Sat 3 Nov 2007
Apparently the rights belong to Global TV, but I can’t imagine they would mind this video getting around:
Posting a video like this might make you think that I’m completely behind the mission to Afghanada. I am certainly of the opinion that there are issues worth fighting for, but I have serious reservations about Afghanada.
In this video a veteran remarks that if you ignore your history you’ll have no future. He’s right about that. And the history of Afghanada is one of foreign power after foreign power invading and getting nowhere. Or worse, getting virtually wiped out, as in the case of one famous British misadventure.
It may well be that an intelligent effort by a group of wealthy, well-meaning first world nations could turn things around in Afghanistan. There’s always a first time, I suppose. But that’s not what we’re seeing here today. Not enough of the world cares, and Canada can’t do it alone.
And we’re not going about it particularly intelligently either.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
My biggest beef with that there video is how blatantly manipulative it is. As someone who understands the reality of national militaries I still have extremely mixed feelings about our international missions in places like Afghanistan which are complicated by such a massive quantity of social and political factors.
Equating the Candian mission in Afghantistan with the second world war is intentionally misleading and unhelpful. Yes, the Taliban were a bunch of repressive nutters and getting rid of them certainly seems like a good thing…but the fact of the matter is we are now embroiled in what is unlikely to be a cleanly ‘resolveable’ situation. When the Harpotron and his ilk glibly say we need to stay until the ‘job is done’ what they really mean is ‘as long as we can earn political credit’ for supporting the mission. In the real world this would mean we’d be hanging in there for about twenty to thirty years to help stabilize the situation. Maybe that should be a new policy…each of the wealthier nations involved in NATO commit to sticking with one trouble spot for decades, lending security forces until such time as the local antagonists are understood to be detrimental to local happiness.
At the very least I suppose I should be grateful that our military folks aren’t under the Bush-like delusion that you can simply march in somewhere and blow up the bad guys and then be showered with Rose Petals for your efforts. Wakey wakey!