What a Canadian Girl Wants
Afghanistan Today
What Karzai must tell us
What Canadians need from Karzai and Harper is enough information to decide if puttting foreign boots on Islamic soil will insulate this country from terrorism and whether rescuing Afghanistan from itself is a realistic objective under current or foreseeable conditions.
And they need to know that the mission is, at its core, about those things and not about pleasing Washington or field-testing the interoperability of Canadian and U.S. militaries.
Defence: Last week's crucial decision to dispatch Cold War Leopard tanks is the most compelling evidence that 'peacemaking' is morphing into outright war and that the new priority is protecting our troops against a chameleon enemy.
Opium: Under Karzai and his warlord-accommodating administration, cultivation and exportation have exploded to the point where the UN estimates Afghanistan as feeding 92 per cent of the world's habit. Drug revenues not only dominate the economy, they provide the incentive and financial means of ensuring the political instability the business needs to thrive.
James Travers, Toronto Star
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Our reputation has been tarnished. Like a sorority sister a little too willing, Harper has been too eager to jump onto the U.S. bandwagon.
We are ill-equiped for this mission. We need the honest to god truth about where this is going and how we are going to get there. Is our involvement necessary and does it fulfill the objectives first put out. Hold on, let's think for a moment. Does anyone outright know what these 'objectives' are?
NATO spokesman James Apparthurai said NATO-led troops of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have achieved "substantial success," although the mission is not yet completed.
"I can tell you that a significant proportion of the objective has now been taken," he said. "In fact, over two-thirds of the objective has been taken."
I keep hearing the words objective, goal, test, etc and still, I have no clue what the initial purpose of this war was. I mean, I realise it was a peacekeeping exercise (NATO In Afghanistan Factsheet) to help Afghanistan gain stability but apart from the number of Taliban that we've shot down and killed as they (the politicians who have thrown us to the wolves) like to advertise, what else have we achieved?
As Apparthurai recently mentioned, "..two-thirds of the objective has been taken". If this is so, one would wonder where the "two-thirds" of this infrastructure exists, where and when the free and fair elections will take place, how opium has reached it's greatest level of production since the troops have moved in and how this has provided stability - when now, when not a common practice before, there are suicide bombers in the country. When now, in the past few months alone, we have lost more soldiers than in the past three years combined (29 soldiers in 2006 alone out of a total of 37 soldiers since 2002), when now, our credibility is being stretched as are the words of our so called PM.
His latest comment, on Wednesday evening, Harper told a business audience in New York that he does not believe Canadians lack support for the mission." In addition, at the UN, Harper said, "Canadians feel tremendous pride in the leadership role they have assumed and we share equal grief for the casualties they have taken."
Correct on only one account, the latter, I think Harper needs to readdress the issue to the Canadian public before he goes prancing around the world imposing his thoughts and the thoughts of his Right wing 'brothers' and making them out to be the holy word of Canada.
I do not support this mission, nor do I have any pride in the role that Canada is playing - the ass kissing - we need to prove something to the country that is under us role. Harper, in his maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly said, this mission is "our greatest test." Our greatest test of what and to whom? I ask.
What is the aim of the operation?
International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) role is to assist the Government of Afghanistan and the International Community in maintaining security within its area of operation. ISAF supports the Government of Afghanistan in expanding its authority to the rest of the country, and in providing a safe and secure environment conducive to free and fair elections, the spread of the rule of law, and the reconstruction of the country.
NATO and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Declaration
The Government of Afghanistan and Allies recognise that security cannot be provided by military means alone. Security requires good governance, justice and the rule of law, reinforced by reconstruction and development, as well as international, and particularly regional co-operation. In this context, the Declaration on Good-neighbourly Relations signed in Kabul on 22 December 2002 between Afghanistan and its neighbours plays an important role. Afghanistan also considers terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking as major challenges to security, and is committed to taking full advantage of international support and assistance, and to cooperating with the international community to build capacity to eliminate these threats.
Obviously there is lack of communication and understanding of what the goals were and what they currently are. What we and the parties involved need is:
1. a consensus on political purpose and objective;
2. a unity of diplomatic and military action;
3. a clear mission for military engagement linked to the political purpose.
If the military must be involved as they already are, we need to have clarity in what they are there to achieve. We, the public, need full and honest information of this and of their progress. We'll never actually get this, but some of it and the knowledge that we are moving forward, would help enlighten and vaguely appease those that support the soldiers if not the cause.
It was best put by the previous NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, when he said, "the basic conditions for a lasting peace in Bosnia - law and order, freedom of movement, functioning of common instituions - are far from being achieved." The same can be said for Afghanistan and Iraq in present tense.
p.s.
War In Iraq .. still going
What Karzai must tell us
What Canadians need from Karzai and Harper is enough information to decide if puttting foreign boots on Islamic soil will insulate this country from terrorism and whether rescuing Afghanistan from itself is a realistic objective under current or foreseeable conditions.
And they need to know that the mission is, at its core, about those things and not about pleasing Washington or field-testing the interoperability of Canadian and U.S. militaries.
Defence: Last week's crucial decision to dispatch Cold War Leopard tanks is the most compelling evidence that 'peacemaking' is morphing into outright war and that the new priority is protecting our troops against a chameleon enemy.
Opium: Under Karzai and his warlord-accommodating administration, cultivation and exportation have exploded to the point where the UN estimates Afghanistan as feeding 92 per cent of the world's habit. Drug revenues not only dominate the economy, they provide the incentive and financial means of ensuring the political instability the business needs to thrive.
James Travers, Toronto Star
---
Our reputation has been tarnished. Like a sorority sister a little too willing, Harper has been too eager to jump onto the U.S. bandwagon.
We are ill-equiped for this mission. We need the honest to god truth about where this is going and how we are going to get there. Is our involvement necessary and does it fulfill the objectives first put out. Hold on, let's think for a moment. Does anyone outright know what these 'objectives' are?
NATO spokesman James Apparthurai said NATO-led troops of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have achieved "substantial success," although the mission is not yet completed.
"I can tell you that a significant proportion of the objective has now been taken," he said. "In fact, over two-thirds of the objective has been taken."
I keep hearing the words objective, goal, test, etc and still, I have no clue what the initial purpose of this war was. I mean, I realise it was a peacekeeping exercise (NATO In Afghanistan Factsheet) to help Afghanistan gain stability but apart from the number of Taliban that we've shot down and killed as they (the politicians who have thrown us to the wolves) like to advertise, what else have we achieved?
As Apparthurai recently mentioned, "..two-thirds of the objective has been taken". If this is so, one would wonder where the "two-thirds" of this infrastructure exists, where and when the free and fair elections will take place, how opium has reached it's greatest level of production since the troops have moved in and how this has provided stability - when now, when not a common practice before, there are suicide bombers in the country. When now, in the past few months alone, we have lost more soldiers than in the past three years combined (29 soldiers in 2006 alone out of a total of 37 soldiers since 2002), when now, our credibility is being stretched as are the words of our so called PM.
His latest comment, on Wednesday evening, Harper told a business audience in New York that he does not believe Canadians lack support for the mission." In addition, at the UN, Harper said, "Canadians feel tremendous pride in the leadership role they have assumed and we share equal grief for the casualties they have taken."
Correct on only one account, the latter, I think Harper needs to readdress the issue to the Canadian public before he goes prancing around the world imposing his thoughts and the thoughts of his Right wing 'brothers' and making them out to be the holy word of Canada.
I do not support this mission, nor do I have any pride in the role that Canada is playing - the ass kissing - we need to prove something to the country that is under us role. Harper, in his maiden speech to the United Nations General Assembly said, this mission is "our greatest test." Our greatest test of what and to whom? I ask.
What is the aim of the operation?
International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) role is to assist the Government of Afghanistan and the International Community in maintaining security within its area of operation. ISAF supports the Government of Afghanistan in expanding its authority to the rest of the country, and in providing a safe and secure environment conducive to free and fair elections, the spread of the rule of law, and the reconstruction of the country.
NATO and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Declaration
The Government of Afghanistan and Allies recognise that security cannot be provided by military means alone. Security requires good governance, justice and the rule of law, reinforced by reconstruction and development, as well as international, and particularly regional co-operation. In this context, the Declaration on Good-neighbourly Relations signed in Kabul on 22 December 2002 between Afghanistan and its neighbours plays an important role. Afghanistan also considers terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking as major challenges to security, and is committed to taking full advantage of international support and assistance, and to cooperating with the international community to build capacity to eliminate these threats.
Obviously there is lack of communication and understanding of what the goals were and what they currently are. What we and the parties involved need is:
1. a consensus on political purpose and objective;
2. a unity of diplomatic and military action;
3. a clear mission for military engagement linked to the political purpose.
If the military must be involved as they already are, we need to have clarity in what they are there to achieve. We, the public, need full and honest information of this and of their progress. We'll never actually get this, but some of it and the knowledge that we are moving forward, would help enlighten and vaguely appease those that support the soldiers if not the cause.
It was best put by the previous NATO Secretary General, Javier Solana, when he said, "the basic conditions for a lasting peace in Bosnia - law and order, freedom of movement, functioning of common instituions - are far from being achieved." The same can be said for Afghanistan and Iraq in present tense.
p.s.
War In Iraq .. still going
posted by fifi at 10:01 a.m.
2 comments
