Commitment in Afghanistan
- Thread starter red
- Start date
what was Canada's role in Aghanistan in the first place???red said:Has our role in afghanistan really changed?
oh ya - peacemakers!!!!!
well when Canadian troops start dying - I think Canada should reconsider their role since the troops will be there for a long long time!!!
I have seen CBC news quote polls that show only 35% of Canadians support the current Afghan mission.assoholic said:the role most certainly has changed. Canada now has a sector it is responsible for now. They are engaging in Combat operations.
The first time 5 or 6 get wiped out on a patrol we'll see how much support there is.
In light of the consequence of having no coordinated, international presence in Afghanistan during the 90's designed to bring peace, stability and the foundations of a fully functioning and elected state which led to the rise of the Taliban and it's hosting and support of international terrorists organizations, a large swath of the Canadian public in my opinion either does not fully appreciate the necessity of the mission nor the moral role Canada should play in world affairs in conjunction with other democratic states.
..um no it wont, he is there as a protest vote.Canadians , apparently unlike Americans have not forgotten Vietnam.Like I said the realty is, once some real casualties start piling up they will be outta there. They are talking about trying to get 20,000 new recruits but already they are talking about trying to recruit foriegners. Give them quick citizenship if they join.
They know they will never meet that target.
Short of an actual terrorist attack in Canada there will be no support, not that 35 % qualifies as support.
They know they will never meet that target.
Short of an actual terrorist attack in Canada there will be no support, not that 35 % qualifies as support.
What qualifies as "real casualties start piling up" so I'll know when you're wrong?assoholic said:..um no it wont, he is there as a protest vote.Canadians , apparently unlike Americans have not forgotten Vietnam.Like I said the realty is, once some real casualties start piling up they will be outta there. They are talking about trying to get 20,000 new recruits but already they are talking about trying to recruit foriegners. Give them quick citizenship if they join.
They know they will never meet that target.
Short of an actual terrorist attack in Canada there will be no support, not that 35 % qualifies as support.
If your military can't recruit 20k then you have a larger problem.
OTB
Do you have a source to support this claim? Being a Canadian citizen has always (or at least as far back as before my own time in the Canadian forces) been a requirement for joining the Canadian forces. Personally, I can’t see them having any trouble getting 20 000 given the current waiting lists to get in.assoholic said:They are talking about trying to get 20,000 new recruits but already they are talking about trying to recruit foriegners. Give them quick citizenship if they join.
You're not going to invade other countries, you couldn't get yourself there.assoholic said:...no problem if we dont go around invading other countries.As for the number, a constant stream of 2/3 casualities a week would do it.
For how many weeks, I just want to be clear on when I get to spike the ball.
OTB
If you accept that we should be part of a legitimately international response to 9/11 and terrorism, then Afghanistan is the logical place to be. We certainly haven't contributed much to NATO or the UN, so this is long overdue. If we are to regain our military / peacemaking capability and rack up some much-needed experience under guerrilla warfare conditions, this is a a very good fit.zanner69 said:what was Canada's role in Aghanistan in the first place???
oh ya - peacemakers!!!!!
well when Canadian troops start dying - I think Canada should reconsider their role since the troops will be there for a long long time!!!
The focus is apparently going to be about mentoring and rebuilding but there are also plans to help local forces hunt down insurgents. The down side is people will be killed. The upside is that we will be helping the long suffering Afghan people get their lives back and taking a few terrorist scalps while we're at it. We can make a difference there and not be seen as exploiting anyone. We can't just keep talking about our support for international peacemaking initiatives. We have to do this now. There is no excuse not to.
http://www.940news.com/nouvelles.php?cat=23&id=20275
What he said!slowpoke said:If you accept that we should be part of a legitimately international response to 9/11 and terrorism, then Afghanistan is the logical place to be. We certainly haven't contributed much to NATO or the UN, so this is long overdue. If we are to regain our military / peacemaking capability and rack up some much-needed experience under guerrilla warfare conditions, this is a a very good fit.
The focus is apparently going to be about mentoring and rebuilding but there are also plans to help local forces hunt down insurgents. The down side is people will be killed. The upside is that we will be helping the long suffering Afghan people get their lives back and taking a few terrorist scalps while we're at it. We can make a difference there and not be seen as exploiting anyone. We can't just keep talking about our support for international peacemaking initiatives. We have to do this now. There is no excuse not to.
OTB
..OTB , guys like you never get to spike the ball, you just get to talk about spiking the ball.onthebottom said:You're not going to invade other countries, you couldn't get yourself there.
For how many weeks, I just want to be clear on when I get to spike the ball.
OTB
WMD. Oh ya I forgot there in Syria now.
I spiked the ball last November.....assoholic said:..OTB , guys like you never get to spike the ball, you just get to talk about spiking the ball.
WMD. Oh ya I forgot there in Syria now.
Answer the question big man.
OTB
Playing “Chickenhawk”assoholic said:..I'll give your arguemet slowpoke some attention wjhen you have announced you have joined up.Until then your just a chicken hawk.
Left-wing platitudes.
Johah Goldberg
August 17, 2005
"Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, an American soldier who was killed in Iraq . . . "
That's the sentence Cindy Sheehan and her increasingly lugubrious p.r. machine want every news story about her to begin with. Nobody likes the idea of criticizing a woman who's lost her son in such circumstances. The hope has been that the high wall of Mrs. Sheehan's "moral authority" will allow her to say whatever she pleases and that nobody will say boo about it for fear of seeming insensitive to what must be unimaginable anguish. Still, even some of her supporters must realize that her anguish has caused her to find meaning in a wildly partisan, orchestrated publicity stunt.
What's interesting, to me at least, is that Mrs. Sheehan represents simply the latest installment in a long, nasty, desperate ideological campaign — and one that demonstrates the logical limits of identity politics.
Anybody who's been on the receiving end of the "chickenhawk" epithet knows what I'm getting at. Various definitions of chickenhawk are out there, but the gist — as if you didn't know — is "coward" or "unpatriotic hypocrite." The accusation is less an argument than an insult.
It's also a form of bullying. The intent is to say, "You have no right to support the war since you haven't served or signed up." It's a way to get supporters of the war in Iraq, the war on terror, or the president simply to shut up.
But there's a benefit of a doubt to be given. There are many people — I know because I've argued with lots of them — who don't believe the "chickenhawk" thing is intellectually unserious.
Obsessed with "authenticity" and the evil of hypocrisy — as they see it — they think the message and the messenger are inextricably linked. Two plus two is four only if the right person says so. We hear this logic most often from adherents of identity politics, who give more weight to the statements of women, blacks, Jews, and others for the sole reason that they were uttered by people born female, black, Jewish or whatever. People who grew up poor are supposed to have a more "authentic" perspective on economic policy than people who didn't, and so on.
Don't get me wrong — experience is important and useful, including the experiences that come from being black or gay or otherwise a member of the Coalition of the Oppressed. But valuable experience confers knowledge; it doesn't beatify. And identity isn't an iron cage: It is not insurmountable. And, at the end of the day, arguments must stand on their own merits, regardless of who delivers them.
Indeed, the notion that there is a single, authentic black perspective strikes me as fundamentally racist in its essentialism. And the idea that women adhere to a female logic unique to them strikes me as by definition sexist. But the Left doesn't care, because this perspective is indispensable for attacking "inauthentic" blacks or other supposed traitors. What was it that Harry Belafonte said the other week? That blacks who work for the Bush administration are, in effect, "house slaves," akin to the high-ranking Jews in the Hitler regime (never mind that no such Jews existed).
The chickenhawk charge is the misapplication of the same faulty logic. There are war heroes who oppose the war, and there are war heroes who supported it. John Keegan is the greatest living military historian, and he never saw a day of battle. George McGovern flew 35 combat missions in World War II. I'll take Keegan's guidance on military matters over McGovern's any day.
Recently, desperate Democrats championed the campaign of Paul Hackett, an Iraq-war veteran running for Congress in Ohio, because he opposed the war and called the president an S.O.B. Just as others had done before with Wesley Clark and Max Cleland, Hackett's supporters suddenly declared that their hand-picked veteran had the indisputable, irrefutable moral authority to say what other anti-Bush liberals had been saying all along. But how does that make the content of those charges any more — or for that matter, less — accurate?
Maureen Dowd wrote of Sheehan in the New York Times this week that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute." This is either a sincere but meaningless platitude or it's a charge made in grotesquely bad faith. Surely Dowd recognizes that there are a great many mothers of fallen soldiers who believe the war was worthwhile. Is their moral authority absolute, too? If so, then moral authority can't really be very relevant to public debates. Or does Dowd claim that only those moms-of-the-fallen who say things critical of George Bush have absolute moral authority?
If that's the case, does Dowd truly believe — as Sheehan seems to — that this war was fought to line the pockets of Texas oilmen and to serve the interests of a treasonous Zionist cabal inside the United States? I think that's batty, and I'd need proof to believe it. Mrs. Sheehan's word isn't good enough for me on anything — save the fact that she loved her son.
Gee, this sounds familiar....
OTB
onthebottom said:I spiked the ball last November.....
Answer the question big man.
OTB
..not so big, just someone not stupid enough to answer a question I have no idea the answer to.
How do I know, you do the math, support is at 35%, exactly how many casualties do you think it will take.
More importantly the question is if the insurgency continues to gain strength how many more casualities will the American public support taking.
..its a perfectly legitimate question, if someone is asking me to go kill someone why wont he do it if he believes in it so much. Its a very legitimate question, none of you chicken hawks will ever give an answer though.
By the way Goldberg looks like a big soft pussy, a perfect example of a chicken hawk.So of course he whines about it, because he, like you will not answer a simple question. If you think it is life or death why are you chicken hawks not joining up ?
By the way Goldberg looks like a big soft pussy, a perfect example of a chicken hawk.So of course he whines about it, because he, like you will not answer a simple question. If you think it is life or death why are you chicken hawks not joining up ?
assoholic said:.....
The first time 5 or 6 get wiped out on a patrol we'll see how much support there is.
assoholic said:..Like I said the realty is, once some real casualties start piling up they will be outta there. .
onthebottom said:What qualifies as "real casualties start piling up" so I'll know when you're wrong?
......
OTB
assoholic said:..As for the number, a constant stream of 2/3 casualities a week would do it.
Then why make the prediction.assoholic said:..not so big, just someone not stupid enough to answer a question I have no idea the answer to.
........
OTB
