With the news from Afganistan becoming more and more grim, I am increasingly aware that we are not the country to be in combat in the region. Sure we are suited to it because of our terrain and indeed we must do our part in the face of danger.
Yes, our troops are the finest and have always fought hard for our country, albeit more often than not, for countries that have a poor memory and are less than grateful. (Such is the loss of my two uncles in WW II.) Since we are a peace loving nation from all walks of life and since we have the smallest population of all G20 countries, and have limited resources to run the world’s second largest country, I think that our international commitments should only be in BLUE helmets and only in a peace keeping role. If I remember correctly our mission in Afganistan began that way and it should return to that role and never should our limited resources and reputation be squandered or put in the line of fire as they now appear to be. It is clear by evidence of the Soviet and American actions in the past that a military solution simply does not exist. Perhaps a peaceful solution lies within the Muslim community itself?
In any event, I welcome any and all support to help permanently put our troops back into Blue helmets only and wonder how we can collectively create the ground swell that this initiative would require?
On that note, I want to thank all our troops for doing the most brave work a person can do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God speed.
—Michael
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.
Strange, and slightly incoherent post.
Where to start…uh, well, Australia and Saudi Arabia are two G20 countries with less people than us.
This mission was never about peace keeping, you can’t keep the peace in a country full of pre-historic cavemen.
We can’t pull our troops, we can’t put on blue helmets, we are committed to NATO.
I can’t be fussed anymore, just save your rant for the NDP rally you are getting ready for.
Part of the problem is that it’s a political thing, the politicians don’t want to “cut and run” as it were, it’s bad PR. The military puts on a smile and says they’re making inroads to win people over, and that’s probably true to an extent. However, these people are dirt poor and if we don’t fix that and show them that they can make it on their own, we’re wasting our time. We’re trying to impose a democratic system on them, they haven’t said whether they want it or not. As recent events have said, they’re still trying to vote in laws that hold women as possessions and/or sex objects. After all this time, they’re still holding on to these thoughts, and are bewildered by the reaction from the world. The only time they reconsider is when countries threaten to pull out of there or cut off the funds. To me, that’s a double edged sword. You want to install a fair political system, yet, were telling them what their values are too. We’ll never win, the taliban hands these poor people cash to feed themselves, we give them nothing really. Hope doesn’t pay the bills. That’s the way i see it.
The war in Afghanistan is, as yorkke mentioned, a NATO effort. We couldn’t refuse like we did for the Iraq War. The problem with the Afghanistan War is that after committing X number of troops for X number of years, we elected a Conservative government that wanted a conflict to prop up (i.e.: provide funding, and new equipment) the military, so the Afghanistan War was a good choice to do this. The ongoing commitments are political moves as much as the requests from the US and other NATO countries to make further military commitments, as well as this is a last ditch struggle to maintain a military that is losing more and more relevancy as the years go by. I just hope that we pull out at the end of 2011 as planned.
“you can’t keep the peace in a country full of pre-historic cavemen.”
You can’t keep the peace with attitudes like that.
Name one country where we can send ‘Blue Helmets’ to stand around and behave like bouncers.
Lalaland may be a good start, or Disneyworld.
Vancouver could probably use them to sort out the driveby gang murders.
The world has changed, its now much dirtier when different factions face off.
This fallicy of the Canadian Forces being mainly a peacekeeping force has to end. Less than 5% probably closer to 2 or 3% of troops have ever been on peacekeeping missions. The Canadian Forces from the time of the Crimean War to present have been a combat force which has distinguished itself more times than we can count.
Peacekeeping is not safe either with 114 dead and many more wounded. When peacekeeping troops cannot fired unless fired upon. In other words if someone decides to shoot a school full of kids, peacekeepers cannot get involved unless the gunmen bring the troops under fire. Please read and get you facts straight before speaking.
OP your memory is faulty. Afghanistan was never ever a peacekeeping mission. They never packed the blue helmets.
yes yes…. you go have fun starting your facebook network…
start the rally….
yes…. facebook.
facebook.
Get real put our military in blue helmets only, fuck you, this country is at war get used to it. All those young men and women are over there doing their job putting there life’s on the line every second of every day where the hell do you get off saying they they should be peace keepers, if we take just a peace keeping approach, they are Only allowed to defend them selfs if fired upon and then its only to scare the fucking towel heads, when at war they can take any action to protect them self’s,if you want peace keeping you go over there and get shot at, see your friends get the shit blown out of them and not be able to hunt the fuckers down that did it. I am proud of our armed forces, just because we lost another solider dosent mean shit they died doing what they love, protecting our country and human rights. dont get me wrong i dont like the fact that our soldiers are dieing but that is the harsh reality of not only war but todays world. so fuck you and your blue helmets only you make me sick.
Nothing wrong with having an army with actual combat experience. We’ll need it once the Russians make their move for our arctic….although a desert might not be the best preparation for an arctic war. Hmmm, maybe we should forget the whole thing and give them peacetime jobs flipping burgers. Canadian Military Personnel in paper hats only!!!
Not the smallest population of the G20, definitely not a limited resource country(do you pay attention outside of the sparkle world inside your head at all!?).
Fuck face of danger, we’re only there to protect american assessts, nothing more nothing less. Next place, pakistan.
research the Caspian Sea and you’ll know why!
and to whomever believes that this country is at war, can you please explain to me what war are you referring to?
To me, seems like a 1 sided invasion. I don’t the Afghans actually did anything to anyone!
If you think it has something to do with 9/11, well we already came to the conclusion that all of the people involved we saudis except for 3, Pakistani origin! How did Iraq and Afghanistan fall into this?
Well Iraq has oil, Afghanistan is in the middle between Turkmenistan and Pakistan. Caspian sea is full of oil. The US has already built the pipes to pump that oil out through Turkmenistan. Next one on the route was Afghanistan. They came to a fork. Only 2 ways out to the Arabian sea, through Iran, which will never happen, and Pakistan, which is the next weakest country on the list. Notice if you watch the news, Obama has been shoving Pakistan in every Afghan related news segment. Isn’t that what the US does when they’re preparing for an invasion. 9/11, Afghanistan this, Afghanistan that. Then Iraq this, Irag that, and now Pakistan this and Pakistan that. Ladies and gents, we’ll have another war to keep you excited and busy within the coming year or so.
My apologies to all if you misunderstand my Bitch. In my opinion, having our troops in Blue Helmets in any location should be done on a humanitarian basis/ peace keeping mission only and never, EVER when our brave men and women are in danger of being injured.
By limited resources I meant the size of our population vs our 4.2 million square miles of land/ sea to oversee.
The Pakistanis will cut us to bits and then bomb us with the nukes. The Russians will take us like a training exercise.
Our on-going peace keeping roles include Cypress? the former Yugoslavia? South Korea? Am I close? Any others?
We’re not “officially” at war though, as they didn’t vote in the war measures act. We’re hiding this fact under the guise of a “NATO” mission. Easy way of legally going through the motions of war without actually declaring it. If Pakistan gets taken over by the taliban , watch the fuck out, them nuts will then have nukes and we’ll be going in balls to the wall.
The Taliban are worse than the Nazi’s. We either deal with them now In Afghanistan and Pakistan, or we wait until they have over run pakistan ( they now control a whole province in the north of pakistan,a nuclear state)
Hahahahaha, that’s right, Rafiki, they are!