Should Canada be in Afghanistan?
A similar question applies to Iraq and US soldiers.
A fellow GA brought up this question to me.
It's a difficult question to answer.
One one end, I have a friend who is headed to Afghanistan in January. I'd rather Canada be in a peacekeeping mission only.
However, when you join the army, you are putting your life at risk in possible violent combat. That's something you understand (or at least, you should) when you apply.
If the allies were to just phase out of the Middle East (as the Democrats will push for, even though Bush will put up a big fight) the terrorist situation could possibly get worse. If the US/Canada/allies back out of the Middle East, the terrorist organizations will basically get free range. It's not as if the hatred of the US/Britain/Allies by many in the Middle East will just go away if they withdraw.
Our soldiers might be dying overseas, but I like to think they are dying for a reason: trying to stabilize a country, such that, eventually, hopefully, it will be stable enough to support itself, and combat and remove terrorists without our help.
This issue is so complex, really. It's about Oil control, it's about organized religion, fight over land (especially with Israel), etc etc.
My utter and complete distaste for organized religion was summed up by a quote from Elton John I read today:
"Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate. From my point of view I would ban religion completely"
I love it, "Really hateful lemmings". It paints the picture so accurately. That's what the whole conflict in the Middle East is really:
Group A) Fundamentalist Muslim organizations who do not want democracy, allied "help" etc. Since they have no other resource to fight back but people, they turn their own people into hateful lemmings to use as weapons (suicide bombers). It's pathetic, really. All these fundamentalist organization leaders should be shot, and other members of the organization charged for the bullet.
Past history tells us (just like Lisa mentioned in the Simpsons last night, boy was that episode political, I loved it) that we can't establish a democracy in a region that a good chunk of the people resist (ie. Vietnam.)
So we might be fighting a war we can never, ever win.
Do we re-strategize (as the US military is now) or give up?
posted by Medieval @ 1:42 p.m.
2 comments
2 Comments:
The only way I would support a troop withdrawl in Afghanistan would be if we knew that there would be a force of equal size from another country to take our place, and even then I think it looks like we're running away because it's gotten tough.
I know people want us to only be in peacekeeping missions, but we've made a commitment and I think we need to see it through. The whole idea of what a peacekeeping mission is has changed anyway. It used to be that if you were part of a UN peacekeeping force that the enemy (be it a local militia or an invading country) generally wouldn't touch you, because you were only there to help.
That's not the case anymore, though, so these missions are going to be a lot more dangerous from here on in.
I do think the Democrats idea of getting Syria, Iran, and other countries involved in helping with the situation in Iraq is a good idea. Better management and government involvement in the countries nearest to Iraq will hopefully reduce the frequency of terrorist attacks / new terrorist training.
Though it's hard to say, since it's Syria and Iran where some of these terrorist organizations are, at least, indirectly involved in.
Can the Allies/UN really trust them?
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