Is Canada's Role In Afghanistan THIS Ineffective?

Even CNN reportage is periodically hinting that US military think, though I don't think I've yet heard anyone actually outright say it in so many words, but certainly of late much UN and "Alliance" think one picks up is of the view that the US cause in Afghanistan is unwinnable. That is the first growing consensus. Even the Karzai government and at least "some" inner circle US opinion agree, it is at least NOT without the participation of the Taleban at some level and in some form. (The US is not prepared to make the boots on the ground commitment that even the old Soviet Union did, and still lost, and likely, with their economy in the disarray it is, they cannot afford it even if they wanted to... without doing themselves more serious economic damage, and loss of global political positioning.)

Of late there have been a few "anonymous" voices from "within" US politial circles as well, questioning whether they should even continue in Afghanistan in addition to Iraq, and this hesitation is further revealed in the wavering and waffling now going on within the Obama administration around the number of troops they are actually prepared to commit, now well backed off from the original 30,000 it would seem. Itself an inadequate figure.

(Additionally, voices are now coming out of a number of Democratic Party and broader "progressive" circles within the US, indicating that there is some level of sanity existing there, saying that it is impossible even, to achieve an economic recovery of any depth within the US economy, without deep cuts in the some 1 trillion dollars US military spending budget. (A level of military spending, according to a report of the last couple days, I believe it was on CNN, though it may have been CBC, that is greater than the rest of the world put together. It said by how much, but I forget the figure. A lot of potential affordable medical care in this sum, for the US citizenry.)

Which says to me, and a growing body of world and US opinion, that there IS dawning a recognition within US military and political circles, that this entire Middle East imperialist adventure is effectively doomed. Hence, the prevaricating of the Obama administration over making a new troop strength commitment to Afghanistan. The prognostication of a growing body of opinion being, that what the US/Obama admin will finally do in the end, is commit just enough troop strength to maintain, at least not weaken further, the more or less current situation, to hold back further losses and buy the time to try and make a deal with the Taliban. The same thing went on in the final days of Vietnam, though the US still had to finally flee with its tail between its legs.

Indeed, I have heard it acknowledged, by whom now escapes me again, though certainly reported on CNN in the relatively recent past, that the US is already holding talks with the Taliban leadership. (They say, hopefully to divide them. Fat chance. That's what they said during the pre-Vietnam failure period as well. It's more likely, being the real losers again here, that it will be "The Alliance" that will split along some already existing tension lines.)

So, another US imperialist war loss is already in the cards, and when it comes to losing a war, the US can do that, and will, on its own.(Fortunately, we had more good sense during the Vietnam War period.) Fuck what Canada thinks. Israel might want to consider the risks here for themselves too, if the US ever decides to cut them loose as part of a more realistic economic prudence. We too are really just a gun fodder state there in any case, fighting the US Empire cause like a pack of damned bootlick fools.

Coyote

So does that mean Mr. Harper is REALLY in this to make big bucks for his cronies......?

Big bucks is always involved in everything, at some level with these Conservative twits, of course, but I also think that Harper just gets off blowing the Amerikans. He's a true US Empire Loyalist... a Believer. And as part of that, he BELIEVES in doing them. And he likes it.

Coyote

I suppose, because I have no "heroes" per se (except people like the late Richard Condon), I find it difficult to even imagine being a sycophant..............
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Condon

Or could this be another phase of the financial 911 that they are currently pulling off? They have to continually justify the military juggernaut that they have going and they can't do that if no one will attack them. If they have to, they attack themselves and say that someone else, like Osama been Taleban, did it. Then they have justification for not cutting their military budget. Now all the cuts to the budget will be to social services, schools, health care, anything which would go to the common person. In addition they begin the firesale of government owned assets, infrastructure, public lands etc. They also bring in a bunch of bills which they sell to the banksters as money generating instruments. The same type of operation, in proportion, is taking place in Canada. This justifies the complete dismantling of the social safety net. Nobody is attacking anybody important unless they have a "by your leave" to do so.
But I don't see any repeating patterns cause I've got "deefflicted eyes", to quote Frank Zappa.

Well, more than a few Iraqis were of the mindset that Saddam was in the pay of the CIA. It was just too convenient for him to strut upon his own stage, beating on his chest, when the US "needed" a foreign adversary...........

Milton, anything is possible with this wingnut crew. They are capable of any crime to cover their asses and save capitalism. Any crime... even rendition and torture, and the delivering of a holocaust upon any people, such as the Palestinians.

And, no doubt in this country, Europe and the US, they are out to gut and bury the post WW2 regulatory regime that sought to put a "human face" on capitalism, and save the capitalists from their own greed. Even as their economic system is going down in flames as a consequence, impoverishing their own citizenry AGAIN, they still want even less regulation, except as saves their own criminal asses. For the only "social safety net" they really want to see in place... is for themselves; a welfare system for the corporate ruling class, paid for out of the pockets of the broad working class citizenry.

Their greed knows no limits. They are, as we both say, capable of any crime. (And I'm not just talking "legally circumscribed crime" here, which they themselves get to define, but crimes against the world's people, including their own... crimes against humanity.

Coyote

Just curious Rick, why would this have anything to do with Canadian Troops?

Our troops are in Kandahar, not Kabul. And the Afghan Police and Army are responsible for security there. Are the Edmonton Police responsible for what goes on in Saskatoon?

Or do you just need a cause to rally against?

Rick said.

As opposed to what Caleb attempted to suggest:



So far as I can determine, Kandahar no less than Kabul is still part of Afghanistan, a presumably "sovereign" people, where we, last time I looked still have US Empire serving forces. And whether Rick or anyone else is talking Kandahar or Kabul, it all being Afghanistan, and we are part of a quasi-colonial gun fodder force of the US there, as part of an attempt by the US to put an "international" sanctioning face/coverup on their naked imperialism there (an oil pipeline from the northern 'stans, through Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea), and as part of the Empire's continuing efforts to exercise hegemony over the entire oil rich Middle East, it is a cause worth rallying against by patriotic Canadians. At least those of us who feel no sense of being beholden to the US Empire for anything, nor are particularly in awe of them, but even have an "national interest" analysis of our own, in seeing the US Empire weakened and/or defeated there, and everywhere it "interferes", including here in Canada.

For we will not ourselves be safe, if ever we do actually attempt, over just empty talking about it, to really and seriously assert our own full national economic and political sovereignty, without The Empire having been effectively driven back within its own borders, and having learned to behave in respect of the sovereignty interests of other folks.

The "cause" is already objectively there. There is no need to artificially create/manufacture one. Whether one is talking Kabul or Khandahar, Baghdad, the Gaza Strip ghetto and Palestine, or our own northern sovereignty claims, as but a few quick examples of many, many.

And it is a cause worth fighting, not being world weary cynical or trivial about, or even fawning over America out the other eye with.

My view anyway.

Coyote

Hear hear! I second that amendment.

"He's a true US Empire Loyalist... a Believer."

Harper is no such thing. But, like me, he admires many things about the US system, and finds many things about the current dominant Canadian ideology distressing. I can't presume to speak for him, but I can speak from my own viewpoint.

Canadians seem champion the mediocre. Why? Because if Americans have a "myth" of the self-made man, Canadians have an equal and opposite myth. Many Canadians want to believe that when a person is successful, they owe at least some (if not most) of that success to the rest of us. If Johnny hadn't had the benefit of a public school education with subsidized university and social assistance or less direct forms of help from the welfare state, he would be nothing. So his triumphs are our triumphs, even though none of us contributed anything to his success except perhaps some tax dollars. After, we're all winners, and we can't let Johnny get a swelled head, can we?

Canadians (at least those on the left side of the political ledger) consider someone who has been successful in business as having simply hit the three sevens on the great slot machine of life. He didn't really earn his newfound fortune, and he's only receiving the coins that the rest of us put in before him (zero-sum game). He was just pulling the lever at the right time. So it's only fair that he kick some (or most) of the coins back our way, isn't it?

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the "self-made man" and the "lucky bastard" models of economic success. But I prefer a system that recognizes and provides incentives to those who bring a combination of talent, ambition, vision, hard work and well thought out risk-taking to the creation and growth of a successful business enterprise. If forced to choose, I'd rather be in a society based on greed than one based on envy.

Of course there needs to be some redistribution. A progressive taxation system can help keep the gaps in income from becoming so great as to destabilize the society. But the system can't become so punitive that the exceptional among us lose the incentive to do exceptional things.

The article implies that the Taliban are moving with impunity throughout the countryside. Canada is in the countryside. Ergo, Canada is ineffective in its role.

Are there any causes to rally FOR? Is there some good happening in the world, that is not simply a veneer for more sordid happenings?

The article implies that the Taliban are moving with impunity throughout the countryside. Canada is in the countryside. Ergo, Canada is ineffective in its role.

Are there any causes to rally FOR? Is there some good happening in the world, that is not simply a veneer for more sordid happenings?

The crime rate is up/down in Saskatoon, ergo the Edmonton Police are ineffective. This is your logic.

2000 Soldiers several hundred km away are somehow ineffective in a country of several million? Our soldiers are good, but they aren't that good.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/popup_nlp.html? ... 090105.wmv

And yes, there are many things to rally FOR. Take a look at what our troops are actually doing for the local population. If you look for the good, on occasion the MSM actually reports it. Blaming them for a failure of the ANF is just wrong.

Blaming Canadian troops for a failure? You put words in my mouth, Dr. C.!

Perhaps, to reflect your assertions, the article in question should have said something to the effect that: "Except for regional and isolated efforts such as what the Canadian contingent in Kandahar is accomplsihing, the Taliban roam the countrysice with near-impunity." But the article did not.

Now why is that, do you suppose?