Canada is considering NATO and allied requests to keep troops in Afghanistan past 2011 to conduct non-combat training missions, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Sunday.Now, let's remember: Canada's participation in the Afghanistan occupation has seen us handing prisoners over to torturers. It's seen hundreds of Canadian soldiers killed and hundreds more grievously wounded and psychologically traumatized. It's had us spill treasure and blood to support an unpopular, corrupt, rapist government. It's damaged our democracy as harper has resorted to prorogation and provoked a constitutional crisis to withhold information from Parliament as to his conduct of the war.
On the fly, during an election campaign, harper (who had previously said that we'd stay until the vaguely defined moment when "the job was done") said that we'd be out by 2011, regardless of conditions in Afghanistan. Now, he's back-pedalling. Ah! But this is not a combat role for Canadian troops! They'll be pretty much out of harm's way training Afghan boys to do defend their country (to paraphrase LBJ).
Except here's the thing: This is completely unacceptable. For one thing, it's often rumoured that the Afghans who sign-up for military training are from the insurgency who take their pay and their weapons and their training and leave to go back to fighting the occupiers. So Canadians will be training the dreaded Taliban (or the insurgency against a corrupt, thieving, rapist government). Another thing, if they're not insurgents, then they're working for that same corrupt, thieving, rapist government. So we'd be training the warlords' men to be more effective plunderers and rapists of the people of Afghanistan.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven and it's time to just call it quits. Our country has been disgraced enough.
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