Peter Kent's Brother Speaks Out On Our New Mission In Afghanistan

He's been covering fighting over there for years now:

Harper's aides indicate that 1,000 military trainers and support staff will remain in Afghanistan when Canadian troops leave their front line positions in Kandahar in the spring. To avoid unpleasant questions, Harper insists that he needn’t bother discussing his volte-face with Canada’s elected parliamentarians.

With good reason.

No doubt some enterprising MP would ponder aloud why Canadian taxpayers should tip still more treasure into the pockets of the Karzai regime’s shady ministers, not least those of the incompetent drunkard who heads the ANA, Defence Minister Rahim Wardak.

[...]


Far from helping the Afghan people, Stephen Harper’s consolation strategy will further debilitate Afghanistan’s weakest flank: the illegitimate regime that persists in enriching itself behind the walls of Kabul’s Presidential Palace.

You can tell which parties feel they can win the argument over an extension of our Afghanistan mission: the NDP and Bloc, who are calling for a resolution in the HOC. You can tell which ones don't: the Liberals and the Tories, who are willing to cut deals in the backrooms. Come on, Bob and Steve and Iggy. You want a mission extension; step into the sunlight and sell me one.

Arthur Kent Spills

Arthur Kent, brother of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Peter Kent, lays on a pounding on the Harper government over an Afghanistan story you may know nothing about--Hamid Karzai renaming Zarar Muqbul to his cabinet after the disgraced former minister presided over the embezzlement of up to one-third of Canadian aid dollars donated under the U.N.’s Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA):

In naming Zarar Muqbul as his new counter-narcotics minister, Karzai delivers a forehand smash into the court of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is already under fire for proroguing Canada’s House of Commons - in part to avoid a parliamentary committee’s probe into the Afghan government’s mistreatment of battlefield detainees.

The siphoning off of Canada’s LOTFA contributions is arguably a more flagrant abuse of trust than the issue of prisoner abuse. The financial support is intended to strengthen the National Police and kick-start Afghanistan's rule of law.

[...]

Zarar Muqbul’s story was broken here on Skyreporter in May of 2007, and in greater length in an article for the July/August 2007 edition of Policy Options, the journal of Canada’s Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Stephen Harper’s PMO refused any comment at the time, and duly muzzled Foreign Affairs, the RCMP and Canada’s embassy in Kabul. Two of the same officials who censored diplomat Richard Colvin’s reports on detainee abuse similarly blocked Skyreporter’s queries about Zarar Muqbul: Afghan Task Force chief David Mulroney and former ambassador to Kabul Arif Lalani.

See, when you're young and your younger brother is smaller and weaker than you, you beat them up repeatedly until they learn not to cross you. Peter Kent obviously didn't do that, and now look what's happened?

Kent On Fire

MP Peter Kent's brudder on Afghanistan:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has delivered a scathing rebuke to Canadian soldiers and taxpayers by nominating to his cabinet a disgraced former minister who presided over the embezzlement of up to one-third of Canadian aid dollars donated under the U.N.’s Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA).


In naming Zarar Muqbul as his new counter-narcotics minister, Karzai delivers a forehand smash into the court of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is already under fire for proroguing Canada’s House of Commons - in part to avoid a parliamentary committee’s probe into the Afghan government’s mistreatment of battlefield detainees.

The siphoning off of Canada’s LOTFA contributions is arguably a more flagrant abuse of trust than the issue of prisoner abuse. The financial support is intended to strengthen the National Police and kick-start Afghanistan's rule of law.

There's more. And somewhere in Ottawa, our Prime Minister is asking: can't the military have this guy imbedded in something?

Kent Vs. Kent

Arthur Kent, the younger Kent, and still a journalist:

Canadians are often dismissed as being big on beer and hockey but largely apathetic about politics. But a mounting Facebook protest shows that while “Hosers” can hardly be called policy wonks, they’re not taking kindly to their “house of the people” being hijacked by the leader of a parliamentary minority.

Peter Kent, the elder Kent, once a journalist and now a pointless Tory MP:

Criticism...over the government's proroguing of Parliament is simply ‘sanctimonious twaddle’...

Wish I'd been a fly on the wall in the Kent household over Xmas. I bet somebody's spectacles got stomped.