Saturday, August 26, 2006

Kennedy Lays it On the Line

Kennedy's campaign comes to life! Gerard Kennedy made the most important single statement of the Lib Leadership campaign today, calling for :

Canada to insist NATO drastically change its strategy in Afghanistan to a major economic reconstruction program or pull out its troops.

This is exactly what needs to happen. As the Globe also reported today (but damned if I can find the on-line version of the article), we are officially in a quagmire. No matter what we do around Kandahar, the Taliban leadership lies over the border in Pakistan and funnels an endless supply of weapons and fighters into the country. And there are no plans, and never will be, to carry the fight into Pakistan. So our guys are basically slapping at wasps while never being able to go after the nest. As Mr. Kennedy notes, a losing strategy. Mind you, I don't think much of his solution:

Instead, [Kennedy] said, NATO and Canada must mount a massive economic development and aid program to replace the opium trade that now dominates the economy.

Why? Because you can't build infrastructure while you're fighting, but if you don't build infrastructure, the fighting won't end. Catch-22.

But at least Kennedy's proposal is a prelude to getting out of a situation that will otherwise waste Canadian $ and Canadian soldiers for years and years to come. The key words are "...or pull out."."

4 comments:

iggyforpresident said...

What a frick'n panty waist. I got an idea, why don't we send foodbankguy over there to open, well, a food bank. Then when Tali starts shooting at him our soldiers can hold up a sign explaining that he is engaged in an "economic reconstruction program". He..he, one less candidate for Iggy to swat.

Iggy Rex

iggyforpresident said...

“I don't want to litter the slopes with bodies. There may be people who I've left behind who feel that I was ruthless, and if they feel that, then all I can say is — I wouldn't apologize — all I could say is, I don't want to hurt people.”

Count Iggy on his treatment of serfs - G&M. BTW the conspirators behind stopiggy.com are known and will be dealt with in due course.

Ti-Guy said...

It's not quagmire-ish enough until it's a hopeless situation. Then your trolls will go silent and the rest of us won't have a clue as to what we should say, except an endless stream of "I told you so's", which I don't find particularly comforting.

Oy. This has been a long decade so far, hasn't it?

Glyn (Zaphod) Evans said...

ti-guy - It has indeed...