According to Hillier support for the war in Afghanistan is NOT waning. "I think Canadians believe in this mission, as the rich, luxurious and caring nation that we are," Gen. Rick Hillier told reporters at Kandahar air base before boarding a plane to return to Canada.

Not sure what he's smoking over there, but if I could look through that lens everything would indeed be peace and love in this world. Not sure how he comes to this conclusion given the recent polling data, unless you follow the logical extension that 59% of Canadians thought Afghanistan was a lost cause to begin with, ergo support has indeed not waned.

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Mohammad Saeed Al-Sahaf announced on April 7, 2003 "The Americans are not there. They're not in Baghdad. There are no troops there. Never. They're not at all."

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Originally posted by sgm:
In related news:

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I dunno, sgm, much of what Al-Sahaf said at the time is starting to sound prophetic (from your link):

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“We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead”

"Washington has thrown their soldiers on the fire"

"I speak better English than this villain Bush"

"These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying"

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"We don't make decisions in our governments based on polls," Harper said.

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In his address to UN, which is the link i was looking for, he said he didn't "buy" the news that the Canadian public was heavily opposed to the Afghan mission but he "believed" that we actually did.

If he believed that the Rocky Mountains were made out of styrofoam, then the Rocky Mountans are made of styrofoam. You can show him the rocks, let him feel them, drop one on his head, but it doesn't matter. Evidence or facts are entirely irrelevant. The truth is what I believe is the truth.

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Originally posted by farnival:
this isn't the best link but Harper said basically the same thing:

In his address to UN, which is the link i was looking for, he said he didn't "buy" the news that the Canadian public was heavily opposed to the Afghan mission but he "believed" that we actually did.

Must be the hash.

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Jean's role in Afghan debate contributes to Harper's problems, says James Travers

excerpt:

On the table for nearly three hours last Friday night was exactly what the Governor General wanted: a full and frank discussion of the pros and cons of a worrying, complex campaign. What she delivered to her guests was significantly different from what Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Karzai spent the day selling to an increasingly skeptical nation.

Instead of bromides about a winning international effort wrestling terrorism to the ground, she artfully and apparently intentionally created the preconditions for a fundamentally disturbing conversation about the obstacles blocking the road between war and peace, destruction and reconstruction.

excerpt:

What's even more worrying is that success in rebuilding failed states and the dangerously smug export of Canadian values is now clearly dependent on larger and longer military campaigns as well as more expensive national reconstruction.

In that context, Canada's already controversial 2009 Afghanistan commitment begins to look like no more than a start.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
More related news: Mixed messages

Jean's role in Afghan debate contributes to Harper's problems, says James Travers

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Thanks for posting this Boom Boom; it is a very good read. I thought it odd that Harper let Karzai review the troops but didn't even think about why Jean was not there.

I wonder if Harper dislikes the office of the governor general and would like to "reform" it as soon as he gets his stubby fingers on the constitution.

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Originally posted by Boom Boom:
I don't doubt that Harpoon would rather have the most extreme mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging Bush-supporting militaristic right wing fascist he can find to be Jean's replacement - and soon. Harpoon will probably find a way to persuade Jean to step down from her office - but she's much smarter than he is and will exercise her duties very well. And she'll remind Harpoon that she is the Commander-In-Chief of the Canadian Forces, not him.

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Preston Manning?

Brian Mulroney?

James Dobson?

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British forces in southern Afghanistan came within hours of retreating from a key base because they suffered a critical shortage of helicopters, the task force commander has disclosed.... The paratroopers were within 36 hours of abandoning the base before tribal elders approached the Afghan government to negotiate a ceasefire between British forces and the Taliban in the area.

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Brig Butler said: "What is important is that this was a battle of attrition and the Taliban blinked before we did.

"They capitulated, they made the fatal error of thinking that the Parachute Regiment would cut and run."

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Ah, those plucky Brits! Those Paras sure showed those Taliban whats what! What what! God save the Queen and all that....uh...um....uh oh...:

Not so fast..

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It has now been agreed the troops will quietly pull out of Musa Qala in return for the Taliban doing the same.

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"I told them (the elders)'you tell the Taliban to stop firing at us and my soldiers will stop firing back at you'," said the brigadier. He called the ceasefire, which has held for 16 days, an "Afghan solution".

"We are bidding for people's minds here. The people here are sick of war and they are turning to the Afghan government to end it.

"I am pragmatic about this. We won't turn Afghanistan around overnight as some people continue to believe. Moral, legal and ethical compasses of some people may be tested by this process, but the repercussions of failure are too great to be contemplated."

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"I fully acknowledge that we could be being duped; that the Taliban may be buying time to reconstitute and regenerate," said Brig Butler.

"But every day that there is no fighting the power moves to the hands of the tribal elders who are turning to the government of Afghanistan for security and development.

"That is the glimmer of an opportunity which could be deliverable if we seize it. It is about people power and it could gain momentum."

He said troops would now press ahead with redevelopment work that was the focus for the original British plan.

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Originally posted by Jingles:
You missed the sequence. ...

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No, I understood what you were suggesting. It's just that I'm in a perversely positive mood tonight.

Here's a report of the deal from International News (out of London).

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Waziristan deal: UK follows suit in Afghanistan
By Rauf Klasra

“There is always a risk,” one officer said. “But if it works, it will provide a good template for the rest of Helmand. The people of Sangin are already saying they want a similar deal.” There is frustration among many British troops that they have been unable to help reconstruction projects because they have been involved in intense fighting. An e-mail from one of the officers published this weekend said: “We are not having an effect on the average Afghan”.

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And then a more grim/snarky/cynical assessment from a paper out of Turkey:

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Brits Fled Afghan Town Claiming "Secret Deal With Taliban"
Publication time: 2 October 2006, 09:48

The London paper Times on Sunday reported a "secret deal with Taliban" with the British troops quietly pulling out of the Afghan town of Musa Qala in Helmand province in return for the Taliban doing the same.

The story looks absolutely fishy taking into account that it is not in Taliban interest that the Brits quit the town. The main problem for Taliban in Afghanistan is to find foreign targets. The country is large and the number of Western invaders per squre mile to be eliminated is rather low as compared to Iraq. In Afghanistan the invaders stay practically all the time at their heavily fortified military bases. Brits in a town outside a base is an excellent target for the Mujahideen.

So it is clear that the UK troops simply fled the town. And Taliban surely recaptured it.

In the past, it was always like that. The Taliban captures a town. The Western invaders come to recapture it but have to leave it in 2 or 3 days. Then the Taliban comes back and liberates the town from local puppets left by the invaders to protect it.

In these conditions, the Taliban need no deal with the UK troops, either open or "secret".

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Do they honestly think they can talk to the Taliban?

NATO soldier killed, another presumed dead

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One NATO soldier was killed and another is presumed dead after fighting in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Tuesday.

The alliance says eight NATO soldiers were injured in the clash in the Zhari district of Kandahar province.

The nationality of the soldiers has not been released by NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. The alliance usually leaves it to the national governments involved to issue further details.

Canadian military officials have not yet issued any statement. Canada has more than 2,000 troops in Afghanistan, most operating in Kandahar province.

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I think that should read "more than 1,998 troops".

Does anyone know how to say "We hate you" in Pashtun?

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All I can say is: Those wacky Brits!!!
Do they honestly think they can talk to the Taliban?

Are they as looney as Layton, or what?

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Layton got attacked by the usual morons when he said we'd have to negotiate with the Taleban.

But now, right-wing US Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist says the same thing:

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Frist, who was traveling in Afghanistan, said Monday that Taliban fighters were too numerous and too popular to be defeated. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," he said. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

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Two Canadians were killed and five other soldiers injured in southern Afghanistan, military officials said Tuesday.

The soldiers were involved in a road construction project west of Kandahar when they came under attack from a handful of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

Heavy smoke billows from a burning armored vehicle of a Canadian military convoy after a suicide bomber rammed into the convoy in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006. No troops were injured, but later in the day two Canadians were killed in a separate incident.
(Allauddin Khan/Associated Press)

Canadian military officials identified the dead as Sgt. Craig Paul Gillam and Cpl. Robert Thomas James Mitchell, both members of the Royal Canadian Dragoons based in Petawawa, Ont.

Two of the injured are in serious but stable condition. All were evacuated to Kandahar airfield, the main coalition base.

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Fighting between NATO-led forces and insurgents across southern Afghanistan has displaced an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 people over the past few months, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Wednesday.

Violence in southern Afghanistan has surged since the spring with the Taliban launching waves of attacks and international and government forces responding with big offensives.

According to government figures, the fighting has forced 15,000 families from their homes in the three southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan, said a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, Nader Farhad.

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It says this has added a "new hardship to a population already hosting 116,400 people earlier uprooted by conflict and drought".

"People have lost everything, their vineyards, orchards, schools and clinics," it said.

"Some assistance has already reached them but more needs to be done."

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Originally posted by unionist:
Bring our troops home while there are still some left:

NATO soldier killed, another presumed dead

I think that should read "more than 1,998 troops".

Does anyone know how to say "We hate you" in Pashtun?

If so, please let our soldiers know, so they can finally figure out what all these villagers have been yelling at them, and come home.

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Once again proving you don't have a clue!

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Originally posted by 2cdo:

Once again proving you don't have a clue!

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Excuse me, I knew the two dead soldiers were Canadians while the media were still saying "NATO". So I do have a clue!

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A soldier from NATO's International Security Assistance Force was killed following an attack by militants who exploded a roadside bomb and shot small arms fire at a military patrol in southern Afghanistan early Saturday, NATO said.

The attack in the volatile Panjwayi district of Kandahar province happened near an ISAF patrol base during a vehicle-mounted patrol, NATO said. One of the vehicles was damaged.

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Originally posted by sgm:
Another NATO soldier killed:

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Oh great, another Canadian soldier killed.

Is there a reason they de-nationalize our soldiers for the first 24 hours or so?

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
I just heard on CBC radio that it was a Canadian.

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Aw shit, I thought maybe this time it was a Costa Rican.

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At least Dieppe was faster than this. And at least it was in a noble cause.

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What Harper wants in a governor general

Less political meddling, for a start

There's trouble at court in the peaceable kingdom. A de facto head of state widely seen as refreshingly vibrant, Conservatives view more narrowly as just another Liberal mistake.

A new government with an old monarchist streak is essentially ignoring the former TV host and her filmmaker husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond. Conservatives don't like the way she's doing the Queen's job in Canada or his left-of-centre work.

[ 12 February 2008: Message edited by: sgm ]

Is this the insult the cons always throw out or what-- intellectual light weight. From, as sgm observes, the party of many who can barely breathe and stand at the same time. Hence the application of duct tape on their mouths since before the election.