I applaud Gerard Kennedy on Afghanistan

Stardate 6298.60

Some time ago, I changed my tune on our involvement in Afghanistan. At first, I had supported our role in the sense that we were helping keep the peace and rebuild the country. This has been a proud duty of Canadians for some time, and something I feel we need to get back to. Recently, our mission mandate has changed into more of a "seek and destroy the terrorists" kind of mission, one which frankly, I can see no end to, much like the US occupation of Iraq. The longer we hunt out "bad guys" the more will pour in from other places to replace them.

Gerard Kennedy has boldy stated that our mission should end in Afghanistan unless our role with NATO is altered and the mission is clarified.

"We should leave Afghanistan if we can't get a mandate that does honour and respect to the people of Afghanistan and to our troops."
He said that by focusing solely on military objectives and ignoring development, "Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper is making the same mistakes the Bush administration made in Iraq and it will lead to long-term failure."

I agree completely. I expect soldiers to die in combat, that is par for the course. However, in a combat that has no end in sight, and little point in the grand scheme of things, these deaths are senseless.

"With our eyes pushed mightily shut, we are going along with something that isn't right."

Our mission in Afghanistan is quickly parallelling the US occupation in Iraq, right down to the ridiculous comments from H-Dawg about "Staying the course" and "supporting the troops". This is not what Canada is about. Occupying countries and killing "terrorists". Consider the dollar value of our mission there. We have spent $100 million on aid to the war ravaged country, and $4 billion on the military aspect... that's 40 times the amount. Want to build schools? Stop occupying the country and trying to quash resistance and start helping rebuild them.

Afghanistan is quickly becoming Canada's Kobayashi Maru.

UPDATE: You can read more on Gerard's site here. I didn't even mention the lucrative OPIUM trade.