"Because some Liberals think it's good politics"
What he said.
Ugh-date: Blech. I just finished reading yesterday's "debate" in Hansard and I'm ready to scrub myself with Javex - immersing myself in such a fetid rhetorical swamp for an hour can't be good for the immune system.
A line-by-line refutation would be useless. Most of the stuffed suits whose only purpose seems to be to consume oxygen, collect a paycheque from the Canadian taxpayer, and congest the halls of parliament from time to time were far too busy posturing to actually engage in substantive debate on the serious issues surrounding the mission. Going line-by-line to correct the misrepresentations, inaccuracies, and irresponsible subversions of the truth would take me a week. A week of my life I could never get back, much like the hour I just spent reading their endless bloviating.
The Afghan mission requires rational, deliberate, informed debate. That's why I propose our parliamentarians ignore the subject completely for the foreseeable future.
On-a-less-bitter-note-date: Lesson from the previous rant? Don't sit down at the keyboard with that much frustration in your heart, Damian. Here's a more serious take on the parliamentary discussion.
Dawn Black continues to outperform her colleagues. But her party's position is execrable. Immediate withdrawal isn't a strategy, it's a knee-jerk reaction from the party's anti-war base, and it illustrates quite clearly why the NDP have no credibility on military affairs.
The Bloc MP's, as usual in any discussion of foreign policy, were like a fish out of water. Their raison-d'etre is separatism, and when they venture outside that narrow specialty, their spectacular lack of depth is revealed. A precis of their views would seem to be that the mission is doomed to failure, but we should stick it out until 2009 because we committed to it. Into the meat-grinder with you, soldiers! Down the drain with you, tax-dollars! I need not continue - the fact that they believe there is value in cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is indictment enough.
The Conservatives summoned all the outrage and hyperbole they could muster, and hurled it across the Commons. They were offended. They were righteous. They were patriotic. They were mostly buffoons.
Look, there are reasonable questions to be asked about this mission. Are we achieving the right balance between the 3D's? How can we measure our progress or lack thereof? Should we determine our contribution based upon our results, or based upon our efforts?
If the Conservatives won't volunteer the information in order to have an informed debate, they should be made to discuss the terms of our engagement publicly and so educate the Canadian public. That's the job of the Official Opposition.
Unfortunately, the Liberals seem totally unable to master any skill other than the cheap and partisan stabbing thrust. This resolution that was being debated was a farce, for all the reasons outlined in the Bercuson article I've linked to above.
Besides, if the Liberals don't think we can make the mission in Kandahar work, why did they send the CF there in the first place? And if they do think it can work, then why don't they focus on fixing what they feel we're doing wrong instead of advocating a military withdrawal from the south?
I'm with Bercuson: this isn't a serious foreign policy issue to the Liberals, it's a wedge issue with the electorate. It's a move in a big political game. They should be ashamed.
Ugh-date: Blech. I just finished reading yesterday's "debate" in Hansard and I'm ready to scrub myself with Javex - immersing myself in such a fetid rhetorical swamp for an hour can't be good for the immune system.
A line-by-line refutation would be useless. Most of the stuffed suits whose only purpose seems to be to consume oxygen, collect a paycheque from the Canadian taxpayer, and congest the halls of parliament from time to time were far too busy posturing to actually engage in substantive debate on the serious issues surrounding the mission. Going line-by-line to correct the misrepresentations, inaccuracies, and irresponsible subversions of the truth would take me a week. A week of my life I could never get back, much like the hour I just spent reading their endless bloviating.
The Afghan mission requires rational, deliberate, informed debate. That's why I propose our parliamentarians ignore the subject completely for the foreseeable future.
On-a-less-bitter-note-date: Lesson from the previous rant? Don't sit down at the keyboard with that much frustration in your heart, Damian. Here's a more serious take on the parliamentary discussion.
Dawn Black continues to outperform her colleagues. But her party's position is execrable. Immediate withdrawal isn't a strategy, it's a knee-jerk reaction from the party's anti-war base, and it illustrates quite clearly why the NDP have no credibility on military affairs.
The Bloc MP's, as usual in any discussion of foreign policy, were like a fish out of water. Their raison-d'etre is separatism, and when they venture outside that narrow specialty, their spectacular lack of depth is revealed. A precis of their views would seem to be that the mission is doomed to failure, but we should stick it out until 2009 because we committed to it. Into the meat-grinder with you, soldiers! Down the drain with you, tax-dollars! I need not continue - the fact that they believe there is value in cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is indictment enough.
The Conservatives summoned all the outrage and hyperbole they could muster, and hurled it across the Commons. They were offended. They were righteous. They were patriotic. They were mostly buffoons.
Look, there are reasonable questions to be asked about this mission. Are we achieving the right balance between the 3D's? How can we measure our progress or lack thereof? Should we determine our contribution based upon our results, or based upon our efforts?
If the Conservatives won't volunteer the information in order to have an informed debate, they should be made to discuss the terms of our engagement publicly and so educate the Canadian public. That's the job of the Official Opposition.
Unfortunately, the Liberals seem totally unable to master any skill other than the cheap and partisan stabbing thrust. This resolution that was being debated was a farce, for all the reasons outlined in the Bercuson article I've linked to above.
Besides, if the Liberals don't think we can make the mission in Kandahar work, why did they send the CF there in the first place? And if they do think it can work, then why don't they focus on fixing what they feel we're doing wrong instead of advocating a military withdrawal from the south?
I'm with Bercuson: this isn't a serious foreign policy issue to the Liberals, it's a wedge issue with the electorate. It's a move in a big political game. They should be ashamed.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 2:31 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home