A Brief Comment by Doug Draper
What a shame it is that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has declared a “firm and final end” to Canadian’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
A member of the NATO force wades through about the only thing Afghanistan seems to have going for it – fields of poppies for its world-wide illicit opium trade.
At least Harper, at a NATO meeting held in Chicago this May 21 promised Canada’s NATO partners that it will go on investing $110 million annually to assist Afghanistan in paying for its own army forces. Why would Canada rather spend that money in its own country on such things as environmental protection or maybe building a proper functioning water treatment plant in Native communities back here that have all the earmarks most of Afghanistan has of struggling in Third World dilapidation and poverty?
Yet seriously, how outrageous it is that Harper and company took this long to say Canada is pulling out of the Afghanistan quagmire. If your memory serves well enough to take you back to the mood of many of us Canada, the United States and other western nations in the weeks and months following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the former Liberal government of Jean Chretien agreed that Canada should join a NATO invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his band of Al Qaeda psychos, believed to be based in that country at the time. But bin Laden slipped away and our U.S. allies under then president George W. Bush decided it to invest most of their military resources on an invasion of Iraq.
Had Harper been Canada’s prime minister at the time, he would have joined Bush’s so-called “coalition of the willing” in the Iraq mess. He and his then-opposition Conservatives, openly expressed their all out support for the Iraq venture from its beginning in 2003. As much as we may not care for the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin in other ways, at least they did not engage Canada in that costly, tragic mess.
But then Harper and Company inherited the Afghanistan mission and have stayed there long enough to cost the lives of 158 of young and brave Canadian and leave many more with injuries they will be burdened with for the rest of their lives. Even Harper pointed out that Canadian troops have been in this God-forsaken rock pile of a country (not his words for the place, of course), with its chronically corrupt government, its warlords and its multi-billion dollar illicit drug trade, for more time than Canadians and Americans fought in World Wars I and II combined.
So why haven’t we gotten completely out of Afghanistan like, at least, yesterday, and why are we going to continue to send hundreds of millions of dollars of our hard-to-get tax money for programs in our own country when we do?
If it is to help support the Afghan army in a continued fight against the Taliban, then consider a couple of things. Plenty of experts on that region of the world, including the former U.S. secretary of state for Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski have said that if the Afghan army had any real will to fight for the corrupt government it is serving, why is it taking so many years to train it to do so? After all, no one appears to be spending anywhere near that amount of time and money to train the Taliban rebels they are apparently supposed to be defending the government against.
And finally, why can’t the Afghan government and its friends in the drug trade fund its own army? After all, we are talking about a country that is the undisputable largest producer and exporter of illicit opium in the world – a business with a reported export value of more than $4 billion annually – and the world’s producer of hashish. Is this what Canada, is helping to defend?
Think about it folks. We have a Harper government that has recently passed a crime bill that calls for mandatory sentences for individuals caught with enough marijuana that there might be enough there to peddle. And at the same time, we are investing young lives and our dollars to support the world’s major pusher of illicit drugs?
We should not spend one more breath of our time or our money to this place now. Let’s invest those resources in improving the quality of life for our own people.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post.)
Niagara At Large 
And we keep electing these IDIOTS so quit your belly acheing
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I agreed with Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan, at least until recently.
When I read an article that said President Karzai was talking to the Taliban to try to develop a coalition to keep him in power, I knew it was time for Canada to pull out. We should have pulled our troops out that very day!
I am sick and tired of seeing our country being played as a sucker by tin-pot dictators, especially in hell-holes like Afghanistan and Pakistan!
What is it about Moslem countries? They claim they want democracy, but then they immediately turn into nasty little dictatorships that mock and spit in the face of those democratic countries that try to help them!
As far as I am concerned, Canada should have nothing to do with any of those Moslem countries that pull that type of crap – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran. We should stop all trade, travel and any other connection (including immigration) to or from those countries.
If these comments make some people think I am a racist — so be it.
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I don’t think your a racist because you openly speak your mind . Although I love Canada as much as any body we should be very careful when we start to lord it over other Countries and think Democracy is a suit and one size fits all. In our democracy we have our share of barnicles (cramming First Nations into schools to be indoctrinated into the CANADIAN way of life ). Wait till the rest of the world finds out how in Pristene Canada two fifths of the worlds fresh water has been polluted by 30 million people ( I believe there is over 7 billion in the world today). This is not to say we are bad people – but we do have our faults ! As well Moslem Countries have their faults but not all Moslems are bad -infact I find them most civilized the ones I have met . Maybe thats the differance I choose to engage people who are differant than me , it must be my old philosophy of –every man is my Teacher–. This ,I feel, should be the way we approach the world through engagement at every level not only to make them better but to learn and make our own society the best we can !!
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Racism against muslims is part of the problem, and it extends to the military.
It also enables criminal wars such as the one in Iraq. Additionally, these “tin-pot” dictatorships are enabled and supported by the west. Mubarek until recently was receiving about $1 billion per year (for weapons) from the U.S, to support his regime. Obama sounded righteous and seemingly in favour of the protesting masses when Mubarek was replaced by the military, but consider this: Mubarek’s removal did not end the tyranny. The military is now the problem, and the military is being tacitly supported by the U.S. Tear gas cannisters on the ground in Egypt are made in the U.S. They were loaded and shipped there fairly recently. If it weren’t for oil, the Middle East would be far less exploited by the west, and democracy would be far stronger in the Middle East. This is one reason why oil can be such a curse. And what about the dead, innocent, Iraqi citizens (from 106,645 – 116, 548) Did they deserve to be bombed to death? Who is the real villain in this picture?
A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – I agree with you that “rascism against Muslims” is a problem, since have a number of Muslim friends too, who are not in to the vengeful terrorist shit just as not all Christians are not into the vengeful terrorist shit, although I could name a few who are.
Having said that, let’s not be niave enough to think that oil is the only reason the Middle East and Afghanistan in particular is being ‘exploited’ here. Afghanistan, in particular, is the largest source of opium and hashish in the world, and if any of us are niave enough to think that our governments would not be in there, aiding and abbetting this trade worth billions of dollars to orgnanized business criminals and underground pharmaceutical concerns, then I’ll enlist to go to Afghanistan and be one of the last troops to get my head blown off. Afghanistan is about NATO troops – that is right, NATO troops – propping up one of the most corrupt governments in the world, and its warlords, whose primary business it is to be the world’s number one pusher of illicit drugs.
NAL publisher Doug Draper
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Mark don’t forget that the USA supported Iraq in it’s war against Iran —- No wonder they thought there was weapons of mass destruction —they sold them to Sadam!!!
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I think we were right in going into Afghanistan and wrong for staying there. But enough baloney is enough baloney. Doug are you now accusing the Government of Canada of being an active participant in drug trafficking? I recommend that you wear a reinforced helmut.
To Nick from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – I am accusing the government of Canada of playing a role in propping up a government in Afghanistan that oversees the largest drug pushing operation for illicit opium and hashish in the world. When former British prime minister Tony Blair stood with former U.S. president George W. Bush in the weeks leading up to the NATO invasion of Afghanistan in early 2002, one of the reasons he gave for going in there, aside from chasing down and capturing or killing bin Laden and his gang of pscyhos, was a global trade on drugs that was destroying millions of lives, as he put it. At least that was a pretense for shoring up support from us for going in there because since the invasion the production and export of illicit drugs from that country has grown.
To me, using our troops to prop up the Afghan government would be akin to using our police to prop up the mafia.
Finally, if anyone is naive enough to believe that any of that $110 million the Canadian government is now promising to send to the Afghan government annually for appropriate security for the Afghan people is going to actually go to serve the best interests of the people, they might be naive enough to believe that we will ever see another bridge span built between Fort Erie and Buffalo in our lifetime.
Doug Draper
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Some one mentioned “Tin-Pot Dictators” Well gentlemen let it be known we have our own “Tin-Pot Dictator” here in Canada in fact A QMI journalist published an article that appeared in the Tribune this morning and I quote
Conservative David Wilks: “One MP is not going to make a difference”
By David Akin
This should be read and the accompanying Videos watched
Another eye opener was the novel written by Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail entitled “Harperland”
So I would suggest before Canada is Totally and completely lost to this dictatorship
we should “ALL” think seriously when we cast a vote at the next Federal Election (If HE allows one?)
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Another reason for our (NATO) being their is the presence of one of the biggest Rare Earth Deposits out side of China–
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John, the WMD issue was an excuse to invade a basically de-militarized country. UN weapons inspectors found nothing before or after the criminal invasion/war of aggression. And our very own Stephen Harper,as leader of the opposition, urged that Canada join the aggressors. As per Hansard, S. Harper said, ” We support the war effort and believe we should be supporting our troops and our allies and be there with them doing everything necessary to win.” (Jan 29, 2003) War planes don’t look so sexy when you’re an innocent civilian about to be blown up.
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Of course it was a superficial excuse to go into Iraq , but there was still colusion on a massive scale when Iraq was an ally because of the ten year with Iran. There were many reasons for going into Iraq the American Military War Machine was about to be downsized and changed to a more specialized fighting force . It was still designed to fight the large battlefield engagements which were basically obselete. So why not use it before you lose it — not to mention Sadam’s threat on George Bush Sr. life kind of motivated his cowboy son to unleash his Country’s Fury . I could go on but Mark — the fact remains that the Americans supplied the Iraq war machine with , as the American Army’s Motto says “whatever it takes “. So one has to wonder at the number of horrific deaths to the Iranians in the Marshes through the use of deadly poisonous gas! Do you really think that American Officials once they located and secured these stockpiles would announce to the world we found them and oh by the way ignore the made in the USA stamped on them!
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Mr. Draper I would suggest to you that there is a large difference between your two statements. Playing a role in propping up a government that ovesees drug trade is far different from a directly accusing our government of aiding and abetting the production and sale of drugs which is a violation of the Criminal Code of Canada. Anyone that is naive enough to believe that your two statemant are the same would have to believe that David Suzuki will someday “occupy” the Prime Ministers seat in Parliament.
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Democracy has to come from the will of people of all countries. We can not force democracy, but we of course can help. Afganistan has a tribal culture and we can not change their culture.
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