[darkpuppet]

NOS2Go4Me,Jun 13 2006, 02:42 PM Wrote:You can suggest all you like, but I have yet after almost 5 years to read the headlines "Afghanis have peace, peacekeepers come home" in the newspapers.

You don't see that headline for Serbia, Africa, and many other missions Canada is on either. If the whole world was so peaceful, there wouldn't be a need for peacekeeping missions.

Quote:Make no mistake, I support our troops. They deserve real equipment, real training and real leadership. What they don't deserve is to be spread too thin, to be over-run and to be put in a situation where they might not come home... and by that I mean a situation where they're actually battling the majority of the populace, not a few ragtag asshat terrorists.

The fact they're volunteering for second tours is commendable, but I really hope they achieve the last effect that they envision in their minds. Sadly, I don't see it happening. It's a very lawless world over there, and when the time comes that all the soldiers go home... it's an instant vacuum. Either another developed country will have to send their army, the UN gets involved (which brings us back anyways), or there's a mass exodus as all the decent Afghanis storm out of the country and immigrate to whatever nation will take them. By and large, that'll be a few countries in the EU, the US and Canada.

By being there, we're delaying the inevitable. Is that what you want your buddies doing? Being out on an extended tour and then back out again because they hope it'll work out? Or back at home, ready to deal with the next real threat.

It's commendable to want to give them a better life, but what about the others there that don't want their countrymen to have a better life? What about the ones that abhor a democracy? They aren't going away because we ask them to. Besides, all "intelligence" reports indicate Bin Laden's in Afghanistan and noone has found him.

Iran will be the next flashpoint the way the US keeps going. And if Iran is provoked, it'lll be a war that makes Iraq look like a police action. And when we're really needed to help keep Iran in check... we'll have nothing left to give, because we ran ourselves out in Afghanistan, chasing ghosts.
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You're talking like afghanistan is like iraq. That the majority of people there are terrorists, but they're not. We booted the taliban out, and we're working on keeping them out to help establish stability.

Like any peace keeping mission, your job is to stay until the area is stable, you don't just boot out a ruling power and leave... that didn't happen in serbia, it's not going to happen in afghanistan.

And where did you hear that we're battling the majority of the population in afghanistan? I don't recall hearing that the whole country is fighting us.

Things may never be perfect in afghanistan, but at least our efforts are focused on the region that gave us the terrorists that actually did the deed, not hosting a false war in another country.

I think our focus on the mission is a lot more appropriate than you're giving it credit for.