 Bush praises Canadian troops for Afghan effort President George W. Bush on Thursday hailed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan as "brave souls" and listed Canada as a NATO ally doing more than its share to fight the Taliban.Commentsview comments in forum You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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Wow! Acknowledgement of Canadians doing their share from Mr. Bush!!! Maybe someone should call Anne Coulter and tell her!
"And my biggest concern is that people say, 'Well, we're kind of tired of Afghanistan and, therefore, we think we're going to leave.' That would be my biggest concern" WHAT! Tired? He's an idiot! No news there though..
What a crock! Afghanistan's infrastructure was unchanged from when Alexander the Great went through.....nothing. Then the Russians bombed the shit out of the nothing.....NATO bombing rock piles at least produced gravel for road-building.
Oh, GOD!!! Why aren't you guys telling him to fuck off already? What the hell have they done in Afghanistan but bomb it to shreds? This is a pure insult..
"And my biggest concern is that people say, 'Well, we're kind of tired of Afghanistan and, therefore, we think we're going to leave.' That would be my biggest concern" WHAT! Tired? He's an idiot! No news there though..
It's nice to see some sanity from Europe. This does deal with internal politics in Canada.
The Liberal party sent troops into Afghanistan after 9/11 to take out al-Qaeda, not the Taliban. The US, however, targeted the Taliban. After the US removed the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, they moved on to Iraq. Canada changed its role in Afghanistan to rebuilding. Unfortunately the US left a few troops to fight the Taliban, and Afghanis don't know the difference between American and Canadian troops. This resulted in increasing attacks on Canadian aid workers, resulting in Canada having to defend itself against Taliban attacks. All because the US continued to stir-up trouble with the Taliban.
Then we had an election and the Conservative party got elected. They wanted to be part of the invasion of Iraq, so saw no problem with targeting the Taliban. Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the decision to target the Taliban. The Conservatives very strongly tied to the Republican party in the United States. Several individuals reported the Conservatives sent campaign organizers to Republican school in the States, including one friend of mine who knows the campaign manager for one of the Conservative MPs. At the Liberal leadership campaign I met David Orchard, former candidate for the Progressive Conservative party (before the merger), and several of his supporters. One of his supporters said the American Republican party paid for many Progressive Conservative party memberships and he still has the receipt that shows the Republican party paid for his PC membership. That individual jumped over to the Liberal party after the PC party merged with the Alliance. So this support of Bush's agenda has a lot to do with party politics.
Truth is we aren't simply tired of Afghanistan; rather we went in to take our al-Qaeda, not occupy Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda attacked the United States, our ally, so we defended our ally by attacking al-Qaeda. The Taliban are just a distraction, we should never have picked a fight with them in the first place. It was Bush's mistake.
St�phane Dion may not agree with me completely on this, he feels the Taliban have to be defeated. However, he has said we need to end Canada's combat mission with the end of the Afghan extension in February 2009. From that point on Canada will provide training for Afghani military, will provide humanitarian aid and help rebuild. Although I may disagree with some philosophical points, I agree with his conclusion: we need to end the combat mission in 2009.
What an act of fiction!
It is easy to see how history gets muddled.....when recent events can be so distorted so vastly by crass partisan invention.
Canada(Cretin) did not commit CF to Afghanistan until the Iraq thing was well underway. The US administration had no request/wish for Canadian participation in the Iraq matter despite LIBRANO lies to the contrary. There was never any doubt as to Canada's UN/NATO role in Afghanistan other than what it is...in fact Martin elected the CF move to Kandahar.
OPP the voice of reason??????Harper is indeeed guaranteed a majority if this is the LIBRANO version of things.
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Canadian Forces immediately deployed its elite special operations unit Joint Task Force Two. It was used in a vital role in calling airstrikes and directly confronting Al-Qaeda and Taliban positions. Once the regular forces were on the ground in January-February 2002 the Canadians were used supporting the war effort until Operation Anaconda began. During the operation, a Canadian sniper team broke, and re-broke, the kill record for a long distance sniper kill set in the Vietnam War by an U.S. Marine. Operation Anaconda was also the first time since the Korean War that Canadian soldiers relieved American soldiers in a combat operation. Although not participating in the opening days of the invasion, Prime Minister Jean Chr�tien announced on October 7 that Canada would contribute forces to the international force being formed to conduct a campaign against terrorism. General Ray Henault, the Chief of the Defence Staff, issued preliminary orders to several CF units, as Operation Apollo was established. The Canadian commitment was originally planned to last to October 2003.
2002-2005
In March 2002 , 3 PPCLI snipers fought along side U.S. Army units during Operation Anaconda. Canadian forces also undertook Operation Harpoon in the Shah-i-Kot Valley. Other forces in the country provided garrison and security troops.
On April 18, 2002, a friendly fire incident caused Canadian casualties when an American F-16 jet dropped a laser-guided bomb on a group of Canadian soldiers. The Canadians were conducting night-time training on a designated live-fire range, and the American pilots mistook their gunfire for a Taliban insurgent attack. Four Canadians were killed and eight were wounded in the bombing (see Tarnak Farm incident).
In 2003, the Canadian Forces moved to the northern city of Kabul where it became the commanding nation of the newly formed ISAF. In the spring of 2005 it was announced that the Canadian Forces would move back to the volatile Kandahar Province as the U.S. forces handed command to the Canadians in the region.
2003-2005 Operation Athena
In August 2003, Operation Athena began outside Kabul as part of ISAF, with a 1,900-strong Canadian task force providing assistance to civilian infrastructure such as well-digging and repair of local buildings.
In March 2004, Canada committed $250 million in aid to Afghanistan, and $5 million to support the 2004 Afghan election.
On 13 February 2005, Defence Minister Bill Graham announced Canada was doubling the number of troops in Afghanistan by the coming summer, from 600 troops in Kabul to 1200.
Operation Athena ended following the national elections in December 2005 and the fulfilment of the stated aim of "rebuilding the democratic process" in Afghanistan.
Lets see. US invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003 means we were in Afghanistan about 1 year and 2 months before Iraq.
The resident CONserveIDIOT seems to be incorrect.
Whats that you say? You meant the largest troop commitment and increased combat role?
You guys blame Chretien for sending the military in underequiped at the same time as blaiming him for not going to Iraq and now you falsely accuse him of not actually committing military assets to Afghanistan before a specific time when he actually did.
Partisan hackery at its worst.
The Dark ages are over and your side lost.
You guys blame Chretien for sending the military in underequiped at the same time as blaiming him for not going to Iraq and now you falsely accuse him of not actually committing military assets to Afghanistan before a specific time when he actually did.
You guys blame Chretien for sending the military in underequiped at the same time as blaiming him for not going to Iraq and now you falsely accuse him of not actually committing military assets to Afghanistan before a specific time when he actually did.
The people blaiming him for everything.
Would you prefer I used a blanket term like conservatives? I would have though not trying to lay blanket condemnation would meet your approval.
Regardless, I dispute Chretien sending them in underequiped to a point it was his fault. He apparently was "heavily onfluenced" to commit assets very quickly as as the timeline suggests, the comited assets increased as readiness improved.
Yes we all saw the pictures of JTF2's escorting prisoners while decked out in green camos but I dispute the fault to the federal gov't. I'm pretty sure the military purchasers don't need federal approval toorder different coloured uniforms and quite frankly since Mulroney sent us to war in Gulf 1 the military should have forseen the likelihood of a future desert deployment.
Invariably the argument will progress to criticism over the use of Iltis jeeps but I will point out that not even the battled hardened and experienced US army anticipated the affective use of IEDs and its simply unfair to have expected Chretien to know this in advance. The same criticism about inadequate armoured equipment dogged the US yet nobody says its becasue bush hates the military.
To me this is nothing more then partisan people looking for any reason to complain.
The largest complaints against the Liberals with regards to the military revolve around lack of funding and lack of use. Mulroney sent a squadron of jets and naval vessels defended by handheld blowpipe missiles? No criticism there at all and yet we were the worst equiped military in the theatre and our planes were armed by the US just as in Kosovo.
Chretien gives the military what Hilier and the military demanded, namely deployement to a combat zone to ply their trade and what does he get?
Criticism for deploying them underequiped. Would he have received praise if he cited lack of equipment for not going into the 'Stan or would he have been vilified as he was on Iraq?
Surely you can see the catch-22 that "the conservative" side is attacking him with?
You want to be non-partisan, well then lets see it.
Chretien is attacked for deploying to Afghanistan underequiped yet a short while later is called every name in the book for not committing troops, additional combat troops that we didn't even have to Iraq. He was the Queen of Spades no less.
Is that fair? Honestly? To be attacked simultaneously for not deploying troops at the same time as deploying "underequiped troops".
Thats just wrong and quite frankly dishonest of the so-called partisan con hacks masquerading as military loving patriots.
The people blaiming him for everything.
Would you prefer I used a blanket term like conservatives? I would have though not trying to lay blanket condemnation would meet your approval.
The people blaiming him for everything.
Would you prefer I used a blanket term like conservatives? I would have though not trying to lay blanket condemnation would meet your approval.
Posting problems aside,
This is a topic that more then a few have posted similiar opinions and quite frankly they all seem to bend the same politically.
Out of respect to Tricks I won't debate yetiboy as a "conservative" unless circumstances dictate otherwise.
In any case I'm curious to read your response (time permitting) to the other points I mentioned since you seem to represent a relatively non-partisan conservative side of the argument.
I would be appreciative to any response concerning the (what I consider) very hypocritical stance attacking Chretien for both deploying the troops "underequiped" and not deploying the troops at all.
In addition, given the truth that Chretien would have been vilified far worse then on Iraq had he not deployed the troops to the Stan at all (let alone being one if the first) dure to reasons of unreadiness.
Quite frankly if Harper received anywhere near the level of responsibility that "�ou guys" assign to Chretien/Martin then we might actually see the results "�ou guys" expected from his gov't.
In terms of military spending, if the Libs were so awful we would have seen an exponential growth rather then one attributed to debt reduction savings and growth.
Fair is fair right?
As for reality, Canada sent JTF2 into Afghanistan before the Americans or anyone else sent troops anywhere. After 9/11 our troops were first. Be proud of that, we support our allies. Unfortunately George W. is not focussing his attack on those who attacked the US, but thrashing around attacking or threatening everyone. Not good.
As for George W. Bush asking for Canadian participation, perhaps you didn't watch the news. I saw George W. himself ask that very question on TV news. Yes, he did ask Canada to go into Iraq. He also asked all of NATO, and every other ally he could find.
Let's try to stay away from name calling.