your similarly paranoid-defensive ranter Glavin?

Doesn't it all boil down to you and other idiots contributing to a brain-dead political culture of corruption, death and failure?

Isn't it the case that left-progressives have been right all along? That imperialist scum-bags CAN'T forge a genuine democracy in Afghanistan because they don't fucking wan't one?Pull your head out of your ass Brian and realize that your whole effort here is worse than a waste of time. Worse than a waste of time.

I'll still keep the dude on my bogroll. I need to keep an eye on these bozos now and again.