The Canadian Afghanistan Expedition

[eyeball]

Yes, at home. We establish the rules which we, as a society, are comfortable with.

Yes, and a great many of us are quite comfortable imposing these rules on people from our society when they're abroad, like child molesters for example.

On the one hand you're saying we should leave them alone and on the other you're saying we should somehow force them to comply with our beliefs and meet our standards within their own countries or else we'll shun them and refuse to do business with them. You don't see the contradiction there?

Not at all and I didn't say beliefs, I said quite specifically, rules and standards that address human rights and environmental degradation. I'm saying that not doing business with dictators will weaken them making it easier for the people under them to bring about changes that lead to bettering themselves. We should only shun the dictators not the people under them. We should be throwing any people from our society that do the opposite into prison.

[Argus]

Not at all and I didn't say beliefs, I said quite specifically, rules and standards that address human rights and environmental degradation. I'm saying that not doing business with dictators will weaken them making it easier for the people under them to bring about changes that lead to bettering themselves. We should only shun the dictators not the people under them. We should be throwing any people from our society that do the opposite into prison.

At its core, you're demanding we impose our will on others. Let's say Bwakistan thinks women are chattel, and they have no rights, because Allah tells them so. They are despeately poor and need to sell their magic beans to the world. What you want is for the world to say "Nope. We're not buying any of your beans unless you change your cultural tradition that doesn't grant equal rights to women".

That is, by any terms you want to describe it, imposing (or trying to impose) our will on them, based upon our values (while disregarding theirs because we think they're stupid).

[eyeball]

At its core, you're demanding we impose our will on others. Let's say Bwakistan thinks women are chattel, and they have no rights, because Allah tells them so. They are despeately poor and need to sell their magic beans to the world. What you want is for the world to say "Nope. We're not buying any of your beans unless you change your cultural tradition that doesn't grant equal rights to women".

What I want the world to say is, we're not buying your beans until we can be sure your government isn't complicit in suppressing your rights.

That is, by any terms you want to describe it, imposing (or trying to impose) our will on them, based upon our values (while disregarding theirs because we think they're stupid).

No, I say it because its wrong to support regimes that stupidly perpetuate backwardness by force.

I think we also need to protect ourselves from people who become infected with these backward values and bring them home and influence our government to sidestep our rights when it's profitable to do so.

[Big Guy]

The good news – The Afghanistan election has taken place and the reports are that it was a “good” turnout. The bad news – The winner was Pauline Marois.

As for books on Afghanistan I would recommend;

The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar by Janis Stein and Eugene Lang

It gives the inside information of who did what to get us into that bloody fiasco.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Big Guy

[Argus]

No, I say it because its wrong to support regimes that stupidly perpetuate backwardness by force.

Personally, I might even agree with you. But I don't kid myself that I'm not making a value judgement on their cultural barbarism and punishing them because it offends me.

Because it isn't always the government 'perpetuating backwardness by force'. Sometimes that is the actual will of a backward population. That's why if Saudi Arabia's government is ever overthrown it will not be by freedom loving democrats but even more hard line theocrats. And if Afghanistan's people have their own way, do you honestly think they'll vote in human rights for women, gays and religious minorities? Really?

[GostHacked]

At its core, you're demanding we impose our will on others.

Not wanting to do business with them is not imposing our will on others. Invading a country is direct imposition of 'our' will on others.

Let's say Bwakistan thinks women are chattel, and they have no rights, because Allah tells them so. They are despeately poor and need to sell their magic beans to the world. What you want is for the world to say "Nope. We're not buying any of your beans unless you change your cultural tradition that doesn't grant equal rights to women".

That is, by any terms you want to describe it, imposing (or trying to impose) our will on them, based upon our values (while disregarding theirs because we think they're stupid).

It's called boycotting, not imposing our will. If I chose not to deal with a certain store, person, company, ect ... I am not imposing my will on them.

I won't buy stuff from your store because you beat your wife. That is not imposing my will on you. I will simply air my concern and then go to a store where the owner treats his wife with respect as a human.

Since Sharia Law is the law of the land as it was under the Taliban. Al-Queda and the Taliban still have a observable presence. We have dead soldiers and wasted money on a stupid war. Even when we do impose our will, it does not seem to make a difference.

If a person is a purposeful dick to others, are you going to do business with him?

[Army Guy]

A great acticle that lays both sides of the story out and allows the reader to decide "was it worth it".....

http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vol14/no1/page19-eng.asp

I can't speak for anyone else but me, the whole Afghanistan experience was worth it, and i think our Nations involvment has paid dividends to both nations.

As for other soldiers, well i say that their actions speak volumes, most have multi tours, each one they had to stick their hands up and say YES i'll go over once again. these soldiers are not combat junkies, most have families of their own, with much to lose, including their lives. they are Canadian citizens just like the rest of us, to bad their word is fallen on deaf ears.

We may have not created the garden of eden over there, but we did leave it in much better condition then when we arrived.

[Big Guy]

It would be interesting to know how many Canadian soldiers have or will end up in private "security corporations" or private "advisory and training" jobs in Afghanistan at five times their previous pay? Looks to me that it will be the mercenaries who will be doing most of the security work there - if they are not already doing so.

[Army Guy]

Yes it is true some Canadian soldiers have gone over to the private sector,and yes they are paid very well, but one also needs to have some serious skills and most soldiers do not have them....And those that do have them are not really interested in working for companies like black water or the others.....when you compare the amount that served over in Afghan as volunteers with the smaller pay check you'll see the private sector really did not have much of an effect on regular force numbers....Having a larger pay check is nice.... everyone is human....but money was not a huge issue for those that served....there were other factors as well...

As for them staying and taking over the security work, maybe for a while but why pay a western merc all that and a bag of chips when you can hire a small army of locals to do the same thing for a fraction of the cost.

[carepov]

A great acticle that lays both sides of the story out and allows the reader to decide "was it worth it".....

http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vol14/no1/page19-eng.asp

I can't speak for anyone else but me, the whole Afghanistan experience was worth it, and i think our Nations involvment has paid dividends to both nations.

As for other soldiers, well i say that their actions speak volumes, most have multi tours, each one they had to stick their hands up and say YES i'll go over once again. these soldiers are not combat junkies, most have families of their own, with much to lose, including their lives. they are Canadian citizens just like the rest of us, to bad their word is fallen on deaf ears.

We may have not created the garden of eden over there, but we did leave it in much better condition then when we arrived.

Your article was OK but it did not cover my opinion at all. It is too focussed on Canada's missions and not enough on the failures of the overall war in Afghanistan and the WOT. Going back to my "building a new house" analogy, Canada may have done a great job in their (limited) role/trade however if the foundation and framing was NFG then who cares about the wiring/windows/ducts etc...

Do you agree with me that there were far too few troops and resources deployed to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2008? Do you also agree that this lack of troops caused the war to drag on and costs (human + economic + political) to accumulate? Do you agree that the main reason there were not enough troops was due to the 140,000 US troops deployed in Iraq?

There have been some benefits of the war, I am not ignoring them, but the achievements were not worth the costs.

http://costsofwar.org/

[GostHacked]

As for them staying and taking over the security work, maybe for a while but why pay a western merc all that and a bag of chips when you can hire a small army of locals to do the same thing for a fraction of the cost.

Accountability. Blackwater and other security companies are not subject to the same rules of war as a state owned military would be.

[Army Guy]

Well the title of the OP is the Canadian Afghanistan expedition, And while alot of your opinion is global and while it does have a small reflection on how the Canadian mission went it was not the main topic of debate....Most of the posters here have said that the Canadian side of the mission is a failure, a waste of time ,blood and funding. That nothing was accomplished , and what was , did not go far enough.

the foundation and framing as you put it was as good as one could get. When you put into context with the countries history, and political , and tribal make up. lets not forget that the Afghan people voted in the man they have now, he was not installed by NATO or the US government as most on this board have said....That in Afghanistan was a huge victory considering the make up of it's political system, and players...It gave back to the Afghanistan people the vote....a powerful thing if you have not had one in over 30 years.

Many other projects were started to improve education, infra structure to improve trade, basic services that we take for granted, such as power, heat, lights, sewage, farming canels for water to grow crops....the country had been savaged by 30 plus years of war....it had nothing....it was Canada back in the 1700's....and while it is far from our standards here in Canada today, there has been massive improvements....How that can be a failure is beyond me.....But then again today Canada is a fast food people they want everything in 5 mins or less or it is a waste of time.....Afghanistan has it's own time table, and you can't change that.

Do i agree that there was to few troops and resources deployed, NO,the Military did everything it could to maintain the small force we could deply....... Did Canada do everything it could no it did not, nor will it ever do as much as we can, in fact every nation wants to cash out on peace dividends military power is not a primary issue.....

at our hieght there was over 3600 CDN troops on operations, plus limited UN and other NATO taskings.....Nobody was left during 2002, 2008.....you we either training to go on operations or on operations....and rarely did we complain, and when some did they were told by Canadians to shut the F up....we don't pay you to complain....a week ago we had a dress uniform inspection with medals, i was looking around, i have 3 tours in Afghan, each tougher than the next, but i seen guys with 4,5,6,7,8 tours, not sure if Canadians relieze the sacrafice it means just in the family sense, you spend a full year training then cbt for 6 to 7 months,and if you were lucky then 6 months to repair your family dynamics, then start it all over again if you were not lucky well once you got back you started training once again to enter the cycle.... To me this said alot of things, our commitment to our country, unit, and our jobs.....that family always placed a second place....and that while our government was aware of the problem of burning out it's soldiers, it was unwilling to spend the funding to increase our size, nor was it willing to equip us with the equipment we really needed nor where they willing to decrease the size of our commitment......and while i piont the finger at the government , the Canadian people do not have the will to spend money on it's military either....

This is not just a Canadian problem it was all through NATO, uncluding the US, which as large as their military is was having the same problems it's soldiers were doing multi tours and were facing fatige....

There are alot of things that made the war drag on, but i think the biggest one was the lack of support from the people....had the support ben there then the resources would have flowed in non stop, Again not only a Canadian issue but globally, nobody had the time to complete afghanistan in the way everyone evisioned it..

I've said this a thousand times, and we all piont to the US , and their 2 wars going on at the same time.....that is bullshit....If the people wanted this war finished then ALL of NATO could have stepped up with men, machines, and funding and turned this around....But they did not.....we can piont our fingers at the government but they do not do anything with out our approval.....if they want to get re elected....

You say the benifits do not out wiegh the costs, well that would depend on what price you pay for freedom, the ability to vote and chose your government, the price of education, establishing trade, what costs are you will to put to those values....we take for granted in this country the ability to chose our jobs, how we provide for our family,what we provide our family with, what price do we put on these values....Canada made a commitment to Afghanistan, and we broke that commitment, because we got tired of paying the price....but what is the price....

[Army Guy]

Accountability. Blackwater and other security companies are not subject to the same rules of war as a state owned military would be.

They may have different rules, morals and values, but they are still held accountable for their actions under the conventions and inter national law....we could argue this for weeks, but the fact remains there are rules for everyone, do the follow them is another question. The fact that Afgha pres has already told these firms to get out is a sign of their future.....in afghan atleast.