Tanks heading for Afghanistan?
One can occasionally agree with letter writers John Jolie and Tom Lawson even if their politics are hard to stomach. Their views on Afghanistan as the latest example of a war of futility are on target - the metaphor is intentional. There is nothing more ludicrous than sending tanks to Afghanistan. If Canada’s Chief of Staff, General Hillier, believes tanks will help in Canada’s Afghan war, he needs a psychiatrist.
We’re led to believe Afghanistan is a barren and rugged land infested with caves and Taliban fighters. That’s hogwash. The same can be said of Canada when referring only to the Rockies. Afghan farms, hamlets and villages are set in fertile land of lush and productive fields. Like the Nile Delta, Afghan fields are watered by means of carefully-kept irrigation ditches. Imagine what happens when tanks plough over the fields. Armoured vehicles stick to roads and tracks. Tanks roam the landscape at will. Tearing up farmland and bashing down buildings is what tanks do. Watch any tv news footage for proof. If anyone can think of a surer way to lose the hearts and minds of rural Afghanis let them say and General Hillier, out to get the scumbags, will no doubt agree.
A. W. Cockerill
April 26th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
What is even more ludicrous, to me, is the belief that we can succeed when no other nation has been able to.
ben burd
April 27th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Yes, I know. That is so and thick are they who think indeed brave Hillier can succeed when finer generals have tried and failed. Those who would slot these observations in the ‘Not supporting our troops’ box haven’t the faintest idea that fair comment has nothing to do with it.
A. W. Cockerill
May 16th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Canada has no business in Afghanistan…we must be fulfilling some kind of North American debt to the U.S.A….heaven help the “outsider” country from trying to making a war-inspired difference in a society that has thrived on religious or other types of internal wars for eons…what he heck do we think we can do…no war ever changed someone’s mind.
February 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am
First we were there by default. We weren’t signing on for George’s WMD/Iraq fiasco so we went to Afghanistan instead.
Then we were there to find Osama and vanquish the Taliban.
Then it was Harper’s line about if we didn’t fight terror over there we’d have to fight it over here.
Then it had something to do with ‘democratization’.
Then it was about making sure little Afghan girls could go to school.
Then Hillier said something about the right of Afghan women to wear high heels.
I don’t have the faintest bloody idea why we’re there. I didn’t think Canada invaded other countries. The only Afghan I ever met ran a hot dog cart at Front and Bay outside Union Station. Was he trying to kill us all with cholesterol? Now we have the intense drivel emanating from the PMO about detainees and torture. You can’t believe a word anybody in government says on the subject anymore and you probably never could. Who even remembers poor old Gordon O’Conner -one of the first casualties of this mess.