our troops

grendleaxe said:
No oil or economic benefit to be had in Aghanistan and nowadays (unlike the time of the "great game",) not a very strategic location either. On the other hand their IS oil in Sudan and money to be made (remember Talisman Energy anyone? ) Can't blame this one on money and oil.

The American leadership would gladly cut and run in Afghanistan if they could explain it to the american public I think. Iraq is their war and the one they planning on before 9/11.

The difference between Sudan (also a haven for Osama before he moved to afghanistan... and I wouldn't be suprised if he was back there,) now and afghanistan now is that however precarious Afghanistan has a government, as well as people, that whant our help. In the Sudan it is the government and that would be the enemy.

Though the worlds apathy towards what is happening in Dafur is reprehensible , Afghanistan holds the promise, real or not, of a satisfactory end being in sight, albeit a long way off.

good reply. however, i respectfully disagree that Afghanistan is not strategic. You see, the Russians discovered one of the worlds largest reserves in the Caspian sea totalling an estimated 50 billion barrels (rumoured to be much more now, possibly even surpassing Saudi Arabias 261 billion barrels), a huge find. By comparison, the United States has known reserves of 21 billion barrels, while the North Sea field contains about 16 billion barrels.

Because the Caspian Sea is landlocked, oil and natural gas must be transported by pipeline to a terminal on the open sea, where it would be pumped into tankers and shipped to customers.

Now what if the US had a plan, hypothetically speaking of course ;), to reduce credible terrorist threats AND make a killing (no pun intended) by isolating and controlling Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran (eventually and you know it is coming) in order to, lets say, build the pipeline to pump out through Iran.

If rumours were true, the US would be shipping from the middle east (Iranian ports) in direct competition to the Saudis, Iraq(now US anyway), UAE, Kuwait, and Iran (future US). They would then be able to sell the oil at dirt prices forcing the competition to match.

They would make a killing, eliminate middle east riches in terms of oil income, therefore decreasing money that is lent/given to terrorists to fund their expensive operations. Without this sorta money, these terrorist organizations cant buy essential arms as they do now on the black market.

Dont get me wrong, they'll still exist and buy weapons, but wont be able to afford the threatening ones. Theyd have to stick to planes or something.

The pipeline would have to go through Afghanistan simply because of the terrain in certain parts (yes I know Afghans got some bad terrain however, not those parts), therefore Afghanistan is key.

Just some non-sense I fathomed up.......
 
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Mongrel4u said:
so now we have to go and police the world like the US eh...but of course we only police those that we think we can take or has some sort of economic benefit? oh yeah thats justice alright.

Like it was said... there are lot of countries that need "salvation from tyranny"...but are they being helped? no. A million people got slaughtered in Rwanda what did we do about that? Make a movie...What are we doing about Darfur???
there are other countries that are a much bigger threat but do we try to do something about them? no. Doesnt look like "the greater good" to me

4 millions Congolese have died in civil war 4 MILLION since 1998. Kinda makes Rwanda look like nothing. Just adding to your point...
 
peteeey said:
Leave these people alone and I bet they'll leave us alone.
where they not left alone until 9/11?
 
someone said:
where they not left alone until 9/11?

nope. Read Forbidden Truth....you'll get the secret dealings on record that Bush made with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, until the former backed out of the deal...
 
grendleaxe said:
There are some good arguments to made for isolationism.

And all those arguments have been proven foolish by modern history. Sticking your head in the sand is just an excuse for not wanting to deal with your problems.
 
fantasiafan said:
The pipeline would have to go through Afghanistan simply because of the terrain in certain parts (yes I know Afghans got some bad terrain however, not those parts), therefore Afghanistan is key.

That pipeline is a pipedream. No one has been able to secure the country, let alone secure a pipeline filled with highly flammable oil. Afghanistan will always be a frontier region. And, as such, it will never be secure enough for an oil pipeline.

It's a great idea on paper. On paper.
 
As an American, I hoped that my country would rebuild A'stan. After 30 years of war, that country is in the stone age right now. I think your government at the time hoped so too and so did most of NATO.

This isolationist, stick-head-in-the-sand attitude ain't too great. There's no "we leave them alone, they leave us alone" concept with the Islamists.
 
grendleaxe said:
Though the worlds apathy towards what is happening in Dafur is reprehensible , Afghanistan holds the promise, real or not, of a satisfactory end being in sight, albeit a long way off.

Why should anyone care about what is happening in Darfur? At present, there is no significant strategic, political or economic benefit to justify any expenditure to address the situation in Darfur. I do not see any return on investment to even bother with keeping up to date on the number of deaths. The rate of people dyig in Darfur is an insignificant blip compared to the rate at which the total population is growing.

Canada should be establishing clear criteria for what it wants to do in the international arena. I fully agree with the Canadian government taking up it's share of the responsibility for conducting an armed conflict against the Taliban because we are a NATO partner, and our NATO allies are the targets of terrorist threats supported by the Taliban. That is a clear benefit for Canada to be placing troops in Afghanistan. The return on investment is the maintenance of goodwill with our NATO partners.

Also, establishing a stable government in Afghanistan will eventually lead to the ability to establish greater security in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The ability to access the vast mineral and oil resources in Siberia requires secure routes through these countries. We need to do our part to ensure that Canadian businesses can eventually gain access to those resources. It all comes down to return on investment.
 
Serpent said:
As an American, I hoped that my country would rebuild A'stan. After 30 years of war, that country is in the stone age right now. I think your government at the time hoped so too and so did most of NATO.

This isolationist, stick-head-in-the-sand attitude ain't too great. There's no "we leave them alone, they leave us alone" concept with the Islamists.

But this is where your wrong....A'stan has never really had a central govt because it has been run by tribes for thousands of years, call it stone age, but that's the way they live and were fine with it until oil and drugs became a disneyland for the west. Maybe if people realized and understood the dynamics before going in they wouldve pressured the govt not too and recognized that, 'hey, my fellow citizens are dying to increase the coffers of the individuals that currently run my govt, while the govt itself adds to its debt...

As for the isolationist theory, I think that your statment does reflect the radical movement nowadays. There was a time when the isolationist theory could have worked, but then we built a timebomb and set it off too. Maybe the west shouldve paid more attention to Chechnya in the first place....
 
I am totally against the war in Iraq.

I am glad Canada can contribute to the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Even is this Layton asshole somehow gets power and pulls Canada out of NATO, the alliance would still be there to defend us despite such pathetic disgraceful conduct.

We don't even have the means to transport all of our own committed troops but the least we can do is offer what we can.
 
The only thing I don't mind saying again, is

Come home safe , soldiers. And bring them home.
 
Jack layton gain power, now there's a joke, pull out of NATO, a bigger joke, I bet he wouldn't know what to do, maybe ask the wife
 
I have to apologize to you all because I don't agree that our troop should be in Afghanistan fighting these invisible armies. What Canadian and the US should do is throw a fucken N-bomb into Afghanistan and just let Allah sort them out.

I am sure these Taliban and other extremists wouldn't mind dying for Allah.
 
Guys like you are not too far off from the bin Ladens of the world. Your nuke'em and kill'em philosophy syncs up pretty well with the medeival bloodlust of the terrorists.
 
Serpent said:
Guys like you are not too far off from the bin Ladens of the world. Your nuke'em and kill'em philosophy syncs up pretty well with the medeival bloodlust of the terrorists.

The difference is that Bin Laden do it for punishment, not for peace.