Washington File

Part 2:
So rather than point the finger, blame the Americans, withdraw our troops and call it a day and pretend nothing ever happened, let's face the reality of the situation:

-The US military is in Afghanistan fighting a war and providing some type of reconstruction.
-The Canadian Forces are in Afghanistan fighting a war. They were previously doing reconstruction work but the mission changed to counter-insurgency. Why did it change? Because there is a need to fight the bad guys. Pulling out the Canadians is not going to make the bad guys go away.

As much as Henry Champ would like to believe that the infusion of Marines into the fight in Afghanistan is not a coincidence and that it's part of a political agenda to appease some allies, this can't be any farther from the truth.

We knew as early as September that the Marines were going to Afghanistan. Pentagon briefings were mentioning all last fall. The Commandant of the Marine Corps was talking about it all last fall. This was not a military secret. To me, the media is piecing the facts together just to make it a more dramatic story.

Additionally, the reason there could be a shift from Iraq to Afghanistan is due to the fact that we are winning over the insurgents in Iraq. Since the war has changed in Iraq and things have quieted down in certain parts of the country, we can now re-allocate our resources for the fight elswhere.

Now, why has it quieted down in Iraq, because we are gaining the trust of the Iraqis and they are working with us to get rid of the insurgents. This means that the US strategy is working and a similar strategy can work in Afghanistan as well.

In the end, the Marines are going in. The bad guys know it and the bad guys are running for their lives.

It is obvious that many of the responses on this page are based only what the mass media is reporting about Afghanistan. Has anyone talked to a Canadian Soldier or US service member in that country? Well, I have and what is being reported in the media is not overly accurate as to what is taking place on the ground. The US and other allies are not only performing reconstruction, but they are training the Afghanis to provide their own security while at the same time fighting some fairly intense battles.

Some of my fellow Marines who have returned from Afghanistan can attest to the fact that, despite no media coverage, there is a war going on in that country.

In my view, we should think beyond whether the war in Afghanistan or even Iraq is wrong or not legitimate or for whatever reasons anyone wants to cite. We must face that fact that we are there now, despite whatever original reason, and that we have an obligation to turn this war, which is a bad situation, into a good situation. Leaving the middle east is not going to fix the fundamental Islamic extremist situation.

In case no one has been watching, these people kill each other because they don't agree. They teach their children to hate. It doesn't matter what they hate, it's fundamentally wrong to raise children that way. And that's just the tip of the iceburg.

If 9/11 would not have happened, then we would just be supporting some other internal faction to throw over the Afghanis government. The reality is that 9/11 did happen. That event and our reaction to it has changed the world and there is no going back. End of part 1.

Why aren't you people talking about the real war and not this nonsense about an isolated incidence of terrorism or whatever it was that got the ball rolling most recently? Why aren't you talking about the profit potential this war machine means for our industries, our economies? Why do you insist on talking about a non-existent reconstruction effort when it clearly is no such thing? Afghanistan is now the world's leading exporter of high quality heroin: the war lords to the north are back in charge as they were before the Russian occupation, except now they're far more brutal, far worse than before. Why does no one mention that under the Russian occupation the standard of living was far higher than it is now and that girls attended school without restrictions? Now what do they have except for horror after horror and no one is safe anywhere.

What is it about burying your heads in the sand and refusing to even acknowledge the truth of this invasion, instead debating some jingoistic blather about whose troops are better trained or which country is more "in the right?" The call to support our troops is an empty slogan and means nothing whatsoever: support them how? For what purpose? In what way? Do we pay their mortgages for them, let them go to the front of the line for movie tickets, buy them dinner, fix them up on blind dates? What? If they murder thousands do we still have to "support them?" Is this what you all want, unending war and occupation? Is this what our soldiers are there for? Fighting to further our economic advantage over entire peoples?

Writing about Afghanistan often seems to be full of fiery emotion (love or hate) about Americans.
When we debate pulling our troops from Afghanistan, I hope (maybe a forlorn hope but a sincere one) that our feelings for the US don’t frame the discussion.
Before 9/11, I signed a petition protesting the policies of the Taliban demanding something be done. I signed even though I suspected it was pointless. The Taliban were unlikely to throw up their hands & admit the error of their ways because of a petition.
I don't remember the exact words, but the gist was that the barbaric & medieval treatment of women/girls must stop (i.e. punishing rape victims for being raped, “honour killings” of young women by their male relatives, Vitamin D deficiency deformities from enforced wearing of Burkhas, refusing to educate girls, stunning rates of death in childbirth).
I know that Canadians can't stop all the evils in the world, that many governments are as brutal as the Taliban, & that we’ll never do more about most of them than send a strongly-worded petition; then there’s Afghanistan.
No matter the original political reason, our brave soldiers are now in Afghanistan where they’ve used violence to defend against the Taliban’s violence. Their sacrifices & courage have reduced (sadly not ended) many of the evils that the Taliban routinely inflicted on Afghani women, men & children.
I don’t know if keeping our troops in the battle for Afghanistan’s future will lead to a real time of peace, equality for women, or prosperity in that suffering country. I do know that our citizens in uniform have undertaken an incredibly difficult & maybe futile moral struggle on behalf us petition-signers.
Whatever decision we make about our Afghanistan commitment let us make it by weighing the good our nation’s heroes are bringing to ordinary Afghanis (our fellow human beings after all is said & done); against the price they heroically & selflessly pay for us & our willingness to let them pay it.

Blaine, from Carberry Manitoba

What on Earth are you talking about, liberals disbanding and the NDP as Taliban? Are you retarded? The Taliban allowed OBL into the country because he had millions to invest and he had a track record of supporting the Mujahadin during the Russian war. His family made their billions in construction in Saudi Arabia and helped Afghanistan with roads and highways. Mullah Omar worried about his terrorist agenda and growing popularity to the point where he had OBL take up resdience where he could keep an eye on him. It is extremely doubtful that Omar knew of the 9/11 attacks before they happened and a certainty he would never have permitted them if he had. Why? Because he wasn't an idiot and he knew straight up what the US would do following that sort of attack. America's response was what OBL wanted: it was most certainly NOT what the Taliban wanted.

OBL doesn't hate us because of what our woman do or do not wear, he hates the secularism he sees creeping into Muslim life and institutions. His war is with the Arab states, not the west. He attacked the west knowing that America would invade "sacred" Muslim soil and hoping that Islam would rise up en masse to defeat the infidel as a result, then sweep aside secular Arab leaders and return the land to an Islamic state. That it never happened goes to show what a boner he is altogether. It amazes me that people here buy into GWB's drooling nonsense about Arabs "Hating freedom". They love freedom and wish they had more of it, including the freedom of not having to put up with us stealing their land, raping their resources, and killing their people by propping up one dictator after another.

Ok, so the Americans are attacked by terrorists organized, trained and sheltered in Afghanistan and they "initiated trouble"? The Taliban were the government that provided that protection. So with UN approval, see Resolutions 1373 and 1378 the Americans with their allies (pretty much the whole democratic western world if you remember)cheering them on, invade and topple the taliban. So lets not forget, the couple of thousand american dead on September 11th plus all the victims of the Taliban too. But jeez, the Taliban and the warlords just don't want to give up the chance of power, just like the NDP i guess. With that logic why doesn't the Liberal Party disband because they lost the last election! No it doesn't work like that in Canada why would it in Afghanistan. So they fight, and what are we going to do? Blame the Americans for getting us in when Osama hates us too because our women don't wear the burqa and we don't pray to mecca five times a day! Wake up and smell reality!

As usual, every post here is rife with anti-American sentiment. We Canadians have a unique talent for acting sanctimonious and pointing the finger at others, as we judge from our rickety ivory tower. As a soldier myself, and one with many friends serving in the south in and around Kandahar, I am just relieved to have the help and reinforcement. I have served with many American soldiers, and they are excellent soldiers who consider us brothers and will lay their lives on the line just as quickly for a Canadian soldier as they will for one of their own. God Bless the US!

Correct me if I'm wrong...but wasn't the invasion of Afghanistan all about getting rid of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda? It was all about the so-called "War on Terror" and routing out the people that were involved in the whole 9-11 fiasco. Now the spin doctors have us believing that it's about fighting the Taliban - and you NEVER hear mention of Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda over there. The war on terror has somehow shifted to getting rid of "Al-Qaeda in Iraq", which never existed there in the first place! The US has made this a battle on two fronts - with NATO doing its work in Afghanistan, and their military dealing with Iraq - which is what they really wanted to do all along.

Whenever anyone says that Afghanis should take more responsibility for their own security its no different than blaming a beating victim for his own plight. It wrongly implies that Afghanis somehow formed a consensus in 2001 and invited the US to bomb their villages, invade their country, mine their lands, and convert them politically, socially, and economically at the point of a gun. Could anything be farther from the truth?

Let's never forget that the innocent people of Afghanistan were forced to accept the political will of Washington under pain of death. The fact that they did not and do not want the US takeover of their land is made quite clear by the fact that another 3500 US marines are needed to subjugate them again, and again, and again until the west finally learns the lesson that the Russians learned in the 90's. Afghanis know how to survive the game of invader and defender better than anyone on the planet.

If Afghanis were to truly able to take charge of their own security I would wager all the poppies in Afghanistan that they would try to throw out the US and NATO forces first, and then take on the Taliban.

As usual, the yankee doodles swagger about and talk tough, while they get somebody else to do the dirty work.
Canadian forces were committed in a non-combat role during the hysteria following 9/11, and should not have been sent in the first place.
This was never our fight to start with. Up to then, no one was mad at Canada - but they are now.
All Canadian forces should be withdrawn immediately, and no more Canadian blood should be spilt to support 20 years of arrogant and disastrous foreign policy bumbling by our mutant neighbours to the south!

Canada along with the British and the Dutch have done heroic duty in southern Afghanistan.
Now it is time for other NATO countries to make the hard decision to deploy their troops in the dangerous south.
Canada should stand firm on their planned withdrawal of February 2009. They could be redeployed to other duties such as training and reconstruction. The Afghans must begin to take some responsibility for protecting their own country. With Canadian training and assistance.

As usual,the U.S. iniates trouble,then retreats,leaving someone else to clean up their messes.

Canada would be wise to get out of Afganistan as civil wars are going to erupt in the coming year.

If the U.S. keeps going the way it has been expect an"invasion"of Iran under the guise of"terrorism."

Only thing so far that has been stopping him was Putin's warning to basically "not be Foolish" but since when has Bush ever listened to logic and reason?