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11 Dec 06 - 11:25 PM (#1907073) Subject: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,number 6 I hope he can pull this off .... Topple the Harper government biLL |
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12 Dec 06 - 06:05 AM (#1907258) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: gnu Holeeeeee Sheeeeeite!! |
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12 Dec 06 - 06:32 AM (#1907268) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Pretty hard to build stuff when people are blowing your trucks and equipment up. |
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12 Dec 06 - 07:04 AM (#1907281) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: 3refs Canadaians go and try or stands and die! We don't run away! |
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12 Dec 06 - 08:32 AM (#1907337) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Bee Go Gilles! Duly noted, Dave, but the Harper government seems fixated on war and weapons, with little thought given to improving Afghani lives, and even less thought given to how and when to get our men and women out of there. Maybe Gilles' threat can be a wake-up call for Mr. God-Bless-Canada. |
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12 Dec 06 - 10:00 AM (#1907385) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,meself While probably most Canadians would like to see our troops out of Afghanistan, few can stomach the notion of just turning tail and running. That is why there was so little support for Layton when he kept recommending this strategy. That's what the Belgians did in Rwanda, while a handful of Canadians (with some African and other forces) stayed. |
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12 Dec 06 - 10:30 AM (#1907410) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Rather than fixating on building shit to appease those who think troops are just policemen with a building permit, we should be establishing a better economic future by providing them with alternate sources of revenue than poppies. However, before that we need to make sure the Taliban are not going to run in with weapons and seize control of the country, so we are there with a (UN mandate BTW)combat capable military. Pull out now and you throw them back into the stoneage. Like it or not, combat troops are needed. Kudos to Mr Harper for bringing this fact to the attention of the other Nato forces in the country, who do not support Canada's forces in the worst area. |
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12 Dec 06 - 11:17 AM (#1907441) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST If countries like Canada do not go into places like Afghanistan, who will? I know that we have lost soldiers but we must support those who remain there and are committed to protecting people from cruel and evil regimes.It must be a terrible thing to work so hard for the betterment of others and not have the support of your countrymen and women. I believe that all countries of coscience have an obligation to defend and support those peoples who are threatened with terror. None of us approves of war, but sadly, it is often the only thing to do. |
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12 Dec 06 - 11:49 AM (#1907467) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Cluin I've always lamented that Duceppe is in the wrong party. He'd have done well as a Lib (except for that pesky sovereignty thing). |
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12 Dec 06 - 02:42 PM (#1907618) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST Yeah Cluin he would make a great weasel and thief like the other Quebecers who are Liberals |
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12 Dec 06 - 06:45 PM (#1907874) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Cluin It ain't just the Quebecers, GUEST. |
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12 Dec 06 - 06:48 PM (#1907876) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: bobad And not just the Liberals. |
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13 Dec 06 - 06:01 AM (#1908222) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Peter T. None of this matters. The most important thing is that the Canadians get to sit at the big table with the Americans. That is what all this loss of life is about. It has nothing to do with Afghanistan. It is all about repairing relations with the US. Afghanistan is the world's most famous bottomless pit. We are throwing young lives away so Canada can be a player. yours, Peter T. |
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13 Dec 06 - 10:33 AM (#1908436) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST Does no one think we are there for the right reason, to help an opressed people. I think we are. One one the sad truths of humanity is that we have a great capacity to be cruel to our fellow humans. One of the great truths is that we also have a great capacity for empathy. Hoepfully we go into other countries not to subjucate, impress others or conquer, simply to do good,is that not a possibilty. |
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13 Dec 06 - 11:08 AM (#1908449) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar Somehow I doubt "good" is an issue. Governments do what are good for governments... and for us, its sitting at the "big table" (I like the image, Peter T) with the Americans. I'd love to see Duceppe pull this off. ~Seiri |
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13 Dec 06 - 02:42 PM (#1908619) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Mooh Getting Harper out of office and the strategic withdrawal of Canadian troops are both good ideas. Canada may have a place in foreign conflicts, but not in those led by lunatics like Shrub in the wrong places for the wrong reasons. Meanwhile leaders without constituencies like Stephen Lewis and David Suzuki will only get to say after the fact, "I told you so!", when it's proven we misspent our financial, health, and natural resources. Layton and others warned it wasn't a grand idea to start with, but little Stevie wanted a war to hang his hat on like his hero Shrub. What a backward, head in the ass notion! Fwiw, just because there's a UN mandate or invitation doesn't make it right. There is a civil war there now and fixing that won't be any easier than whatever Russia was trying to do there. Bottomless pit indeed. Peace, Mooh. |
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13 Dec 06 - 03:22 PM (#1908651) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Peter T. George W. went in to Iraq to do good. There are lots of places in the world where we could do good that might be lasting (I am thinking of Darfur for a start). Doing good in Afghanistan is like putting out a house fire while a forest fire is raging nearby and moving in. If the world wants to do good in Afghanistan, they could legalize drugs. A steady legal market in opium would do everyone a favour. yours, Peter T. |
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14 Dec 06 - 08:44 AM (#1909347) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,meself "little Stevie wanted a war to hang his hat on like his hero Shrub" Have some of you forgotten who the Prime Minister was when we went into Afghanistan? Hint: it wasn't Harper. And there was widespread support for the action at the time, even if some "leaders without constituencies" didn't like it. And, I don't think it had anything to do cosying up to the Americans; if that were the case, we would have joined them in Iraq, which we took a lot of flak for not doing. Chretien, sensibly, did not buy into the Iraq story. Should we have stayed out of Afghanistan and let the Taliban remain in power and continue to provide support for Osama et al? Or should we have just watched from the sidelines, as if none of it concerned us? Those are not just rhetorical questions; I'm curious as to what some of you who see this as such a black-and-white issue think. |
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14 Dec 06 - 09:08 AM (#1909368) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Mooh Guest,meself...Yeah, but little Stevie IS hanging his hat on this war, embracing it more fully than PM the PM, choosing not to get out. (I won't feel any differently if the next PM doesn't pull out either, it'll just be another PM with visions of war glory.) Not that we'll likely change any minds here, it's still my belief that Canada should get out of the action and provide its services and resources to the betterment of the environment, and health crises, or there will be precious little to war over anywhere in the world. Peace, Mooh. |
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14 Dec 06 - 10:58 AM (#1909462) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,Peter T. The only reason Canada is in Afghanistan is to provide cover for the fact that we didn't go into Iraq, and the Americans were so pissed off, they threatened to withdraw Canadian access to security material, preferential weapons sales, and a lot of other things. The fact that it was Jean Chretien showed the old tackmaster at work. yours, Peter T. |
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14 Dec 06 - 02:21 PM (#1909608) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: gnu We went there to fight terrorism. Now, we are fighting a civil war against a religious faction. Lock and load Gilles. |
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14 Dec 06 - 04:00 PM (#1909673) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Bee I think legitimizing the poppy farmers (and the cannabis farmers) would at least help. There's a big market for legally harvested opium, surely. Running around burning out farmers while not providing a replacement resource makes no sense, and I'm guessing the warlords/Taliban fund themselves with opium profits. Yes, we hared off to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, to punish the Taliban for harbouring Osama, not to help an oppressed people - they were oppressed long before that, and there are miserable millions of oppressed peoples in the world we've never seen fit to go into armed conflict for. Osama and most of his accomplices were Saudis, were they not? Many were indoctrinated in Pakistan, were they not? I'd see some sense in it if we were indeed able to help the Afghani people, but I bleakly think we are not helping and cannot, without some major recourse by other powerful nations/multicorps to telling the truth about who they actually are allied with and why. A pox on all their houses. |
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15 Dec 06 - 11:43 AM (#1910307) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Little Hawk "If countries like Canada do not go into places like Afghanistan, who will?" Oh...heh! (snicker) Who will? Why, the Russians, the Chinese, the Romans, the Greeks, the Japanese, the Dutch, the Belgians, Spain, the Nazis, Mussolini, Napoleon, the British, the French, the Persians, the Austrians, the Hittites...you name it! There are always plenty of nations around willing to invade a smaller country and impose their ideas and their armed forces upon it. I'm just glad no one has invaded Canada since 1812. |
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15 Dec 06 - 11:52 AM (#1910317) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: number 6 Bee ... a friend of mine has a younger brother (captain) serving over in the Afghani, his 2nd tour there ... poppies are one problem he faces ... the Afghani government wants the Canadian troops to burn the poppy fields, but as he says ... "if we ruin their fields, the peasants will certainly take up arms against us". LH ... I don't think the Russians will be back in the Afghani for a long, long time. biLL |
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15 Dec 06 - 02:03 PM (#1910407) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: gnu The Russians? Why not? We all seem to have forgotten Vietnam. |
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15 Dec 06 - 03:05 PM (#1910458) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,Number 6 I haven't forgotten Vietnam. biLL |
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16 Dec 06 - 02:57 PM (#1911192) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: dianavan According to the Pak Tribune, the U.S. is going to spray the poppies with herbicides. Thats sure going to win them alot of friends! "The problem for Walters and the US is that embarking on widespread eradication is also likely to feed the insurgency as farmers and traders turn to the Taliban for protection from the central government and the "infidels." The Taliban is already doing just that, and it is using opium profits to fund its resurgence. So far this year, 189 NATO and US troops and some 4,000 insurgents have been killed in fighting, by far the largest toll since the US overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. On top of that, after decades of war, Afghans are very leery of chemicals being dropped from planes. President Karzai himself earlier rejected spraying, saying herbicides proved too great a risk and could contaminate water and kill crops growing beside the poppies. But Walters said Karzai has agreed to spraying, which will use glyphosate, the herbicide in Roundup. "I think the president has said yes, and I think some of the ministers have repeated yes," Walters said without specifying when spraying would start. "The particulars of the application have not been decided yet, but yes, the goal is to carry out ground spraying." |
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16 Dec 06 - 03:23 PM (#1911210) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: dianavan The Sierra Club has this to say about glyphosphate: "Acute symptoms of glyphosate exposure include, destruction of red blood cells, lung dysfunction, low blood pressure, kidney damage, erosion of gastrointestinal tract, dizziness, fever, and nausea.[2],[3],[4] A study of Ontario farmers, found that those using glyphosate had an increase of miscarriages and premature births within their family.[5] Also, glyphosate has been shown to disrupt hormones that regulate oestrogen synthesis, important reproductive hormones that have also been shown to have a role in bone growth and testicular function." So they can't seem to eradicate the Taliban so now they figure they can win the war on terrorism by poisoning the farmers. Go figure. This is very close to being genocide. Apparently it is also widely used in South America to eradicate the production of cocaine. Why don't they just invest in economic development and education? Why take away their only livelihood and leave them barren? As far as I'm concerned, this is chemical warfare. |
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16 Dec 06 - 04:14 PM (#1911248) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: GUEST,meself It would make more sense for NATO to subsidise the production of "conventional" crops, or to guarantee a market or market price for same. |
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16 Dec 06 - 04:15 PM (#1911249) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Bee When will we learn to solve problems without causing more problems? Herbicides have been seen to be a problem since the early 1960s. Around 1965, people in rural Cape Breton (and likely other places) became seriously worried about the roadside clearing herbicide being used - I don't know what chemical it was, but several years of using it had caused the disappearance of several species of songbirds, and people were afraid kids would be poisoned by eating roadside berries (as we all did). It came to a stop because locals said they would block the highway if they had to, so the department backed down. Forty years later, with Agent Orange, Paraquat, countless messes caused by herbicides behind us, and we're going to spray Afghanistan's fertile lands? What the hell is wrong with the evil old men who run these endless wars and continue with unthinking destruction of the very soil that supports us? Sorry, ranting again. |
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16 Dec 06 - 11:19 PM (#1911473) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: number 6 "As far as I'm concerned, this is chemical warfare." .... it certainly is dianavan, and most sadly so "Why take away their only livelihood and leave them barren? " ... that's what that captain says. Bee .... whay apologize for your rant ... it's acceptable in this thread. biLL |
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17 Dec 06 - 04:36 PM (#1912048) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: gnu Agent Orange... then another I can't recall... then Roundup... then Vision.... and ths signs still say, "Don't eat the berries." Unfortunate that animals can't read the signs. |
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17 Dec 06 - 04:47 PM (#1912056) Subject: RE: BS: kudos for Gilles Duceppe From: Peace "There are always plenty of nations around willing to invade a smaller country and impose their ideas and their armed forces upon it." I think the Russians were there for about seven years. In their opinion, it was seven years too many. Unless an army of occupation is willing and empowered to topple the government and then become just LIKE the government that it toppled, NO country has much chance when it invades. Hell, Poland ceased to exist (on the map) for a hundred years or so. It's back. Part of the problem armies of occupation have is that they are composed of soldiers who are trained to do soldier stuff. What occupied countries really need is cops. Soldiers ain't cops. It's truly a matter of using the correct tool for the job. That ain't happenin'! |