So, after over 10 years, the Afghan government still can't fight its own battles against its own people? This is an insurgency with limited support from Pakistan and (MAYBE) Iran, versus a government with billions of dollars and the backing of NATO.
One wonders how the Taliban was able to stabilize the country completely on its own. Perhaps the degree of corruption and brutality of the Karzai regime is far, far worse than the grim fanaticism of the Taliban in the eyes of the Pashtun?
And after all this training, we still don't know how many insurgents are showing up to get a new rifle and tips on how to fire it, and how many are thugs sent by the warlords to learn how to more efficiently plunder and rape.
It boggles the mind. A majority of Canadians has consistently opposed the mission in Afghanistan, but the harpercons will have us believe that their attacks on Statistics Canada were motivated by a few e-mail complaints?
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Tell Parliament what you think. Join the Virtual March on Ottawa, Nov. 18. More information at the Canadian Peace Alliance: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/VirtualMarch.html
There are two simple questions to resolve this debate. 1. Over the past decade how many soldiers have we actually trained? 2. Of that total, how many are still in the Afghan National Army? The U.S. commander admits to a desertion rate of 23%. Others contend it's higher. It's like pouring water into a sieve.
PSG,
Thanks for the info about the online petition. I'll probably still sign even though I'm certain it'll be ignored.
Mound of Sound,
I'll channel a right-wing airhead: "We've got to stay until 'the job' [whatever it is] is done."
How people can be so completely incoherent and shallow is beyond me.
Here is an interesting article that might partially explain the "we've got to stay until the job is done" mentality. In summary, the wars in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are viewed through the lens of the Second World War, and politicians are more than happy to invoke the imagery associated with the Allied victory.
Whether the politicians themselves are deluded enough to actually believe that the completely different conditions of today can possibly parallel WWII is hard to say.
Why more recent (and more relevant) conflicts such as the Vietnam War are largely ignored is a curious question...
No blah,
Thanks for the link. Well argued, well written piece.
And yeah, Afghanistan just shows why the left was right to oppose Vietnam back in the 1960s and why we're right to oppose the imperialism in Afghanistan today.
I think Bob Rae might be deluded enough to see this as a "good war" in fact, i believe all of them delude themselves this way to a degree.
But the reason I always opposed the invasion was because the men leading it are villainous scum who don't give a damn about the people of Afghanistan. Therefore, nothing good would come of it.
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