Canada in Afghanistan

[Canadian_NewDemocrat]

hey everyone...just wanting to get some opinions of this fine, progressive community. Like many Canadians I feel quite perplexed about the Canadian Khandahar mission in Afghanistan. On one hand I recognize that it's not Iraq and I initially fully supported the Afghanistan mission, however, on the other I hear many divergent reports, disagree with the methods in which PM Stephen Harper used to get us there, etc. Typically I side 100% with NDP Leader Jack Layton, who is now calling for a troop withdrawl by 2007, yet I am not 100% what I think on this matter...what do you guys/and girls think?

[applegrove]

1. Harper didn't get us there. It was two months after 9/11 that Chretien

went with Nato. And opted out of Iraq. Then we won over the Taliban. America started to withdraw troops after the election. Taliban started to learn from tactics in Iraq of insurgents. And now Can & Brits and many fewer Americans are fighing a new war.

[Canadian_NewDemocrat]

2. yes

but Harper extended the mission when we were originally meant to leave around 2007. Layton says we should go back to the original mission deadline, while Harper wants to keep us in further. The question is...is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[applegrove]

3. Anything that stops Taliban from turning stadiums into execution sites

for women who have gone against some warped sorts sharia law (but still are serious enough that they wear the burka all day long) - is a good thing. Afghanistan did attack the USA by allowing bin Laden to live, plan & attack from there. Their own fault.

As to when it should end... would be nice if there were enough troops there. Would be nice if the USA would show up again en force. Doubt that will happen in a year. I really wonder if this whole war thing in the middle east isn't just a crash course the neocons want Western Countries to learn to live with war like people did in the 19th Century will Rule Britannia. So for that reason I would like this to end soon. But I don't want to see Afghanistan go back to what it was.

Hard thing to know what to do or say. I don't know. I wish we could demand more U.S. forces so that we could control the country again. Force them to step up to a war based on attack on their soil on 9/11. Somehow I do not think that * will give a shit. Likes the "slow" war. Is happy with "slow" war. Maybe wants more and more "slow" wars.

[Brundle_Fly]

4. NATO went in with the US

the US has essentially pulled out, but is making NATO members continue their commitment.

NATO is a supposed to be a team, and there is one weak link on this team. France, Canada and Britain will follow their commitment to when it is over, I cannot foresee them continuing past the 2008 deadline. They are also not the ones who said they would back the Afghans to this road to democracy, then left.

another * failing.

[Canadian_NewDemocrat]

5. part of me...

though thinks that this is the US war to fight and we are allowing them to go on to Iraq and Iran by doing what should be their job in Afghanistan...