Signals.Cpl

The Americans seem to have the same attitude yet they have no problem letting those same immigrants die for the US in foreign wars just like Canada if the situation warrants it.

Again though, we are not talking about your everyday election, we are talking about something that can and will drastically affect your life... People move to Canada and build a life only to buy a house and start a business or get employment and take steps towards getting citizenship only to have the rug pulled from under them I would say they should have input. My parents moved to Canada with two kids, they moved here with the decision that there was no turning back, we will make a life in Canada only to end up in a country outside of Canada? Now Replace Canada with the United Kingdom and you get people who are productive get no say in their future, while letting people who have never done anything positive to earn their citizenship other than being born there have a say. I am talking about the people who have made a substantial commitment to building a life in Canada only to have the rug pulled from under them.

Difference between a landed immigrant and a migrant worker. My point is that those who are going to be affected but also have a stake in the results because they have roots in the community should have a say, I don't know about the UK but if their requirements as to length of time are similar to the US then you could have people who have homes and businesses and lives built in the region and thus should have a say. I'll repeat this just to be clear, there is a difference between the migrant worker who lives in Scotland and sends his money home and thus has no ties to the community and would move on to greener pastures if the referendum leads to negative change, I'm talking about those who are essentially stuck one way or another. Giving someone a vote when they have no stake in the outcome one way or the other is a bad idea, giving a vote to those who are directly affected and are working on becoming citizens is a whole other issue. Once again, the federal government sped up the citizenship process in order to allow immigrants who would be affected from a yes vote the chance to vote because risking everything to once again just end up in the country next to Canada leaves alot of people hanging who have a stake in the situation...

If they have made their life there then they should have a say on such major decisions. People who have set roots in the area and who have much to lose should have a say, somewhat like what the Federal Government did in 1995 where they increased efforts to get landed immigrants their citizenship before the referendum. Imagine all the effort one goes through to make it to Canada only to settle down in Montreal and the end up in the country next to Canada... same goes for Scotland, I know its a fad of the moment to throw a joke or two at the immigrants as if they are less than human but at the end of the day they are being affected just as much if not more, if Scotland does gain independence and their economy takes a turn for the worst who do you think will be blamed? It would be the immigrants for stealing jobs from the Scots, or "ruining" the country etc...so essentially the people who made the choice will blame the result on those who had no choice in the matter.

To a degree, if they have a stake in the end result they should get a say be, but lowering the voting age to get the votes makes little sense.

1) I dont blame the leadership of failed states, I blame the people of those states it all comes down to the people and what they are willing to let down. 2) There is no perfect war, by definition war is always a failure no matter how noble or righteous the cause is but ultimately the end result should speak for itself, regardless of the cost world war 2 was a success even though the allies under estimated the enemy, invested inadequate resources in to the war effort, both material and intellectual and were on the verge of defeat up to the point when the US and the USSR were dragged in to the war and even after that there were significant mistakes and waste of resources on the Allied side which prolonged the war and caused more pain and suffering for both the Allies and the Axis...

If I'm not mistaking they were hoping to allow people as young as 16 years old to vote when the time comes because apparently they were believed to be more interested in Independence.

As is the case in Afghanistan and Iraq, at least for them and the immediate region. Giving up early and abandoning the Afghans could just as well have ended up in a Rwanda style massacre even more so in Iraq where the situation was always a breath away from a three way genocide. Yeah, and the people didn't think the cost of the mission was worth it, both financial cost as well as manpower wise. This is the same right now the same people who tend to complain about the cost of the mission will be the same crying about the consequences. The west had little interest to begin with, but more to the point this is not the responsibility of the west and only the west, we have a number of emerging major economic and military powers that need to share in the burden of keeping the peace, its not just a US responsibility.

I am with you up to this point, but this does not rest squarely on the shoulders of the US, it is on the rest of us too. Ultimately thought more resources would have still come up with many of the same problems, what people need to realize is that the US and ISAF tried to build a nation essentially from the ground up which means that no matter how much resources you have the war would not be much shorter. The whole point is not to make Afghanistan a paradise, the point is to give them the tools and knowledge to fight a war and then let them know they will be responsible from that point on for their own lives. The US giving them a deadline does not mean we are abandoning you, it means we are letting you be responsible for your own country, we will be behind you but we will let you take the lead. Kind of like teaching a child to ride a bike, you letting them go does not mean you are abandoning them it means you are letting them go on their own but you are there to support them should they need it. Not really our call, just like fighting a war against North Korea is not our call because at the end of the day we will not be the once dying by the tens or hundreds of thousands... If the government of Afghanistan deems it in their best interests to negotiate us "forbidding" them kind of defeats the last decade of building up to the moment when they could stand on their own feet. Honestly, I was young teen and had other things on my mind when the Iraq war started but yes the war was a mistake on several levels but once the government fell who was right and who was wrong became irrelevant, it came down to who can solve the problem at hand. Not quite, its the political aspect that caused more problems, the inconsistent operations where one day it was important to do x yet the next day it was irrelevant, and to add more to this the fact that some NATO nations were less then committed to the mission even when their troops were deployed, some had agreements with local Taliban that boiled down to "you leave me alone and Ill leave you alone" while others avoided confrontation like the plague. See people want quick and cheap, if it took 6 years and half the money it did I doubt it would be a success in the minds of people because it should have cost less money, involved less troops for a shorter time, so no matter what was invested the end result would be that it took too many soldiers, too much money and too many years...

Irrelevant, he committed a crime and is being punished for said crime. Wether the information he leaked is or is not a crime does not change the fact that he broke laws pertaining to security clearance and secret information. Yeah because he sure seems to care about his job... To keep a bloated bureaucracy in existence. And if we knew for certain? What then? Do we stage a revolution only to change one form of government with another likely worse form of government who will do the exact same things and then some? Do you think any other party is going to be different? And this is a broad question as in Canada and the US rather than the US only... No he didn't, he skipped all the steps in the middle and went straight to the extreme. He broke the law and should be punished, if the information is truly illegal then that should factor in to his sentencing but that should not be the deciding factor of guilty or innocent. Who decides that he did the right thing? You? What if I leak secret information because I think it is the right thing and you don't agree. Should I go to jail just because you don't agree?

In theory there is a chance could apply for a lot of things that will never happen. In theory there is a chance that I am a ghost or an alien would you believe that? And as for this being the conservative approach I doubt that any other Canadian political party would be too willing to even consider doing things differently when it comes to this case...

It's not illegal in other countries because he is not their citizen and he did not do that to their people. Spying for the Russians is not illegal in Russia but it is in the US, Canada and any other country. So by your logic, since until a few years ago rape was legal in Afghanistan I could have raped as many women as I want and still be innocent because its legal in Afghanistan?

Well, according to the paperwork I had to sign to get my security clearance it is true, and mind you my level of security clearance is a joke so I can only imagine what those with much higher levels had to agree to. There was a piece of paper, I can guarantee you that, which stated if you release this information without authorization you will be punished. If the law did not attach specific punishment for breach of security clearance then that clearance is irrelevant...

Irrelevant if he did the right thing, he intentionally leaked secret information and is punished for that crime. As for going through the chain of command being a bad idea? That avenue should have been explored and attempted rather than skipping straight to the leaking, and by going through your CoC I do mean trying to skip a step or two, go to a senator or congressmen, hell give it to a republican and a democrat and one of them is bout to go with it... There are reasonable steps to be taken before leaking top secret information, ignoring those steps and going straight to the leaking part makes him a criminal rather than a "hero"...

Enough to give it a go, at some point leaking Top Secret information becomes a viable option just like killing becomes a viable option under certain circumstances but you don't go to the last resort without even attempting to try all other avenues, its a last resort for a reason.

The costs of Afghanistan are less in both financial terms and human lives then say World War 2... does this mean that World War 2 is more of a failure then Afghanistan? And I will ask the same question again, what happened when the world put finances and the lives of their soldiers before the lives of the citizens of Rwanda? Was it worth it? Save a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand soldiers as well as a few billion dollars but letting 800,000 to a million people get slaughtered? Everyone favoured intervention, only everyone wanted someone else to do it, and the once willing to do the intervention were unable due to lack of equipment, transportation,finances, weapons or a combination thereof... At what point would 800,000 Rwandans become to expensive to protect?

I wouldn't put Somalia on America's list a failures, it was a UN failure.

And the rest of the world deserves just as much credit and blame as well if not more so.

To me they are. Why? Because after an entire generation grew up in the mids of war they finally have something positive to fight for. From my interaction with soldiers who have served in Afghanistan I get the idea that the average Afghan is willing and ready to make progress happen as has been evident in a number of villages, towns and tribal areas that have kicked out the Taliban all on their own over the last couple of years, ultimately it comes down to the majority not wanting to return to Taliban rule and likely will fight to preserve some form of the current Afghanistan. Really depends, to me the question of price went out the window in 2001-2003 when it was decided to go the nation building path, just like the question of the legality of the Iraq went out the window when the US removed Saddam and his government.What is a failure to you, spending a trillion dollars and thousands of lives both Afghan and Western, giving them hope and then prematurely pulling out to leave them worse off than before or sticking to your position and giving them a chance to survive, fight for their own existence and thrive? For the most part the soldiers, both Afghan and western are fighting by choice, as are the Taliban, the civilians caught in the middle are predominantly casualties of the Taliban so the question here is about money not the death toll as pulling out too early would mean more people die and all the effort is wasted. How so? Where would you draw the line? Would you have supported a threshold? Meaning after 1,000 soldiers dead and 500 billion spend we will call it quits regardless of the consequences? And again your opinion of the benefits might differ when compared to the people directly affected, and more to the point should Afghanistan survive and even thrive over the next decade or two intact would that change the balance? What is your definition of success in Afghanistan? No money spend, no blood spilled the Taliban just roll over and surrender? Anything above and beyond that is failure? Even if the Iraq war never happened, why would the west want to involve itself in Syria? If Iraq was a mistake military intervention in Syria surely would not be the greatest of idea's...

Not really, they want to cause some commotion and start with racism because its easy, kind of like a bathroom troll. What if it was previously suggested it was a black guy? What then? Is he racist against himself?

You are absolutely right, this person might not even be racist, just someone who wants to start sh*t. Ultimately this comes out as some unknown person writes a racially charged comment and the other 99.99999% of people who had nothing to do with it end up being treated as racists and criminals.

Bringing his issues to the attention of his chain of command, bringing it to the Civilian oversight committee and that just the most obvious once...

Leaking secret information is illegal, irrelevant what the information is or wether you agree. Its the information he leakes thats breaking the law its the fact that he leaked it. Again, what the government agencies and what Snowden did are two completely separate issues, if the claims are true then the people responsible should be punished but that does not mean he should not be punished for his crimes. If he is not prosecuted then the whole system becomes pointless since giving me a security clearance means nothing if you don't punish any negative actions I take. Thats like saying that raping a rapist is not a crime, or killing a murderer is not a crime, what crimes one person or organization commited does not give a right for someone else to commit crimes.

Yeah, and at some point they could have called it quits after they ensured that they were safe. Where was the threat to Canada? And they could have just as easily beaten back the Germans, Italians and Japanese to previous national borders and called it a day but they didn't, they and by they I mean the American, undertook a massive and very expensive reconstruction effort postwar, admittedly there was some self preservation thrown in there. Then why was Canada involved? Where were the Tanks spilling through our borders?Why did Canada send more than a million of its young men and women to fight and die as well as waste all that money? I mean after all we were not in any direct danger in 1939 or anytime after that... The situation changes, the specific goals changed and the cost and timeframe changed accordingly, at some point it becomes a no retreat position, if you pullout prematurely the entire country if not the region goes up in flames. In both Afghanistan and Iraq the point was to give them the tools to protect themselves and leave once they are able to stand on their own to feet. Again though, its easy to call it failure from the comfort and safety of Canada, but many of the Afghans might disagree. As I pointed out before, how many times has the world turned a blind eye and let hundreds of thousands of people be slaughtered because it would cost too much... but by your logic Rwanda was an epic success... Education, rape becomes a crime, punishing honour killings, women become human beings rather than animals, Women in parliament, they can walk on the street without a male escort...I know its not as impressive and solving all of Afghanistan's problems and only needing two guys and a donkey but ultimately it was a success at least to the people there...

As well as Snowden. See its similar, the government may have broken the law with the excuse that they were protecting Americans, a noble cause. Snowden broke the law to "protect" Americans... how do you say one should be punished and the other not? Either both are wrong or both are right... as two wrongs don't make a right, just because he feels justified does not mean he has a right to leak information he broke the law and he should be punished, if the law was broken by US intelligence agencies then they too should be punished one way or another. No, I paint a scenario where there is a right and a wrong, and in this case both sides may be in the wrong. I am not arguing as to the legitimacy of the actions taken by the US intelligence agencies, what I am arguing is that he(Snowden) is as much a criminal as the people who initiated and ran the programs in question.