Monday, May 18, 2009

Iggy On Afghanistan: Perform For Me, O! Glorious Iggy!

Since this

...the journalist turned expat turned politician also urged far greater engagement with India and China than at present; [...] an honourable withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011;

And this

[Q:] How would you stand on Afghanistan?

[A:] Our brave soldiers have sought to secure a safe Afghanistan for the people. But I feel we've done our turn. It's time to end our mission in 2011.

...are from May 13th, I eagerly await His Iggyness' response to Peter Mackay's announcement today that Canada may well stay in Afghanistan beyond its 2011 military mandate.

I just spent Saturday afternoon trying to convince Ms. O'Malley that you would display political courage one day, Iggy. The clock is ticking. Don't let me down: tell 'em no.

Otherwise, not a bad article in South Asian Focus. Iggy's insightful-stuff-to-boilerplate-ratio is fairly high, and his questioners ask him a couple of fairly decent ones re Tamil/Sikh terrorism.

1 comment:

The Mound of Sound said...

But wait a minute. Iggy has proclaimed a 'red line' that he can't cross - any outfit "that compromises the territorial integrity of a sovereign state." Isn't that precisely what we did in Kosovo?

Sovereign nations also have a right not to be subjected to wars of aggression. In fact, we outlawed them for very good reason after WWII. Yet, swoon, "Michael" had no qualms about that when he endorsed the American conquest of Iraq.

He just keeps showing me a serious disconnect between his lofty pronouncements and his actions. That's why I have trouble believing that he would truly airlift our forces out of Afghanistan in 2011.