Shorter Conservative Party of Canada
Every time you ask a question another soldier dies.
“Mr. Speaker, on the weekend I had an opportunity to speak to a soldier from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa who had served several rotations in Afghanistan.
He urged me not to go forth with an inquiry on this issue. He said that every time the Afghan deployment is debated in Parliament, it puts the lives of our soldiers in theatre at greater risk. He recounted that when the motion to withdraw from Afghanistan or to end the combat mission in 2011 was before Parliament, they were in a operation where they heard the insurgents on the radio saying to each other that they should kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible because we were debating this in the House of Commons and that when Canadians saw the caskets of soldiers coming off the plane it increased public pressure. They wanted the MPs to vote to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.
I asked him if they listened to Al Jazeera while they were fighting at the front, so to speak, and he said, “No, ma’am. We heard this chatter on our coms”.
So they had heard Taliban talking to one another, urging each other to kill as many Canadian soldiers as possible. He credits the leader of the NDP directly for the death of his best friend as a consequence of that.”
This soldier makes a great point. We should, it seems, pull out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. If the war is going to rob Canada of democracy, how on earth could it help bring democracy to Afghanistan.
I think “this soldier”, who conveniently remains anonymous but mouths every talking point the Conservative party would hope to have mouthed in an easily digestible and compact burst, is a pure fabrication. The notion of the Taliban discussing debates in Canadian Parliament (conveniently while Canadians are eavesdropping) is hilarious.
balb, you’re totally wrong. Any soldier – and any other compelling citizens – a politician meets always has something insightful to say that totally backs up the politician’s preferred narrative.
What is so hard to believe about that?
The notion of the Taliban discussing debates of Canadian Parliament over a combox in English … lol
If you click through to the Hansard link, you can read Layton’s very gentlemanly reply.
Well, Jon, you may be right I remember talking to someone who told me they had a friend who was talking to a soldier who told them that he had frequently heard the Taliban on their coms discussing the deleterious effects of the Harper Government’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Berger Report on the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and speculating about where Ottawa’s new Mac Store was going to open. Clearly they are better informed about Canada than we give them credit for.
And every time an Afghan dies, an angel gets his wings.
balb, I hope you aren’t one of those Canadians with an inferiority complex about our place in the world. Projecting knowledge of Canada and its values across the globe has been an objective of hard-working DFAIT officials for years. The fact that they have failed miserably in the States and Europe doesn’t mean they haven’t scored on Afghan rural hillsides.
Apparently the Taliban are rooting for the Flames to take the Cup.
Most terrorist groups love the Flames, of course, although some are rooting for the Devils or the Sabres.
Enviroweenies tend to favour the Penguins, the Ducks and Blackhawks, while the more aggressive environmentalists cheer for the Predators, the Wild,t he Panthers or the Bruins.
I’m told the Saudi Royal family are split between the Kings and the Oilers.
What a torn and divided world. If only the UN could get them all to sit down together and persuade them to forget their differences and build on their common hatred of the Leafs.
I guess that’s why, according to media reports I’ve seen, Canada has the highest per capita death toll in Afghanistan ‘eh?
BTW, balb, did you see those hijacked CRU e-mails showing the deep internal division between the Hurricanes and the Avalanche? Settled science indeed!
Ok, ok, back to work.
Chasman, you’re an idiot! Deaths on either side (since the Afghans dying are at times civilians) are a tragedy!
Dang right!
It ain’t Canada vs. Afghanistan. The torturers, warlords and opium merchants are our allies. We’re there at their invitation, doing their bidding and staying out of their way when they abuse prisoners. We are sending our troops to die so Karzai’s Korrupt Kronies can stay in power.
That was a sarcastic and highly compressed reductio, Sofia. It was claimed that exercising free speech by questioning Canadian military adventures endangers Canadian soldiers in the field. That is an absurd fantasy. From an absurd fantasy any and every other absurd fantasy follows. Therefore every time an X (fill in the human type you hate the most) dies, an angel gets his wings.
H/T to Mr. Capra
In that case agreed (in regard to absurdity of the situation). However, the angel wing thing…it is offensive! Even if it is intended to highlight the absurdity of the situation under discussion.
Offensive is pretty subjective these days, it seems.
And anonymous sources are ALWAYS partisans. That’s the only reason they’re quoted.