Afstan and Canadian politics: BQ beats NDP; Liberal is?
Just imagine how the NDP would howl if senior Canadian Forces officers at Kandahar actually were engaging in direct "diplomatic" talks with the Government of Pakistan.
As for the BQ (and a I saw M. Duceppe live on TV) his critique is really more one of process and attitude than substance. As to substantive criticism of the mission itself, there really is no "there" there. Intelligently hedging his bets.
The newly-minted Liberal Foreign Affairs (thank goodness ex-National Defence) critic, the egregious Ujjal Dosanjh, has for his part a view of Canada's international influence that is naive or disingenous or mendacious. Pick one. Or more.
New Democrat defence critic Dawn Black says Canada's role in the war-torn country is supposed to be what's called a three-D approach - defence, development and diplomacy. She says they haven't heard anything about diplomacy in their visit to Kandahar, particularly when it comes to dealing with Pakistan, which provides safe haven to Taliban militants....What does Ms Black think our embassies in Kabul and Islamabad are for? I'm all for giving the CF the tools to do the job; but somehow I doubt the NDP, in its orangest of hearts, wants a Canadian MacArthur.
As for the BQ (and a I saw M. Duceppe live on TV) his critique is really more one of process and attitude than substance. As to substantive criticism of the mission itself, there really is no "there" there. Intelligently hedging his bets.
The newly-minted Liberal Foreign Affairs (thank goodness ex-National Defence) critic, the egregious Ujjal Dosanjh, has for his part a view of Canada's international influence that is naive or disingenous or mendacious. Pick one. Or more.
Liberal Ujjal Dossanjh...says the Conservatives need to be tougher with the alliance so they "cough up more resources, particularly more troops."Sorry for the political aspect of the post--but one has with equal opportunity been bashing MND O'Connor.
Dossanjh says Prime Minister Stephen Harper should have done that before Parliament voted to extend the mission by two years.
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 7:13 p.m.
5 Comments:
See I have no problem with this kind of political post, you point out the short comings, you provide quotes to explain your point... it's more analysis.
The posts that I've objected to in the past are of the "damn liberal panty waste pooftah tree huggers" generalizing variety.
That's because you're a "damn liberal panty waste pooftah tree hugger," Cameron. ;)
Yes, there is that.
On a serious note, Cam, we try to avoid the political stuff here because we all have our own partisan blogs elsewhere where we can rant about that stuff. Besides, the reason we set this blog up in the first place was to inform people about the CF in a way they weren't being informed by the MSM (with notable exceptions, I know). The last thing we want to do is politicize the CF, since they have to work with whichever politicians we elect. And if we're overly partisan in our approach, we'll simply be dismissed as hacks by the folks we want to inform.
With that in mind, there are only a couple of guidelines for contribution around here: the post should be about the CF, past, present, or future; and the post should attempt to remain as apolitical as possible.
Roger. But I hope it's fair to do some stuff on allies in Afstan as that is directly relevant to the CF.
Mark
Ottawa
Post a Comment
<< Home