Afghanistan: Through a Looking-Glass Darkly

Some questions about Afghanistan....

If Stephen Harper now says the decision to stop transferring prisoners was a purely military one.

Something I find very hard to believe. And so does Dave.

Was the decision to hunker down.

However, anybody paying attention – to reporters in the front lines, not from-a-far-country pundits – will know that Canadian troops really haven't been conducting aggressive combat operations in more than a year. Nobody's chasing those "scumbag'' Taliban.

I suspect this has a lot to do with "managing'' casualties during the Van Doos' rotation – Afghanistan deployment a particular vulnerability to Tories in Quebec, so it was believed. Casualties have thus been reduced, those that have occurred almost entirely attributable to the dastardly roadside explosive device and the suicide bomber.

A military one or a political one....to help Stephen Harper get a majority?

And what WAS this dead soldier talking about?

The latest young Canadian soldier to die in Afghanistan wondered whether Canadian Forces were sufficiently equipped to complete their mission, the mayor of his hometown said yesterday.

"He told his grandparents when he came over here during the holidays that if they (the Canadian soldiers) were fighting against Americans, British or Australians, they would all be dead by now...."

"We're fighting against Taliban who are not well organized and we're not well organized ourselves, either..."

And if we are in such bad shape where did anyone get the idea that adding a mere 1,000 troops would make much of a difference?

And if NATO can't provide them?

This is reasonable, but also wishful thinking. More Nato troops cannot be summoned out of thin air after a year's efforts to boost numbers. President Musharraf is only just in charge of Pakistan; the same is true of President Karzai in Afghanistan itself. In these, the panel (and Canada) is bound to be disappointed although it may have more luck in its call for more helicopters and surveillance planes.

Are we counting on the marines....even if Robert Gates says we shouldn't?

And we KNOW that we shouldn't ....because the marines don't work well with even their own army.

A Marine special operations unit has been accused of shooting civilians indiscriminately after a car-bomb attack on its convoy.

Speaking by video link from the Pentagon, Nicholson said the Marine unit often strayed outside its assigned area and did not coordinate with him even though he was the area "battle space" commander. He said he was not informed that the unit was on a mission the day of the shootings.

Because they're trained to kill .....rather than win hearts and minds.



So if we do end up with the marines....as we probably will.

Won't we just be a cog in the American Death Machine?

And is that really where we want to go?

I still support this mission as doomed as I think it is...and of course I support our troops.

But if we don't ask some hard questions....instead of just cheerleading.

How can we ever hope to look into that bloody pool .....polluted with lies and cheap politics...

And see more than our own reflection ?
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UPDATE:

Uh oh.....Sandra "Coca Cola" Buckler pedals furiously backwards.

You don't think General Blowhard Hillier called up Stephen Harper do you?

#???!!#!!!!***#!!

I do.

Always a tragedy....sometimes a farce...