All things Canadian.....

I've really enjoyed reading Selley's blog - if you haven't been, here are some of his posts over the last few months regarding Afghanistan. I suggest you read them all.

July 12, 2006: Mission: Unpopular

The Taliban as a government had to go after September 11. By the same token, building a functional replacement government was a necessary goal even without taking humanitarian concerns into account. It would have been nice to get the ugly possibilities out in the open early on, so people couldn't suddenly pop up and claim never to have been consulted.

August 04, 2006: Dispatches from Fantasyland

The first mention in the Canadian media of this "3-D approach" in relation to Canada's mission in Afghanistan was in the Winnipeg Free Press… on March 28, 2004.

September 02, 2006: The Loneliest Multilateralist, or, The NDP's Vision for Canada

Canada didn't go to Afghanistan to free its women and girls — that was just a happy side effect. Canada went to Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban. No one ever said it would be quick, easy, or painless. Indeed, Jean Chrétien said exactly the opposite right from the start. Of course it's difficult-to-impossible to pursue humanitarian work with Taliban insurgents running around, but that's not the point. The mission wasn't to rebuild Afghanistan; it was to rebuild Afghanistan after destroying the Taliban.

September 05, 2006: Not our kind of people (anymore)

It's the part about the "dubious" quality of the democratically elected Afghan government (and by extension its constituents) that really bugs me. It raises the same question I asked when people were so astonished to find that Afghanistan’s a little lukewarm on Christians: Can we really have been so naïve? We went to make a deplorable situation better, not to make Afghanistan safe for Canadian tourists and missionaries. Kandahar is never going to be "the next Prague".

September 07, 2006: Say it a thousand times and it's true

She must know that’s not true. Her boss never called it peacekeeping, nor did his successor. What is wrong with these people? Tell me it’s unwinnable. Tell me Canadians are too gentle to fight wars. Pitch me any kind of opinion and try to
back it up, but please, we have got to stop rewriting history — especially history that’s not even five years old. The Liberal speeches are all on the record: this will be a long war; it’s not peacekeeping; expect casualties. By the standards of the Chretien and Martin governments, they were remarkably clear on the nature of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.