Criminal Cluelessness Regarding Afghanistan

(Cartoon by Graeme Mackay-click toon for link)

Our western socialists and liberals constantly whine about how cold hearted and mean-spirited conservatives are towards those less fortunate than us. Whether it were peace, prosperity, or the pursuit of happiness, they like all spiritual communists, would much rather enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labour than pay the price themselves.

So now we come to the war on terror, and more specifically, the Canadian Army’s contribution to the rebuilding of Afghanistan. Until recently, stories about Canadian casualties in the war on the Taliban have occupied an increasing amount of space in Canada’s news services. I’d become increasingly cynical about the way the media deliberately ignored that part of the Canadian mission that had to do with the rebuilding of that country. Barely a word appears about the reestablishment of schools, medical services, water treatment and other infrastructure that couldn’t survive more than a decade of destructive Taliban rule. I’ve met an appalling number of people here who are so poorly informed that they think we’re in Afghanistan to help George W. Bush get rich.

The clueless ones would have us bring the troops home. I live in Western Canada; Quebec’s separatists have had little or no impact on my awareness for most of my life. (As long as Alberta continues to pay the lion’s share of the daneguild that keeps Quebec in confederation they’re mostly willing to ignore us too, I think.) But separatist leader Gilles Duceppe’s recent pronouncements that the Canadian military mission should be retooled to concentrate solely on rebuilding instead of fighting shows a cluelessness that is criminal in a Member of Parliament.

NDP leader Jack Layton is another prime example. To hell with rebuilding; he just wants Canada to abandon the Afghanis to the Taliban, and bring our soldiers home. I’m sure he’s a good man, means well, and works hard. Unfortunately Jack Layton would not be able to get a clue even if he went out in a field of horny clues during clue mating season, smeared his naked body with clue musk, and danced the ritual clue mating dance.

(I really wish I’d said that first, but I stole it from author Ian Douglas, “Luna Marine” ISBN 0-380-78829-2)

Canada’s Chief of Defense staff General Rick Hillier pointed out today that Canadian forces in Afghanistan aren’t fighting Taliban forces because they want to, but because the Taliban will happily slaughter anyone involved in reconstruction projects.

Is it possible to sit in Parliament as a Party Leader and be ignorant of this? Over the years I’ve met quite a few politicians. Not one seemed to be willfully ignorant or stupid. It takes a certain minimum amount of intelligence to get elected to Federal office. I can therefore only conclude that if I'm wrong, and Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton are not clueless idiots, they're a couple of like-minded assholes in the pursuit of their own political gain. Either way, the cost will be borne by others …Either in the endangerment of our soldiers by ordering them to ignore security concerns, or by the suffering in a new Taliban-led Afghanistan after we abandon our international commitments.

It should be criminal.