Two days ago, for the second time in 10 months, Canada’s House of Commons told Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, including Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, to stop deporting U.S. soldiers resisting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vote united the three opposition parties, the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party in a close 129-125 vote.
Stumble It!
Send Harper to Afghanistan, to one of those forward operating posts -- and not for a two hour glad hand.
You have to remember that Canucks are generally apathetic, self-absorbed, and self-righteous.......
The main reason we are not interested in any voting system other than FPTP, is largely because we fear the possibility that we may have to (gasp!) vote more than once during an election. This in turn means that we may have to begin thinking incisively, rather than simply absorbing the attack ads as they wash over us.
"I'm telling you, if a man doesn't want to fight for his country, he shouldn't be permitted to enter and seek refuge here."
Me: "I hate to disappoint you, but I was a draft dodger once myself"
Shocked silence, then: "I still say if you didn't want to fight for your country...etc"
Me: "Now wait a minute!, I did fight for my country, was a volunteer in the army, in a volunteer division, wounded on a volunteer assault patrol, just about lost my leg with infection, 3 months in bed...."
"I thought you said you were a draft dodger!"
Me: "Yep, from the Red Army !"
"Oh well, that's different!"
When a person joins to defend his or her country, it is one thing. To be sent thousands of miles from his country to fight for the interests of some multinational corporations
is a totally different issue. The US has some 360 military bases in 130 countries. That's not fighting for their country, but for the "interests" of special interest sectors. Which is usually profits.
Like our soldiers getting killed in Afghanistan for a lousy pipeline.
Ed Deak.
I've done 3 tours and I have no Idea where the pipeline is?
People keep bringing up this 'pipeline' like it exists, and like the Taliban didn't sign the original agreement.
Lemme see now -- Foreign troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001, and the pipeline (for some strange reason) hasn't been built yet. It couldn't possibly be because the Taliban are "miffed" at not being in power anymore, and can actually DO something about keeping the pipeline from being built? Whether they signed the original deal or not seems somewhat irrelevant.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm
Lemme see now -- Foreign troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001, and the pipeline (for some strange reason) hasn't been built yet. It couldn't possibly be because the Taliban are "miffed" at not being in power anymore, and can actually DO something about keeping the pipeline from being built? Whether they signed the original deal or not seems somewhat irrelevant.
Just like that the 'war' was about 'oil', but a severe lack of both 'oil' and a 'pipeline' is also somewhat irrelevant. And what is happening in the Swat Valley is somewhat irrelevant when we are told that Canada needs to 'pull it troops out'. Reality just complicates the intended guilt trip.
Sorry Rick. These war resisters, unlike the ones in Vietnam, are volunteers. Eyes wide open. I can empathize with the ones recalled after ending their terms, but that is also the contract under which they signed up.
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm459184128/tt0361596
As for the pipeline and oil, there ARE plans to build one. If ISAF was doing it's job, it would be in place. Ergo, ISAF isn't doing it's job. Therefore, haul ISAF out.
As for the pipeline and oil, there ARE plans to build one. If ISAF was doing it's job, it would be in place. Ergo, ISAF isn't doing it's job. Therefore, haul ISAF out.
That is called circular logic. The war is about oil, since there is no oil, the war is failing.
Or, the war wasn't about oil, but disrupting the Taliban's control over Afghanistan long enough for us to train a security force that can protect a judiciary well enough to keep a government in power long enough that they might just join the 19th century.
When I was young, I dreamt of Project Orion. It was a spaceship designed to operate with a tail of nuclear explosions that would propel it at fantastic speeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Or ... propulsion)
There are plans for it too, but it will never be built. That is reality, and I have learnt to be comfortable with it.
Patience is a virtue. No one said the mission would be finished overnight.
But of all the nations in the world that could use "a leg up" such as you describe, why Afghanistan?
Because the were the bottom of the heap, and the only ones willing to take money from people who killed Canadians to look the other way. We had to start somewhere.
Besides, we've been in Afghanistan about as long as we were in WWII. Just how long should this take...........? And if this succeeds, do we then go on to the next downtrodden state (in the spirit of egalitarianism)? Or is Afghanistan "special"?