Sir Bandelot

Lictor, then where exactly are you getting your information from, that this was due to excessive political correctness in the military? I don't have my head in the sand. It may be true that this is because of political correctness, but I don't assume things. And quite often I don't believe things, just because the media says so. We should all know what happens when we assume.

I saved the link before this latest change, and find that it works well. Here it is- www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?app=core&module=search&do=new_posts&search_filter_app[forums]=1

Yes indeed it is possible, and would not be un-precedented. Although it appears that the Taliban may be using money from drug sales to finance their operations, there is evidence that in the past when they were in control of Afghanistan they were firmly against drug production, seeing it as immoral. This caused the price of heroin in Europe to go up, as the supply went down. Now we have the reverse. It's possible that the CIA prefers that drugs stay illegal for their own financial benefit, as they have used it in the past to fund certain operations. Iran-Contra affair In 1996 Gary Webb wrote a series of articles published in the San Jose Mercury News, which investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had allegedly smuggled cocaine into the U.S. which was then distributed as crack cocaine into Los Angeles and funneled profits to the Contras. According to Webb, the CIA was aware of the cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by the Contra personnel and directly aided drug dealers to raise money for the Contras. On December 10, 2004, he was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head. Sacramento County coroner Robert Lyons determined that it was suicide. In 1996 CIA Director John M. Deutch went to Los Angeles to refute the allegations raised by the Gary Webb articles, and was famously confronted by former LAPD officer Michael Ruppert, who testified that he witnessed it occurring. Nice world we created

You keep pointing the finger, but it's not my "ilk". Only thing I believe is in finding facts, not reacting to speculation or media hype. While others may panic and do something they might regret later, I learn to take a breath and make a proper assessment of the situation. Maybe thats one difference between me and your "ilk". I'm sure that any intelligent person would agree, if political correctness is behind this, if thats why he was not identified as a potential problem, that should be dealt with immediately. There's no room for political correctness in a war situation. But then maybe your "ilk" would like very much for that to be the case, in other words to politicize this event using conjecture and hype, as they do with almost all events. I'm sure people like Rush Limbaugh are all over it. Thats why I don't always trust what comes out in the media, at times like this. And the problem with the internet is how rapidly a myth can be created over something, and many people are susceptible to believing in it. Possibly your "ilk", I don't know. Hopefully there will be an unbiased, thorough investigation. Let the truth come out. If this was preventable and something was missed, they should fix that problem post-haste.

Are you saying that the military leadership should be charged? It does not make sense that he was ignored for expressing extremist or hateful views. If he did that, why was he being ignored? Why didn't somebody report him? And if they did, why wasn't appropriate action taken? We don't know these things, so can only speculate. It makes some sense to me, if he was NOT unique, in other words, if there are other people also expressing possibly hateful or anti-war views. CNN and Fox are interested in good ratings. In an interview with General Cone this morning, he couldn't give them any specific information.

Well here's something really odd... on mine it doesn't show this "Newest Content". In fact it is there but hard to see... it is greyed out. If I highlight that spot I can see the text is there, but it's not an active link. I'm using IE6. Could that be why?

Yeah thats right. And don't forget about Libya, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. However, foreign policy is not so much concerned with human rights, as it is about payola. In other words what have you got for trade with us, what resources, how much oil, dirt cheap labour force (China, Pakistan, India...) and how many troops have you got for our wars. If you understand that those things are what really matters, it all starts to make sense.

Where is the "New Content" link? I often use that one.

Ok, I changed that word.

Read the first sentence of my post. That's so what.

The OP seems to think that Obama has gone out of his way to make concessions and deals with Iran. I don't think that Obama is negotiating with Iran in good faith. Obama is a shrewd manipulator who shows us his public face, while following a completely different agenda behind the scenes. Iran asked the US to stop interfering by giving support and aid to the protesters after the election. Iran believes the protests were backed the the US. Recent comments by Clinton and others in the media confirm this. - US provided covert support to Iranian protester after the election. - US accused Iran of concealing a nuclear facility for the purpose of making weapons. These allegations appear to be false, but no one is talking about it. - As another example of hypocrisy deception in its foreign policy, US criticism of the Afghanistan election and the post-election investigation was subdued. Since the US has not stopped applying its influence on Iranian internal affairs, the Iranians are now saying they will not accept the deal to let Russia make their nuclear fuel. They believe their facility is not in violation of the IAEA regulations and that they have the right to process their own uranium.

Perhaps. But is that because he is a muslim, or just on a ruthless quest for power? Would he be susceptible to the "sudden jihad syndrome" that apparently any muslim could suddenly go off like a bomb and attack all western infidels within their grasp? It's an important question... after all there are muslims in parliament, and maybe in the US congress too. Even Obama has muslim roots, and he's got access to the shiny red button, so...

The problem is not that they volunteered, and should know whats going to happen, but that they don't appear to be getting the support they need to deal with the stress of extended/ repeated tours. The number of suicides for soldiers is also quite high, something which the media does not mention very often. Soldiers Mental Health Under Strain "You people don't listen," the Iraqi war vet said, as two clinicians followed her down the hall to the elevators. "Sophia," one of them said. Taylor was trembling and wiping tears from her face. "Stop talking to me," she said. "This ward ain't gonna change until everyone else in the freakin' Army dies. You people don't listen to me. I'm tired of talking."

Canadian identity is not "un-American". In fact most Canadians do not dislike Americans, at all. What we really dislike is other Canadians, who want to turn us INTO Americans.

So then are you some sorta atheist? Those people always seem to me to have fixed beliefs too. --> Religion is myth. Might as well start reading sheep entrails and dropping the first born into the fire. Myth is not useless, it has its place. As long as you remember it IS a myth. --> A Muslim believes in the various pillars of Islam or he/she really isn't a Muslim. That's what's typical about Islam. Shia and Sunni have different amounts and different interpretations of these pillars. The Koran is the final word of God and is thus perfect. You can substitute the name of other religions of "the book" in there, it works the same way. The problem comes down to fundamentalism and having fixed beliefs. "My way or the highway"

What about people like Mr. Karzai, then. He is a muslim, and he sometimes meets with Mr. Obama or other western leaders. Should we be fearful that he may erupt into sudden jihad syndrome, and attack our leaders?

Canadian institutions are under a constant threat of "Americanization", which we must resist in order to preserve them. When your next door neighbour is a hyper-power, there is always pressure to adopt the American way of doing things, for the sake of better efficiency and to make a bigger buck. But Canada's history is built on socialism. Eg., for the most part we like our health care system. Although it has problems (which one doesn't?), it would be a worse nightmare if we abandoned it to the whims of corporate controlled insurance. So a healthy anti-Americanism is necessary, for Canada to survive as a distinct entity. It's not so much like a family, it's more like the big-shot neighbours across the street, who show off their flashy toys. But in reality we know their house is not happy, because the kids are on drugs and they're getting a divorce. So we see their lifestyle as full of shit...

Well I look at it this way- when someone decides to join the military, it means among other things that they give trust to the government and the people of Canada that they will be sent on missions with proper support and expectations of success. Of course they know there is a chance they'll be killed, that is obvious to anyone with a brain. Much like police or firefighters are in high risk, potentially lethal situations that goes with the "job". But that does not mean they should be used like some form of cannon-fodder, either recklessly or through incompetence. Our obligation is to ensure that doesn't happen, or if it does, that some kind of action, protest, letters to the media should be carried out. I don't believe that Canadians can vote on the wars we send our troops into. For one thing that is decided partly on legal obligations to international treaties. And people are selfish- even is a majority is against the war in principle, they aren't necessarily willing to vote out the sitting government to replace it with a new one, perhaps because of other issues that new government creates. In our case even if it came between Liberals and Conservatives, I doubt it would make any real difference. Governments are selfish too, they have clearly demonstrated a willingness to spend big money on bank and auto company bailouts, all the while penny-pinching on the war effort. They have set the date for an exit as 2011, and so there will not be a big investment in money for a military endeavor that has essentially become a dead-end. I say this is a betrayal of the troops.

I had some problems when I tried to add a link in my post. It did not seem to work. Also I find that the screen layout is a bit too wide. Not a big problem, but makes it more difficult to read the thread content. Look forward to a template that has a bit more contrast. Can the icons and such be made larger? It must be a lot of work. Thanks for your efforts.

Afghanistan: Karzai poll victory 'is illegal' Former Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah has said Hamid Karzai's re-election is "illegal". Dr Abdullah told reporters in Kabul that Mr Karzai's government would lack the legitimacy needed to deal with problems like corruption and terrorism. The decision of the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) not to have a run-off had "no legal basis". "Such a government which lacks legitimacy cannot fight corruption," he told reporters. "A government which comes to power without the people's support cannot fight the phenomena of terrorism threats, unemployment, poverty and hundreds of other problems." Dr Abdullah said the election commission, which critics say was biased towards Mr Karzai, had exceeded its mandate. Other critics have called Mr Karzai's victory unconstitutional because he did not secure more than half of the vote. The crisis has paralysed the Afghan government for months, and delayed decisions by the US and other Nato partners on sending more troops to combat the insurgency. "The process has completed itself with that final, illegal decision," he said. "I leave it to the people of Afghanistan to judge." The Taliban responded by saying they would continue their fight and called Mr Karzai "a puppet". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8341727.stm -------- More bad news, as though we needed some more. But if the political front cannot be stabilized, victory whatever that means could still be a long way off.

Thanks for proving my point... there is no problem here that you can see.

There's hardly any detailed discussion in those news sources about the problem. A brief mention that someone died, fairly low key, very few questioning if what we're doing is the right way. Gloomy, no. serious, sober, yes. But you just party on, M.Dancer. Because there's no problem here, that you can tell.

Oh yes we can point the finger at them. Someone has to. Canadians are asleep on this issue, either oblivious or don't care. I say its both. Which is part of my criticism in this thread in the first place. But we expect our government to live up to their part of the deal because they are in charge of the money we give them. If our troops must go to war we expect they should have the right equipment, or whatever else is needed to get the job done. Thats what will win and end the war. And thats also brought up plainly by me in this thread. If you didn't read it go back and read it. Now who else has something to say about this? I don't hear a lot of protest from Canadians about the war, either for it or against it. If this site is an indicator, people would rather argue about flu vaccines, or what should women wear, or other useless (to me) garbage but only a few bother to voice their concerns in these threads. If I, and perhaps a couple of others don't keep raising the war as a topic there wouldn't be much discussion on it, at all. You say, people should spring into action or stfu, well you know what, you can't have it both ways. This is my small amount of action, to try and criticize whats going on at least it's better than doing nothing. Most people don't even get to hear about it, the media is controlled to keep us from knowing much about whats going on. I get some news from foreign news sites, or try to put the story together from scattered bits of information, but thats because I care enough to take the time to look for it. You won't hear much on CTV news at 6pm. Thats right, thats what I also want to see happen. I outlined those two options, stop trying to win by half-measures. we can't get to a vote, thanks to the political cluster-f*ck we are in this country. and sadly even if we did get a vote, I doubt it matters when the vast majority are only interested in getting the kids to their soccer match on time, and that little suzy's sweater matches with her new pair of corduroys. Don't tell me to shut up... if it wasn't for me and a few others trying to say something, hardly anyone would know this guy had died, and that we are in a kind of political limbo, putting brakes on the war effort. Heck maybe giving it a final date of 2011 has just exacerbated the problem. There's no need to invest any more into it, since we expect to be getting out of there.

Yes, we like to think things through carefully. Thanks Burp...